In 1960, Valerie Saiving published a groundbreaking essay, “The Human Situation: a Feminine View,” in which she pointed to the failures of classical sin-talk to account for the ways that women sin. As an early work of feminist theology, the article pointed to the androcentrism of theology: classical notions of sin were rooted in the failures and temptations of men. It also set the stage for feminist treatment of sin going forward. For Saiving, it was theologically inaccurate to identify women's experience of sinfulness with pride and will-to-power. Instead, she argues, the “feminine forms of sin … are better suggested by such items as triviality, distractibility, and diffuseness … in short, underdevelopment or negation of the self.”

Amid multiple crises in our world, academic theology is facing a crisis in Catholic higher education, leading to a smaller place for theology and religious studies in increasingly precarious Catholic institutions. Rather than succumbing to despair or continuing in denial, this address encourages theologians to embrace the virtue of humility and the smallness of the vocation of the theologian in the midst of this turmoil. As “theologians minor” we are called to embrace our own smallness and our own importance in the church and the world, and to build communities closer to the margins of our church and world to which we provide a vital witness.