Women and Church: The Challenge of Ecumenical Solidarity in an Age of Alienation

Melanie A. May, Editor (1991)
Forward by Monika K. Hellwig
NCR456, $14.95

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Speaking from a variety of religious affiliations, ethnic perspectives, and personal and professional experiences, the authors of this book address pressing concerns involving the exercise of women s gifts in church and community. They raise questions regarding the nature and practice of ministry, talk of mutual empowerment as a way of correcting the abuse of authority in the church, and call for these approaches to be undergirded by a new language, one that does not render women s presence as absence. Throughout the book the authors stress the need not only for women's unity, but for interdenominational unity as well.

Most of these women are writing in one way or another about ways in which the church has excluded them - or has included but mistreated them. But these are not bitter diatribes; they are reflective and instructive criticisms. What these women do is particularize the issue of full participation in the church. They speak for all those who have been excluded in various ways in the church, and they raise their voices "eloquent and strong" not only in protest but also in hope and in love.