This thesis is born out of my own experiences of abuse and of the liberating energy of the divine within this process. There was a struggle and I did not have a language to name my own pain. Both society and the church left me voiceless in relation to my particular experiences but I found a voice in art. From these beginnings I developed a passionate desire to find a new model for our female children, one of empowered embodiment and radical connection, as I realise I was not alone in my experience of voiceless vulnerability. It is my hope that the model I develop will make the girl child less vulnerable to patriarchal systems while not losing the strength of mutual vulnerability of which theologians speak. Therefore, I examine what Christianity offers the girl child in the areas of sexuality and spirituality and then move on to ask if the interdisciplinary mingling of the new cosmology with feminist theology, which gave me my voice, offers bigger, bolder and more creative spaces in which to grow empowered and passionate girl children. The new cosmology builds on the embodied opportunities that feminist and radical sexual theology open up for us by exploring the place of the body in the widest possible sphere that of the cosmos itself while not losing the intimacy of that task. This can be demonstrated in the work of Rupert Sheldrake and Judy Cannato who explore the resonance of energetic fields yet link this with human reality. Further, the work of Peter Levine and Maggie Klein, Linda Hartley and Luce Irigaray in the area of breath demonstrates the scientific and also theological significance of this fully embodied activity. Part of my work is a set of painted panels illustrating our Universe story from the Big Bang to the creation of our planet. These are the backbone of the art work from which I develop a series of other art works which demonstrate my interpretation of the interplay between embodied narrative of the internal world of the feminine and that of the external environment of theology, society, religion and culture. My art work shows the artist as present as it weaves its way in the written narrative of my thesis.

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Christian feminist theologians state that community, connection, and caring are the means by which women live their lives and through which women understand and express their faith. These theologians also claim that their theologies are based on women's expeniences. In this thesis I ask, are the ideas of community, connection, and caring proposed by these theologians relevant to older women in Britain today? Are older women's experiences reflected in Christian feminist theologies? Should there be a separate theology of older women based on these concepts? I explore these questions first by considering ideas of community, connection, and caring put forward by feminists and Christian feminist theologians and then by comparing these ideas with the lived experiences of older women themselves. These experiences are gathered from the field of social gerontology as well as from new empirical research: semi-structured interviews with 40 churchgoing Methodist and Anglican women in York, aged 65 and over. Data analysis indicates that community, connection, and caring are important and desirable aspects of older women's lives, and that the family and the local church are significant sources of these entities and processes. In this respect, older women's experiences are reflected in Christian feminist theologies, although this appears to be more by default than by design. In addition, their experiences (for example, of being a newcomer to a church congregation or of working to maintain an identity as a carer in a society that views them as recipients of care only) are not universally positive, adding dissenting voices to the largely enthusiastic assertions of the theologians. Consequently, I propose a move towards a Christian feminist practical theology of older women-a theology based on older women's experiences of community, connection, and caring and calling for informed, committed praxis by the churches, suggestions for which are offered. Such a feminist theology would complement other developing theologies and spiritualities of older women. At the same time, it would be flexible and provisional, taking on board new developments and data as they arise-particularly as succeeding generations of women age-and intentionally incorporating them.

This thesis reclaims the eschatological future in light of and for feminist theology. It is mindful of critiques which expose the patriarchal, androcentric, and futuristic tendencies of traditional eschatological thought. Themes are detected amongst these critiques that pertain to the process, content, and time of eschatology: feminist theologians have proposed that traditional models of eschatology present the process as known and controlled by God alone; the content as fleshless and static; and the time as dislocated from present realities and concerns. Feminist theologians respond by attending to and affirming the complexities and significance of present embodiments. Three aspects of existence that are typically associated with women emerge as integral to this pursuit; namely embodied relationality, fluidity, and sensuality. I detect in these responses both potentials and problems. Reclaiming aspects of existence that have been excluded from and therefore devalued by eschatology, specifically because of their association with women, is affirmed as a necessary and important contribution. However, I note that the overwhelming (if understandable) reluctance amongst feminist theologians to speak of eschatological finality, or to grasp at specificity about the future, prevents us from hoping for fulfilled experiences of these aspects, and robs all of creation of a usable and hopeful future. The eschatological future is ultimately left in the hands of patriarchy. I attempt, therefore, to reconstruct the process, content, and time of eschatology in such a way that it not only affirms embodied relationality, fluidity, and sensuality, but also offers new and beneficial ways to think about these values. My thesis is thus firmly rooted in present feminist perspectives on, and some women’s experiences of, embodiment. What is more, it converses with these by negotiating some ways in which a reconstructed eschatology can be open to and changed by our present existences, even as it is able to inform and direct them. My ultimate goal is to uncover in the eschatological future a way in which to take and transform patriarchal constructions of female bodies in order to uncover a real and present hope for all bodies.

This research originates in my own practice of writing feminist liturgy, and creating rituals with and for groups of women. Its purpose is to explore the contemporary practice of women who are designing and enacting their own liturgies, rituals or ceremonies in relation to transition in their lives. This thesis surveys the development of what has been variously called ‘the women’s liturgical movement’, ‘feminist liturgy’ or ‘feminist spirituality’; before focusing on the process by which women have created their own rituals in relation to significant changes in their lives. The research draws on qualitative research methods, including participant observation, ethnographic techniques, and reflective practice, to analyse twelve case studies of rituals. It brings this material into dialogue with pastoral theology and social anthropology. It argues that women’s ritualising, or ritual making, is a dynamic, flexible process in contrast to traditional definitions of ritual. It offers a feminist critique of Turner’s theories of liminality and communitas, based on the work of Caroline Walker Bynum. It explores the tension between personal experience and wider social concern, arguing that women’s practice in making ritual is negotiating and re-defining the boundary between private and public. The process of creating ritual is explored further in relation to ideas of the narrative construction of identity, and performance theory. The thesis develops the argument that women’s activity in creating ritual is a construction of their own identity and agency in resistance to patriarchal tradition; and that their rituals, rather than expressing traditional theology and doctrine, are constructing feminist theology, or, in the case of Goddess rituals, thealogy. Finally the thesis looks at the implications of the practice of women’s ritual making for pastoral liturgy, practical theology, and Christian feminist theology.

The influence of feminist theology upon Christian pastoral practice and theological discourse has been growing in significance since the late 1960s. The critical impact of feminism has been to challenge many of the received traditions and conventions as sectional and androcentric; and its reconstructive impetus has exposed neglected areas of pastoral need, generated novel patterns of ministry, and articulated more inclusive models of religious language and theological metaphors. However, such practices and debates are also conducted within a social context of relations between women and men, and concern the experience of inhabiting a culture as a gendered person. Thus theological reflection on pastoral practice cannot pursue its deliberations in isolation from wider debates concerning questions of gender ontogeny, gender relations and the cultural representations of women and men. This thesis, therefore, considers the significance of theories of gender for Christian pastoral practice and theological formulation. It begins by interrogating a comprehensive selection of material from a wide range of disciplines in the human and social sciences. This reveals a model of human nature, agency and self-understanding that is necessarily self-reflexive; gender emerges not as an ontological category, but as the product of human practices by which culture and social relations are constituted. Cultural values relating to the nature of human ontology, epistemology, subjectivity, agency and teleology construct the norms by which such practices are organized. Christian pastoral practices are also embodiments of values and truth-claims. Historical and contemporary writings in pastoral theology exhibit a diversity of sources and norms by which models of pastoral practice have been directed and informed. If human experience as gendered renders the core truth-claims of purposeful human practices as contingent, contextual and provisional, then the articulation and evaluation of the normative principles of purposeful pastoral practice must rest upon forms of practical reasoning generated by the intentional community itself. The work of several social theorists is examined in order to construct critical criteria for a model of phronesis sufficient to reflect the contingency of human experience without collapsing into self-absorption or relativism. By regarding practical knowledge as positional, relational and embodied, communities may affirm the specificity and integrity of their own truth-claims, whilst recognizing the alterity at the heart of human identity. Part Three concludes by proposing a new disciplinary identity for Pastoral Theology; in the light of the preceding engagement with theories of gender, it is to be characterized as a critical phenomenology of pastoral practice. Pastoral practices sensitive to human experience as gendered will aim to build communities which resist the foreclosure of gender hierarchy and ontological difference, and see to realize a community grounded in the shared humanity of women and me. Such practices are theologically disclosive, too, in that a recognition of the 'Other' beyond the boundaries of our own particularity points to the possibilities of a transcendent, divine dimension amidst, and beyond, the immediacy and concretion of the pastoral encounter.

Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / D.Th.(Systematic Theology)

One of the presuppositions of the present research is that readers and their contexts play a significant role in the interpretation of biblical texts. The key text of this thesis is Proverbs 31: 10-31 and the main readers are African women in a kyriarchal South African (Northern Sotho) context. Given their context of a multiplicity of oppressive forces ( racism, sexism, classism and African culture), how can these women read Proverbs 31: 10-31 appropriately with a view to their liberation? The researcher proposes a new woman's liberationist perspective, a Bosadi perspective, a perspective committed amongst others, to the African-ness of the African woman in South Africa. The question is: If Proverbs 31:10-31 is read from a Bosadi (Womanhood) perspective, how will the Northern Sotho women in a South African context find the text - a text emerging from a kyriarchal Hebraic culture? Will they find it to be oppressive or liberative or will it be found to be containing both elements? The present researcher, like many reformist women liberation biblical scholars (cf some feminists and womanists ), argues that though the Bible emerged from patriarchal cultures, and contains elements oppressive to women, it also has liberative elements. Through the use of socio-critical hermeneutics, reception criticism and historical-criticism, evidence supporting this came to light as the present researcher re-read Proverbs 31:10-31 from a Bosadi critical perspective. It is therefore argued that when the Bible was used by the previous proponents of apartheid to subordinate people of other races, Black Theologians re-read the Bible from a Black perspective and used it for the racial liberation of Black South Africans. Likewise, an average South African woman, particularly an African woman, is basically a victim of male interpreters who use the Bible to subordinate women. It is the task of all African women to take the responsibility upon themselves to use appropriate tools in re-reading the Bible in order to discover that the Bible does not only alienate them, it is also the liberating word; the word which makes more sense to them because of their relationship with the Word which became flesh (Jn 1:1). / D. Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies)

Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th.(Systematic Theology)