Before the end of last year, we issued a call for papers and sent out the schedule for this year's themes of In God's Image. Based on that schedule, this March edition was supposed to focus on "Asian Feminist Leadership and Ecclesia", using materials from a workshop that was organized by AWRC in Kuala Lumpur in early 2009.

However, a number of our writers for that leadership workshop are still working on revisions and updates of their papers. Also, to our delight, we received a number of papers that could easily fill up a mixed edition. Therefore, we have changed the schedule of editions this year to be like this:

March - Mixed or open issue
June - Asian Feminist Leadership & Ecclesia
September - national issue: Hong Kong
December - Holy Spirit & Mariology

Please remember this schedule as you plan your contributions to In God's Image. And even though the topics or themes suggested may not be related to your current writings or research, please know that as always, we are happy to receive contributions for a mixed or open issue.

We are indeed very grateful to the writers/contributors of this mixed issue of In God's Image. The contributions featured in this edition reflect a wide range of concerns - from critically looking at theology as God-talk and its impact on women, to offering alternative God-talk from Asian women's perspective in view of various issues faced by Asian women.

Theology is simply defined as God-talk - talking about God, reflecting on who is God, articulating our theological reflections, raising our questions of who is God for us in our given situations. Therefore, God-talk is based on experience. However, much of what has been called classical theology, along with its codified teachings and traditions, has been based mostly on Western, White, male experience. Yet for a long time, this Western, White male God-talk has been taken as objective, normative, universal and absolute.

In Asian feminist God-talk, which is what these contributions are attempting to do, women in and from Asia ask questions of where is and who is God in situations that seem so hopeless for women and other marginalized peoples. Who is God really in situations of poverty and adversity, injustice and oppression, denied sexuality, sexual abuse, disability, and struggle for freedom and human dignity? These are among the questions that are being addressed by the papers in this edition.

We hope that you will be inspired and challenged by these contributions to do your own feminist God-talk. And furthermore, we hope that this God-talk will inspire us all to walk the talk so that our vision of a more hopeful world for women, children and all marginalized peoples will truly become a reality.

Hope S. Antone
Publications Secretary