Description

Finding Eve’s spirit in the teachings of Jesus, authors Roberta Pughe and Paula Sohl explore her bold, self-directed, and inquisitive nature as a model for women today who have been negatively affected by the oppressive and hierarchical fundamentalist Church.

Drawing on personal experiences, Paula and Roberta analyze fundamentalist systems from political, theological, and psychological perspectives to unveil the ways patriarchal religious dogma stifles women’s voices and spirits.

Filled with profound theological reflections, moving stories of women embracing their spiritual power, and healing ritual ideas and dance, Resurrecting Eve offers women a return to their rightful place of equality and authority within Christianity.

CLICK HERE FOR A FREE EXCERPT: Eva’s Dance

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Roberta Pughe
Paula Sohl

ENDORSEMENTS & REVIEWS

“Up front is an astute analysis of the Christian right’s political attitude about “a woman’s place,” and an equally well-done reinterpretation of Eve, as the title would suggest. … Even as they weave an Eastern, New Age flair into a Christian understanding of the body, sexual orientation and love, Pughe and Sohl never stray from a biblical foundation.” - Publishers Weekly

“Resurrecting Eve: Women of Faith Challenge the Fundamentalist Agenda is a gripping and incisive examination of Christian Fundamentalism and its repressive doctrines toward women. But it is much more than insightful analysis. Sohl and Pughe write beautifully and perceptively about the lives of women who have been negatively affected by this movement and what we can do to make the Christian Bible an instrument of joy, healing and empowerment rather than harm.” - Carlene Cross, author, Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister’s Wife Examines Faith

“A book I just could not stop thinking about … The lessons of Resurrecting Eve are rendered in a gentle nurturing way, by two women I feel must be very much like myself. This believable work made me realize exactly why I am who I am. I now have a far deeper understanding of the rubric within which I live, this Christian life that is all of me.” - Bea Madden

“Pughe’s and Sohl’s artful analysis in Resurrecting Eve adds a powerful new voice to the new spiritualities of women emerging from African-American, Latina and Asian-American communities. This book especially lays bare the violation of human values, and of the Christian gospel, currently perpetrated among patriarchal networks of the U.S. Christian Right. Essential reading”. - Mark Lewis Taylor, Author and Professor of Theology and Culture, Princeton Theological Seminary.

“Some recipients appreciate “food for the soul.” Some of these titles have a limited, but important audience. Roberta Mary Pughe and Paula Anema Sohl offer solace to women like themselves who have had negative experiences with Christian fundamentalism, and those who perceive that “patriarchal religious traditions are shaping their lives.” Resurrecting Eve: Women of Faith Challenge the Fundamentalist Agendacalls readers to “a feminine re-visioning of how Jesus’ life message and model of resurrection allows women to welcome and value their true feminine selves”and “find new balance with the masculine.”The chapters are thoughtfully framed on the model of the seven chakras, which elaborate the points with Biblical references and anecdotal stories. The authors’ intent is on healing, and to that end they offer dance, music, exercise and other suggestions towards gaining health. The depth of analysis and synthesis of multiple frameworks is as impressive as their points are passionately presented” - Joan Ruddiman, Special Writer, The Princeton Packet

“Eve rises like magma from a volcano, in this stunning book by Roberta Pughe and Paula Sohl, completely reforming the lay of a Christian Fundamentalist land. In this book Eve is no longer the temptress. The Hebrew creation texts are re-visioned to present Eve as the “first independent woman…courageous and powerful enough to assert herself in the face of pure male authority.”From the early days of Christianity there have been women of courageous faith who rose up to say “Enough” to destructive trends in church practice and dogma.
Many, starting with Mary Magdalene, were silenced. Some, like Eloise, were hidden away in convents. Multitudes were executed for their beliefs—think of Joan of Arc, of Marguerite Porete who wrote of a holy church of Love over which the bishops and clergy and theologians had no power. Think of the holy women of the late middle ages in Europe known as Beguines who cared for the sick, feeding, clothing, teaching, praying with them. This was an era during which women were not permitted such self-directed authority.
The extent of domination against which they took their stand was demonstrated with perfect clarity by the force of reaction against them. The more outspoken among them were burned as witches.
In the past two centuries we’ve experienced waves of women reformers. Their names are a litany of bravery, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth, to the twelve Episcopalian women who broke with church tradition and law and found a bishop to ordain them. Now there was Eve rising! The flow of all these women’s actions and their writings changed us.
The white hot fire of their courage streams out, even into the heart of Fundamentalism. For we women cannot help but be influenced by each other. Roberta and Paula are at the forefront of yet another new wave of reformers. Their writing, and one thinks also their personalities and their approaches, perfectly complement each other.
Roberta is the therapist. Paula is the artist, dancer, and activist. Each of them is a theologian with a mother’s heart. Paula’s voice is tender and nurturing. Roberta’s voice is a scythe cutting through the repressive rules and policies of the fundamentalist dogma. She often sounds angry, which is understandable under the circumstances. Each mother has two sides. Roberta advocates for those who’ve had their spirits and psyches daunted and sometimes destroyed by the domination of fundamentalist practice and policy. In her advocacy she is a hammer breaking fundamentalist icons….an iconoclast. Paula reforms, rebuilds from within the hearts of women themselves. She helps us to draw the fire of our spirits through those energy centers of our bodies, called chakras, to restore both the power and the creativity of our woman-selves.In this way, these two authors are, themselves, the volcano. Breaking down and building up, Roberta and Paula ARE the new Eve, rising up from the clay of perhaps the most patriarchal and restrictive form of Christianity ever yet devised in the minds of men.
The true stories of women in this book are sometimes horrifying, always poignant, and ultimately hot—boiling, seething, turning the granite of repression molten with their intention towards justice. Each voice is a form of Eve, erupting, spilling over, making new ground—good ground in which to plant seeds of freedom and of love, changing the face of the earth.” - Christin Lore Weber, M.A., D-Min. Author of several books including WomanChrist: A New Vision of Feminist Spirituality, Blessings: A WomanChrist Reflection on the Beatitudes and Altar Music: A Novel

“Pughe, a psychotherapist and interfaith minister, and Sohl, a Presbyterian elder, argue for reflection on “the repression of women and the feminine as the motivating force behind [Christian] fundamentalist and dominionist dogma.” Pughe and Sohl were both raised within a Christian fundamentalist worldview, attended Calvin College together, and later threw off the bonds of what they consider fundamentalist Christian oppression. Up front is an astute analysis of the Christian right’s political attitude about “a woman’s place,” and an equally well-done reinterpretation of Eve, as the title would suggest. But Christian readers may balk once Pughe and Sohl reveal that the remainder of their project ties feminist Christianity to the seven chakras. Even as they weave an Eastern, New Age flair into a Christian understanding of the body, sexual orientation and love, Pughe and Sohl never stray from a biblical foundation. Yet whether they will persuade their main audience, “women who have had direct experience of Christian fundamentalism,” to try out transformative rituals such as the “Cocoon” (which requires listening to music in the fetal position) or the “Blood Ritual” (which involves touching female genitalia while bathing) is doubtful. Perhaps only those who, like the authors, have already jettisoned the Christian fundamentalist worldview will be ready to take the leap of faith that Pughe and Sohl advocate.” - Publishers Weekly

A READER’S GUIDE FOR RESURRECTING EVE: Discussion Guide