"This book is a nuanced discussion of contemporary feminist thought in a variety of religious traditions. It draws from both academic and popular writings and offers a rich selection of books to pursue on one's own." -- Re-Imagining "This remarkable book examines American women's religious thought in many diverse faith traditions.... This is a cogent, provocative -- even moving -- analysis." -- Publishers Weekly This study of the fruits of many different women's religious thought offers insights into the ways women may be shaping American religious ideas and world views at the end of the twentieth century. At its broadest, this book presents a multi-voiced response to the question: "When women across many traditions are heard speaking theologically, publicly and self-consciously as women, what do they have to say?"

"Explores five ideas that animate the theological imagination of women in religious communities throughout America: ambivalence toward tradition; the immanence, or indwelling, of the divine; the sacredness of the ordinary and the ordinariness of the sacred; the vision of the universe as a web of relationships; and healing as a central function of religion"--back cover.

A fundamental and well-illustrated reference collection for anyone interested in the role of women in North American religious life.

A fundamental and well-illustrated reference collection for anyone interested in the role of women in North American religious life.

Others offered programs of physiological and spiritual self-reform: phrenology, vegetarianism, the water-cure, spiritualism, and miscellaneous others. "Even the insect world was to be defended," Emerson mused, "and a society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitoes was to be incorporated without delay.".

Nineteenth-century middle-class Protestant women were fervent in their efforts to "do good." Rhetoric--especially in the antebellum years--proclaimed that virtue was more pronounced in women than in men and praised women for their benevolent influence, moral excellence, and religious faith. In this book, Lori D. Ginzberg examines a broad spectrum of benevolent work performed by middle- and upper-middle-class women from the 1820s to 185 and offers a new interpretation of the shifting political contexts and meanings of this long tradition of women's reform activism. During the antebellum period, says Ginzberg, the idea of female moral superiority and the benevolent work it supported contained both radical and conservative possibilities, encouraging an analysis of femininity that could undermine male dominance as well as guard against impropriety. At the same time, benevolent work and rhetoric were vehicles for the emergence of a new middle-class identity, one which asserts virtue--not wealth--determined status. Ginzberg shows how a new generation that came of age during the 1850s and the Civil War developed new analyses of benevolence and reform. By post-bellum decades, the heirs of antebellum benevolence referred less to a mission of moral regeneration and far more to a responsibility to control the poor and "vagrant," signaling the refashioning of the ideology of benevolence from one of gender to one of class. According to Ginzberg, these changing interpretations of benevolent work throughout the century not only signal an important transformation in women's activists' culture and politics but also illuminate the historical development of American class identity and of women's role in constructing social and political authority.

This book presents personal narratives and collective ethnography of the emergence and development of Asian and Asian American women’s scholarship in theology and religious studies. It demonstrates how the authors’ religious scholarship is based on an embodied epistemology influenced by their social locations. Contributors reflect on their understanding of their identity and how this changed over time, the contribution of Asian and Asian American women to the scholarship work that they do, and their hopes for the future of their fields of study. The volume is multireligious and intergenerational, and is divided into four parts: identities and intellectual journeys, expanding knowledge, integrating knowledge and practice, and dialogue across generations.