Feminist Reconstructions of Christian Doctrine, by Kathryn Greene-McCreight

Feminist Reconstructions of Christian Doctrine: Narrative Analysis and Appraisal. By Kathryn Greene-McCreight. Oxford University Press, 175 pp., $29.95.

Can feminism and Christianity co-exist?" This provocative question ends Kathryn Greene-McCreight's book, but it might as well begin it, since it animates the entire work. The book's title might suggest a "comprehensive survey of feminist theology," an exposition and analysis of major works in the field. But "those who expect such will only be disappointed," Greene-McCreight warns us early on. She sets herself a more modest and strongly methodological task: to "use William Christian's observations about the relationship between doctrine and truth and the related observations of George Lindbeck and Hans Frei about the biblical narrative and its role in theology [in order] to examine feminist theologies to see how they fit the patterns outlined in the theory."

Readers familiar with those names will recognize the source of this book's subtitle. Readers unsure of their way around Christian, Lindbeck and Frei, the "Yale School" trio, might well wonder just how we get from feminism and Christianity to the technical thickets of "second order reflection," "governing doctrines," "figured narratives" and the irreversible "flow of interpretation" that crop up wherever that simple word "story" appears these days in Protestant theology.