A distinct feminist movement in Western society has a pedigree of a little more than 200 years. The second wave of the women’s movement that has produced most of the specifically feminist religious writings – Christian or post-Christian – dates only from the late 1960s. Feminist theology is, then, a relatively recent phenomenon.

In thirty years, what has happened? Where are we now? At one level, the Christian women’s movement has spawned extraordinary change in that time. Where only the Salvation Army and the Congregationalists accepted formal women’s ministry in the early 1960s, now all the major reformed Christian churches ordain women. The Anglican and Lutheran churches have growing numbers of women bishops. But the struggle for a true recognition of women’s priestly gifts continues, both overtly, as in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and more subtly, in synods and councils and assemblies.

Liturgical rites increasingly recognise women’s identity. Inclusive language – when it comes to speaking about the people of God – has been adopted officially in many places. But for naming God, it is still too often used hesitantly, surreptitiously, even dangerously. In theological education, women’s voices are beginning to be heard, and today in Australia more women than men are studying theology. However, even in those traditions that take seriously women’s call to ordained ministry, when it comes to clerical formation, women are still over-whelmed by insistent male models.

And where are the lay women? These past three decades have seen a massive decline in the church-going population. Principally it is the women who have left the churches. In Australia in particular, lay men have always been in short supply. It was the women who were the mainstay of colonial congregations, raising essential local finances through cake stalls and parish teas. It was the women who ran the Sunday schools and cared for the church fabric, who shouldered the excess burden of pastoral care for overworked clergy.

It is only the older women who now remain in significant numbers. Their daughters and grand-daughters are too busy with full-time careers even to attend church, let alone to look after the fundraising. Recent surveys have shown that as women enter the full-time workforce, they attend church as seldom as their male colleagues. It is ironic that women are at last entering the ordained ministry at a time when in the parishes, lay women’s participation is at an all-time low. The primary task of women clergy might be evangelism among the sisterhood!

Christian feminist theology, for all its energy and fresh perspective remains, at some levels, an esoteric endeavour divorced from main-stream church life and thought. It continues to struggle to find a voice at the centre. Perhaps, however, its most significant achievement has been in the influence it has had on other theologies, other theologians. As Graeme Garrett points out in his article, “any attempt to talk about God today must accept the challenge of feminist theology”. Similarly, Denis Edwards acknowledges his debt to the insights of feminist theology, along with its natural partners, liberation theology and the ecological movement. Quite simply, any serious theological exploration now must take women’s theology into account.

Is this “the next stage” for feminist theology? The sign that it has emerged from a separated infancy to an integrated – perhaps we could say co-educational – adolescence, even maturity? The separations are now to be found almost as much between feminist theologians as between feminist theology and the rest. As the range of articles in this special edition of Pacifica demonstrates, there is a healthy pluralism at work – and a healthy co-existence. The article by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, for example, criticises the work of Australian feminist writers such as Dorothy Lee, Erin White and Patricia Brennan – criticisms that will doubtless draw forth a critical response. That strong debate is welcomed among the leading players is a sign indeed of the mature pluralism that is now a hallmark of feminist theology. Similarly, the contribution of two significant Australian male theologians is an important sign of this welcome pluralism and maturity. Will the “next stage” be marked by a new mutuality, a new partnership – alongside the recognition that feminist writing need not necessarily represent a monolithic ideology?

This issue looks at the future of women’s theology from different perspectives. There are a number of articles that offer a survey of current theological debate, with new challenges and directions for the future.

Elaine Wainwright offers an Australian feminist response to Jesus’ question, “But who do you say that I am?” This question is integral to the debate between Christian feminist theologians and post-Christian feminists. This essay offers an important overview of the key issues the question raises, with particular attention to the maleness of Jesus, the symbolic universe of male titles, and the attempts made by women to “re-member” Jesus. Wainwright brings to centre stage the christological questions that feminist theology needs to explore.

Maryanne Confoy presents a broad overview and critique of some of the significant historical influences that have shaped the contemporary Western understanding of women’s sexuality. She proposes elements of an integrated Christian spirituality for women that takes account of the reclaiming of women’s sexuality. Confoy’s survey shows that, where women’s sexuality has been repressed by patriarchal enculturation, so their spirituality has been equally diminished, the two being fundamentally interconnected.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s contribution is included here because it was written for a series of colloquia in Australia in August, 1995. The article, made available to Pacifica by Kathleen McPhillips of the University of Western Sydney, is a survey of Schüssler Fiorenza’s own prolific writing in the field of New Testament hermeneutics. This article is particularly valuable because in it Schüssler Fiorenza responds to her critics in a manner that makes her own position remarkably evident. As a pioneering figure in feminist biblical studies, Schüssler Fiorenza attempts to walk a fine line between domestication and abandonment, avoiding defence of christianity and the Bible on the one hand, and exodus from religion and church on the other.

The kind of historical survey, and re-reading of historical tradition, evidenced in Confoy’s article is also present – though within a much narrower time-frame – in the article by Patricia Moss. She tackles the question of the origins of women’s asceticism in the early Church through a survey of the precedents in the Jewish and Græco-Roman worlds. Historical exploration of this kind remains a critical scholarly endeavour for feminist theology, to ensure that the last vestiges of patriarchal interpretation of women’s experiences in past and present are excised. The whole ascetical movement that has so influenced sub-sequent Christian spirituality – and indeed Western culture – is cast in a fresh light. The article reflects the exciting, scholarly work being done currently in Australia by women in postgraduate research.

It is obvious that, at least in the Australian context, women’s involvement in systematic theology is still relatively sparse. Perhaps, in this area more than others, the obstacles to women’s participation are formidable. Fortunately there are signs that this situation is beginning to change, as women move into so central an area of christian theology. Meanwhile, the work of Graeme Garrett and Denis Edwards reveals that, while systematic theology in this country is still largely androcentric, feminist theology has begun to make an impact. The articles included here take seriously, not just issues of justice and ecology, but also gender as an integral concern of theology. Issues raised by feminist theology must now be taken into account in all dogmatic speculation, and not just in particular areas such as liberation theology.

Last of all, the article by Dorothy Lee on the Fourth Gospel argues that the next stage of feminist biblical scholarship requires greater attention to biblical theology. Most feminist biblical work has tended to focus, often exclusively, on the way women are presented (or marginalised) in the pages of the Bible. This article suggests that women need also to re-discover the theology of Scripture as it relates to women’s contemporary context. This exploration of the notion of “abiding” is a good example of such theology in its challenge to Enlightenment objectivism. Like Denis Edwards, Lee argues for a relational under-standing of the Trinity, the human community and creation.

This edition also contains a selection of reviews of recent publications in the area of feminist theology. This is by no means an exhaustive, or even representative, survey of such writing, but it offers a diversity of perspectives, both in the titles chosen and the reviewers’ response. We include recent Australian writings and international publications which we regard as either significant or problematic. Elaine Wainwright’s detailed review of Francis Martin’s The feminist question, in particular, provides a strong critique of Martin’s failure to engage with feminist theology.

The collection of articles does not claim to be comprehensive, despite its ecumenical diversity, both denominationally and geographically. Nor does it claim to speak on behalf of all Australian christian women. Some Australian voices are obviously absent: the ongoing struggle of Aboriginal people to reclaim a sense of identity, land and native title; the current debate in many of our churches on issues of sexuality and sexual orientation; the ever-increasing but still small voice of women in Orthodoxy. Despite the flourishing of women at some levels of church life, there is also the inevitable backlash, more painful and alienating in some denominations than others.

The guest editors of this special edition of Pacifica believe it offers a thought-provoking collection of articles in a climate of ambivalence and ongoing struggle. We hope it provides theological stimulus for more Australian feminist and womanist writing. We believe it signals, at the very least, a welcome “next stage” in feminist theology in Australia.