Cho, Min-Ah. THE SILENT GOD AND THE SILENCED. MYSTICISM AND CONTEMPLATION AMID SUFFERING. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2025, 244 pages, $39.95 paperback.

It is hard to square the value of silence with the myriad ways in which silence has been used to oppress. Min-Ah Cho follows in the feminist theological footsteps of Nelle Morton who observed that women (and, because her reference point was stories of violence, surely other marginalized people as well) “hear one another into speech.” Silence and listening precede speech. Claiming the power of silence is a right that oppressed people exert every time we enter into life-giving and life-enhancing contemplation. Practice!

Eberhart, Christian A., edited by Barbara E. Reid and Mary Ann Beavis. WISDOM COMMENTARY: ROMANS. Vol. 46. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2025, 520 pages, $69.95, ebook $67.99.

The writings of Paul are controversial at best. This solid feminist commentary explores the many angles of a complex text. It provides preachers and scholars alike new insights and deeper understanding of what have become standard lectionary fare. Consult this book before venturing either critique or compliment on Pauline texts.

Ganley, Rosemary. WELLSPRING: COLUMNS FROM THE PETERBOROUGH EXAMINER 2021-2024. Peterborough, Canada: Yellow Dragonfly Press, 2025, 340 pages, $14.95.

This welcome collection brings Rosemary Ganley’s recent essays to old fans and new. At a time when we need voices of sanity, neighbors with common sense, and spiritual people with political savvy Rosemary steps forward time and again. Her generous life shines in these pages. Read, enjoy, be changed.

Gomez, Christiana Lled and Julia H. Brumbaugh. DIVINE INTERRUPTIONS: MATERNAL THEOLOGIES AND EXPERIENCE. New York / Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2024, 348 pages, $49.95.

This useful collection includes theological reflections on many and varied aspects of female-identified parenting. Whether adoption or infertility, Othermothers or grandmothers, birthing or losing a child, the range of experiences is seemingly infinite. A good volume to consult before uttering a pastoral or theological word about mothering. 

Maxwell, Abi. ONE DAY I’LL GROW UP AND BE A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: A MOTHER’S STORY. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024, 320 pages, $16.54, eBook $14.99. 

This memoir chronicles Abi and her family in her rural American childhood home as she struggles to fit into a conservative community. It is the story of her transgender daughter as the family struggles to be welcomed in a small town. Abi is very honest about her own shortcomings even as she recounts the family’s fight against the law and public institutions that disrespect her daughter. It is as much a mother’s story of struggle as her daughter’s.

McEwan, Tracy. WOMEN AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: NEGOTIATING IDENTITY AND AGENCY. London, GB: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025, 256 pages, $103.50 or borrow at the library near you. 

Tracy McEwan utilises social science and a keen understanding of religion to explain the systemic marginalization of Catholic women in the Church, carefully analyzing the often painful stories of Gen X women. As these women claim power and authority to be religious on their own inclusive terms, the spiritual landscape is changing before our eyes. This landmark study leaves no doubt that the Catholic Church is in serious danger of extinction if women remain marginalized.

Myles, Robert J., Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan. HABITATS OF THE BASILEIA. ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF ELAINE M. WAINWRIGHT. Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd, 2024, 284 pages, $65. 

These essays honor a great feminist scholar from Australia/New Zealand who had global impact. Her critical feminist studies of Christian scriptures inspired several generations of students to pursue the potentially liberating vision of the basileia, a new world order ”ruled in accordance with social and religious precepts of justice envisaged by the Torah and prophets.” Kathleen McPhillips’ looks at the group Elaine facilitated: Women Scholars of Feminism, Religion and Theology in the Pacific, 1990-2016, from which WATER took inspiration. Elaine’s ability to love broadly, generate community, and make new knowledge is reflected respectfully

Rycenga, Jennifer. SCHOOLING THE NATION: THE SUCCESS OF THE CANTERBURY ACADEMY FOR BLACK WOMEN. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2025, 310 pages, $27.95, eBook $14.95.

 The history of the Canterbury Academy is a tale of many people working together to achieve justice for Black women. The school was short-lived due to racism and violence. But its impact reverberates today through generations of descendants of its students who have contributed mightily to society. Jennifer Rycenga brilliantly weaves the threads of women and men, Black and white, who modeled how such coalitions can achieve great things.

Smallwood, Teresa L. PUBLIC THEOLOGY AND VIOLENT RHETORIC EXAMINED IN A QUEER WOMANIST CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY. London; New York: T&T Clark, 2025, 168 pages, $29.95, ebook $26.95.

Attorney, academic, and activist Teresa L. Smallwood delivers a powerful and poignant theological study. Her queer womanist critical work shakes public theology at its roots. She insists that marginalized LGBTQ people have been harmed, some killed, by anti-queer Black preaching from bully pulpits. What is emerging from the victim/survivors is “a theo-ethical philosophy of an all-inclusive creation connected to the imago Dei.”