The Wisdom of Daughters: Two
Decades of Christian Feminism
edited by Reta Halteman Finger and Kari Sandhaas.
Innisfree Press: Philadelphia, 200l.
269 pp, $17.95 softcover.
Reviewed by Anne
Eggebroten
In September, 1974, a daughter was born in
Chicago. She lived only 20 years but her grace and truth changed
many lives. The Wisdom of Daughters is a collection of
articles, poems, and art that gives us today a glimpse of who she
was and how powerfully God used her.
"I have to tell our truth while I have
breath," she said, as recorded in a poem by Irene
Zimmerman.
This book is a breath-taking potion of strong
truths about women, Scripture, church, family, society, history.
It took years to uncover and digest these truths, appearing
quarterly in the journal Daughters of Sarah, yet here are
many of the strongest, funniest and most unsettling pieces, side
by side in dazzling intensity.
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This
illustration by Kari Sandhaas (p.259) was the cover art
for the Summer, 1992 "Prophecy" issue of
Daughters of Sarah. With Kari's permission, it also served
as the logo for EEWC's Conference 2000 , held in Chicago,
which was built around the theme, "And Your Daughters
Shall Prophesy-You Shall Be My Witnesses." |
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Reading them now is critical to your survival.
Yes, if you're like me, you have many issues of DoS stacked
on shelves in your garage or basement, but these life-giving words
deserve better. For instance, "The Elder Sister" by
Virginia Wiles hit me like a sermon spoken by someone spying on my
life today. It's about the typical young woman's "sin of
self-sacrifice (sacrifice of the self)," which leads to
enmeshment, as opposed to the male's sin of pride leading to
alienation. I remember hearing or reading about this years ago,
but I need to hear Wiles' conclusion again today: "For one
who is enmeshed (with others, with God), Christ suspends the
ultimacy of her relationships, without destroying those
relationships."
If you weren't following biblical feminism in
the 1970s, '80s, or '90s (or weren't born yet), this book will
provide a kaleidoscopic history of the ideas and issues that swept
through our souls during those years. It's a great gift to give a
Generation X feminist, or to give to some friend or relative still
standing on the Beverly LaHaye side of the fence--no telling what
the two-edged sword of truth might do.
If you were a part of it all, as I was, you
will read with special delight, recognizing names and articles,
laughing at the seriousness with which we confronted things like
the "Chain of Command" in 1980, shivering to remember
the animosities aroused by debates over abortion and
homosexuality.
Repeatedly this book reminded me of how deeply
EEWC and Daughters of Sarah have been intertwined. They are
like two sisters, or two groups of sisters with some belonging to
both communities; many authors in the book have also been EEWC's
national council members, coordinators, plenary speakers. It was a
joy to encounter beloved names such as Lucille Sider Dayton,
Gracia Fay Ellwood, Roberta Nobleman, Juanita Wright Potter.
Remembering all these sisters who wrote for Daughters
of Sarah and worked for EEWC, in the context of the first
chapter, "Women in Scripture" and the last chapter,
"Herstory," I got a sense of how our generation fits
into the sweep of time. Sarah, Huldah, Mary of Magdala, Perpetua,
Edna Griffin, Phoebe Palmer, Catherine Mumford Booth, and Mahalia
Jackson live on in Reta Halteman Finger, Nancy Hardesty, Letha
Dawson Scanzoni, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, and the rest of us led
by the Holy Spirit today.
In 1978 Lucille told Daughters readers
that in 1892, Catherine Booth's son wrote of her, "She was to
the end of her days an unfailing, unflinching, uncompromising
champion of woman's rights." This is important to remember in
the years 2001, 2002, 2003, as we struggle against oppression, be
it in the form of the Taliban or the Roman Catholic Church. We can
never give up, whether facing attitudes in our homes and families
that still entrap us, customs in our churches, or poisons in our
culture. We can't rest as long as there is one person left who
thinks there is a contradiction between feminism and Christianity,
or one who thinks "women's liberation" was a new thing
in 1968.
Another reason to buy this book: like me, you
may have missed an issue or two of DoS while changing
diapers or writing a dissertation. Here the most memorable
articles are gathered together, probably including some of the
pieces you missed. "Fear of Aging: The Beginning of
Wisdom" by Kristin Johnson Ingram is a profound, beautifully
written piece that I missed in January, 1991. Perhaps aging didn't
interest me then--I was only 42, and the author writes about
turning 60: "But time has brought me to the brink of old age,
and pushed me in, and I must swim madly toward death and then God.
. . ."
The book's organization by subject matter
tantalized me--I kept noticing the date of each article and
thinking about chronology. It fascinated me that in 1976 Nancy
gave us her research and rethinking on Ephesians 5:23 "The
husband is the head of the wife..."; in 1988 (not long after
Fresno), Virginia carefully defined the differences between
homophobia, heterosexism, acceptance and affirmation. In 1992
Joanne Carlson Brown asked whether our theology of atonement is an
example of "Divine Child Abuse?" In 1994 Virginia
reports being "just returned from Minneapolis, where I
participated in Re-imagining."
What I want to read now is a chronological
study of the development of our thought--the history of ideas
approach. Perhaps Sue Horner's forthcoming book will provide some
of that--or perhaps this is someone else's dissertation waiting to
happen.
I liked the editors' decision to follow the
piece on divine child abuse with some of the invited responses and
reader responses that appeared at the time. They illustrate the
breadth of theologies among us, and one reader (Peggy Haymes)
responds "I am grateful that Daughters of Sarah is a
forum in which Christian feminists can disagree with one
another." She is frustrated with "the assumption that
all Christian feminists... think alike."
In fact, any one of us does not necessarily
think the same thing from one day to the next. Change and growth
are hallmarks of this collection--and a word that pops up
frequently is confusion. Jan Lugibihl reports feeling
confused in 1987 about how to understand personal sin vs.
institutional sin in the case of sex workers in Olongapo, The
Philippines; Silvia Cancio sees confusion in 1989 about use of the
term "women of color." In 1985 Karen Osman says,
"If I went to an abortion rally today, I would carry a big
sign reading: 'Anti-abortion / Prochoice.' Everyone would heap
insults on my confused head...." Providing honesty rather
than easy answers is one of the achievements of the DoS
authors and editors throughout their twenty years.
At any rate, I want to say thank you to the
collective mothers who gave us Sarah, and to Reta and Kari for
putting together this book in her memory. But thank you also to
Letha, who continues to care for her less glamorous sister, the EEWC
Update, a kind of handmaiden or Hagar, keeping us in touch,
reminding us of Sarah.
Reviewer Anne
Eggebroten has been a member of EEWC and reader of Daughters
of Sarah since 1974. She has three daughters, and in 1994 she
edited a collection of personal stories on abortion.
© 2001
Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus
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