I am a feminist practical theologian and life writer and deeply engaged with issues relating to faith and everyday life. My primary research interests are in the intersection between theology and culture. I am Professor of Theology and Creative Practice and co-ordinate the Literature, Theology and the Arts Research Network within the College of Arts.
My career began with research on racism and representation for the Methodist Church. My doctoral research was on the uses of women’s literature within theological reflection and I have continued to work on the relation between theology and creative writing ever since. Life writing inspires much of my research and I have pioneered the uses of autoethnography as a theological resource.
I am deeply engaged with international developments within practical theology and served as President of the International Academy of Practical Theology (2015-17). I was Executive Editor of the OUP journal Literature and Theology until 2019 and serve on the editorial board of Theology and Sexuality. I am a member of the Flanders Research Council and will chair its religions and theology panel from 2022.
I am an experienced supervisor and co-convene Glasgow’s Doctorate in Practical Theology Programme. I welcome enquiries from those who wish to undertake research through creative and arts-based methods.
This important work belongs among an emerging body of literature that critically interrogates the... more This important work belongs among an emerging body of literature that critically interrogates the relationship between Christianity and feminism and asks awkward questions concerning the terms on which the partnership is founded. It begins by exploring the early encounters between Christianity and feminism and traces the development of feminist theologies which are described as ‘diverse, vital and often problematic’. Pears rightly insists that the fact that a number of influential Christian women publicly renounced their faith in favour of feminism has decisively shaped the development of feminist theological discourse. Feminist theologians have been intensely preoccupied with finding acceptable means of correlating their political and religious convictions. Pears argues that while this challenge may have been initially creative it is now appropriate to question what may have been neglected or repressed in the move to affirm the compatibility of Christianity and feminism. This question informs the substantive part of Pears’ book in which she compares the approaches of three women whose work represents three different forms of the Christian–feminist encounter. The work of Carter Heyward is taken as indicative of those women theologians who have welcomed the challenge feminism represents to reinterpret Christian symbols and traditions. Heyward sees this work as part of a perpetual process of reconstruction which ensures the continuing authenticity of Christian faith. The second scholar whose work Pears examines is Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Whereas Heyward freely reconstructs the theological tradition in the light of feminism, Fiorenza argues that Christianity originated as an egalitarian ‘discipleship of equals’. A Christianity that is true to its own traditions will actively seek justice for women. Pears points out that claiming a radical inclusivity within the Jesus movement allows Fiorenza to assert a direct relation between feminism and the ‘authentic tradition or even orthodoxy’. This enables Christian feminists not only to remain within their faith community but also to claim that they represent its true voice today. In the work of Marcella Althaus Reid we are presented with a very different form of encounter with the Christian tradition. Although Althaus Reid has been decisively influenced by feminist liberation theology, her current perspective as a queer theological thinker places her in a critical relation to feminism and Christianity. Queer theory suggests that gendered and sexed identities are constructed in ways
... Community College. Alana M. Vincent is a researcher at the University of Glasgow, Centre for ... more ... Community College. Alana M. Vincent is a researcher at the University of Glasgow, Centre for Literature, Theology and the Arts. Her primary interests are in the areas of material culture, Canadian literature, and Jewish liturgy. She ...
This Festschrift marks 20 years since Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her initiated t... more This Festschrift marks 20 years since Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her initiated the feminist challenge to established traditions of biblical scholarship. Written by former students, it is an affectionate and very personal tribute to Fiorenza. Not only does it enable readers to imagine what it must have been like to participate in the seminars in which her ideas developed, it also allows us to trace how significant aspects of Fiorenza’s thinking have been taken up in the scholarship of those who have charted their own intellectual careers in response to the challenges she has laid down. It encourages us who have been her ‘long-distance students’ to consider the impact her work has made upon our own lives and to realize the massive significance of her contribution to many aspects of contemporary theological thinking. This is because Fiorenza is not only a feminist biblical critic – although she could be judged the first and the best of these to have emerged in modern times. She gained a licentiate degree in practical theology and her earliest published work was on the participation of women in ministry. Her approach to the Bible has always been driven by a concern for theology in practice and she has consistently defied the instructions she received when she began teaching to shun theology in favour of critical exegesis and ‘never allow your students to ask what is the theological significance of biblical texts for today’. An awareness that women were creatively shaping the lives of contemporary Christian communities caused her to question the processes through which the record of their participation in the earliest churches had been erased. She taught her students to look more deeply into the text, to read it more carefully but also to reconstruct, revision and creatively reinvent the narrative of the
This article explores themes of maternal purification and the separation of mother and child thro... more This article explores themes of maternal purification and the separation of mother and child through close attention to the presentation narratives in Luke 2. It draws upon cultural theory, artistic representations of the narratives and theological reflection upon experience to address the ambiguities of the maternal relation. It suggests that a recovery of this ambiguity is a necessary not only for understanding this particular biblical event but also our relations with the divine.
This important work belongs among an emerging body of literature that critically interrogates the... more This important work belongs among an emerging body of literature that critically interrogates the relationship between Christianity and feminism and asks awkward questions concerning the terms on which the partnership is founded. It begins by exploring the early encounters between Christianity and feminism and traces the development of feminist theologies which are described as ‘diverse, vital and often problematic’. Pears rightly insists that the fact that a number of influential Christian women publicly renounced their faith in favour of feminism has decisively shaped the development of feminist theological discourse. Feminist theologians have been intensely preoccupied with finding acceptable means of correlating their political and religious convictions. Pears argues that while this challenge may have been initially creative it is now appropriate to question what may have been neglected or repressed in the move to affirm the compatibility of Christianity and feminism. This question informs the substantive part of Pears’ book in which she compares the approaches of three women whose work represents three different forms of the Christian–feminist encounter. The work of Carter Heyward is taken as indicative of those women theologians who have welcomed the challenge feminism represents to reinterpret Christian symbols and traditions. Heyward sees this work as part of a perpetual process of reconstruction which ensures the continuing authenticity of Christian faith. The second scholar whose work Pears examines is Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Whereas Heyward freely reconstructs the theological tradition in the light of feminism, Fiorenza argues that Christianity originated as an egalitarian ‘discipleship of equals’. A Christianity that is true to its own traditions will actively seek justice for women. Pears points out that claiming a radical inclusivity within the Jesus movement allows Fiorenza to assert a direct relation between feminism and the ‘authentic tradition or even orthodoxy’. This enables Christian feminists not only to remain within their faith community but also to claim that they represent its true voice today. In the work of Marcella Althaus Reid we are presented with a very different form of encounter with the Christian tradition. Although Althaus Reid has been decisively influenced by feminist liberation theology, her current perspective as a queer theological thinker places her in a critical relation to feminism and Christianity. Queer theory suggests that gendered and sexed identities are constructed in ways
... Community College. Alana M. Vincent is a researcher at the University of Glasgow, Centre for ... more ... Community College. Alana M. Vincent is a researcher at the University of Glasgow, Centre for Literature, Theology and the Arts. Her primary interests are in the areas of material culture, Canadian literature, and Jewish liturgy. She ...
This Festschrift marks 20 years since Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her initiated t... more This Festschrift marks 20 years since Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her initiated the feminist challenge to established traditions of biblical scholarship. Written by former students, it is an affectionate and very personal tribute to Fiorenza. Not only does it enable readers to imagine what it must have been like to participate in the seminars in which her ideas developed, it also allows us to trace how significant aspects of Fiorenza’s thinking have been taken up in the scholarship of those who have charted their own intellectual careers in response to the challenges she has laid down. It encourages us who have been her ‘long-distance students’ to consider the impact her work has made upon our own lives and to realize the massive significance of her contribution to many aspects of contemporary theological thinking. This is because Fiorenza is not only a feminist biblical critic – although she could be judged the first and the best of these to have emerged in modern times. She gained a licentiate degree in practical theology and her earliest published work was on the participation of women in ministry. Her approach to the Bible has always been driven by a concern for theology in practice and she has consistently defied the instructions she received when she began teaching to shun theology in favour of critical exegesis and ‘never allow your students to ask what is the theological significance of biblical texts for today’. An awareness that women were creatively shaping the lives of contemporary Christian communities caused her to question the processes through which the record of their participation in the earliest churches had been erased. She taught her students to look more deeply into the text, to read it more carefully but also to reconstruct, revision and creatively reinvent the narrative of the
This article explores themes of maternal purification and the separation of mother and child thro... more This article explores themes of maternal purification and the separation of mother and child through close attention to the presentation narratives in Luke 2. It draws upon cultural theory, artistic representations of the narratives and theological reflection upon experience to address the ambiguities of the maternal relation. It suggests that a recovery of this ambiguity is a necessary not only for understanding this particular biblical event but also our relations with the divine.
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