Customer Reviews

Women Speak

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I'd like to give this 3 and a half stars, but not four. This book is probably not for the general reader, but rather for those interested in the experience of laywomen in the US Episcopal church. It could also be useful from the point of view of anyone interested in the subjective way that some female congregants experience church community.

From the back cover, we read that Gillespie is co-founder of the Episcopal Women's History Project and Adjunct Professor of Church and Society at Bangor Theological Seminary in Hanover, New Hampshire. Gillespie was apparently given a grant to interview women church-goers all over America and has tried to give a flavour of these interviews by focusing on four different churches with four different characters.

This book is interesting from the point of view of (church-going) women's history and it is interesting from a sociological point of view. In that regard, the book is easy to read, flows well and speaks of real women's experience -- and it seems that this is what Gillespie was trying to achieve in writing it.