Power For: Feminism and Christ's Self-Giving

Offers the first feminist christology that fully encourages self-giving in interpersonal life

Anna Mercedes is Assistant Professor of Theology at the College of Saint Benedict, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA.

Introduction: Dangerous Doctrine\1. Christ's Self-Giving and God's Power Over Us\2. Beyond "Power Over:" Relational Christology\3. Power for Ourselves: Kenotic Erotics\4. Beyond "Power With:" Martyrs and Masochists\5. Power for Resistance: Abuse and Self-Giving Care\6. Power for Christ: Self-Giving and Incarnation

'In Power For: Feminism and Christ's Self-Giving Anna Mercedes has offered nothing less than a new Christian feminist theology of power. This is a book driven by the prophetic vigour of late twentieth-century second wave feminist theology but offering a contemporary theology that is fully situated in its more nuanced, risky third wave. Mercedes' celebratory negotiation with Christian notions of 'self-emptying' suggests that service and care - even the masochistic courting of pain - should not be dismissed as instances of a merely 'feminine' domestic self-abnegation but can be embraced as forms of public resistance to oppression. Exceptionally readable, but abundantly informed, Power For is a book that no student of erotic, relational theology should be without.' - Melissa Raphael, Professor of Jewish Theology, University of Gloucestershire, UK.