Hedgerow Initiative

Mondays, February 6 – April 24, 2017
6:30 – 8:30 pm

The Hedgerow Initiative offers sustained, systematic programming in feminist theological education, spiritual integration, and leadership for a just and holy world. In a particular way, the Initiative highlights the scholarship of women who since the 1950s have worked to reclaim women’s presence and significance in scripture, church, history, theology and culture. The Initiative takes its name from the hedgerow schools in Ireland that kept alive the language, faith, culture and community of the people during the time of the British penal codes. A hedgerow is a biosphere and a haven.

History: who makes it and who tells it?  Who decides the story line and cast of characters?  Women’s scholars such as Church historian Mary T. Malone retell Christian history with women widening the path of discipleship through the centuries.  From the beginning a company of men and women accompany Jesus, follow him, and serve the emergent community.

In every generation women find their voices, claim authority, act creatively, confront heedless power, and participate in the upheavals of their times.  Some are wives and mothers, some celibate; some reign, others preach and inspire.  What do we inherit from these foremothers?  What do their lives inspire in those of us who seek God today?  To what is God summoning us from the future?

Join creative and resilient women in wrestling with the gospel message today, pondering what the Reformation asks of us in its 500^th anniversary year, seeking the holy in a world many label secular, reimagining women’s leadership in our churches.  Where will ecumenical dialogues take us?  Marriage, divorce?

Built around Mary T. Malone’s history Women & Christianity, the seminar will delve into historical persons and controversial topics as well as include guest presenters.

 

 

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Weekly Topics:

• February 6: Reading Women into History, Trajectories into the Future
  Instructor: Joan Mitchell
  
• February 13: Women of the Gospels, Early Christian Communities and Mission
  Instructor: Joan Mitchell
  
• February 20: Gnostic Heroines, Christian Martyrs, Women Using Their Heads & Hearts
  Instructor: Joan Mitchell
  
• February 27: Were Women Ordained or Just Blessed?  Queens and Abbesses
  Instructors: Joan Mitchell and Susan Hames
• March 6: Second Millennium: Marriage, Celibacy, Eleanor of Aquitaine
  Instructors: Joan Mitchell and Mary Kaye Medinger
  
• March 13: Mystics, Their Poetry and Purpose; Monastic Missionaries
  Instructors: Joan Mitchell and Mary Kaye Medinger
  

 

 

Required Texts:

Women & Christianity: Volumes I, II, & III
Mary T. Malone

The First Thousand Years

 

 

 

 

 

 

From 1,000 to Reformation

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Reformation to the 21^stCentury

 

 

 

 

 

Instructors:

Susan Hames, CSJ, ABD

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Barbara Lund

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Kaye Medinger, Consociate, MA

 

 

 

 

 

Joan Mitchell,CSJ,PhD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy Steffens, CSJ.