Jann Aldredge-Clanton

Aldredge-Clanton served as one of the contributors for the CEB (Common English Bible) Women's Bible.(Common English Bible; Sew edition, 2016)

Aldredge-Clanton's hymns have received numerous honors. "Renewing, Reforming the Church in our Day" won in the category of "New Hymn Text for Traditional Hymn Tune" in United Theological Seminary’s first annual song and hymn writing competition; the judges commented that this text "has outstanding theological significance in church renewal." In 2013, the Religious Institute selected Aldredge-Clanton’s “Praise the Source of All Creation” as the winner of its first hymn contest. In 2011, St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, sponsored a hymn contest in celebration of 25 years of Jesuit leadership; her hymn “Celebrate Our Maker’s Glory” won third place. “We Come in Celebration” won honorable mention in the 2012 Alliance of Baptists hymn contest. “O Loving Creator, We Labor with You” won honorable mention in the 2007 international hymn contest sponsored by Macalester Plymouth United Church of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Many traditionalists are critical of Aldredge-Clanton's views. Plumeline, a conservative Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) publication, criticizes the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) for Aldredge-Clanton's leadership at a CBF annual gathering: “The SBC has no feminist theologian leaders calling for the worship of the ‘Christ-Sophia.’ But the CBF does. Jann Aldredge-Clanton conducted a breakout session at the 1995 General Assembly and is a promoter of feminist theology. She is the cited ‘leader’ who espouses ‘Christ-Sophia.’” Additionally The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an evangelical organization opposing an egalitarian view of gender, takes the organization, Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), to task for including Aldredge-Clanton's children's book, God, A Word for Girls and Boys, in the CBE webstore.

Since 1990, Aldredge-Clanton has been writing, speaking, and preaching on feminist theology and specifically on including female language for the Divine as a foundation for equality, justice, and peace.

In 1968, Aldredge-Clanton received the Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in English] from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, then known as Louisiana Polytechnic Institute. She procured Master of Arts and PhD degrees from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. She then obtained the Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, also in Fort Worth.

Jann Aldredge-Clanton (born 1946 in Abilene, Texas) is an ordained Christian minister, author, teacher, and chaplain, who leads workshops and conferences throughout the United States. She has authored nine books, three hymnbooks, a children's musical, and a children's songbook. She has also published many articles in publications such as Christian Feminism Today, The Journal of Pastoral Care, The Christian Ministry, and Patheos. She specializes in feminist theology and inclusive worship resources.

She is younger of two daughters of H. Truman Aldredge (1912–1966), the pastor from 1950 until his death of the First Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Minden, Louisiana. She graduated in 1964 as the valedictorian of Minden High School. Her mother, Eva Louise Hickerson Aldredge Henley (1918–2016), an educator and Baptist laywoman, married another Southern Baptist pastor, Odus Taylor Henley (1918–2000), after the death of her first husband and spent her later years in San Angelo, Texas. She taught Sunday school for eighty-two years. Truman and Eva Aldredge are interred at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden, Louisiana.