Transforming the Master Narrative: How Women Shift the Religious Subject

Abstract

A religious master narrative is in place that is currently directing many religious activities in Western culture. At the same time there are many ways that we can think about religious subjects and how the inclusion of women in the pulpit transforms the religious subject, subverts the master narrative, and offers new theological discourses. I certainly see evidence that the religious master narrative—in which males are privileged by culture, society, and the church—continues to gain new strength, power, and renewed reinforcement (for example, with the new edicts from the Southern Baptist Convention against women in the pulpit and the roles of women as subordinate to men). Yet I also recognize that the religious master narrative is being deconstructed and reimagined in positive new ways because some women are also claiming their right to all the roles and possibilities within some religions, including the rights and powers associated with the pulpit. Although many women are reluctant to use feminist language in reference to what they are doing, the inclusion of women's roles in the pulpit confirms that their endeavors are feminist to the core. The fact that they do not claim their efforts as feminist does not diminish the fact that their work is feminist and effective.