Where the Spirit Calls

This article appears in the February 2018 issue of Sojourners. To subscribe, click here .

I RECENTLY attended a conference at Princeton Theological Seminary called “Telling Our Stories: Breaking the Mold, Taking Risks, Paving the Way.” Immersing myself in a group of women of faith remembering their trailblazing predecessors and sharing their faith journeys was particularly synchronistic as I was reading Adrian Shirk’s well-received volume And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Stories from the Byways of American Women and Religion.

Shirk’s work is refreshing and compelling in both its unique structure and earnest voice. The book is a delightful hybrid of creative, narrative chapters featuring a diverse array of historical women intertwined with Shirk’s own spiritual memoir. In both instances, Shirk captures a voice that is insightful, sharp, and unlike anyone else’s I’ve read.

The book has a wandering quality, as it weaves alongside the free spirits of its subjects—women who embraced alternative, and sometimes subversive, spiritual outlooks in the face of the patriarchal, Christian American religious landscape. The author describes the tension between her draw to nonconformist spiritual interests and her American, Judeo-Christian culture. Shirk writes:

Meanwhile, my instinct toward the magical, the occult, the feminist ran up against my participation in various patriarchal churches: During the years of Witch Night, I found myself attending a nondenominational church plant, the liberal synod of the Lutheran church, and a Catholic Newman Center (though without a Confirmation, the Catholics had refused me the most magical of the Mass’s gifts).

Shirk examines the beliefs of groundbreaking female pioneers such as Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science; writer Flannery O’Connor, whose work was significantly impacted by her Catholic spirituality; and Sojourner Truth, whose prophetic voice of inclusion and spirit-filled Christianity endures today. She also spends time with less familiar figures such as New Orleans’ Marie Laveau, whose Voudou practices were revered by a racially mixed milieu of people during the early 19th century.

An addition, Shirk shares her own experiences through sections of memoir and family narrative. She shines a light on the origin story of her own faith by looking at the history of her eccentric family members. One particularly compelling chapter is lovingly written about the author’s aunt, who lives on remote Block Island, R.I., and wrote fan mail to a favorite writer for many years, with a surprising result.

One of the most valuable aspects of And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy is its genuinely intersectional approach. The book opens with the author’s visit to Seneca Falls, N.Y., the place where suffragist Susan B. Anthony lived and worked for the right to vote for women. Shirk juxtaposes Anthony’s accomplishments with her flaws, mainly her white supremacist version of feminism.

Recently in Christian circles, feminist clergy, lay people, and academics have been pointing out the glaring absence of Christian women from Christian history and narrative. These champions of women often work to correct this by memorializing the theological voices of women who were present but rendered invisible in Christian life. And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy takes this practice a step further by adding the voices of those who were not exclusively Christians into the narrative of American faith and spirituality.

Readers who enjoy spiritual memoir, little-known facts, and hearty doses of girl power will enjoy this volume. Shirk’s memorable prose and unique subject matter make this a valuable read.