When Julia Gillard last week became Australia's first female Prime Minister, there was general acknowledgement that feminist history was being made. But attention on her gender was in the background, and there was certainly no discussion about her fitness for the job as a woman. This signifies community acceptance that it is right and proper for a woman to take on this role.
In a similar vein, Val Webb, who is featured in this interview on Eureka Street TV, is very comfortable and confident speaking as a theologian. She represents a growing acceptance of the female voice in the realm of Christian theology which, until very recently, was dominated by ordained men. Though women are still in the minority, increasingly they are stepping up and making themselves heard.
Webb's interview was recorded at the Common Dreams conference for religious progressives held in April at St Kilda Town Hall in Melbourne. She talks about our troubled modern times providing an opportunity for renewal of religion, the need for all believers to start 'doing' their own theology, and a new openness in recognising revelation in other religions. (Continues below)
Webb has had a multi-facetted career straddling science, business administration, the arts and theology. She was born and brought up in Brisbane in a Presbyterian home, and is now a member of the Uniting Church. Her first degree was in microbiology from the University of Queensland, and after graduating she worked as a researcher in this field.
For most of the last 30 years she has lived in Rochester, Minnesota, USA, where her husband was an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic. She owned and operated an art gallery in Rochester, as well as working as an artist.
Back in Brisbane in the 1980s she led the Communications and Public Relations department at the Wesley Hospital. She began courses in religious studies at the University of Queensland, and completed her PhD in theology at Luther Seminary in St Paul, Minnesota after her family returned to live in America.
She has taught religious studies at the University of Minnesota and Augsburg College in the USA and at Whitley College in Melbourne, and has published half a dozen books including In Defense of Doubt and Why We're Equal: Introducing Feminist Theology.
Her latest book, Like Catching Water in a Net: Human Attempts to Describe the Divine, won the 'general religion' category of the USA Best