This essay clarifies the foundation for a discipleship of equals by bringing feminist scholarship to bear upon conflicting religious assumptions regarding women. To this end, it surveys significant scholars as well as issues: past, present, and future. It evaluates the outcome of the three phases of study in women's history (I); it urges present action in four areas which are essential for equality in the Church (II); and it speaks words of hope for difficult times to come (III).

The feminist critique of theology is a radical and extensive one. This article examines contemporary feminist scholarship as it relates to three strategic issues in theological anthropology: (1) traditional interpretations of woman's nature; (2) the long-standing tendency to justify woman's social inferiority on the grounds of her “natural” inferiority; and (3) the complete oversight of the area of woman's experience. It will then be shown that this particular critique comes to a point of convergence in theological method, thus creating fundamental questions about accepted principles now directing the theologian's work.

What does church membership mean for women? Texts like Galatians 3:27-28 imply equality; experience contradicts this. Underlying the controversy are assumptions about women's nature as women. Baptismal practice suggests women's equality but experience denies it. Part I examines experience: in lay ministry, in marriage, and as economically marginalized. Turning from experience to theoretical analysis, there are two answers to the question of women's nature: women are inferior, or women are equal. Part II studies the two models at work in the dialogue held between representatives of the Women's Ordination Conference and the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops as participants addressed the question: “What is woman?” Finally the two models are operative in the testimony given in the national hearings for the bishops' pastoral on women. Part III analyzes the reports of the national hearings, uncovering the correlation between model, methodology, and whether a group's feminism leads it to social or issue critique.

The sacraments represent some of the ordinary activities involved in sustaining daily life, activities which are understood to contain meaning and therefore power. These activities are for the most part the province of women in human societies, probably because of the biological role of women in procreation. One of the ways that men have responded to the connection between women and life sustaining activities is to claim the sacramental reenactments of those activities for themselves, and to maintain that the sacramental reenactments, not the ordinary activities, contain meaning and power. The task for the church is to reconnect sacraments with ordinary life by involving men in direct nurture of life and involving women in sacramental administration, so as to demonstrate the reality of divine meaning and power in life.

Although psychoanalytic object relations theory has been acclaimed for its ability to revitalize the psychological understanding of religion, the implicit sensitivity of object relations theory to feminist concerns has not been recognized. This paper suggests that object relations theory shares with feminist thought three central foci: relationality, mature dependency, and a revaluing of the mother-infant relationship. Through this coincidence of concern object relations theory can move toward a feminist psychology of religion which avoids not only Freud's reductionism toward religion, but also his patricentrism. The psychological antecedents of religious experience, ritual, and the image of God are examined from the object relational perspective, and are located in the maternal-infant matrix. It is suggested that this linkage of culture and mother offers a radical challenge to the psychoanalytic perspective.

Contemporary issues in the American Catholic Church can sound like a modern-day confusion of tongues making communication impossible. Furthermore, the traditional marks of the Church have supported the notion that dissent and controversy are to be discouraged. This article examines catholicity and shows that its definitions and uses in history have tied it to uniformity when its essential characteristic may well be the celebration of pluralism. Catholicity is placed in the context of modern mission theory in such a way that current challenges can be interpreted as so many new languages which require patient understanding.