Böcker av Heather Walton

This title provides a basic introduction to a variety of models of theological reflection and identifies their strengths and weaknesses, providing historical and contemporary examples of these models. It reflects the diversity of church and global traditions and the various approaches to theological reflection, and more.

This book is founded upon the understanding that things matter to people. Exploring the renewing of practical theology through critical attention to the values and practices of everyday life, this book looks at how recent cultural and epistemological shifts have generated new agendas for theological thinking. Engaging with recent debates in many disciplines that have explored the relationship between persons and objects, Walton advocates a theological methodology which is radically incarnational, though proposing that incarnational theology itself must be rethought in the light of shifts in our understandings of materiality, epistemology and embodiment: when we speak of God integrally present in the material world, God as Word or God in flesh we can no longer assume that these affirmations carry the same meaning they once did. Introducing the work of new materialists focussing in particular on Miller and Bennett and their critique of materiality and appreciation of the sacred potentiality of things, Walton then explores the possibility of an affirmative approach to the created order - including material objects - which is based upon the radically incarnational aspects of the Franciscan tradition. Drawing upon insights offered in the work of Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau, Gaston Bachelard and others to construct a theological anthropology that celebrates the significance of things in human life, Walton goes on to argue that there can be discerned within the work of 20th century women writers a mystical appreciation of materiality which is congruent with the incarnational theology being developed within this work. Examples are drawn from the writings of Virginia Woolf, Ettie Hillesum, Elizabeth Smart and Michelle Roberts in order to establish how everyday material objects may become hugely spiritually significant to people. Finally, the book explores how habitual material interactions with things can be understood as sites of potential personal or political renewal.

Explores the significance of women poststructuralist theorists for feminist reading practices in theology. This book interrogates the crucial role that literature has played in the development of feminist theology and breaks fresh ground in linking the study of literary texts and theory to creative writing.

Writing Methods in Theological Reflection offers a stimulating, provocative and accessible book that will be of use to students and practitioners who are seeking ways to use their own experience in the work of spiritual and theological reflection, This work is intended for use by the many students of theology/ministry/chaplaincy who are charged with the task of producing works of theological reflection upon placements, life experiences and faithful practiceIt will also be of general interest to a wide range of readers trying to correlate their life experiences with their spiritual beliefs.