[BruceChris]

I spent a lot of time, some years back, reading books written by women theologians.

Yes, there are such things, and you will find some smart cookies among that bunch. Most of these women theologians believe that God accepts GLBT folk.

And no, very few of them belong to conservative churches. Many of these churches will not allow women to study in their seminaries, or get ordained, and certainly not PREACH, FOR GOD"S SAKE!

Catholic women who write books about their church do so strictly on their own. Catholic women are usually not allowed into any formal position of power. So a few years ago, some of them both in Europe and the US began forming their own, non-Roman, Catholic church, complete with women priests and bishops. Ratzinger, er, Bennie, promptly ex-communicated the whole lot of them, including the male bishops who ordained them! Google "Womenpriests".

These organizations are run by people men who are very threatened by the very idea that anyone for one moment might think that anyone other than them could possibly be created in the image of the Almighty.

Anyway, in the introduction to many of these books, the women authors will tell us that their beliefs come from many sources. There is the Bible. There are the beliefs and teachings of their own denomination, and often those of other denominations. There is their relationship with the Divine, and how they feel that their prayers have been answered. There is their own thought and reason, and there are their own experiences in this life. (Women's experiences are especially discounted by the Theo-Misogynists(T-M's) who run their churches, of course.)

And then there are the findings of science. (God created the universe, and has Graciously allowed us to discover much about it. Science is a GIFT from God.) Some of these T-M's are unwilling to admit that anything of any religious consequence has been learned by science since Galileo. (Evolution? No Way!) The Earth may revolve around the Sun, but as long as the World revolves around Them, they don't care.

In March of 2007, I sent you a scientifically based article about all of the many different ways that our sexuality, gender, and anatomy may be formed before we are born. The article was so long that I had to break it into two pieces, as the PM system could not handle over 5000 characters in a single PM. If you like, I can re-send it.

The whole point of the article was to make sure that everyone reading it would come to learn that there is no such thing as simple, absolute, binary gender!

(O.K., End of rant)

Here is a list of women theologians who have written some wonderful books (And this is only the tip of the iceberg)

Anything by Carter Heyward, she is awesome. Especially "Staying Power", and "Touching our strength: The erotic as power" (And oh, yeah, she "plays on our team".)
Rita Nakashima Brock
Charlene Spretnak
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, who also writes about transsexual Christians
Beverly Harrison
Two Theological heavy hitters, Rosemary Radford Ruether and Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza.
(I've forgotten dozens of names, here)

I suspect that a lot of these women "play on our team"

And of course every book has a bibliography, which will lead you to another 200 authors (Warning: This stuff can be highly addictive!)

I especially recommend the book about the (First !) Re-imagining Gathering, which occured in Minneapolis, in 1993, and was billed as a gathering of Christian Feminists. Over 2000 women, and a few brave men gathered for the 4 day event, in the Convention Center, no less. The Theo-Misogynists were up in arms about that one. "You CANNOT be a Christian and a Feminist!" they screamed in unison. (Sound familiar?) (Many women from mainstream denominations who came lost their jobs over this)

EDIT: I stayed up late last nite reading, rereading really, most of the book.

This book consists of over 100 chapters, each one an individual account, written by a different participant of the Gathering. Many of these experiences were nothing less than personal epiphanies to the women who wrote them.

"Re-Membering and Re-Imagining", by Nancy Berneking and Pamela Carter Joern

So enjoy! And you do not have to chose; God has chosen YOU.

Peace and Love, Bruce Chris