Watson encourages readers to reconsider the traditional models of the ways in which the church has spoken about itself in the context of the patriarchal theologies in light of the basic premise Fiorenza proposed in 1982: Women are church and have always been church. The author suggests that the history of the church be reread and rewritten on women's terms, with a new awareness of the lives and presence of women as essential aspects of what the church is all about.

The church has always been a place of profound ambivalence for women. While the majority of those who attend church are women, women experience hierarchical exclusion and invisibility within its institutional structures. Throughout most of its history, women have not participated in the church's reflections on its own nature. And yet, feminist theologians claim that women are church and always have been church. This book explores women's experiences of being church and reclaiming the church in order to rebuild it as meaningful, open, sacramental space where everybody's presence is celebrated. Natalie Watson proposes a creative and constructive dialogue with existing theological approaches to the church, from different Christian traditions as well as more recent feminist theologians, and suggests the development of criteria which hear women's experiences of being church and reclaiming church into speech. The church is the embodied reality of all women, children and men whose stories tell the story of the Triune God. This book explores the ambivalence of women's experiences of being part of the church, yet often on men's terms, and seeks to establish a constructive and creative re-reading of ecclesiology from a feminist perspective.

This volume describes the context and methodology of Christian theology by Africans in the past two decades and provides brief descriptions of sample treatments of theological issues, such as creation, Christology, ecclesiology and eschatology. The aim of the book is to lead interested persons to the sources of African women's Christian theology. Throughout an effort has been made to illustrate how African culture and the multi-religious context has influenced Christian women's selection of theological issues. The importance of daily life to theology and the attempt to probe the spirituality of African Christian women is also evident in this introduction to African women's theology.

Introducing Feminist Theology responds to the questions "What is feminist theology?" and "Why is it important?" by considering the perspectives of women from around the globe who have very diverse life experience and relationships to God, Church and creation. Clifford introduces the major forms of feminist theology: "radical, " "reformist, " and "reconstructionist, " and highlights some of their specific characteristics.

Synopsis: Enormous challenges and opportunities face the Christian church in our globalized, rapidly changing world. It is becoming increasingly clear that the church and its leaders need a missional self-understanding. In this volume, Graham Hill asks: "What does it mean for the church to be truly missional?" This book outlines the thought of twelve leading thinkers, and puts their thinking into conversation with a missional understanding of the church. Most of the missional literature of the past twenty years is practical, telling us how to be a missional church, rather than why certain theological themes compel the church toward a missional self-understanding and existence. This book takes a different approach. It outlines a basic missional understanding of the church by engaging theology and Scripture. It examines some of the key theological themes that are foundational for a missional church, and does this in conversation with twelve leading thinkers. This book provides indispensable foundations for a Christ-centered, gospel-shaped, theologically informed, and systematic missional view of the church. Endorsements: "Graham Hill ranges far and wide in order to construct a viable ecumenical, but distinctly missional, ecclesiology. In so doing, he provides us with a classy, intelligent, and passionate contribution to one of the defining issues of our time." --Alan Hirsch Author of The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church "It is increasingly clear to me that Christian understandings of both the nature and the mission of the church are in considerable disarray today. Graham Hill's highly important book offers the beginnings of a profoundly important exploration of both questions, together. Salt, Light, and a City is must reading." --David P. Gushee Mercer University "Graham Hill writes from a Protestant evangelical perspective, but this is a broadly based study, drawing on insights from all the historic traditions as well as biblical understandings and on case studies that highlight the experience of those who are operating on the missional edge today. This is a significant contribution to the ongoing discussions about missiology and ecclesiology that will take the conversation forward in creative and well-informed directions." --John Drane Author of After McDonaldization: Mission, Ministry, and Christian Discipleship in an Age of Uncertainty "Salt, Light, and a City is no cloying attempt at a simplistic universal model for the missional church. Graham Hill insists we do the hard work of engaging Trinitarian theology, contemporary missiology, and broad understandings of ecclesiology to find a way forward. In brief, it is an invaluable addition to any library of research into the missional paradigm." --Michael Frost Morling College (Sydney, Australia Author Biography: Graham Hill is Professor of Leadership and Pastoral Theology at Morling College in Sydney, Australia (affiliated with the MCD University of Divinity). His ministry experiences include church planting, pastoring in a large growing congregation, and coaching pastors and planters of missional experiments.

Rethinking the Christian faith from a woman's perspective has been an important advancement in modern theology. This book introduces the methods, ideas, and contributions of recent feminist theology to readers encountering the subject for the first time. Natalie Watson explores the historical background of feminist theology, discusses the value of reading Scripture from a feminist perspective, and shows how this approach can offer a critical, creative, and constructive rereading of the Christian tradition. She also sets forth some fresh ideas encouraging people to see feminism not as a threat to the church but as a challenging perspective that actually enhances its life in today's world. An extensive annotated bibliography invites readers to further study, presenting a wealth of books on feminist theology by many well-known authors. Ideal for classroom instruction, discussion groups, and personal study, this volume is an exceptional, user-friendly guide to contemporary feminist thought.

Ideas of the Christian church are changing, and Letty Russell envisions its future as partnership and sharing for all members around a common table of hospitality. Russell draws on her pastorate in Harlem, her classes in theology, and many ecumenical conversations to help the newly emerging church face the challenges of liberation for all people.

A womanist church has great power to transform church and society, primarily because womanist theology centers the experiences of Black women while working for the survival and wholeness of all people and all creation. Experiences of the triple oppression of racism, sexism, and classism give Black women an epistemological insight into recognizing injustice and creating solutions that benefit all. The Gathering is unique, the only church founded and identified as “womanist,” applying womanist theology to the full life and worship of a church. The Gathering, a womanist faith community in Dallas, Texas, welcomes all people to partner in pursuing racial equity, LGBTQ equality, and dismantling PMS (patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism), following Jesus in liberating the oppressed and lifting up the marginalized. The Gathering, A Womanist Church tells the story of the birth and ongoing development of a womanist faith community. This book includes personal narratives of people transformed in this community, womanist co-pastors’ sermons informed by their experiences and those of other Black women, and litanies for womanist worship.

The story of women's ministry is longer and far more varied than most people imagine. This book tells the story of women's ministry in the Free Churches, and looks at its impact on the ways we worship and live out our Christian lives. Women have ministered in garrets and gutters, at home and on the mission field. Today, women are fully engaged in ministry within our multicultural society, bringing a diversity of voices to match the diversity of the world in which we live. Six well-known contributors who are themselves involved in the story of women's ministry explore issues of leadership and authority, preaching and worship, global perspectives, the relation to feminist theology and the ecumenical setting. Their contributions are complemented by the voice of experience. Women from varied backgrounds tell their own stories of being called to a ministry that sometimes doesn't fit, of wrestling with the traditions that have nurtured their faith and that can put obstacles in their way. Here we see something of the variety and of the rich texture of women's ministries in the contemporary church. Some of the women represented here have found their journey to ministry uncomplicated. Others have traveled long and painful roads, meeting opposition and hostility. Many have moved from trying to be "one of the boys" to the recognition that their gender can have an influence on their ministry. The stories interact with the articles, bringing many lively and dramatic voices to the telling of "our story."

* A wide-ranging exploration of the past, present, and future effects of women's ordination on the church * Edited by a well-respected theologian and featuring a diversity of voices from across the Anglican Communion This new book gauges the current and future impact and implications of women's ordination on the church, preaching, pastoral care, the episcopate, and on lay women across the Anglican Communion. The editor draws upon a rich variety of writers and thinkers for this new book.