The Girl Who Baptized Herself: How a Lost Scripture about a Saint Named Thecla Reveals the Power of Knowing Our Worth

An invigorating exploration of a paradigm-shifting and nearly erased first-century scripture about a teenager named Thecla, a story that reveals that the foundation of Christianity is far more radical and embracing of personal and collective change than we  are often led to believe.

Meggan Watterson wasn’t raised Christian; she was raised feminist. The sign of the cross invoked fear, judgement, and erasure. Reading the New Testament for the first time at a young age, she couldn’t shake off the sense that there had to be more to god than what she encountered on the page—a father figure, who, going all the way back to Christ, was exclusively attributed to a male succession. Meggan set out to find the scripture that she knew must exist—one that calls us to love each other and fight for our truth. So when she discovered the story of Thecla as a young seminary student, she felt like she finally found the version of Christianity she'd long been searching for.

Thecla, a seventeen-year-old living in Roman-occupied Turkey in 70 AD, is engaged and soon to be married. But when she hears Paul preaching outside her bedroom window, she can’t seem to turn away. Paul’s words about a god who is there to steer humanity away from judgement and towards compassion in a wandering world, transfix her. Enraging her fiancée, she remains by the window, fasting for three days, with an aim to get baptized so she can devote her life to these teachings. He reports Paul to authorities and accuses him of being a seducer; of convincing women to no longer become wives. Paul is sent to prison, and exiled by the governor, who also orders Thecla to be burnt at the stake. But what follows next is the story of a woman who rises above obstacles when she listens to the power that exists within during the onset of a miraculous storm. 

As Watterson, a Harvard Divinity trained feminist theologian, takes us on a spirited journey alongside Thecla, she synthesizes scripture, memoir, and politics to finally pass the mic from the Christian right. The result is a revival of a Christianity that too often gets forgotten about—the Christianity that our times are calling to be reclaimed. The same form of Christianity that, with its unwavering commitment to love, presented such a profound threat to existing power structures that it can easily be understood our first ever equal rights movement. The Girl Who Baptized Herself urges us to learn from the radical foundations of it, pushing us to own the innate power that exists inherently within ourselves.