Hertig's slim but bold book advocates for an Asian American feminist theology animated by the concept of yin, which represents the female energy of Taoism, whereas yang represents the complementary male energy. This “yinist” feminism and spirituality is motivated by two criticisms. First, feminism—specifically, white feminism—while correct in its rejection of gender inequities, is limiting because it rotates male-based hierarchies with white female, upper-middle-class-based hierarchies, thus masking the intersections among gender, class, and race. This critique is rooted in a deeper diagnosis of feminism's persistent use of the “dualistic epistemological trap of either/or, powerful/powerless, and center/margin,” which “conditions people to think in terms of contrast and difference” (4). Unless this dualism is overcome, Asian American Christian women will continue to feel estranged from feminism despite its liberative intentions. Hertig aims to remedy this problem of dualism with Taoism's yin-and-yang epistemology of wholeness. This epistemology dislodges patriarchy in a manner that allows “all women from different contexts [to] equally share in one another's particularities and commonalities as human beings” (6).

Hertig argues that this ying-and-yang epistemology of wholeness is especially needed in Asian American evangelical Christianity, of which she considers herself an adherent. This represents the second motivation underlying her yinist feminism. Too often, Hertig claims, many Asian American Christian women are curtailed in their agency by the pervasive patriarchal insistence that they act passively and self-sacrificially. These cross-bearing attitudes, she claims further, are sustained by Confucian values that are fused into Christian belief and practice, especially among first generation Asian American Christians. Yinist feminism resists such gender roles in favor of inclusivity: because yin and yang are dialectically interdependent, diffusing false dualisms, both men and women are called to embody humility and compassion, love and forgiveness, and share responsibilities in the pulpit.

Hertig proposes that a yinnist emphasis on wholeness corresponds to womanist theology's aims and, especially, Celtic and ecofeminist spiritualities. The latter two are the focus of chapters 2 and 3, respectively. It is, however, precisely because yinist feminism is characterized as paralleling these theologies and spiritualities that the question of yinist feminism's distinctiveness relative to other liberation theologies and spiritualities arises.

That question is especially pronounced in chapter 4, where we find Hertig's interpretation of the Old Testament's Queen Vashti and Queen Esther as models of yinnist feminist resistance to unjust hierarchy. This interpretation, however, is hardly couched within her yin-and-yang paradigm, save for a brief paragraph toward the end of the chapter. Similarly, in chapter 5, where Hertig engages the story of Jesus and the Samaritan women in John 4, her yin-and-yang paradigm comes into play only well after she has shown how this story underscores the centrality of dialogical encounter as the grounds for liberative agency. Does this reading of John 4, therefore, come to the fore because of her yinnist feminism or does it simply confirm her reading of John 4? If it merely confirms, then to what extent is yinist feminism hermeneutically necessary? Furthermore, what is the precise significance in approaching Scripture and resisting patriarchy through a yinist feminist lens if, as Hertig notes, many Asian American Christians, especially second generation and beyond, are not always familiar with (nor care for) their ancestral traditions?

These questions are largely unaddressed. But they may be beside the point. The immense value of Hertig's book resides in later chapters where she offers concrete models of practice for transforming Asian American church life. Highly constructive are chapters 6 and 7, where her interpretations of Acts 6 and 1 Corinthians 12 yield clear guidelines for mediating cross-cultural conflict and embracing diversity in the church. Particularly inspiring is her account of two Korean Christian women who modeled yinnist resistance to Japanese colonial rule in the early twentieth century (chapter 8). Also powerful are the accounts of Asian American women who experienced injustices in their churches and professional lives (chapter 9). In naming how the Asian American body of Christ is divided, these accounts envision the necessary path forward to wholeness. These are lessons that all Christians, Asian or not, do well to learn.