Skip to main content

Where Are the Women of Theology?


Dear Reader,

As I mentioned in a previous post, at the beginning of the summer I signed up for the London Fellows Programme, a theology and personal discipleship course being run through a local church.  I'm mostly on track to complete the required pre-reading and will have my first response papers due in mid-September.  Topics thus far have included the person of God (A.W.Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy) and the role of God's grace in our salvation (John Piper's Legacy of Sovereign Joy).  

But I'm distracted.

I have been through the program handbook, and in a year's worth of reading material (approx. 250 pages a month) there is one article written by a woman.  In the extensive Additional Resources list, there is a single book with a female author.

In a study from 2007, the charity TearFund reported that 
"Compared with all UK adults (Figure 3c), regular churchgoers are more likely to be:
  • Women (65% compared with 52% of  UK adults);
  • Aged over 65 (30%  compared with 18%  of UK adults)"
I don't want to generalize too broadly based on a study of one country for a single year, but it does match my own experience of church life; more women than men seem to take their religion and church involvement seriously.

I've never had deep questions about the true nature of God, and maybe that's why I have energy to spend wondering:
  • Are there Christian "classics" written by women?
  • Are there currently any women recognized as leaders in theology? 
  • What modern books on theology have been written by women?
  • Are books about God written by women disregarded because they aren't very good?  Or very original?  Or because they only deal with "women's issues"?  Or because men just don't read theology written by women?
  • I am not particularly interested in what has been written specifically about "the place of women in the church" and other topics frequently addressed by modern women, for modern women.  What I am more interested in is what women have said over the years which is relevant to all believers, and where that writing fits in with the writings of the great men of faith.
  • Do these women exist?  What have they written?  And why aren't we reading it?
I have to put these questions aside to get started on my next assignment - The Pursuit of God. 
But I expect I shall return to them.

~~ LeAn

Labels:

Comments

  1. Janet AndersonSunday, September 02, 2012

    Would you consider Elizabeth Elliot as a theologian? She has written a number of books, and not all about women's issues

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Sudden Change of Direction: an Analogy of Dog and Life

There are times when you and Life are walking along, like good friends, and you think you know where you are going.  You think that you and Life have agreed on a direction; that there is a plan; that you understand each other. And then Life decides that despite all the trees you have already visited, you really must see this new one.  This tree is different from all the other trees and if you don't see it, you simply won't be the person you might be if you DO see it. And so Life changes direction. Except you don't notice.  Because you talked about it.  And there was this plan . And then you trip over Life.  And Life LOOKS very indignant because you weren't paying attention and kneed her in the ribs.  And you ARE very indignant because this is a stupid tree that you had no interest in ever seeing and you would chop it down and burn it if you could. Stupid tree.  Stupid Life.  Stupid little bits of gravel stuck in your palms. B...
2 comments
Read more

Crazy T-Shirt Lady

My mom's oldest sister did not own cats, perhaps because she traveled so much.  She was known in the family for bestowing interesting gifts, often acquired at international medical conferences and bearing the names of obscure drugs intended to cure diseases (thankfully) unknown to us.  Because she spent so much of her time in Taiwan, another popular gift was T-Shirts with incomprehensible English translations. It has been suggested that since my aunt passed away a few years ago, I am now the appointed single-world-traveler-crazy-T-Shirt member of the family.  Since I am not a medical person, nor do I spend a great deal of time in Asia, I am skeptical about my ability to adequately fill this role.  But I will try. At the Beijing airport, after spending the last of my Yuan, I had vowed not to spend another penny.  But that was before I saw this shirt.  One member of the family will be receiving this for Christmas - hopefully it's the correct size.  (...
3 comments
Read more

Je reviens.

My red soft-sided suitcase is somewhere in France, and that's the most I can tell you.  When I handed the suitcase to the nice man at Tulsa Int'l Airport, I naturally expected it to touch down in Montpellier at the same time I did.  Life did not meet my expectations. In fact, this entire trip is somewhat unexpected. At the time that I resigned my position in the UK, I struggled to picture myself returning to an office, staring at a screen for hours on end.  I had the idea that I would make a complete career change - to baking or event planning or film production.  But in the end, I met some people who were particularly interested in all the things I used to know and who were willing to pay for that knowledge.  They were also interested in sending me straight to France to work with my former colleagues.  And given a job description which could not have been filled by anyone but me, I agreed to take the position. As I was eating dinner (and trying n...
2 comments
Read more