WATER Recommends: Spring 2026
Brakeman, Lyn G. WHITEOUT: MY RACISM-BRIEF ANECDOTAL SNAPSHOTS. Eugene, Oregon, RESOURCE Publications, 2025, 163 pages, $18.
A seasoned priest looks back at a long life of white privilege and efforts to undermine that automatic advantage accrued unjustly. Snippets of marriages, children, ministry, sexism, and the complex aspects of trying to live attentively will elicit nods knowing nods from many other white people of good will. Work to end racism is endless and begins at home.
Elvey, Anne. (C)LOUD: A POETIC RESPONSE TO CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. Victoria, AUS: Palaver, 2025, 72 Pages, $13.50.
A collection as poignant as it is powerful, as true as it is tragic. The currents of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church run deeply and rapidly in the hearts of whole congregations not to mention countless individuals. Anne Elvey has put into rich poetry the research, demands, and hopes that ground an end one day soon to such ecclesial horrors.
Isherwood, Lisa and Córdova Quero, Hugo. QUEER MINISTERS’ VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH: A BURNING FIRE IN MY BONES. UK: Routledge, 2025, 174 pages, $57.99.
This collection of stories and testimonies offers insight into diverse ministries from the Global South. It demonstrates how queer theologies enrich Christian ministry globally in chapters ranging from church histories to rituals held in communities. This unique approach to the intersections of theology, social justice, and queer theory is more important than ever to assure and celebrate diversity and inclusiveness.
Joseph A. Marchal, Melissa Harl Sellew & Katy E. Valentine. TRANS BIBLICAL: NEW APPROACHES TO INTERPRETATION & EMBODIMENT IN SCRIPTURE. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2025, 280 pages, $40.
This is a landmark collection well worth studying. Advances in queer biblical studies, here with trans social locations, are enormous and challenging. The authors of these chapters are pushing the hermeneutical envelope and rewriting the shopworn hetero-patriachal scriptures in ways that revitalize them for future generations. Find out the many meanings of trans-figuration and use materials here for preaching, teaching, and personal spirituality.
Purpura, Ashley Marie. WOMEN IN THE ORTHODOX TRADITION: FEMINISM, THEOLOGY, AND EQUALITY. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 2025, 273 pages, $55.
Women in the Orthodox Church struggle with the age-old problems of patriarchy. This book sheds contemporary feminist theological and theoretical light on the subject. There are centuries of teaching and practice to undo, countless hymns, saints, and icons to rethink. Ashley Marie Purpura opens a much-needed discussion, arguing that Orthodox teachings about God simply do not support the tradition’s treatment of women. Lots to learn here for everyone interested in making religion a source of strength and integrity.
Wolff, M. BODY PROBLEMS: WHAT INTERSEX PRIEST SALLY GROSS TEACHES US ABOUT EMBODIMENT, JUSTICE, AND BELONGING. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2025, 320 pages, $29.95.
South African intersex priest Sally Gross’ story is told both as a biography and as a teaching tool for pondering the complexities of the lives of intersex people. As a Dominican and an activist, by turns Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist, Gross suffered the hideous pressures of a world in which bodies are limited and policed in size, shape, and function with few fitting well into the molds. Sally’s life, including its early end, was determined in large measure by choices made for her by others and mostly against her well being. It is a tragic story which opens a much-needed conversation about religious culpability in oppressing gender queer people.
Zagano, Phyllis. THE VATICAN AND WOMEN DEACONS. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2026, 205 pages, $20.
When Roman Catholic women are ordained as deacons, Phyllis Zagano will be credited with the win. Her meticulous scholarship and tireless chronicling of a process that never should have taken this much time and this much wrangling will be the documents of record. Readers are in her debt.
Enfoques feministas de transformación intercultural: Religion, violencia sexual y construcción de la paz.
Editors: María Pilar Aquino, Mónica A. Maher and María del Carmen Servitje Montull. Bogotá, Colombia, Editorial Javeriana, 2025, 906 pages, $66. https://tienda.javeriana.edu.co/editorial-javeriana.
This volume is a formidable collection of 25 chapters by a veritable Who’s Who of Latin American feminist scholar/activists and a few others whose distinguished work, like that of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, has been foundational in the field. In more than 900 pages, it is clear that the Latin American production of knowledge, all based in concrete efforts to create a better world, is plentiful and powerful. The Introduction offers a thorough overview. Whole courses can be taught on the basis of this work.
Review by Mary E. Hunt https://eifi.one/eifi-the-newest-first.html