Feminist theology
Feminist theology
Interested in reading about feminist theologies? Don't know where to start?
The
CTF has a growing collection of ebooks on feminist theology. The books highlighted below include works on worship, ethics, theology, and Biblical studies from a range of global perspectives. Search the full collection on eDiscover, or have a look at our recommendations below.
What is feminist theology? Look up an introductory dictionary definition here.
Recent publications and new acquisitions
Explore the most up to date publications and recent additions to the CTF library on feminist theologies and women in the church.
Nortjé-Meyer, Lilly, Feminist Interpretations of Biblical Literature (Newcastle-upon-Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022)
This book brings together researchers to discuss and apply different methodologies to biblical texts and their relevance for feminist and gender studies. It represents, on the one hand, a continuation of the discussions that have been put to the test by the pioneers of feminist and gender studies, but on the other, introduces new theories and approaches to take the debate further and to challenge accepted biblical interpretations and ideologies that reinforce patriarchal domination and injustice.
Joseph Loïc Mben, S. A Gendered African Perspective on Christian Social Ethics : Empowering Working Women in Cameroon. Fortress Academic, 2021.
Combining Catholic social teaching, feminist and African liberation theology, and the social sciences, Joseph Loïc Mben, SJ, develops a contextual gendered African Christian social ethic that addresses the oppression and marginalization of working women in Sub-Saharan Africa. He focuses primarily on African women from working and poor classes living in either urban or rural settings, particularly in Cameroon, and thus shows the necessity of inflecting Catholic social teaching along the differential of gender.
Laura Ramsay. Sexuality and the Church of England, 1918-1980. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
This book presents an original and archivally rich account of the Church
of England's institutional grappling with matters of sex,
relationships, marriage, birth control, and same-sex attraction between
1918 and 1980, uncovering a long and complex history of debates and
disagreements that led to its present-day impasse over issues of
sexuality.
Musa W. Dube, et al. Gender and African Indigenous Religions. Routledge, 2024.
Focusing on the work of contemporary African women researchers, this volume explores feminist perspectives in relation to African Indigenous Religions (AIR). It reflects on how ideas drawn from African Indigenous Religions might address issues of patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, racism, tribalism, and sexual and disability-based discrimination.
Carbine, Rosemary, P. Nevertheless, We Persist: A Feminist Public Theology. ORBIS, 2022.
This book elaborates an innovative feminist theological approach to the public church and to the praxis of public theology as ekklesial work. Carbine draws on major figures in feminist and womanist theologies to examine the rich diversity of historical and contemporary faith-based movements such as the Catholic Worker, the Civil Rights Movement, United Farm Workers, and The Plowshares Movement.
Megan Loumagne Ulishney. Original Sin and the Evolution of Sexual Difference. OUP Oxford, 2022.
This book develops an interdisciplinary conversation between evolutionary biology, feminist philosophy, and theology in order to illuminate the entanglement of Christian thinking about original sin with theologies of sexual difference. Ulishney develops an analysis of original sin and sexual difference that is grounded in both scientific and theological insights about creaturely life.
Joy R. Bostic. African American Female Mysticism : Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
African-American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth Century Religious Activism is an important book-length treatment of African-American female mysticism. The primary subjects of this book are three icons of black female spirituality and religious activism - Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Rebecca Cox Jackson.
Margaret Hunt. Women in Eighteenth Century Europe. Routledge, 2010
In the eighteenth
century changes in the nature of work, family life, sexuality,
education, law, religion, politics and warfare radically altered the
lives of women. This study pays attention to queens as well as
commoners; respectable working women as well as prostitutes; women
physicists and mathematicians as well as musicians and actresses;
feminists as well as their critics. 
Carol A. Newsom. The Women’s Bible Commentary : Revised and Expanded Edition. SPCK Publishing, 2014.
This book gathers the best feminist scholars in the
field today to produce a commentary on every book of the Bible,
including the apocryphal books, with additional articles on the
reception history of biblical women, feminist critical method, and
women's religious life in ancient Israel and the early Church.
Lucy Peppiatt. Women and Worship at Corinth : Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians. James Clarke & Co, 2017.
Paul's arguments in 1 Corinthians 11-14 - from the role of women in public worship, to the value of speaking in tongues and prophecy for the unbeliever - have long posed challenges to the lay reader and scholar. Peppiatt offers an interpretation in which she proposes that Paul was in conversation with the Corinthian male leadership concerning their domineering, superior and selfish practices.
Lucy Peppiatt. Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women : Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts. IVP Academic, 2019.
Does God call women to serve as equal partners in marriage and as
leaders in the church? With careful
exegetical work, Peppiatt considers relevant passages in Ephesians,
Colossians, 1 Peter, 1 Timothy, and 1 Corinthians. There she finds a
story of God releasing women alongside men into all forms of ministry,
leadership, work, and service on the basis of character and gifting,
rather than biological sex.
Oduyoye, Mercy Amba. African Women’s Theologies, Spirituality, and Healing: Theological Perspectives from the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. New York: Paulist Press, 2019.
African women come from a long tradition as practitioners of healing. Drawing on this tradition and on her own pastoral and theological work, Oduyoye discusses the spirituality that undergirds Christian healing practices in Africa.
Highlights from the rest of the collection
Introductions and overviews
Looking for an
introduction to feminist theologies? Try these introductory guides, overviews,
and handbooks from the CTF collection, the Hub, and the Internet
Archive.
Althaus-Reid Marcella. From feminist theology to indecent theology: readings on poverty, sexual identity and God. London : SCM, 2004.
Althaus-Reid has developed a new approach to doing theology, which examines Liberation Theology and Feminist Theology using Queer theory and Post Colonial analysis. The book also looks towards the future possiblities of a theology done in times of globalisation.
Chung Hyun Kyung. Struggle to be the sun again : introducing Asian women's theology. SCM Press, 1991.
In this foundational text, after describing the historical and social context of Asian women's theology, Chung Hyun Kyung considers the questions with which Asian women are concerned. Who is Jesus for Asian women? Who is Mary for Asian women? What form should spirituality take for Asian women? Indeed what should their theology be?
Fulkerson, Mary McClintock, Briggs, Sheila. The Oxford handbook of feminist theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
This innovative volume highlights the relevance of
globalization and the insights of gender studies and religious studies for
feminist theology. Beginning with a discussion of position of the discipline at
the turn of the twenty-first century, contributors present an inclusive account
of feminist theology in the early twenty-first century that acknowledges the
reflection of women on religion beyond the global North and its forms of
Christianity.
Gonzalez, Michelle A. Created in God’s Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology. Maryknoll, N.Y.: ORBIS, 2007
The creation story has been a foundation for Christian understandings of the human being, central for both feminist claims for equality and contrary traditions in which women were seen as deficient or secondary to men. In tracing this contested theme’s history, Gonzalez introduces the field of feminist anthropology. Ultimately, she argues, a new understanding of imago Dei in women must be rooted in a new understanding of God – grounded in, yet critical of, the Christian tradition.
Kanyoro, Rachel Angogo. Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
This volume is constructed as a collective story of African
women doing 'communal theology'. Kanyoro analyzes the cultural resources, experiences,
and practices of African women, and the role of cultural hermeneutics in
reading the Bible. At the center of the book stands a reading of Ruth, and the
concluding chapters address the issue of the accountability of the Church, its
women's organizations, of women in Africa, and of African women theologians.
Kim, Grace Ji-Sun. Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide. Fortress Press, 2018.
This guide offers a pathway for reflective Christians to apply the concepts and questions of intersectionality to theology. Intersectionality is a tool for analysis, developed primarily by black feminists, to examine the causes and consequences of converging social identities within interlocking systems of power and privilege. This book encourages readers to apply its method in their own theologizing to expand their thinking and add their experiences to a larger theology that moves us all toward the kin-dom of God.
King, Ursula. Feminist theology from the Third World : a reader. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.
This major collection of readings demonstrates the range and vitality of feminist theology and its influence on Christian women and men throughout the world in the 1990s. Here are thirty-eight key texts, representing the voices of women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America as well as those working among minorities in places such as Israel, the USA, and the Pacific. All texts are placed in context by brief introductory comments, while the main introduction to the whole book provides a helpful overview of the major issues and developments in Christian-feminist thinking.
Kwok, Pui-lan. Introducing Asian feminist theology. Cleveland, Ohio : Pilgrim Press, 2000.
Asian women comprise more than a quarter of the world's population, and the forms in which they express feminist theology are many and varied. Kwok's introduction to this huge subject surveys the social, political and cultural contexts of Asian women's experiences, tracing the emergence of feminist consciousness. Describing the resources of Asian feminist theology and inclusive reconstructions of the concept of God, Kwok summarizes Asian women's critique of the patriarchal church and outlines the search for a new spirituality expressing women's embodiedness and sexuality.
Mercy Oduyoye. Introducing African Women’s Theology. Introductions in Feminist Theology. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
This book aims 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.
Parsons, Susan Frank, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002
The aim of this a comprehensive and critical introduction is to give an outline of feminist theology, so that both its place in and its contributions to the present changing theological landscape may be discerned. Written by some of the main figures in feminist theology, as well as by younger scholars who are considering their inheritance, the book critically engages with the assumptions of feminist theology, and seeks to open ways for women after feminism to enter into the vocation of theology.
Russell, Letty M; Clarkson, J. Shannon. Dictionary of feminist theologies. Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
A collaborative project of dozens of leading scholars, the Dictionary
of Feminist Theologies provides a much-needed tool for all who wish to
learn about the growing fields of womanist, mujerista, Asian feminist, and
white Euroamerican feminist studies in religion. The dictionary provides a
pluralistic approach to feminist theologies, guiding readers who are interested
in all areas of Christian theology as they relate to feminism.
Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Maryknoll, N.Y.: ORBIS, 2001.
Biblical interpretation, according to Schussler Fiorenza, is best understood as searching for Divine Wisdom. She invites readers to join her on a journey of discovery. She offers a review that is not merely informative but liberating. While challenging mainstream reading strategies, she empowers students to think critically and enter creatively into the life-transforming "way of wisdom".
Soskice, Janet Martin, and Diana Lipton. Feminism and theology. New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.
This volume brings together the best essays in the field to give some idea of the riches of feminist writings in theology, including scriptural studies, philosophy of religion and ethics, and historical theology. Topics include text and interpretation, the human person, the person of Jesus, embodiment, spirituality and sexuality, ecofeminism, and motherhood.
Further explorations
Want to delve deeper into this subject? The CTF database has over 300 titles focusing on feminist theology and women in the church. These books offer a broad range of different approaches, disciplines, and perspectives across different religious denominations and time periods. Here are just a few highlights from this collection.
Biblical Studies
Dube Shomanah, Musa W. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. St. Louis, Mo: Chalice Press, 2000.
Noting that the ways of interpreting the Bible now practiced in the West are patriarchal and oppressive of those in other parts of the world, Dube offers an alternative interpretation that attends to and respects needs of women in the two-thirds world. In a provocative and insightful reading of the book of Matthew, she shows us how to read the Bible as decolonizing rather than imperialist literature.
Christl M. Maier, Funlola O. Olojede, L. Juliana Claassens. Transgression and Transformation: Feminist, Postcolonial and Queer Biblical Interpretation as Creative Interventions. Bloomsbury, 2021
This volume on feminist, postcolonial and queer biblical interpretation gathers perspectives from a global body of researchers; in offering innovative interpretations of key texts from the Hebrew Bible. Utilizing innovative strategies, they read against the grain of the text and in support of the marginalized, the subordinated or subaltern others both in the text and in our world today.
Christology
Grant, Jacquelyn. White women's Christ and Black women's Jesus : feminist christology and womanist response. Atlanta, Ga. : Scholars Press, 1989. Internet Archive.
Feminist Christology confronts the dual tasks of explaining the significance of a male God-bearer for women and creating a Christological model adequate to feminist experience. Grant rehearses the development and challenges of feminist Christology and proposes a womanist theology and Christology that emerge from the reality of contemporary Black women.
Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians
Pemberton, Carrie. Circle Thinking : African Women Theologians in Dialogue with the West. Studies of Religion in Africa. Leiden: Brill, 2003
This volume traces the origins of the Circle of Concerned
African Women Theologians, a group of African women theologians established in
the 1980s, which has encouraged African women to develop theologies of
empowerment from their histories and struggles.
Ecofeminism
Kearns, Laurel and Keller, Catherine. Ecospirit : religions and philosophies for the earth. New York : Fordham University Press, 2007. Internet Archive.
The practical interventions needed for saving and restoring the earth will require a collective shift of such magnitude as to take on a spiritual and religious intensity. This book probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to permeate the ancient roots of our sensibility and the social sources of our practice. This book explores our sense of how to proceed in the face of an ecological crisis that demands new thinking and acting.
Daniel, Seblewengel, Mmapula Diana Kebaneilwe, and Angeline Savala. Mother Earth, Mother Africa and Mission. [S.l.]: African Sun Media, 2021
The volume brings together voices of African women theologians and their allies on the urgent topic of ecology, intervening into scholarly discourses on ecofeminism, mission, and Biblical reflection.
Feminist queer theology
Burrus, Virginia, and Catherine Keller. Toward a Theology of Eros : Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline. Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006.
Informed by feminist and queer theories, this book brings philosophers, historians, biblical scholars, and theologians into a spirited conversation to explore what is still largely uncharted territory in the realm of theological erotics.
Ethics
Daly, Lois K. Feminist Theological Ethics : A Reader. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.
This volume considers the task of changing society's
assumptions about women, analyses ways to challenge our culture's tradition,
and explores ways in which we can live together in the modern world. A variety
of issues, from reproduction to war, are discussed from an array of perspectives,
including womanist and ecofeminist.
Interfaith perspectives
Fernando, Jude Lal. Faith in the Face of Militarization : Indigenous, Feminist, and Interreligious Voices. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2021.
This essay collection confronts materialistic, racist, and militaristic godlessness. It is grounded on a material spirituality of indigenous, feminist and interreligious voices, and horizontal solidarity, with contributors.
Liberation Theology
Isasi-Díaz, Ada María, Tarango, Yolanda. Hispanic women prophetic voice in the church : toward a Hispanic women's liberation theology. San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1988. Internet Archive.
Working as both theologians and documentarians, Isasi-Díaz and Tarango offer a synthesis of liberation, feminist, and Hispanic theologies as they are personified in Latina communities within the Catholic Church. Extensive interviews give new expression to the theological voice of Hispanic women—and challenge readers to discover an active religious voice within themselves.
Pastoral theology
Zoe Bennett Moore. Introducing Feminist Perspectives on Pastoral Theology. Introductions in Feminist Theology. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
This book introduces feminist perspectives in pastoral theology. It seeks to explore why the inclusion of women's experiences and of feminist perspectives is of vital importance to Christian pastoral practice and to a Christian understanding of God. It begins with the lived experience of violence in Church and society, moving through to the implications of this for our understanding of the human community and the divine.
Postcolonial theology
IKwok
Pui-lan explains her methodological basis for postcolonial theology,
and then explores several specific topics, including Christology,
pluralism, and creation. Postcolonialism realizes that there are many centres and
margins within the global world today ( and within global Christianity),
and that perspectives differ amazingly from the various places where
Christians live, express, and talk about their faith.
Practical theology
Here, the cries of suffering from women in violent relationships, people yearning for growth and dignity, others with mental and emotional trauma, and mother Earth herself are heard, and enlist support and direction from those whose energy and insight are centred in faith, hope and love and firmly anchored in Christian professional academic endeavour.
Public theology
Li Ma. Babel Church : The Subversion of Christianity in an Age of Mass Media, Globalization, and #MeToo. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2021
What kind of response does the #MeToo movement require of
our public theology and leadership ethics? Sociologist Li Ma invites us to
re-engage with biblical exegesis while being attentive to new mandates of God
revealed from #MeToo.
Theology
Grace
Ji-Sun Kim examines encounters with racism, sexism, and xenophobia as
she works toward ending Asian American women's invisibility. She deploys
biblical, sociological, and theological narratives to empower the
voices of Asian American women. As Asian American
women work toward a theology of visibility, they uplift the voiceless
and empower the invisible, moving beyond experiences of oppression and
toward claiming their space in the kin-dom of God.
Trauma theology
O’Donnell, Karen and Katie Cross. Feminist Trauma Theologies : Body, Scripture & Church in Critical Perspective. London, England: SCM Press, 2020.
With contributions from a diverse team of scholars, this book is an essential resource for all thinkers and practitioners who are trying to navigate the current conversations around theology, suffering, and feminism.
Explore our Diversification Fund acquisitions
Looking for further resources on this subject?
Explore these online bibliographies, reading lists, and digital resources:
Reading lists
An Introductory Reader’s Guide to Feminist Theology, Dr. Terance Espinoza on bibtheo.com
Women's History Month bibliography, Wright Library, Princeton Theological seminary
Feminist Theologies book list, University of Divinity
Reading List: Latin/x and Mujerista Theology, Duke Divinity University Library
Other resources
8 Theologians and Women of Color You Should Be Reading - blogpost by the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology
10 Women Theologians You Should Be Reading - blogpost by the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology
Got any feedback on this resource page? Think we've missed something crucial? Spotted any broken links? Please get in touch at library@theofed.cam.ac.uk
All text blurbs adapted from material provided by the publisher.