Carter Heyward

In 2014 she co-edited with Janine Lehane The Spirit of the Lord Is upon Me: The Writings of Suzanne Hiatt (Seabury Books, NY). Sue was a key figure among the Philadelphia Eleven and an "unofficial bishop" to many a woman ordinand and/or deacon in the United States and abroad.

Heyward is the author of some eleven books and has edited / contributed to a further three. She is the author of numerous scholarly and more mainstream articles. An appreciation of Heyward's work can be found in chapter five of Lucy Tatman's 2001 book Knowledge That Matters: A Feminist Theological Paradigm and Epistemology (London: Sheffield Academic Press).

Heyward was also the author of When Boundaries Betray Us (1993), which was a source of controversy. Some read it superficially as an account of Heyward falling in love with her therapist or simply a bad match between therapist and client. Others read it as a critique of the structure of traditional psychoanalytic therapy for its skewed power-imbalance. Over time and two editions, the latter interpretation has prevailed among many serious psychotherapists.

Heyward holds the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Randolph-Macon Woman's College (now Randolph College) in Lynchburg, Virginia, the degree of Master of Arts in the comparative study of religion from Columbia University, and that of Master of Divinity in religion and psychiatry from Union Theological Seminary. She was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in systematic theology in 1980 for her work on redemption in the thought of two early Christian thinkers. She taught at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1975, and was Howard Chandler Robbins Professor of Theology there until she retired in 2006. The inaugural Carter Heyward Scholars Lecture was given at the college in her honor in October 2006. She received the Distinguished Alumni/ae Award from Union Theological Seminary in 1998.

Isabel Carter Heyward (born 1945) is an American feminist theologian and priest in the Episcopal Church, the province of the worldwide Anglican Communion in the United States. In 1974, she was one of the Philadelphia Eleven, eleven women whose ordinations eventually paved the way for the recognition of women as priests in the Episcopal Church in 1976.

Heyward was born on August 22, 1945, in Charlotte, North Carolina. She grew up in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She graduated from East Mecklenburg High School in 1963.