Letha Dawson Scanzoni, Pioneer of Evangelical Feminism, Dies at 88
Letha Dawson Scanzoni, an evangelical author who argued, gently but persuasively, that the Bible considered women equal to men, inspiring a wave of Christian feminism and, perhaps inevitably, a backlash against it, died on Jan.
9 in Charlotte, N.C. She was 88. Her death, at a skilled nursing facility, was from congestive heart failure, her son David Scanzoni said.
Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” was already a best seller in the mid-1960s when Ms. Scanzoni began writing for Eternity, an evangelical Christian magazine that often challenged conservative attitudes on social issues.
She had the same questions as her secular sisters: Should women be submissive to their husbands and stay out of leadership roles in the church, as many fundamentalist Christians believed?
