Daphne Hampson:

Obviously the Christian church is better off with feminists than without feminists. Therefore if one is a feminist and a Christian one should stay in the Christian church and work for change. I do not underestimate what that means: how time and energy consuming, how discouraging and at times undermining it is. I remember well. We need feminists at every point in society, and I have no desire to criticise others who are holding the front at a point where I am not and cannot be. The only reasons for leaving can be that one is too desperately hurt, or that one no longer feels at home within the Christian church and religion. For me the break was not easy. As one thing after another fell away—going to the eucharist, reading the Bible, I came to wonder whether anything would remain. But prayer and a love of God, which were simply too deep in me, held. In some ways I have managed to rebuild. My religion is now more closely integrated with all else I believe about the world than it was before. I have prised apart Christianity and being a religious person—an effort which has taken time and thought and the help of others.