Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home

by Jonalyn Grace Fincher

Overview

Jonalyn Fincher wants to show that women can be both fully human and fully feminine. Traditionally, femininity has been a role women play, a role defined by culture and simplistic sermons. The author encourages women to look at the feminine roles or boxes that pinch their souls: mother, fashion devotee, working wife, intellectual. Does God treat femininity as a role, a curse, or a gift? And when Jesus redeemed women, what was it exactly that he redeemed?

Even after Eden, Fincher points out, God planned to redeem both men and women. But for centuries, women have been taught to devalue the very aspects of their souls that are unique and irreplaceable. Femininity itself runs deeper than aprons, frills, or romance. It begins with feminine souls who are living cameos of the triune God.

In Ruby Slippers, Fincher takes a fresh, direct look at the challenges she faced on her search for the feminine soul. She goes step by step through what it means to be a woman and how to cultivate her soul, choosing not to shy away from psychology, theology or personal transparency. In her journey she discovers an understanding of femininity that is timeless and groundbreaking. The roles melt away into something like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, something women have always had—the souls to walk today with freedom and femininity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310309338
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	11/14/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jonalyn Grace Fincher offers a distinctive voice as a female apologist. Holding a master's degree in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot School of Theology, as well as double bachelor's degrees in English and history from the University of Virginia, she is one half of Soulation (www.soulation.org), a husband/wife apologetics team. For the last three years Jonalyn has been lecturing, speaking and writing on how women are distinctly and fully made in God’s image. Her work has appeared in Radiant, Fullfill and Un Christian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity. She regularly updates her blog (www.jonalynfincher.com) sharing her insights about womanhood and the soul. Jonalyn and Dale love to take walks with their three Welsh Corgis in their new hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Note to the reader     7
Introduction: femininity beyond fairy tales     9
Materialism for women     29
Uncorking the soul     46
The same planet     63
Leaving eden     80
A natural woman     99
Finding the feminine in the sacred     142
Frailty, thy name is woman     161
Far as the curse is found     175
Epilogue     192
Notes     194
Recommended resources     215
Acknowledgments     217

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

For any woman who has struggled as I have with what it means to be feminine, Ruby Slippers provokes deep thought on how Christ redeems a woman’s soul. — Nancy Beach

Every once in a very long while, a book comes along that challenges you to become everything you were created to be. Ruby Slippers is beautiful, persuasive, and rich: a feast for any woman who longs to be her truest self — Ginger Garrett

“The most repeated and most mistaken response that evangelical hierarchical-complementarians make to egalitarian-complementarians is that the latter deny male-female differentiation. In over thirty years in this debate I have neither read nor heard any evangelical even imply this. All evangelical egalitarians insist that God has made us equal and different. Alike we bear the image of God, alike God has made us rulers of his world, alike God gives and blesses the varied ministries the Spirit non-discriminately bestows, yet we are men and women. Thank God Jonalyn Grace Fincher has given her able mind to exploring alikeness and difference in men and women. I love her vision of men and women standing side by side complementing what each is given by God. This is a well written, well researched, thought provoking book.” — Kevin Giles

This book recounts the story of how Jonalyn came to see that femininity is truly 'of a woman'—of every woman—living out the fullness of her God-given being and design — Sarah Sumner

'Finally! An alternative to popular Christian books on gender that define women only in relationship to men, as patriarchy after the Fall has always done. Instead, Fincher redefines femininity in relation to God, whose image we bear, giving women the freedom—and responsibility—to wrestle with who they are before their Maker. Along the way, Fincher takes on the icons of femininity in both our popular culture and our evangelical subculture, and brings them under the careful scrutiny of philosophical thought, recent research in the social sciences, and Scripture. The result will be a relief for women who have hidden from others their sense of homelessness, of not fitting in, and a challenge for women looking for an 'ideal' to embrace.' — Elizabeth Hall, , Author

Young women are increasingly becoming disenfranchised from and disenchanted with the church; with Ruby Slippers, Jonalyn offers them a lifeline as she explores what it means to have the soul of a woman, and offers a fresh and fearless take on biblical femininity. — Susy Flory, , Author

With warmth, wit, and insight, Fincher invites women to embrace an important, and sometimes counter-cultural, image of who God created us to be. May we encourage each other to accept the invitation! — Lisa Graham Mc Minn, Ph. D., , Author

Jonalyn Fincher’s scholarly approach combined with unflinching candor and insight from her own journey makes Ruby Slippers a compelling read that is both smart and personal and will inspire women to meaningfully consider the enormous value that lies in their own femininity. — Sarah Zacharias Davis, , Author

I’m telling everyone I know: read this book! — Siri Mitchell, , Author

“This book is a breath of fresh air in the polarizing debate among evangelicals over 'gender complementarity.' Ruby Slippers provides women (and men) with a balanced and substantive—yet entirely accessible—treatment of femininity. Fincher makes her case for a reasonable complementarity of male and female souls without attaching to this any kind of patriarchal model. By framing her discussion in terms of a flexible sense of 'family resemblances' among women, she offers women a better self-understanding, yet successfully avoids the stereotypes so often forced upon them.” — Ronald W. Pierce, , Professor

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