WIT

The Color Purple traces the life of the protagonist Celie through her own words via her correspondence first with God and then with her sister Nettie. Alice Walker narrates Celie’s journey towards self-actualization despite and in the midst of profound suffering—rape by her father (who turns out to not be her actual biological father), marriage to an abusive and unkind man, the assumed abandonment of her sister, etcetera. At one point in the novel, as Celie reaches a point where she leaves her husband, emboldened in large part by the relationships with the other black women in her life, including her relationship with Shug, the sultry blues singer who is her husband’s mistress, Celie exclaims:

“I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here. Amen, say Shug, Amen, amen.”

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Over the last twenty years women have spoken out with ever increasing strength and entered into a new dialogue. They have discovered themselves and each other; they have also developed an amazing ability to envisage alternatives. [1]

(Ursula King, 1985)

Three months ago I arrived in the South Pacific, preparing to join the faculty of a regional theological college. I had wondered about the status of women in the pacific churches, and was not surprised to learn that 95% of the student body were men. I was also aware before coming that the faculty were entirely male, and significantly older than I am. I thought I was prepared.

Like many Christian colleges, each morning commences with chapel. As most students live on campus with the partners and families, the worshipping community is quite large. The round chapel accommodates three seating sections; one for the women, one for the men (referred to as ‘the students’) and one for the faculty (the place where white bodies are found). On Friday’s Eucharistic service, it is the men who come to the table first, who all present themselves before the women stand. This is unannounced and I am told not ‘a rule’, nor the segregated seating arrangement, and yet it happens day after day, week after week. One day I sat with the ‘men’ and was well aware that a rule had been transgressed.

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Finally, dear readers, the time has come: the women of WIT are pleased to announce the addition of five new members, whom we are excited to introduce below.

We’d like to say first that when we put out a call for new bloggers back in February, we actually weren’t sure that we would get any applications, so it felt like a risk. But we were pleasantly surprised to receive upwards of twenty-five applications from smart, interesting women dedicated to the task of doing Christian theology well and with women’s voices at the forefront.

We wish that we could take everybody right now, but we do hope that WIT will expand over the years, and we would love to have those women reapply at those expansion points. In any case, we ourselves have now seen proof of the need for women in theology to have spaces online to dialogue critically and creatively, with and for each other.

So without further ado, we’d like to announce that we are adding the following women: Continue Reading »