Marcella Althaus-Reid

Althaus-Reid died on 20 February 2009, in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she had lived since 1986. At the time of her death she was Director of the International Association for Queer Theology, Director of the Queer Theology Project at the University of Edinburgh, and a member of the Metropolitan Community Church. In the last years of her life, she worked with the Argentine theologian Ivan Petrella to publicize liberation theology in the English-speaking world. She was also associate editor of the journal Studies in World Christianity and a member of the editorial board of the journal Concilium.

Althaus-Reid is perhaps most well-known for her 2002 work in Indecent Theology, in which she challenged feminists in her use of sexual and explicit language. She argued sex has been constructed by a patriarchal worldview which underpins many of the great atrocities of the world. Hence, the virginity of the Virgin Mary needs to be "indecented" as it hides the lives of many poor women who, she describes, as rarely being virgins.

She completed her doctorate in 1994 at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, writing her doctoral thesis on the influence of Paul Ricoeur in the methodology of liberation theology. Her academic interests included liberation theology, feminist theology and queer theology. Subsequently, she was appointed Professor of Contextual Theology at New College, University of Edinburgh.

Marcella Maria Althaus-Reid (Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina 11 May 1952 – Edinburgh, Scotland 20 February 2009) was Professor of Contextual Theology at New College, the University of Edinburgh. When appointed, she was the only woman professor of theology at a Scottish University and the first woman professor of theology at New College in its 160-year history.