EMQ » October–December 2019 » Volume 55 Issue 4
Edited by Moyra Dale, Cathy Hine, and Carol Walker
Oxford, UK: Regnum Studies on Mission, 2018
203 pages
USD $8.99 (Kindle)
Reviewed by Amit A. Bhatia, PhD/Intercultural Studies; Adjunct Professor, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, and Billy Graham Center for Evangelism Fellow.
The editors have observed that the voices of women in missiology often go unarticulated and hence unheard. In mission work among Muslims, despite the plethora of women with considerable practical experience who have done research, there are so few who have published their results that their perspectives seem almost nonexistent. When Women Speak, emerging from a 2015 colloquium in Melbourne, Australia, was published to correct this situation.
The book is organized around six topical essays, with two respondents who challenge as well as build on the keynote perspective. The tone of the interactions is one of dialogue, characterized by a sense of attentiveness which draws the reader into the dialogue. As those of us ministering among Muslims, whether as professors, evangelists, church-planters, development workers, or any other role, listen in on this discussion, we are struck by insights around six themes. First, the prevalent mission strategies focus their work on family networks and insider groups. This results in a marginalization of women rather than challenging the cultural views such as the hadith’s perspective that women are deficient in religion and intelligence. Second, there is a need to understand the lives and faith of Muslim women who do not fit into traditional “categories of experience or identity,” as well as the marginalization of women who do not have children. Third, the identity of a Muslim woman is shaped by a multitude of factors such as her closest role models, religious teachings, the music to which she has listened, and the community to which she belongs. Fourth, viewing Muslim women as “decision-makers and initiators” in their cultural context can build bridges that help lead women to Jesus Christ. Fifth, pain and trauma that women have experienced compels us to take a reflective look at the Bible’s descriptions of the instances where God himself experiences pain and to ask how our own pain leads us into God’s mission. Sixth, the varieties of violence and oppression that have served to silence women all over the world necessitates reflection on the different approaches to mission practiced by women as a response to their oppression.
The eighteen women who wrote this book come from diverse backgrounds. Some were raised Christian and others are first and second generation Christians from an Islamic background; they come from the United States, Canada, Australia, Iran, Argentina, and Pakistan; they are currently serving in Arabic-speaking countries, the United Kingdom and United States, North Africa, Philippines, South Asia, Madagascar; they are anthropologists, missiologists, church workers, evangelists, development and rural health program leaders; and they have been involved in teaching in academic settings, radio ministry, adult literacy, children’s ministry, discipleship of women from Muslim backgrounds, etc. Some of the ideas presented in When Women Speak pose a much-needed challenge to the prevalent western view that Muslim women are universally oppressed. The book does not provide a concluding response to the prevalent perspective, but rather provides an invitation for further dialogue.
For Further Reading:
Lederleitner, Mary T. 2018. Women in God’s Mission: Accepting the Invitation to serve and Lead. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books.
