March 2022 ECD Book Club, "Women Rise Up" by Katey Zeh

Sarah and Hagar are caught in the crossfire of human trafficking. Ruth and Naomi are migrant farm workers who labor across lines of difference. Mary crosses borders during an unplanned pregnancy to give birth. These may sound like headlines ripped from our round-the-clock news, but in fact they’re a timely take on the tenacious women of the bible from gender justice advocate and ordained Baptist pastor, Rev. Katey Zeh in Women Rise Up: Sacred Stories of Resistance for Today’s Revolution. “I thought I knew the sacred stories well. As it turns out, I knew only certain stories. Men’s stories, to be exact,” Zeh writes in the introduction of her new book. Raised by her grandma “Honey” with a deep love of the church and a hearty belief in women’s worth, Zeh brings an activist sensibility to her reading of biblical stories—like Rachel’s maternal mortality or Martha’s domestic advocacy—to inspire modern…