Gender and Women’s issues; Feminist/Mujerista/Womanist Theologies

See Part II of this article by Susan Wilds McArver Copyright 2011 Lutheran University Press. This essay will be published by Lutheran University Press in a book entitled Sources of Authority in the Church. [1] The decision by American Lutheran churches to ordain women, made in stages through joint study and church convention, used modern […]

Abstract In this article I examine the harmful conditions present in the production and disposal of consumer tech goods destined for, and used by, United States citizens (who are predominately Christians). The analysis relies on Delores Williams’ womanist theology, as Williams requires that theology take seriously the oppression of others and calls theologians, and the […]

[1] Stories. If there is one thing Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times, and Sheryl WuDunn, a former editor and bureau chief for the Times, know, they know stories. Kristof and WuDunn are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. Through the deft journalistic documentation of real […]

[1] On November 11, 2009 there was an atmosphere of anxiety in the Youth Center of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church (LELC) in Riga’s Old City as LELC pastors and evangelists met. The agenda of the LELC Pastors’ Conference had as a point of debate the question of women’s ordination — should the new Constitution […]

[1] In the months leading to the 2009 Churchwide Assembly and the votes on rostering people in lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships, many drew parallels to the decisions in predecessor church bodies to ordain women. What should the biblical basis be for such a decision? What kind of procedure should be required? What kind of assent […]

[1] The Lutheran Church of Australia came into being in 1966 as the result of the union of two Synods, the ELCA and the UELCA.[1] In 1951, as part of the long walk to union, the Joint Intersynodical Committees agreed upon a ten point document on Scripture and Inspiration which formed Section VIII of The […]

[1] Exactly a year after I started my term as Bishop, I found myself on the way to Bolivia. The Montana Synod of the ELCA is partnered with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bolivia, and a group of us had been invited to celebrate the church’s 70th anniversary. I had some apprehension about the visit. […]

In October 1981 the United Evangelical Lutheran Church (la Iglesia Evangélica Luterana Unida, IELU) in Argentina voted to permit the ordination of women. IELU took up the issue because there were for the first time women in the seminary preparing to be pastors. While there was opposition to allowing women into the church’s ordained ministry, […]

Following is a script from a presentation given by Dr. Karen Bloomquist for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cameroon. [1] Since 1984 the clear official position of the Lutheran World Federation has been in favor of the ordination of women. Now, approximately 63 million, out of a total of 68 million members, belong to LWF […]

[1] Gender and sexuality present two of the most basic and intimate forms of difference, differences that inescapably pervade familial and social relationships. For this reason, how people conceive of differences between male and female affects their fundamental perception of the world and their place in it. In the history of Christianity, women generally have […]