Mary Daly and the Invitation to Explore Wild Ideas about Inclusivity: A Memorial Reflection by Regina Heater

The following memorial of theologian Mary Daly, who died 3 January, is from Regina Heater, a theologian and writer who maintains the Sacredfisher blog and is a reader of Open Tabernacle.

In January 1993, as a Christian Education major at a United Methodist college, I journeyed to Nashville, TN to meet staff members from several General Boards of the United Methodist Church, including editors of church publications and curriculum. The church had just published its latest version of The Book of Worship, a guide to liturgical celebration in the church, from Sunday liturgy to weddings, funerals and Love Feasts. This revised Book of Worship encompassed changes to liturgy that included a more inclusive approach to language about God, changes that went hand-in-hand with the publication of the NRSV translation of the Bible in 1989. The NRSV specifically counted as an improvement over the RSV changes “making it clear where the original texts intend to include all humans, male and female, and where they intend to refer only to the male or female gender.”