Years ago, I saw feminist artist Judy Chicago's legendary installation The Dinner Party (1979), a table set with hand-fashioned settings for 39 women guests of honor from Ishtar and Judith to Christine de Pisan and Sojourner Truth.
Seeing the Dinner Party was, of course, a religious experience, just as Chicago intended it to be.
I found myself most captivated by the place setting for Anne Hutchinson (1591 - 1643), the feminist Puritan who led study groups in her own home in Boston and weighed in on thorny theological questions--works versus grace--that divided leaders of church and colony. For the record, Anne Hutchinson stood on the side of grace, communicated immediately to believers by the Holy Spirit, no need for Church leaders.
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