Discipleship of Equals

Book excerpt: Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza, well-known for her pioneering New Testament study In Memory of Her, was not only present at the creation of the feminist movement in theology and church, but was one of those women who gave it birth. 'Discipleship of equals', the title of this book, was her coinage, as was 'women-church' and ekklesia of women. However, this book is not a memoir or a biography; rather, it charts her feminist theological struggles. Collected within it are studies representing key issues in feminist theology and the feminist religious movement—milestones in the attempts of Christian feminists to reclaim their spiritual authority, to define biblical religion and the Christian church, and to articulate a feminist religious vision of justice and liberation. As the author herself writes: 'More than ever before, the women's movements in society and religion need a critical feminist analysis of patriarchal religious structures and a critical feminist theological articulation of liberation. By tracing my own unfolding journey of vision and struggle and by relating it to the collective struggle of women in theology, I seek to intervene in the contest over who has the right and authority to claim biblical religion.'