Resurrecting Eve: Women of Faith Challenge the Fundamentalist Agenda

Resurrecting Eve is a gripping and incisive examination of Christian Fundamentalism and its repressive doctrines toward women. But it is much more than insightful analysis. Sohl and Pughe write beautifully and perceptively about the lives of women who have been negatively affected by this movement and what we can do to make the Christian Bible an instrument of joy, healing and empowerment rather than harm.

"Resurrecting Eve" is a compelling, informative and provacative read. It speaks with clarity to the confusion and pain of Christian women who embrace the teachings of Jesus but are denied authenticity, mutual worth, dignity and justice by the dogma of Christian fundamentalism. It reveals the pervasive effect the devaluation of the feminine has, and has had, upon women, men, families, relationships, culture and the church. "Resurrecting Eve" helped me to appreciate feminine consciousness, embodiment and my faith in a new light. I believe it will inspire an honestly revitalized relationship with myself, others and God.

Eve rises like magma from a volcano, in this stunning book by Roberta Pughe and Paula Sohl, completely reforming the lay of a Christian Fundamentalist land. In this book Eve is no longer the temptress. The Hebrew creation texts are re-visioned to present Eve as the "first independent woman...courageous and powerful enough to assert herself in the face of pure male authority." From the early days of Christianity there have been women of courageous faith who rose up to say "Enough" to destructive trends in church practice and dogma. Many, starting with Mary Magdalene, were silenced. Some, like Eloise, were hidden away in convents. Multitudes were executed for their beliefs--think of Joan of Arc, of Marguerite Porete who wrote of a holy church of Love over which the bishops and clergy and theologians had no power. Think of the holy women of the late middle ages in Europe known as Beguines who cared for the sick, feeding, clothing, teaching, praying with them. This was an era during which women were not permitted such self-directed authority. The extent of domination against which they took their stand was demonstrated with perfect clarity by the force of reaction against them. The more outspoken among them were burned as witches. In the past two centuries we've experienced waves of women reformers. Their names are a litany of bravery, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth, to the twelve Episcopalian women who broke with church tradition and law and found a bishop to ordain them. Now there was Eve rising! The flow of all these women's actions and their writings changed us. The white hot fire of their courage streams out, even into the heart of Fundamentalism. For we women cannot help but be influenced by each other. Roberta and Paula are at the forefront of yet another new wave of reformers. Their writing, and one thinks also their personalities and their approaches, perfectly complement each other. Roberta is the therapist. Paula is the artist, dancer, and activist. Each of them is a theologian with a mother's heart. Paula's voice is tender and nurturing. Roberta's voice is a scythe cutting through the repressive rules and policies of the fundamentalist dogma. She often sounds angry, which is understandable under the circumstances. Each mother has two sides. Roberta advocates for those who've had their spirits and psyches daunted and sometimes destroyed by the domination of fundamentalist practice and policy. In her advocacy she is a hammer breaking fundamentalist icons....an iconoclast. Paula reforms, rebuilds from within the hearts of women themselves. She helps us to draw the fire of our spirits through those energy centers of our bodies, called chakras, to restore both the power and the creativity of our woman-selves. In this way, these two authors are, themselves, the volcano. Breaking down and building up, Roberta and Paula ARE the new Eve, rising up from the clay of perhaps the most patriarchal and restrictive form of Christia