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An examination is made of Sharon Welch's political realist position. Welch, in contrast to Ruether, locates moral norms and the divine in particular human communities, and all moral claims are radically relative to those particular contexts. Appeals to an experience or reality that transcends our interactions in communities are illusory justifications of our own relative positions, since only within community interaction can we transcend ourselves as we see the limitations of our understandings through the criticism of others. Welch is a political realist in the sense that she is suspicious of the power interests hidden behind truth claims, and she is cynical in her skepticism of any substantive grounding for moral claims. It is shown that each of these proposals undercuts a crucial aspect of feminist moral judgment and, thus, does not lessen, but rather unintentionally supports, further domination.

This chapter addresses one of the most contested issues in feminist theology today: solidarity. Three important contemporary approaches to this issue (by white feminists Sharon Welch and Sheila Greeve Davaney and womanist M. Shawn Copeland) are examined. In critical conversation with Welch's views on communicative action, Davaney's pragmatism, and Copeland's appeal to eucharistic unity, the chapter proposes some conditions under which feminists might continue rethinking the notion of solidarity. This is followed by discussion of how a metaphor borrowed somewhat eclectically from the field of dance improvisation theory can help us look anew (though still very skeptically) at solidarity in light of inescapable and determinative differences in women's experience.

This introductory chapter starts by describing the setting within which the book was written, and provides an outline of the main contents. It the next two sections, it goes on to give the historical background to and definitions of Christian realism, and describe the assumptions and methodology used. The next section sketches a general argument about transcendence and immanence that is common to many, but not all, Christian theologies, and the following one argues that common feminist rejections of radical human self‐transcendence are bad for feminism because they undercut that which makes the feminist experience possible. The last four sections of the chapter discuss feminists on freedom, feminists on divine transcendence, Reinhold Niebuhr as a feminist resource, and feminist Christian realism as it emerges in the book from a mutually critical interaction among Niebuhr, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Sharon Welch.

This final chapter points toward an alternative position that critically retrieves the realisms of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sharon Welch, and Reinhold Niebuhr, and finds a middle way between the idealistic realism about moral grounding found in Ruether and some early feminists, and the radically relative political realism of Welch and some other postmodern feminists. This alternative joins an appeal to human self‐transcendence and divine transcendence with an affirmation of human boundedness and divine presence. At the same time, it takes seriously, Ruether's turn to creation and Welch's turn to community. In this alternative model – a feminist Christian realism – the author hopes to maintain both substantive grounding for moral claims and critical judgment of them.

This chapter explores the role of the ethic of risk in progressive lawyering. Drawing on Sharon Welch's feminist ethic of risk, it considers the practice of public interest law as it relates to a dual commitment to social justice and the necessity of getting one's hands dirty. Lawyers and clients work together within an internally consistent and morally informed ethic of risk, which involves tactical and informed risk-taking. They engage in principled acts of resistance when, where, and how they can, and articulate a critique of the systems in which they work and a theory of justice. This chapter examines how a systematic and integrated ethic guides the work of lawyers and clients toward social justice. It also discusses lawyer and client attitudes toward social change, autonomy, collaboration, and lawyer–client relationships.

This chapter explores the role of the ethic of risk in progressive lawyering. Drawing on Sharon Welch's feminist ethic of risk, it considers the practice of public interest law as it relates to a dual commitment to social justice and the necessity of getting one's hands dirty. Lawyers and clients work together within an internally consistent and morally informed ethic of risk, which involves tactical and informed risk-taking. They engage in principled acts of resistance when, where, and how they can, and articulate a critique of the systems in which they work and a theory of justice. This chapter examines how a systematic and integrated ethic guides the work of lawyers and clients toward social justice. It also discusses lawyer and client attitudes toward social change, autonomy, collaboration, and lawyer–client relationships.