Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 34:1 (Winter 2020)
Article: What Katharine Bushnell Still Has To Teach Us Today
Author: Julie Walsh

PP 34:1 (Winter 2020) p. 26

What Katharine Bushnell Still Has To Teach Us Today

Julie Walsh

Julie Walsh is a PhD student at Regent University focusing on egalitarian theology. She holds a ThM and a Certificate in Biblical Languages from Regent University and an MA in ministry from Nashotah House Theological Seminary. She enjoys writing, and her latest book is The Cross and the Tent Peg: How Jesus Retraced the Story of Jael. Julie lives in the Washington D.C. area and is currently establishing an activist organization to advocate on women’s issues. You can find her on Twitter @EgalChurch. This article was among the three winners of Student Paper Competition at CBE International’s 2019 conference in Houston, Texas.

Catherine Kroeger, the founding president of Christians for Biblical Equality, stated, “although women had made forays into the field of biblical interpretation, it was to be Katharine Bushnell who would bring out the heavy artillery.”1 Mimi Haddad, current president of CBE, has bolstered Kroeger’s words with the claim that “Bushnell is to egalitarians what Luther was to the Reformation.”2 Why is Bushnell thought of so highly? Why would egalitarian leaders compare the revolution she began to the one Martin Luther started? And how can we continue to advance this movement that Dr. Bushnell inaugurated? This article will address these questions in light of five spheres that Bushnell affected in stunning ways—social justice, Bible translation, interpretive method, a theology of humanity, and biblical ethics. It will also look at how we can apply her accomplishments today.

As a medical doctor and then medical missionary, Bushnell worked tirelessly for women’s welfare. This extended into the areas of suffrage, temperance, and what was then called “social purity.”3 Yet in her work, Bushnell discovered that sexist translations of specific Bible verses concerning women had accumulated throughout the years, which warped the Bible’s egalitarian message into a patriarchal one. Bushnell then pioneered a new approach to biblical interpretation and devoted herself to developing a theology of humanity embracing a more accurate biblical understanding. One hundred years later, her book God’s Word to Women is starting to get the attention it deserves; beyond her excellent interpretive work, it is filled with everything from theological ethics to political concerns. Unfortunately, this important book was out of print from 1923 until 1975, and Bushnell’s life story was likewise nearly lost. Today, however, egalitarians are recognizing Katharine Bushnell as the genius and saint that she was.

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