Author Archives
Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School.
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A feminist closet? by Linn Marie Tonstad
Every now and again, a budding systematic theologian comes to my office and wants to talk about how to avoid being pegged as a feminist, and therewith avoid not being taken seriously as a theologian. Sometimes the students are feminists,… Read More ›
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Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Feminist Theology, and Finitude by Linn Tonstad
In David Kelsey’s theological anthropology, Eccentric Existence, he emphasizes that finitude renders creation vulnerable, but he still insists on the goodness of what he terms the “quotidian proximate contexts” in which human life is lived: our ordinary, everyday lives. Terry… Read More ›
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Anti-sex feminism? by Linn Marie Tonstad
Lori Gottlieb’s article in the February 9 New York Times magazine, “The Egalitarian-Marriage Conundrum,” was yet another tired entry in the New York Times’s annual clickbait misogyny Olympics. Who doesn’t remember the supposed opt-out revolution, and the sadness of the… Read More ›
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Remember the Sabbath Day: The Cost of Difference by Linn Marie Tonstad
I grew up Seventh-day Adventist and was educated at Seventh-day Adventist schools all the way through college. I can tell endless quirky stories about growing up – about the time my parents gave me The Lion, the Witch, and the… Read More ›
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Seeing Death and Resurrection by Linn Marie Tonstad
Yesterday, I visited the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Sicily. In a grotto about a mile or so from the center of the modern city are found the preserved remains of about 2,000 people who paid the monks to preserve their… Read More ›
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God the Father or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? by Linn Marie Tonstad
In the second season of the television show Buffy, the Vampire Slayer [spoiler alert!], Buffy is faced with an agonizing dilemma. She is condemned to save the world “again.” Buffy’s former lover is the evil Angelus. Angelus – once the… Read More ›
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Rebranding Feminism by Linn Marie Tonstad
Feminism has a “brand”? A recent contest – still running, if you want to get in on it! – asks for suggestions about how to “rebrand feminism.” The contest has corporate sponsors. Saying that although feminism “has brought us the… Read More ›
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Who is the Church? by Linn Marie Tonstad
The headlines blared, “Who am I to judge?” News outlet after news outlet led with the pope’s conciliatory stance toward gays, expressed during an interview aboard the pope-plane as he returned from Brazil. Among the several headers from Fox News… Read More ›
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Creating Ritual by Linn Marie Tonstad
Last time, we considered whether the creation of rituals, I mean habits, might serve as an antidote to depression, or as a way of managing depression. But the creation of ritual has had a much more significant role in feminist… Read More ›
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Lust in the Heart by Linn Marie Tonstad
Love the sinner, hate the sin. We are all familiar with the bludgeon this statement represents in Christian circles. It functions as a way to maintain one’s goodness and Christlikeness (supposedly!), while simultaneously condemning and persecuting those who find themselves… Read More ›
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When Feminists Disagree by Linn Marie Tonstad
A while back I gave a talk on feminist trinitarian theology to an audience of mostly progressive academics, including feminist and womanist scholars of religion. In the course of analyzing what I called the ‘trinitarian imaginary’ in Christianity and its… Read More ›
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What It’s Like To Be A Woman In The Academy: Mentoring Edition by Linn Marie Tonstad
In my first post, I promised to return to the topic of mentoring. Mentoring is a survival strategy for feminists inside hostile or difficult-to-navigate environments; in its best possibilities, mentoring is a strategy for flourishing, not just surviving. But when… Read More ›
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What It’s Like to Be a Woman in the Academy by Linn Marie Tonstad
Last fall, I was asked to sit in on the women’s pre-doctoral colloquium at the divinity school where I teach. In the course of a wide-ranging lunchtime conversation, the central question to which the students wanted an answer was: “what… Read More ›
