cover image Femmevangelical: The Modern Girl's Guide to the Good News

Femmevangelical: The Modern Girl's Guide to the Good News

Jennifer D. Crumpton. Chalice, $18.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8272-1102-5

Crumpton, an ordained Christian minister and blogger, offers a brave contribution to the emerging subgenre of post-evangelical manifestos. During her youth as a conservative Christian in the Bible belt, she strained against the narrowly circumscribed version of womanhood that was offered. In this passionate and energetic book, she shares her struggle against the constraints of traditional Christianity (memorably likening herself to "a 21st-century Jacob with a woman's hips") and tries to offer Christian women a more expansive way. Those already sympathetic to religious feminism will appreciate the aggregation of standard feminist sources Crumpton presents, but there's little here that's surprising or new. The skeptical may be turned off by her unbalanced argumentation, in which Crumpton blames institutional Christianity for a great deal of the world's ills. In this version, whatever "good news" there may be in Christianity is not to be found in its history, but is left up to the reader to create. (Apr.)