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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores concepts and sources lutheran and Roman Catholic lay women in Latvia employ in discourses of gender equality and religion. With the help of interviews, we try to discover their hermeneutics and also the interpretation of certain passages in relation to gender equality.

Paper long abstract:

It is in our interest to discover the theology of the women interviewed in relation to gender issues. How in the age of technologies do they argue and conceptualize, and where do their ideas come from? From these interviews, we can deduce what we call a biblical reception of the grassroots, which sometimes differs from the official confessional and religious community settings. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore what kind of concepts and sources women employ in discourses of gender equality and religion. We will focus on women's statements about scriptures, how they use and understand these texts, and how they interpret them in relation to gender equality.

In the overall material, both patterns and particular cases are of great interest: Observations show that the understanding of gender roles of women interviewed are based in very general, even stereotypical, assumptions, as well as referring to writings and religious authorities. Both these ways of dealing with – or not - sacred scriptures related to issues of gender equality in a religious setting appear free and independent, granting these women religious agency. They construct their ideas by help of the bible and authoritative texts when they want to, but can also talk freely on their own behalf. Within the theoretical framework of gender theory, intersectionality, and reception history, we will analyze these findings, and highlight the role women ascribe to authoritative sources and concepts in discourses of gender equality.