THE FEMINIST MISTAKE: THE RADICAL IMPACT OF FEMINISM ON CHURCH AND CULTURE, by Mary Kassian

A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance

by Kirsten Birkett

 

About the Αuthor

Mary Kassian is an award-winning author, popular speaker, and a distinguished professor of women’s studies at Southern Baptist Seminary. She has published several books, Bible studies and videos, including: Girls Gone Wise, In My Father’s House: Finding Your Heart’s True Home, Conversation Peace, Vertically Inclined, and The Feminist Mistake.

 

General Summary

A history of twentieth-century feminism, organized around the themes of the right to name (self, world, and God), demonstrating the confluence of secular feminism and theological feminism, and some of the profound outcomes in society.

 

Contents

Part One: The Philosophical Quake

Stage One: Naming Self

1. The Problem Without a Name
2. A Problem in the Church
3. The Church and the Second Sex
4. Biology Equals Destiny
5. Feminist Liberation Theology
6. The Personal Becomes Political

Stage Two: Naming the World

7. Woman-centered Analysis
8. Woman-centered Analysis of Theology
9. The First Sex
10. Herstory
11. Women’s Studies

Stage Three: Naming God

12. The Feminization of God
13. Changing of the Gods
14. Going Too Far: The Feminist Metaphysic
15. Household of Freedom
16. Godding
17. Women-Church

Part Two: Shock Waves

18. The Tide Converges
19. On Evangelical Shores
20. Drifting Away
21. Into the Mainstream
22. Against the Tide
23. Flow Charts: The Development of Feminism

 

Introduction: The Tsunami of Feminism

From 1960-1990, the philosophy of feminism shook society, but the consequences are continuing like a tsunami. The Judeo-Christian view on men, women, and family has been deconstructed with astonishing speed, with widespread increase in gender confusion and conflict.

Part I of this book examines the development of feminism through its deconstruction of a view of womanhood, manhood, gender relationships, family, and the Judeo-Christian worldview, leading to metaphysical pluralism, self-deification, and the rejection of God. This book also:

• does not debate the validity of the questions feminism posed, but its answers
• sees religious feminist theology not as a result of secular feminism, but a movement concurrent to it
• discusses feminism in general from its presuppositions, not particular strands of feminism
• argues that despite opposition to points of feminist philosophy, it still developed as described.

Part II of the book examines events since 1990. . . .

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