Review of Gaslighting for God Becky Garrison has written A Satirical Guide to Save Yourself from Spiritual Narcissists (Lake Drive Books, 2026) which is the subtitle to this accessible and important book. Churches in Australia have started to respond to the evidence that clergy have higher levels…

Religious Horizons & Christian Nationalism One of the things that I love most about living in Iowa is its huge, expressive skies. Taking in the vast horizon, with vibrant blues and greens and stark whites, is calming after a frantic day. Rather than narrowing my vision to focus on my laptop screen…

Women, behold your son. Behold, your mother. For Good Friday, I had the pleasure of being part of a preaching team for a joint service between two congregations in Montreal, Québec. Each preacher spoke on one of the seven last words of Jesus while on the cross. I had the honour of preaching on…

Debunking Easter: The Women at the Cross ‘Crucifixion’ (1495) by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, The Last Supper Museum. Easter has been a major Christian holiday, celebrated by billions for millennia. How we tell and are told the Easter story impacts our world in profound ways. Linguists believe…

Grappling with Greek and not hiding under a bushel: on Mark 4:21-25 I’ve been studying Ancient Greek for over thirty years. Niche? Maybe. As someone for whom Greek has therefore become an engrained part of who I am and how I think, it has also had a profound effect on how I read and understand the…

Review of Frontier Man Frontier Man by Bonnie J Flessen (Resource Publications, 2025) tells the story of three travellers - Batos, Domitia and Virgos - who have heard about Jesus and are seeking the apostle Paul so they can hear more. Each chapter takes the perspective of a different character so…

Remembering as Repentance  In his 2022 article, “Contested Memorials and the Discipleship of Christian Memory,” James Crockford writes that “memory is a vital theological theme. Whether in the Deuteronomist’s repeated exhortation to ‘remember’ the liberation of God’s people from captivity in…

Doing Midrash I spent the first 10 years of my career in student ministry, and through that work, I developed a deep love for Scripture, exegeting and teaching it. The love persists, and as my faith and theology have evolved and I have distanced myself from evangelicalism, I find interacting with…

Choosing Life: Nonviolence, Repentance, and the Beloved Community Last week, as images and stories once again emerged from Minneapolis—of violence, grief, outrage, murder, and communities crying out for justice—I had the privilege of traveling across the Southern United States on a Civil Rights…

Created to be Masculine and Feminine?: Complementarianism & the American Public I have been studying the history of complementarianism for over a decade now. While my research focuses on the origin of the movement, I have been noticing an uptick in the prevalence of its teachings in recent years.…

The Road Meets Us Here: Thoughts on the New Year As 2026 nears, I’m somewhere in the in-between—past the messy parts of this year, but not quite ready to claim clarity about what’s next. And maybe that’s okay: Scripture reminds us that God often leads us into the waiting, into the pause we didn’t…

"What action would we take if we allowed ourselves to be horrified, at this very moment, by the prospect of yet another how-could-we-let-this-happen reckoning?" womenintheology.org/2025/12/19/a...

"Attending to shifting categories like 'secular' reveals how Christian frameworks continue to inform public life across the world." womenintheology.org/2025/12/16/o...

Thank you, @womenintheology.bsky.social for this detailed review of THE GOSPEL OF SALOME! Elissa Cutter's conversations with @kaetheschwehn.bsky.social reveal insights of the novel's characters, plot, and open-for-interpretation events. #bookreview #literaryfiction #newbook

What Schwehn has done in this book is to drastically reimagine Jesus’ story and insert Salome into it for his whole childhood, up until the start of his public ministry. Needless to say, in what I am going to write, be warned that spoilers will appear.

Each modification of the hymn serves to amplify the Jewish identity of Jesus, and the varied metaphors speak to God’s redemptive work through Israel, extended through Christians. Joslyn-Siemiatkoski encourages us to “imagine the redemptive landscape as not linear but looping and intertwining...."

A Reflection on the First Sunday of Advent Thus, I suggest that this Advent, we work on our personal transformation—relying for this not just on ourselves, or even our political leaders, but by turning to God in prayer. Perhaps our transformation won’t be as dramatic as Augustine’s, but by…

Searching for Liminal Space in Advent I am part of a community of practice called “Food, Faith and Farming”. These friends helped me think through the ideas around liminal space and gardening. I credit them for their wisdom. The season of advent is one I look forward to every year. In the…

The Redemption of Dr. Frankenstein This past weekend, I attended the annual conference for the American Academy of Religion in Boston. I was grateful to attend a panel discussion titled “The Difference the Resurrection Makes” featuring Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas as one of the panelists. Oddly,…

Jesus Remembers and Feeds the Forgotten Thanksgiving is weeks away, and food banks are in crisis mode as record numbers of families face the effects of delayed SNAP benefits, rising cost of living, a government shutdown, and an uncertain economy. More than 40 million people rely on SNAP benefits…

This is my first post for WiT and I really enjoyed writing it. Would love some feedback.

What We Need to Know The following is an edited excerpt from a sermon I preached at 6:45 AM ET on May 25, 2025 at my home church in Philadelphia, PA. five months later, the sentiments remain relevant. Be blessed. "So, let us now turn to the word of God. Scripture: Hosea 4:1-6a NIV: my people are…

Ethnicity & Belonging in Christian Nationalist Era: A Cosmopolitan View In the reality shaped by secularity and close proximity of diverse traditions, cultures, and faiths, Christian Nationalism (CN) has challenged the existential question of belonging in America. Running at the core of CN is…

On vines and viticulture A year ago this month, I moved house, and found myself the keeper of a vine. I say keeper, not owner, because of the responsibility and relationship involved—topics I bring to this writing. As I’ve tended to it, relaxed or sheltered under it, and now harvested fruit from…

Review of A Most Useful Betrothal I feel like I need to start this review with a disclaimer. I am a book purist. I am one of those people who has read the book and complains about all the ways the movie adaptation is not faithful to the book. And so, there was lots of things about A Most Useful…

Chasing Waterfalls "Don't go chasing waterfalls" sang TLC in 1995, the chorus of which has been running through my mind this week. You see at the start of the week I had the opportunity to visit Bua Thong Waterfall in Chiang Mai, Thailand, also known as the 'Sticky Falls.' They get the name sticky…

Sacred Maps and New Paths: Reimagining Scripture When I was younger, my mom loved taking us on summer road trips. Once we picked a destination, we’d log into the computer, and enter our starting point and endpoint into MapQuest (there’s a throwback!). Then we’d print out a set of turn-by-turn…

When Home Hurts: The Bible and Family Estrangement  The tension between Hagar and Sarai was palpable. The animosity started once Hagar became aware of her pregnancy with Abraham’s child (Genesis 16:4). Abuse entered the scene, resulting in temporary estrangement. God intervened to mediate the…

Does God Need Me? A Conversation About Relationship Recently, a student said to me, “I’m having a hard time with the Trinity.” I smiled, as this is probably the most common response to this lesson. Let’s face it. The Trinity is a complex doctrine, and it is actually really hard to understand. But…

Resharing this post I wrote a few years ago, as this text is coming up in the Lectionary again soon! This parable has so much to teach us right now womenintheology.org/2022/09/13/t...

Thinking about Religion in the 21st Century: A Review One of the most striking things about George C. Adams, Jr.’s recent book, Thinking About Religion in the 21st Century: A New Guide for the Perplexed, is its attentiveness to the needs of potential readers. In the first pages, Adams acknowledges…

Innovation as Faithful Witness Why is the Church with a capital C across Catholic and Protestant reluctant to innovate? Does it resemble destabilization or a betrayal of something powerful, perceived as divine truth? Throughout history, the Church has regarded “change” as disquieting and even…

A Lament With, For and Through Creation What do you do with all the grief? How do you hold your community’s grief, the world’s grief, your own body’s grief? Womanist theologian Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney explains: « In the ancient Near East there was a profession that was passed down from woman to…

Without any actual changes in the policy and culture at the institutional level within both the Church of England and the U.S. Episcopal Church, clerical misconduct will undoubtedly continue.

Considering the Birds in a World Filled with Economic Anxiety Many young people in China have turned to their “inner bird” to escape hustle culture. According to the New York Times,1 some young people in China are pretending to be birds to deal with work and academic pressure, among other…

At WIT we are happy to announce that we have six new regular contributors joining the blog!

Reading the Bible Down Under, ISBL Adelaide 2026 I was recently at the International Society for Biblical Literature (ISBL) conference in Uppsala, Sweden and I heard some one proclaim, "I would be happy to travel anywhere in the world except Australia. Becuase they have spiders and snakes and all…

On the CRC and Religious Estrangement A couple of weeks ago, I attended a seminar focused on interfaith teaching. At one point, the facilitator emphasized the importance of both change agents, those who seek to innovate or transform, and tradition agents, those who preserve and transmit long…

What Do You Do With A Dead Body? What does Jesus' dead body, hanging on Calvary's cross mean for social justice in our world?

“Everything Old is New Again”: Andor’s Mon Mothma and the Dangers of Tradition Warning: This blog post contains spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2 of Andor (Disney+). I’m not much of a Star Wars fan, but I have absolutely devoured the Star Wars show Andor, which recently released its second (and…

Habemus Papam: Hopes for Pope Leo XIV and Catholic Social Teaching If all I knew about the new pope was this choice of name, based on that alone I could firmly say that I am excited to see the writings that come out of this papacy.

"If, as Jesus’ parable states, our salvation is tied up with how we treat the poor and needy, and the earth is one of the poor, then our salvation is also tied up with how we treat the earth." Elissa shares reflections on Pope Francis's environmental legacy. womenintheology.org/2025/04/22/a...

"Yesterday a bee landed on my finger... It felt like a promise to my six year old self. I had driven eight hours to attend the ordination of Pastor Maria Rudolph, the first woman in the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand to be ordained." womenintheology.org/2025/04/13/a...

"Hannah Arendt saw no evidence that beliefs or moral standards were enough.... Those who refused to comply were guided by a much deeper integrity—whether or not they could, quite literally, live with themselves if they acted in certain ways." womenintheology.org/2025/03/24/c...

"This executive order is relatively meager in terms of its immediate impact on the lives of U.S. citizens; yet, given my positionality as a Christian and scholar of Christianity, I feel a special obligation to contest this action undertaken in my name." womenintheology.org/2025/03/15/a...