Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

Womanist scholars have made important contributions to biblical hermeneutics that place social justice theories of care and the experience of women of color at the fore of interpretation, but these works have been vastly overlooked in favor of white male (and white feminist) norms that dominate the field of biblical studies.  In this book, editor Smith (Ashland Theological Seminary, Detroit) offers an addition to a growing corpus that begins to correct this disparity, filling what she calls "a pedagogical, political, and spiritual void and/or function."  Bringing together established and new voices, this work is the first womanist biblical hermeneutics reader.  The reader is structured in two parts of nearly equal length that provide a useful, extensive grounding in womanism itself and the application of these ethics of care to biblical interpretation and Christian practice, confronting issues of oppression, including racism, classism, sexism, and others throughout.  Smith includes eight classic essays, a new essay on womanist interpretive theory, and three reprinted and six new womanist hermeneutical studies.  This volume will be valuable to scholars and teachers interested in biblical hermeneutics and womanist theology, and it stands as an important contribution, concretely applying womanist theory to spiritual, political, and communal practice.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.

Moore (San Diego State Univ.) accomplishes a seemingly incredible feat: she tells the story of women in Christianity through 2,000 years of history.  In her important introduction, she provides a succinct survey of feminist theology in the 20th century.  This provides the groundwork for the chronological history that unfolds in the seven chapters that follow.  Moore begins with the Genesis story of Eve, moves to early Christian house churches, details the complex roles of women in the Reformations, and concludes with womens ordination activists, the work of conservative Christian women, and women in the Civil Rights Movement and global Christianity.  She also discusses several individual women, for example, martyrs such as Saint Perpetua and early female monastics of the medieval period; Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, a Native American; and temperance activist Frances Willard.  Noteworthy for its breadth and depth, Moores project will encourage smart conversations about women and Christianity.  The volume includes questions for discussion and endnotes.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates; faculty.