Rhetoric Race and Religion
“Jesus Feminist: Exploring God’s Radical Notion that Women are People, Too.”
My initial reaction to that title was “Well yeah… Like we been sayin.” Because in most mainline protestant circles, we have been HELLA sayin. For like, 100 years. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to see this book—an apologetic for empowering women leaders in the church—emerge in the evangelical circle, because, you know, ‘those people’ sure need to read it. But I didn’t really expect to find anything in it that would speak to me or ‘my people.’
Spoiler alert: I was wrong.
This book is full of good news. For women and for men; for mainliners, progressives, evangelicals, and all who defy classification; and for all who wonder how much of the church’s identity is shaped by culture more than by Jesus.
The self-proclaimed progressives should read this book, if for no other reason than to rejoice in the fact that we have another sister on this mission against patriarchy. An especially eloquent and empassioned one at that—and one who will reach a far broader audience than we’ve managed to thus far.
Speaking of apologetics—Sarah Bessey’s are spot on. She visits the biblical ‘clobber texts’ used to keep women in narrowly focused roles, and she clobbers them right back; with a powerful mix of theology, scholarship, common sense and grace. For those of us who long ago gave up defending women’s ‘place’ in the church, because we thought our particular tradition had moved on, Bessey’s book is like reading the class notes of your smarter, harder working friend… She explores, in depth, some of the questions we’ve long dismissed as ‘not our issue anymore.’
Read the rest here
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