Why Women Doing Theology Matters for Everyone: Sexual Violence, Tainted Legacies, and the Integrity of Anabaptist Theology

Abstract

With the now public knowledge of the sexual abuse carried out by the twentieth century’s leading pacifist Mennonite theologian, the tainted legacies we are left with raise questions not only about the content of theology but also about the way theology is done. This article explores why women doing theology matters for everyone as part of the process of theology-making. It considers how the notion of taint is refracted through gender power relations to apply differently to women than to men and how this hinders the reception of women’s theological contributions. It argues that women doing theology matters because of the way this illuminates the partiality of everyone’s theology and, further, is necessary for the integrity of Anabaptist theology in the wake of sexual violence.