A young woman finds her voice for Christian feminism

May 13, 2013

A student’s video message to women desiring to serve God is simply this: “Speak!”
Kristen Sobalvarro, age 22, is a senior at an evangelical university in Southern California. She grew up in the Bay Area of California where she and her family were involved in a church that taught that women could serve God in only extremely limited ways, crushing her dream of being in ministry. Through this video, she tells how she found her voice and now uses her talents in art and the spoken word to share with other women what she discovered as she sought her own answers.

When I asked Kristen to provide Christian Feminism Today with some background on how this came about, she wrote:

“God has been orchestrating this journey for me for two years now. Before that, I simply went along with what my fundamentalist Baptist church pastors told me was true. However, once I began truly reading and studying Scripture for myself and finding my own voice, the Lord revealed truth to me and started leading me on my journey of faith. I hope the art and spoken word on this video will drive women towards the face of Jesus and allow them to serve God with every ounce of their passions, souls, and God-given voice. Speak, oh daughters of the King!”

We in EEWC-Christian Feminism Today are happy to find young women of faith like Kristen who realize their talents and callings come from God and were not intended for silence but for service. We hope Kristen’s video will inspire other young women to have the courage to follow her example.

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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