Women opening up spaces of belonging for women in the church

This paper posits that women have been bracketed off as the stranger by the church. Women’s feminine genius manifested as wives and mothers rather than their intellectual genius as church leaders and theologians, is conveniently acknowledged. To open up spaces of belonging for women in the church entails acknowledging inconvenient truth claims that go beyond essentialisms and gender complementarity. The implications of
radicalizing theology – that women are unequivocally created imago dei – is to celebrate their feminist genius. Those who courageously do so, at the church’s periphery, incarnate hospitality and friendship that are built on polychromatic differences, mutuality and reciprocity.