Fragments For Fractured Times

If ever a period of time felt ‘fractured’ it is now. Whichever way we turn, we witness the dismembering and fracturing of many previously taken for granted realities, with maps and borders – physical and metaphorical – being redrawn before our eyes. What place for the feminist practical theologian in such a climate? “In Fragments for Fractured Times”, one of the world’s leading feminist practical theologians, Nicola Slee, brings together 15 years of papers, articles, talks and sermons, many of them previously unpublished. Collected from diverse times, places, settings and occasions, Slee offers an introduction to each fragment, “holding it up to the light and examining its size, shape, texture and pattern”. Drawing on a wide and diverse range of her writing, Slee demonstrates the richness and variety of feminist practical theological writing. What feminist theology brings to the table of scholarly thinking and embodied practice is, she suggests, something creative, artful, prophetic as well as playful – a resource for Christian living and thinking in fractured times.

Feminist practical theology has emerged in the gap between wider feminist and wider practical theology. It celebrates distinctive concerns, arguments, emphases, and questions – unafraid to re-form practical theology in shape and substance, and to guide feminist theology towards the silences and stories of human lives that some professional theologies (including those shaped by feminist commitments) sometimes overlooks. Feminist practical theology is bold in exploration of doctrinal themes in poetic and prayerful modes, characteristically collaborative and in search of alliances with other advocacy perspectives. In the UK, such commitments have been exemplified by Nicola Slee, whom this volume honours. Chapters invite readers into wide ranging conversations that flow from young women’s experiences at university, poetic practice as theology, queer priesthood, theologies of critical masculinities, women presiding in worship, Black and decolonial theologies adjacent to feminist convictions, confrontations with sexual violence, rest and rewilding, and a post-menopausal Mary. Contributors are: Al Barrett, Gavin D’Costa, Deborah Kahn-Harris, Michael N. Jagessar, Sharon Jagger, Rachel Mann, Jenny Morgans, Eleanor Nesbitt, Karen O’Donnell, Mark Pryce, Anthony G. Reddie, Ruth Shelton and Alison Wooley.

This is not a theology of neurodiversity. It is a theology from neurodiversity. In her ground-breaking and daring theological exploration, Claire Williams considers how the experience of God for an autistic person challenges and interrogates our normal theologies about knowing God. Demonstrating how her autistic perspective offers a distinct and fresh hermeneutical lens, Williams shows that a liberation theology of neurodiversity can gift the church a new way of understanding worship, practice, ethics and even the nature of Christian hope itself.

A groundbreaking collection of writings that place queer ritual at the center of the theological conversation. In this collection of essays, leading scholars in queer theology and liturgical studies explore the ways in which the distinctive theological voices of LGBTQIA+ Christians challenge and expand thinking and practice around worship in new directions. This challenge has expanded in the past decades, as obstacles to the full participation of queer Christians—particularly in marriage and ordination—have fallen. Organized into three main parts, the volume begins with an introduction to queer engagement with ritual practices, continues with a series of case studies that examine queer texts and contexts, and concludes with an examination of the horizons of queer liturgical theology and practice. Throughout the volume, Queering Christian Worship provides new imagination and tools to those who study and curate Christian worship across traditions.

What do we need to learn and receive from the other to help us address challenges or wounds in our own tradition? That is the key question asked in what has come to be known as ‘receptive ecumenism’. And nowhere is this question more pressing and pertinent than in women’s experiences within the church. Based on qualitative research from five focus groups, 'For the Good of the Church' expose the difficulties women face when they work in a church – sexism, unfulfilled vocation, and abuse of power and privilege, as well as the wide range of gifts and skills which women bring in light of these. The second part of the book continues to draw on the particular wounds and gifts, which arise in the focus groups. Specific case studies are used to identify gifts of theology, practice, experience, vocation and power. Against negative prognoses of an ‘ecumenical winter’, Gabrielle Thomas reveals how radically different theological and ecclesiological perspectives can be a space for learning and receiving gifts for the well-being of the whole Church.

Nickel-Titanium alloys are smart materials exhibiting unique properties such as superelasticity and shape-memory effect. The material has been used as orthodontic wires in the dental field for over 20 years. This book is a comprehensive overview to the field of Ni-Ti Materials and the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of this versatile alloy. In addition, complications and challenges exhibited in applications are also discussed.