Articles and More
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Here are links to several articles, book reviews and more penned by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. Many are on this site while others are available on the web.
An archival collection of Virginia Ramey Mollenkott's working, task, project, and correspondence files (and other material) is housed at The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion, Graduate Theological Union Library (Berkeley, CA).
Virginia wrote several articles that appeared in the Christian Feminist magazine "Daughters of Sarah." The magazine, no longer published, is digitized and available online through the American Theological Library Association's ATLASerial catalog. Though this is a subscription only service, some academic users may have access to these files through their university library.
If there are online articles or archives that have been missed in the preparation of this page, please contact the webmaster with links to relevant material.
Click here to access information on publications by and about Virgina on World Cat Identities.
Virginia is always interested in hearing from her readers. Please click here for contact information.
Articles
Christian Feminism
Feminism and Evangelicalism
"Evangelicals come in a continuum that runs the political gamut from extreme left to extreme right. What Christian evangelicals have in common is that meaningful living requires a direct personal relationship with God, and that the Bible should be taken seriously. But what that means can differ widely, and our social attitudes differ tremendously..."
Christian Patriarchy Yet Once More
"In October 2008, a 'True Woman Conference' in Chicago attracted 6000 women. Its goal was to teach 'biblical womanhood' or 'hierarchical complementarianism,' now touting itself as 'Evangelical Anti-Feminisim' or 'the Christian Patriarchy Movement.' The Associated Baptist Press reports that 100,000 signatures are currently being collected for a 'True Woman Manifesto' intended to set off a 'counterrevolution to the feminist movement of the 1960’s.'"
Cochran's Evangelical Feminism—Yet Once More on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
"What does it mean to say that the Bible is “inerrant” and therefore holds “transcendent authority” over our lives? It is easy enough to make the fundamentalist declaration that the Bible was inerrant in its original autographs because that requires nothing from us: nobody has ever seen the original autographs, and after all these centuries it is doubtful that anyone ever will."
Harvard Divinity School's Conference on Religion and the Feminist Movement: Two Perspectives
Part 2: A Speaker's Perspective on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
"As a writer/scholar/theologian who has done most of my work in solitude, I was pleased to be invited to Harvard to hear the stories of many women whose writings and activism had influenced my life. And the actual experience was even better than I imagined."
Sexual Orientation and Transgender Issues
Gender Diversity and Christian Community on TransFaith Online
"I believe the time has come for Christians to widen their welcome to include the full range of human diversity, including gender diversity. I believe this both because of the biological and psychological realities around us and because of the message of gradually expanding inclusiveness I see in Scripture. I hope for a time when Christian congregations everywhere will embrace all of God's creation as good."
Transwomen, Lesbians and the Border Police on TransFaith Online
"...I happily claimed my gender transgression and described it in my books Omnigender and Transgender Journeys (the latter written with a male cross-dresser named Vanessa Sheridan). It wasn't very long, however, before I discovered there are 'police' on the border between the identity called lesbian and the identity called trans, especially the identity of pre-operative transsexual women. I have noticed five different varieties of 'policing.' "
An Open Letter to the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church
"...I am thankful that as Bishops of the Church, you have declared your belief that all persons are eligible to be professing members and participants in programs in a "community of hospitality." But for me, all this raises a disturbing moral dissonance. Hospitality, membership, participation, and community are highly egalitarian concepts."
An Introduction to Nancy L. Wilson on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
"...Nancy’s voice is the voice of a prophet rallying and empowering the humanity in us all. Although she was writing Our Tribe before the Transgender Movement became a major social factor, she makes clear that omnigender is a terrific threat to fundamentalists and patriarchs because it proves that God did not invent patriarchy, rigid sex roles, or monolithic heterosexuality."
Spirituality
Fear and Wonder
"Truly, humanity is a paradox: Each of us is a timeless entity who currently lives within time, a being created both fearfully and wonderfully. But what does it mean to live out this paradoxical reality of time and timelessness, of fear and wonder? How can a better understanding of our true nature lead us toward life more abundant? How can it deepen our understanding of our purpose for living, of human diversity, and of our interconnectedness - the mystery of ourselves-in-community?"
Embodiment: Our Prison? Or Our Power?
"...
our bodies can imprison us -but only if we view them as boundaries that separate us from our Divine Source and from other creatures. Our bodies become powerful instruments for communicating divine love only when we join affirming and compassionate thought to the passionate charge of our emotions. Instead of trusting the evidence of our senses that make us appear separate, we become powerful as we embody faith, the evidence of that undergirding unified field of energy that we cannot see but can passionately feel."
Book Reviews
The Galilean Secret: A Novel
by Evan Drake Howard
New York: Guideposts, 2010
Hardcover, 444 pages
on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
New York: Putnam, 2009
on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
My Life So Far
by Jane Fonda
New York: Random House, 2005
originally published in Christian Feminism Today
Confessions of a Christian Humanist
by John W. de Gruchy
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006
on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl
by Susan Campbell
Boston: Beacon Press, 2008
on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
Engaging the Bible: Critical Readings from Contemporary Women
ed. Choi Hee An and Katheryn Pfisterer Darr.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.
on EEWC - Christian Feminism Today
Another Way of Seeing: The Teachings of A Course in Miracles
by Louise A. Poresky, Ph. D.
iUniverse, 2005.
Love
by Toni Morrison.
Knopf, 2003.
Non-fiction Short Takes
Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love by Marvin Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith
She Who Changes: Re-imagining the Divine in the World by Dr. Carol P. Christ
A Feminist Companion to the Deutero-Pauline Epistles edited by Amy-Jill Levine
Subversive Devotions: A Journey into Divine Pleasure and Power by the Rev. Dr. Pat Youngdahl
The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Bible by David M. Carr
Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong
Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning by Malise Ruthven
Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the Truth with Transgender Teenagers by Chris Beam
Fiction Short Takes
Sirena Silena by Mayra Santos-Febros
Light, Coming Back by Ann Wadsworth
Days of Awe by Achy Obejas
Night Work by Laurie R. King
Bethlehem Road by Nancy Crowe