International Women’s Day last week led to — naturally — a lot of news features about the female half of the human race.
The Washington Post did a piece on women in Afghanistan (as did the New York Times); Agence France Presse wrote on women who work for the Roman Curia; the Jewish Telegraph Agency covered Orthodox women who get around their religion’s prohibition against women chanting Hebrew scriptures to mixed audiences.
I would have liked to have something more diverse and wider-ranging, such as a list of top women who exert influence not only within their own religions, but who have spoken to needs or issues in the general culture. In effect, they have transcended their faith groups.
In short, who are the most influential women in American religion?
Time magazine asked a similar question about evangelicals and the magazine’s list of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals is still referred to 18 years later. Most of those named were men; if there were women, they were paired with their husbands. The only two women who made the list on their own merits were televangelist Joyce Meyer and the late Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
I have spent much of my professional career profiling women in religion. The first time I put together such a list was in 2014 when I was so frustrated at how so many gifted evangelical women didn’t get near the top billing in the media that men do. In a post titled “Great Women Who Will Never Be Famous,” I wrote about Miriam Adeney, Nancy Pearcey, Robin Mazyck, Susan Wise Bauer, Sarah Zacharias Davis and Dale Hanson Bourke. (See my 2012 Washington Post story on Bauer here.)
Each of them were worth a story in the secular media but rarely do such women appear in top publications. For instance, notice the recent New York Times Magazine story on John Onwuchekwa, the former black Southern Baptist pastor. Interesting as it is, why are such stories always about the men?
I’ve now updated that list to include other religions. I avoided women who got where they are because of their husbands. I am not denigrating their accomplishments, but simply focusing elsewhere.
I do realize that women in many traditions aren’t allowed into formal religious positions, which is why my list includes activists, bloggers and others who work outside regular boundaries.
It’s a sticky wicket, this list. Should one stick with women who have the largest numbers of books written, most news coverage or most impressive social media standings? How about lesser-known women who represent important constituencies?
For instance, many of you may not know Nailah Dean, 30, a black/Latina California lawyer and Muslim feminist who speaks out on what she calls the “Muslim marriage crisis.” She says the high rate of singleness among educated Muslim women is impacting American Islam in a bad way. I wrote a piece about her work (dating while black, female and Muslim) for Newsweek in the fall of 2021 and she is pictured with this blog post. I was intrigued by someone who spotlighted how unmarried and divorced Muslim women are treated as cast-offs by co-religionists, and how black Muslim women are especially under the gun because of racist attitudes among Muslim men.
Or do you choose someone whose work has lasted over several generations and influenced millions of women, even if they’re retired at present? One thinks of Kay Arthur, 89, an evangelical Bible teacher and bestselling author of more than 100 books and Bible study workbooks since co-founding Precept Ministries International in 1970 with her late husband, Jack. She reached millions through her time as host of her “Precept for Life” program on television and radio, reaching more than 75 million households in over 30 countries each day for more than 20 years. Some say she’s had major influence on how evangelical women study the Bible (and think, theologically) for 50 years.
Or Joni Eareckson Tada, 73, who became a quadriplegic at the age of 17 through a diving accident. She formed Joni and Friends, a non-profit to help the disabled and bring their plight to the attention of the church. An affiliated group, Joni’s House, sets up centers in other countries for occupational therapy, medical supplies, Bible studies, job-skills training and wheelchair maintenance — plus distributing more than 200,000 wheelchairs worldwide. An evangelical Protestant, she pioneered the idea of disability ministry in a time when no religious groups were even considering the concept.
Delilah Rene
Do you choose someone who may grow to major prominence in the future? Jackie Hill Perry, 33, is a former lesbian now married mom of four; author, poet and black hip-hop artist best known for her book “Gay Girl Good God,” which puts her in the middle of the sexual orientation/conversion therapy debate.
Or there is Valarie Kaur, 41, author, Sikh activist and filmmaker, lawyer and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, which promotes justice in the fact of hate crimes?
None of these women have had major take-outs in the secular media (that I know of) even though their accomplishments — often in the face of much suffering — are spectacular and dwarf many secular counterparts.
One thinks of Masih Alinejad, 46, an Iranian-American journalist, author, and women's rights activist who works for the Voice of America’s Persian Service. Raised a Shi’ite Muslim in a small town in northern Iran, she focuses on women’s rights in Iran — and Islam. She finally had to flee the country to New York, where her life is still being threatened.
Or do you limit your choices to women who are religious professionals, such as Yolanda Pierce, 48, dean of Howard University School of Theology — and the first black woman to do so, or Sharon Eubank, 59, one of the top female leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who has been in charge of its charitable arm, Latter-day Saint Charities, overseeing the distribution of $2.3 billion worth of aid?
Or go for women who thrive ion pop culture, such as Delilah Rene, 62, the most listened-to woman on American radio, and an industry in her own right? Her Facebook page and website are peppered with names of celebrity friends. Although she speaks of her Christianity in the most general terms and mainly talks to her vast audience about the healing power of love, her faith is the bedrock from which she operates. (See my 2019 Seattle Times piece on her).
Or Anne Lamott, 68, who has been called “a feminist C.S. Lewis” — because she talks about God, politics and other un-politically correct topics — in her many popular books? She may be the most important writer to make God talk fashionable among readers on the the left.
Help me out here, folks, and put some of your votes in the comments field.
There are several must-include women who have already received many plaudits, such as Nadia Bolz-Weber, 53, Lutheran minister and public theologian famous for founding the gay-friendly House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. She has been called “one of the rock stars of the emerging church.” (See my 2014 profile on her here).
Of course there is Beth Moore, 65 — prominent evangelical blogger, speaker and mega-author whose female-oriented Bible studies started in the 1990s in Houston boomed into a hugely successful women-centered ministry with millions of books sold. She was the most prominent Southern Baptist woman in the country until she began publicly opposing Donald Trump on Twitter. Her opposition to white supremacy and her openly preaching in megachurches provoked such an angry reaction, she left the denomination for the Anglicans.
There are folks in academia, such as Amy-Jill Levine, 66, the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University who has spent the past half-century studying Christianity and Judaism, attempting to unravel the tangled relationship between the two religions. She is a leading figure in Jewish-Christian interfaith relations.
Nearly everyone with whom I’ve talked about this list mentions Lila Rose, 34, a Catholic activist who at the age of 15 founded Live Action, a group that documented illegal activities in abortion clinics (such as refusing to report statutory rape). She’s since morphed into a mom with two kids and a speaker, author and podcaster — and has been especially active on the TV circuit since Roe v. Wade reversal in June. Atlantic magazine has called her “the face of the millennial anti-abortion movement.”
They also mention Kristen Waggoner, 50, the new CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom law firm who successfully argued the Masterpiece Cakeshop case at the U.S. Supreme Court and argued the 303 Creative case this fall. Waggoner, who has one of the sharpest legal minds in America today, oversees some 62 staff attorneys and a national network of 3,200 lawyers.
Should I mention journalists? Julie Roys, 57, a Chicago journalist whose blog “The Roys Report” operates like an investigative reporting site on the nefarious activities of the rotten apples of evangelical Christianity, and she has taken her share of prisoners (think Moody Bible Institute). She concentrates on exposing corruption, abuse and what’s been termed the “evangelical industrial complex.”
Or Bari Weiss, 38, the journalist who caused an uproar in 2020 when she suddenly resigned from her position as op-ed editor and columnist at the New York Times saying she was harassed for being Jewish, a supporter of Israel and, according to her critics, some kind of conservative (she describes herself as a ‘left-leaning centrist.’) She has, with her wife Nellie Bowles, founded a very influential Substack publication. Although she’s not a religious figure, she has been speaking out about the uptick of North American anti-Semitism — especially on college campuses — and how the pandemic has justified attacks against Jews.
Sometimes the lines between who is and who is not a religious figure are blurry. For instance, Elizabeth Smart, 35 survived a horrific kidnapping and nine months in captivity when she was 14. She has become a major activist for sexually abused and raped women. Active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smart often shares how her faith in Jesus Christ helped her through her captivity. Because of her experiences, she’s able to put this horror into a religious context for women who can’t compute why God would allow such a thing to happen to them.
Sometimes a few years makes all the difference in the world.
Were I writing this three years ago, I’d include Paula White-Cain, 62, then-President Trump’s spiritual advisor and director of his Faith Advisory Board. (See my Washington Post story on her here). She dropped out of sight after President Joe Biden took office, but don’t believe for a moment she’s out the door. She’s turned the running of her central Florida church over to her son and is primed for action if called upon.
That’s all, for now. Please send in your votes, folks, using the comments pages.
Who are the most newsworthy and influential religious American women and who deserves to be featured with more coverage on a major secular news platform?
Maybe there are some key folks I left out? Or some people who are on the list who shouldn’t be?
VARIOUS IMAGES: Photos of Nailah Dean and Paula White-Cain were provided to the author by each woman. The latter is an official White House photo of White-Cain with President Donald and Melania Trump. The photo of Delilah Rene was taken by Julia Duin.