Natalie Watson – författare

In "Exchanges of Grace", a range of distinguished contributors attend to areas of thought to which Ann Loades, Professor emerita of Durham University, has made vital contributions. These include the testing of the vitality of the Christian tradition, resulting variously in affirmation and/or critique of its resources and relevance for contemporary life; the appreciation of the manifold interconnections between Christian spirituality and Christian theology; and The Dance of Grace, reflecting Ann's consistent concern with the possibility - and costs - of the embodied generosity that can result from a sacramental imagination.

The church has always been a place of profound ambivalence for women. While the majority of those who attend church are women, women experience hierarchical exclusion and invisibility within its institutional structures. Throughout most of its history, women have not participated in the church's reflections on its own nature. And yet, feminist theologians claim that women are church and always have been church. This book explores women's experiences of being church and reclaiming the church in order to rebuild it as meaningful, open, sacramental space where everybody's presence is celebrated. Natalie Watson proposes a creative and constructive dialogue with existing theological approaches to the church, from different Christian traditions as well as more recent feminist theologians, and suggests the development of criteria which hear women's experiences of being church and reclaiming church into speech. The church is the embodied reality of all women, children and men whose stories tell the story of the Triune God.