Women and the Christian Story: A Global History

by Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski

Overview

"This is a story about Christian women. It is a story of martyrs, mystics, missionaries, leaders, preachers, theologians, saints, and prophets."

For most of its two-thousand-year history, Christianity has told its stories from the perspective of men, mostly powerful men, and almost always men in control of the "official" narrative. These masculine narratives tell only part of the story because they obscure the rich and essential contributions, large and small, of Christian women throughout time. If the stories of women have been overlooked generally, stories of women from outside the Western tradition have been even more seriously overlooked.

In this exciting, readable, and fresh new history of Christianity, Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski foregrounds the story of Christian women for a new era. Be they powerful or nameless, saintly or flawed, women across two millennia and six continents are lifted up and allowed to speak fully to their part in the spread of the faith.

Wojciechowski's book works perfectly as a classroom text while welcoming general readers of all backgrounds and interest levels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506473758
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	833,934
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski is an assistant professor of church history at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota and the associate editor of the journal Word & World. Her areas of scholarship include women's history, American history, and the intersection of religion and social reform. She is the author of Women and the Christian Story: A Global History (Fortress Press, 2022).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Following an Illegal Faith (30-300) 9

2 Women under Empire (300-500) 33

3 Expansion and a Move North (500-1000) 55

4 Monastics and Mystics in the High to Late Middle Ages (1000-1500) 75

5 Women in the Protestant and Catholic Reformations (1500s) 99

6 Women in Colonial America (1500-1750) 121

7 Women in the Time of Reason, Revolutions, and Awakenings (1700-1850) 143

8 Women and Global Missions 163

9 Enter the Evangelist and the Prophetess 181

10 Women and Reform 203

11 Global Christianity in a Modern World 223

Conclusion 247

Bibliography 251

Index 267

Editorial Reviews

"Dr. Wojciechowski's book, Women and the Christian Story, is a wonderfully compact and easily readable history of women in Christianity. It describes in lively and fascinating detail how women throughout the ages have interacted with the male leaders and theologians around them. More importantly, it centers the telling of Christian history around the women themselves. With this book, women are no longer the sidekicks or the back-drop to men's ideas, but they are the idea-makers and history-makers themselves. This well-researched book will enliven any church history course and will show students and readers just how central women's contributions have been to the Christian faith." —Amy Marga, professor of systematic theology, Luther Seminary

"True to the vocation of a Christian historian, Dr. Wojciechowski takes a therapeutic approach to highlight women's accomplishments rather than focusing on the oppression women have faced, and yet without undermining the riches and depth of experiences that spurred a transformation in women, making them agents of global faith even in its darkest hours. A long-awaited book, more global than some other books available, accessible to non-scholars and students alike, inclusive of the stories of non-Western women as keepers of the faith." —Sashinungla Pongen, associate professor of church history, Oriental Theological Seminary, Nagaland, India

"This book tells the real and messy story of Christian women through time and across the globe. Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski brings a rich complexity to this history and achieves this without falling into the usual traps of putting Christian women on a pedestal or overlooking their problems or social locations. While some of these stories may be familiar to readers interested in women's history, others are certain to be new and surprising to students of Christian history." —Nancy Ross, associate professor, Utah Tech University

"The Christian story opens up in beautiful, diverse faces, phases, and spaces when following the webs involving women. Tracking Christian women's involvement from the time of Jesus's first followers through the modern era, Dr. Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski has laid out an inviting road map to engage and teach the Christian tradition(s) from an intentionally gender-inclusive perspective. The reader of this book will be energized and delighted." —Kirsi Stjerna, First Lutheran, Los Angeles/Southwest California Synod Professor of Lutheran History and Theology, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University

"Women and the Christian Story provides an engaging and insightful overview of the many ways women from around the world have shaped Christianity through their actions, words, and writings. It combines breadth and depth, stretching from biblical times to the present, while including fascinating details on individual women and their communities. Wojciechowski effectively translates decades of scholarship in both women's and Christian history into a balanced, well-contextualized, and inspirational story for students and general readers." —Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Distinguished Professor of History Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

From the Publisher