Feminist Methodologies

Given changing contexts and social discourses, it is theoretically enriching to enlarge the research emphasis of the secular academic discipline of Religious Studies to consider ways in which women who self-identify as religious contribute to their various traditions in ways that deepen spiritual experience for the communities as a whole and make contributions to their larger social contexts. Religious Studies scholars value scientific approaches but also, to be respectful of the communities studied, must recognize that they do a disservice to those communities if they reduce findings to the confines of these approaches. Interdisciplinary work that draws on methodological concepts developed in feminist theological thought, together with naturalist approaches, serves to increase knowledge about and by women in faith communities. By continuing to develop theology in rigorous and thoughtful ways, modern women are carrying forward an important interpretive tradition that strengthens analyses of religion in the secular humanities and social sciences.