So Christianity Today tasked “key leaders” to name “Christian women [who] are most profoundly shaping the evangelical church and North American society.”
Among the chosen few:
- Sarah Palin
- Michelle Bachmann
- Rachel Held Evans
- Joyce Meyer
- Roma Downey, actress
- Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist, political science professor, the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, and CEO of atmos Research, a scientific consulting group
- Marilynne Robinson, novelist, Housekeeping, Gilead
- Lauren Winner, professor of spirituality at Duke, author (and a former Beliefnet colleague of mine)
- Elisabeth Elliot, daughter of a martyred missionary and sister of Thomas Howard, who famously converted to Catholicism (see Evangelical Is Not Enough)
- Jean Bethke Elshtain, political philosopher who gave the Erasmus Lecture a couple of weeks ago for the Institute on Religion and Public Life, which publishes First Things
- Katherine Leary Alsdorf, founder and executive director of Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s Center for Faith and Work in New York City
- Joni Eareckson Tada
- Beth Moore
and college presidents, scholars, crusaders, and athletes — a pretty remarkable and diverse group, frankly.
I’ll leave it to my evangelical readers to determine whether they think the list makes sense. Remember, the criterion seems to be “shaping the evangelical church.”
Not for nothing, but why Roma Downey and not Patricia Heaton?
Also, isn’t Jean Bethke Elshtain Lutheran, or was that just her family background? If she is, why is she evangelical enough for the list, but Mollie Hemingway, a former columnist for CT and a top-notch religion reporter (and editor), is not?
As usual, Lutherans need their own list.
