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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

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  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

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