God's Troublemakers

This is a book about women who are changing the world as leaders in the public arena. Whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim-their work is religiously or spiritually motivated. They are religious or socio-ethical entrepreneurs, who have invented organizations or movements to repair the world. What shaped and formed them? How do they integrate a progressive social agenda with their faith? How do they exercise public leadership in a world where women's public roles are sometimes still suspect? The book is thematically organized and touches on many of the most relevant topics being discussed today: separation of church and state, the intersection of politics and religion, the silence of the progressive left and the embodiment of authentic religious pluralism. This book claims space for progressive forms of religion in an area dominated by the Religious Right. God's Troublemakers is based on extensive interviews with 11 women social entrepreneurs. The 3 best known are Sr. Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty activist; Ruth Messenger, former Manhattan Borough President and now executive director of American Jewish World Service; and Helen LaKelly Hunt, who has been a national activist funding women's causes and a leader in persuading secular feminists to make common cause with religious women.