A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
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A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
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A New Gospel for Women tells the story of Katharine Bushnell (1855-1946), author of God's Word to Women, one of the most innovative and comprehensive feminist theologies ever written. An internationally-known social reformer and women's rights activist, Bushnell rose to prominence through her highly publicized campaigns against prostitution and the trafficking of women in America, in colonial India, and throughout East Asia. In each of these cases, the intrepid reformer struggled to come to terms with the fact that it was Christian men who were guilty of committing acts of appalling cruelty against women. Ultimately, Bushnell concluded that Christianity itself - or rather, the patriarchal distortion of true Christianity - must be to blame.A work of history, biography, and historical theology, Kristin Kobes DuMez's book provides a vivid account of Bushnell's life. It maps a concise introduction to her fascinating theology, revealing, for example, Bushnell's belief that gender bias tainted both the King James and the Revised Versions of the English Bible. As Du Mez demonstrates, Bushnell insisted that God created women to be strong and independent, that Adam, not Eve, bore responsibility for the Fall, and that it was through Christ, "the great emancipator of women," that women would achieve spiritual and social redemption.A New Gospel for Women restores Bushnell to her rightful place in history. It illuminates the dynamic and often thorny relationship between faith and feminism in modern America by mapping Bushnell's story and her subsequent disappearance from the historical record. Most pointedly, the book reveals the challenges confronting Christian feminists today who wish to construct a sexual ethic that is both Christian and feminist, one rooted not in the Victorian era, but rather one suited to the modern world.
A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez- Amazon Sales Rank: #889665 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.50" h x 1.10" w x 9.20" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
Review "This is the book many of us have been waiting for, a top-notch biography of the inimitable Kate Bushnell. DuMez provides a thoroughly compelling portrait of a woman both ahead of and behind her times, whose accomplishments-and subsequent obscurity-tell us much about the long and vexed relationship between conservative religion and modern feminism." --Margaret Bendroth, Executive Director, Congregational Library
"In this dazzling hybrid of history, biography, and theology, Kristin DuMez rekindles our interest in a path-breaking woman -- Katharine Bushnell -- whose sprawling work on behalf of Christian feminism spanned decades, traversed boundaries, shattered categories, and covered the globe. With judiciousness and a lively pen, DuMez makes it perfectly clear why this crusading reformer, written off or forgotten as a product of an antiquated Victorian past, must be re-centered in our histories and current renderings of modern Christianity and of modern America itself." --Darren Dochuk, author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism "Katharine Bushnell was a pioneering physician, missionary, expert in Greek and Hebrew, critic of the sexual double standard, and advocate for women's rights-all within late-Victorian culture. Kristin Kobes DuMez's historical contribution demonstrates why Bushnell deserves to be remembered as a noteworthy reformer. The book also challenges modern feminists who question Christianity and modern Christians who question feminism to ponder what each might learn from Bushnell's extraordinary career." --Mark Noll, author of Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction "...[A] fascinating study... This is both an important work of scholarship and an engrossing and accessible book for those interested in the many provocative issues it covers... Highly recommended." --CHOICE "Bushnell's key insights should resonate with present-day promoters of feminist consciousness."--Christian CenturyAbout the Author Kristin Kobes Du Mez is an associate professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin College. She received a Ph.D. in American Religious History from the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests include the intersection of religion, gender, and sexuality in American history, with a particular focus on women in American Protestantism from the nineteenth century to the present.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A needed read By Joel L. Watts Rather than cutting the Scriptures up, in the mold of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Katharine Bushnell stayed well within the principles of Christian hermeneutical tradition and developed a solid theological feminism. Her work deserves to be reread, something Kristen Kobes Du Mez makes not only possible but desirable.Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s story of Katharine Bushnell work, God’s Word to Women, is part biography, part literary commentary, and part social commentary — and, completely, a challenge to men and women alike “to discover what shape…freedom might take for the twenty-first century.” What A New Gospel for Women (NGW) entails, however, is not a mere recounting of an often overlooked person from history, but a significant portion of the life of American feminism encapsulating corresponding stories of the Methodist people, foreign missions, women’s suffrage, and what it is like to see fulfillment postponed. Indeed, for an account of events beginning in the 19th century, it reads like current events.I am not a student of feminism, although I have benefited from it. I do know the story of those considered the great pioneers, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton — but likewise, I know the sad tale of how Christian theology was dispensed with, Scripture was brought low, and the movement suffered because of it. But, through these pages before me I am introduced to a woman who is a scholar, exegete, and theologian rivaling those of the great Antiochian and Alexandrian philosophers long before her. To be sure, by today’s standards she is often a mixed bag. At first, Bushnell was an opponent of traditional Christianity (her own version was that of the holiness tradition), only to then become welcomed by even the most conservative interpreters. She was a feminist, but by today’s standards — with her important take on birth control and abortion — I doubt she could maintain such a reputation. She was not a mere novel of history, a fortunate accident, but as Du Mez presents her, a truly quintessential prophet lobbying against entrenched power — both patriarchal and even imperial — and for the oppressed. Her life is the absolute fulfillment of Matthew 10.18.The first four chapters are biographical. We are given a well drawn out, never boring, and often times too short account of the life of Katharine Bushnell — and like any good disciplinary attendant, Du Mez gives us the surrounding picture as well. She crafts the narrative about Bushnell by giving us what is going on in the world around her. Bushnell only comes into focus, then, when we see the town of Evanston, the mission to China, the American society, the colleges for women’s education, and the birthing of feminism in the late 19th century Victorian age. Du Mez, in these chapters, assemble the puzzle pieces that is Katharine Bushnell and presents a picture of a woman who very much deserves to be better known by people today — not as a historical figure, but as an ever-present reminder of the deep connection between Christianity and feminism, and, more importantly, what a deep exegetical review of our Holy Text may accomplish for those normally considered second-class.Du Mez’s fifth and sixth chapters explore that exegetical review. In these chapters we are taken behind God’s Word to Women to see the processes that went into developing the exegesis — which includes something beyond understanding the context of the original page, but so too the context Bushnell lived in. She could see beyond the publication and understand the need of her would-be reviewers and readers to carefully craft, before they could issue their objections, the answers to the objections. In that, she does better than any theologians today. I am impressed with Du Mez’s presentation here. Bushnell is presented as a calm and assured exegete of Christian scripture — one who upholds the conservative and orthodox position of Scripture, even to the point of inerrancy, while pushing interpretation into a progressive arena. My heart is quickened to think that this has been done and can be done in such a way as to give American Protestants space to appreciate the work (even if they disagree) and perhaps even accept the work. I am amazed at her craftsmanship, at her skill, at her passion. Bushnell, via Du Mez, holds together the tension of a high view of Scripture, the need to correct Tradition, and the refrain of holiness. I cannot comment on Bushnell’s work — that is not the point of the review — except to say that in many ways, her work precedes trends in historical criticism prevalent today. Indeed, in scanning my library I see several references to her work as a noted scholar.Du Mez’s final two chapters bookend the book, bring Bushnell’s life to a close, setting it into a rather sad juxtaposition. On one hand, we have a woman who brought justice to both China and India via her tireless crusade against the regulation of vice, the production of a rather important work (God’s Word to Women), and the end of the Victorian Age. On the other, we have the beginning of the divide in American Protestantism, the beginning of World War I, and the emerging New Feminism. What falls through the cracks is an important step in Christian feminism, biblical exegesis, and a huge moment for American Protestantism. Bushnell could have shown us that we did not have to pick and choose between conservative and liberal, fundamentalism and relevancy, but could very well have endured with our faith in tact and an ear to science (and historical criticism). And what a world it may have been — had both sides not retreated away from the feminism Bushnell promised. This retreating is covered unbiased by Du Mez. Neither side wins — as both, conservatives and liberal, create their own repressive anti-feminist movements.As a white male United Methodist, a historical critic of Scripture, and a sometimes-theologian who presses others to examine Scripture in light of the context (both then and now) — and as one who cannot seem to fit into any specific category — Du Mez’s A New Gospel for Women is a pinnacle of acceptance and understanding. I sit in awe of what Bushnell accomplished — beginning with the Methodist Episcopal Church — and mourn for what it could have been. Perhaps, as Du Mez points out, the resurgence we see in Christian feminism will again turn to Bushnell and her long overdue reward, as prophet, will finally be given. I cannot help but to recommend this book to every American Christian, especially those in the Wesleyan tradition, and those with a hope that through a high view of Scripture we can dismantle oppressive structures and rather than dispensing with everything around us, construct from the ashes a better system befitting our Christian Tradition.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. She especially though that sexual restraint was the best way to work for equality—women not being defined by ... By Lisa Clark Diller In an era when churches continue to wrestle with how gender roles/differences/categories should be addressed in the light of the Bible’s teachings, Kristin Kobes Dumez’s work on Katherine Bushnell (1855-1946) is a welcome retreat for the mind and spirit. KKD’s biography of Bushnell is efficient and accessible—and this non-specialist reader was especially grateful for this. Bushnell was a 19th century Pentecostal holiness physician missionary who advocated throughout her career for women’s rights. She did this within the traditions of the social reformers of the Progressive era, making common cause with the Victorian feminists and evangelical missionaries who represent the high point of Christian activism. But Bushnell also out-lived her contemporaries and finished her life in a time when feminists had divorced themselves from evangelicals and conservative Christians had abandoned much of the work of social reform. She especially thought that sexual restraint was the best way to work for equality—women not being defined by their sexual fallenness or purity, but alongside men, acting virtuously with their bodies to accomplish a better world. This idea became seen as repressive and old fashioned by the next generation of feminist reformers and contributed to the discounting of Bushnell’s ideas as the twentieth century unfolded. What makes Bushnell so astonishing was that she never wavered in her strong commitment to conservative theology—and yet, Kobes Dumez points out, she differed from many of her fellow evangelical Christian missionaries and activists in that she was happy to participate in self-criticism. She believed that Christianity had negatively impacted women. While many Christian missionaries were happy to see themselves as advocates of the women they worked for in “pagan” cultures, they saw civilized Westerners as being the answer (along with Christianity) for their woes. Bushnell was never so optimistic about her own culture, observing how exploited women in the US and Europe were by so-called Christian men. It was mission work and the effort of translation that made her realize that interpretation of the Bible might have been part of what was at fault. She decided to learn biblical languages and read the Scriptures in the tongue they were written in for herself so that she could find out what “God’s Word to Women” was. The resultant book by the same title was the outcome of that effort. KKD assesses God’s Word to Women as poorly edited and clunky, but still a nuanced and thoughtful assessment of what had been the primary attacks on women’s equality by churchmen and theologians. Starting with Eve and ending with Paul, Bushnell used conservative theological techniques to show how the Bible had been a liberating document for women. Men, Bushnell argued, were so blinded by their own cultural prejudices that they had translated and interpreted it in ways that contributed to their own power and the suppression of women. Her work was underappreciated in its own time, but KKD argues that conservative women in the majority Christian world, especially the global South, still use these ideas and even Bushnell’s book to promote a biblically-based gospel of liberation. Bushnell rejected both higher criticism and Darwinism so her feminism wasn’t tainted by the secular modernism that so much of the movement for equality partook of.Kobes Dumez has cleverly used this story to cast a vision for how much more imaginative both Christians and secular feminists could be in accomplishing their shared goals of working for the betterment of humankind. We need more creativity, more working across lines, and less assuming that anyone who takes the Bible seriously must be interested in assigning women to a domestic and sexual sphere. Concomitantly, Christians should be open to the way a conservative hermeneutic might still lead to unexpected ideas about the possibilities for liberation and gender equality.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Finally, Katharine Bushnell is brought out of hiding By Amazon Customer I ordered this book in April and have digested, underlined and tagged its pages. Katharine Bushnell's brilliant mind enabled her to learn five languages, become a medical doctor, a missionary to China, and a lifelong activist for denigrated women around the world. Du Mez does an excellent job weaving her life into the development of Victorian feminism, though Bushnell never used the word. She held a strong belief in the Bible and used her linguistic skills to bring fresh understanding about the value of women. She saw Christ as "the great emancipator." Du Mez writes, "Reflecting her evangelical and holiness convictions, she perceived an antithesis not between the civilized and the savage, but between the obedient and disobedient societal responses to God's will for humanity, and in this respect 'civilized' societies could be as backward as 'savage' ones." (95) Du Mez has done valuable research into the development of early Christian feminism, and the life of Katharine Bushnell who has disappeared from the pages of history far too long.
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