From Preservation to Flourishing: Feminist Ecclesiology and the Church as Living Organism

This paper engages feminist ecclesiology as a critical resource for prophetic imagination and ecclesial futures. Drawing on one co-author’s forthcoming publication, the first half of the paper introduces the four marks of the feminist church, holistic, incarnate, utopic, and apostolic, which function as prophetic counter-visions to patriarchal and colonial ecclesial history. The second half extends these feminist marks toward an ontological re-imagining of the church as a living organism embedded within an interconnected ecosystem. Engaging feminist, womanist, queer, and decolonial perspectives alongside living systems theory, the paper argues that futures-oriented ecclesiology requires not merely new strategies, but a fundamental shift in how the church understands its being, knowing, and purpose. Rather than preserving institutional life, a vision of church as a living organism within an ecosystem calls the church towards practices of humility, relationality, and collective flourishing amid planetary crisis.