Hannah’s thesis explores what a feminist, agential, flourishing self which takes seriously the work of sixteenth century Reformer Martin Luther would look like. Relevant Lutheran material discussed includes the bound will, and the alien and proper work of God. 

This paper will present some of the material discussed in Chapter Five of her thesis, “Sin and the Feminist Self.” Reinhold Niebuhr and his doctrine of pride as humanity’s original sin is famously criticised and often dismissed outright by feminist theologians. Pride, it is argued, is not a woman’s sin. In this paper Hannah will discuss the work of two scholars; Jennifer Baichwal, who contends that feminists fail to recognise the contextual nature of Niebuhr’s argument regarding sin as pride – pride is in fact a sin of the powerful, and Jodie Lyon, who argues (contra the bulk of feminist hamartiology) that women are no less likely than men to suffer from pride, but that the sin of pride manifests itself differently in the lives of women.

Presenter: Hannah Stewart, BMin, MTh, current PhD student

About the presenter

Whilst completing her Bachelor of Ministries with Laidlaw College, Hannah developed a passion for doing theology and went on to do a Master of Theology, graduating in 2015. In 2017 she was awarded a scholarship to undertake a PhD in Systematic Theology at Leuphana University in Northern Germany. After two and half years overseas, she returned to NZ in March 2020 to finish writing her thesis, titled How Martin Luther’s Theological Anthropology Informs the Concept of a Feminist Self.