Illuminates how white American Protestant women embraced a racially specific version of social inclusiveness that centered themselves as the norm Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced the idea of an “empire of Christ” that was racially diverse, but which they believed they were uniquely qualified to manage. America’s burgeoning power, combined with women’s rising roles within the church, led to white Protestant women adopting a feminism rooted in religion and imperialism. Gale L. Kenny examines this Christian imperial feminism from the women’s missionary movement to create a Christian world order. She shows that this Christian imperial feminism marked a break from an earlier Protestant world view that focused on moral and racial purity and in which interactions among races were inconceivable. This new approach actually prioritized issues like civil rights and racial integration, as well as the uplift of women, though the racially diverse world Christianity it aspired to was still to be rigidly hierarchically ordered, with white women retaining a privileged place as guardians. In exposing these dynamics, this book departs from recent scholarship on white evangelical nationalism to focus on the racial politics of white religious liberalism. Christian Imperial Feminism adds a necessary layer to our understanding of religion, gender, and empire.

Illuminates how white American Protestant women embraced a racially specific version of social inclusiveness that centered themselves as the norm Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced the idea of an “empire of Christ” that was racially diverse, but which they believed they were uniquely qualified to manage. America’s burgeoning power, combined with women’s rising roles within the church, led to white Protestant women adopting a feminism rooted in religion and imperialism. Gale L. Kenny examines this Christian imperial feminism from the women’s missionary movement to create a Christian world order. She shows that this Christian imperial feminism marked a break from an earlier Protestant world view that focused on moral and racial purity and in which interactions among races were inconceivable. This new approach actually prioritized issues like civil rights and racial integration, as well as the uplift of women, though the racially diverse world Christianity it aspired to was still to be rigidly hierarchically ordered, with white women retaining a privileged place as guardians. In exposing these dynamics, this book departs from recent scholarship on white evangelical nationalism to focus on the racial politics of white religious liberalism. Christian Imperial Feminism adds a necessary layer to our understanding of religion, gender, and empire.

Feminism and Empire establishes the foundational impact that Britain's position as leading imperial power had on the origins of modern western feminism. Based on extensive new research, this study exposes the intimate links between debates on the 'woman question' and the constitution of 'colonial discourse' in order to highlight the centrality of empire to white middle-class women's activism in Britain. The book begins by exploring the relationship between the construction of new knowledge about colonised others and the framing of debates on the 'woman question' among advocates of women's rights and their evangelical opponents. Moving on to examine white middle-class women's activism on imperial issues in Britain, topics include the anti-slavery boycott of Caribbean sugar, the campaign against widow-burning in colonial India, and women’s role in the foreign missionary movement prior to direct employment by the major missionary societies. Finally, Clare Midgley highlights how the organised feminist movement which emerged in the late 1850s linked promotion of female emigration to Britain's white settler colonies to a new ideal of independent English womanhood. This original work throws fascinating new light on the roots of later 'imperial feminism' and contemporary debates concerning women's rights in an era of globalisation and neo-imperialism.

In Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza makes a unique contribution to two quite different discussions of Jesus the Christ. On the one hand, she looks at biblical christology from a critical feminist perspective in the tradition of liberation theology. On the other, she examines the feasibility of a feminine christology by considering such problems as Christian anti-Judaism, ideological justification of domination, religious exclusivism and the formation of patriarchal identity. Re-imagining the Jesus movement in a feminist key transcends the boundaries set by history, gender and doctrine. By assessing various Jesus traditions and interpretations in terms of whether they can engender liberating visions for today, Schüssler Fiorenza seeks to challenge and transform a Christianity dominated by masculinity and exclusivist theological frameworks so that it offers a vision of justice and well-being for all, the central image in which is the reign, the coming world, of God. This Cornerstones edition features a new extended introduction which takes into account the developments in the field since the work was originally published in 1994.

The burgeoning field of postcolonial studies argues that most theology has been formed in dominant cultures, laden intrinsically with imperializing structures. An essential task facing theology is thus to "decolonize" the mind and free Christianity from colonizing bias and structures. Here, in this truly groundbreaking study, highly respected feminist theologian Kwok Pui-lan offers the first full-length theological treatment of what it means to do postcolonial feminist theology. She explains her methodological basis and explores several specific topics, including Christology, pluralism, and creation.

Christianity begins with what appears to be an inclusive promise of redemption in Christ without regard to gender. Paul proclaimed that 'In Christ there is no more male and female.' Yet Christianity soon developed a patriarchal social structure, excluding women from public ministry, with the argument that women were created subordinate in nature and were more culpable for sin. Here, distinguished feminist theologian, Rosemary Ruether, traces the tension between patriarchal and egalitarian patterns in Christian theology historically. She then examines key theological themes--Christology, the self, the cross and future hope--in the light of her critique.

The challenge of promoting the "new feminism" has barely been addressed since it was first launched by Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae. The thirteen contributors in this book, all outstanding international scholars, take up this task, together laying the necessary theoretical foundation for the new feminism. These chapters articulate an integral philosophical and theological understanding of persons that moves beyond patriarchy on the one hand and traditional feminism on the other. Central to the new perspective offered here is the biblical revelation of the human person - man and woman - in Christ, a vision that directs women beyond the "male" standard against which they have too often been measured. Far from constraining women to an "eternal essence," the dynamic view presented here encourages each woman to realize herself in perfect Christian freedom.