Sarah Coakley – författare

Sarah Coakley draws both liberal and conservative camps into a new and serious reflection on ascetical theology.Each chapter of The New Asceticism concentrates on a contentious issue in contemporary theology - the role of women in the churches, homosexuality and the priesthood, celibacy and the future of Christian asceticism - in an original thesis about the nature of desire which may start to heal many contemporary wounds.Professor Coakley is as familiar with the Bible and the Early Fathers as she is with the writings of Freud and Jung, and she draws heavily on Gregory of Nyssa's theology of desire in what she proposes. She points the way through the false modern alternatives of repression and libertinism, agape and eros, recovering a way in which desire can be freed from associations with promiscuity and disorder, and forging a new ascetical vision founded in the disciplines of prayer and attention.

God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginatively and spiritually. What emerges is a vision of human longing for the triune God which is both edgy and compelling: Coakley's théologie totale questions standard shibboleths on 'sexuality' and 'gender' and thereby suggests a way beyond current destructive impasses in the churches. The book is clearly and accessibly written and will be of great interest to all scholars and students of theology.

Can Christians continue to worship Jesus Christ as the full, final, and `absolute' revelation of God in an age of historical relativism, an expanding universe, and the impinging of other world faiths on Western Culture? To the great German liberal theologian Ernst Troeltsch, the answer was no; but so vehemently negative was the `neo-orthodox' reaction to his viewpoint that, until now, no full exposition of his Christology has been available.This bold and penetrating study includes a close analytical account of the nature of Troeltsch's relativism in the light of current debates in the social sciences. It assesses the strength of his case against traditional incarnationalism, and argues that Troeltsch's Christological method, far from marking the `collapse' of liberal theology, opens new possibilities for the future.

Maurice Wiles was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 1970-1991. To celebrate his seventieth birthday, a group of distinguished friends and colleagues have written this important series of original and perceptive essays on the twin themes ofmaking and remaking Christian doctrine. The topics covered in this thought-provoking collection range from the notion of divine action in Hebrew Wisdom literature to reflections on the nature of the ministry, from the concept of God and the doctrines of Christology and of the Trinity tothe character of theological reflection, and from revelation and tradition to the `lex orandi', the nature of interpretation in religion and the historical basis of theological understanding.

This book aims to highlight the distinctive and unfamiliar ways in which diverse religious traditions understand the 'body', and also, in doing this, to raise to greater consciousness some of the assumptions and problems of contemporary attitudes to it. It brings together essays by established experts in the history of religion, the social sciences, and philosophy. Part I is devoted to an analysis of current secularized discourses on the 'body', and to exposing both their anti-religious and their covertly religious content. Parts II and III provide essays on traditional 'Western' and 'Eastern' religious attitudes to the 'body'. Each contributor focuses on some (especially characteristic) devotional practices or relevant texts; each carefully outlines the total context in which a distinctive religious attitude to 'bodiliness' occurs. The result is a rich source for comparative studies of the 'body', and of its relation to society and to the divine.

God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginatively and spiritually. What emerges is a vision of human longing for the triune God which is both edgy and compelling: Coakley's théologie totale questions standard shibboleths on 'sexuality' and 'gender' and thereby suggests a way beyond current destructive impasses in the churches. The book is clearly and accessibly written and will be of great interest to all scholars and students of theology.

Is it possible to see, hear, touch, smell and taste God? How do we understand the biblical promise that the 'pure in heart' will 'see God'? Christian thinkers as diverse as Origen of Alexandria, Bonaventure, Jonathan Edwards and Hans Urs von Balthasar have all approached these questions in distinctive ways by appealing to the concept of the 'spiritual senses'. In focusing on the Christian tradition of the 'spiritual senses', this book discusses how these senses relate to the physical senses and the body, and analyzes their relationship to mind, heart, emotions, will, desire and judgement. The contributors illuminate the different ways in which classic Christian authors have treated this topic, and indicate the epistemological and spiritual import of these understandings. The concept of the 'spiritual senses' is thereby importantly recovered for contemporary theological anthropology and philosophy of religion.

This book aims to highlight the distinctive and unfamiliar ways in which diverse religious traditions understand the 'body', and also, in doing this, to raise to greater consciousness some of the assumptions and problems of contemporary attitudes to it. It brings together essays by established experts in the history of religion, the social sciences, and philosophy. Part I is devoted to an analysis of current secularized discourses on the 'body', and to exposing both their anti-religious and their covertly religious content. Parts II and III provide essays on traditional 'Western' and 'Eastern' religious attitudes to the 'body'. Each contributor focuses on some (especially characteristic) devotional practices or relevant texts; each carefully outlines the total context in which a distinctive religious attitude to 'bodiliness' occurs. The result is a rich source for comparative studies of the 'body', and of its relation to society and to the divine.

Praying for England reflects on the role of Christian priesthood in contemporary culture, and comes up with some surprising and timely insights about its efficacy and importance. There are ritual and representative functions of the priest, it argues, which remain spiritually and socially vital, even - perhaps especially - in a society which ostensibly ignores the Church, or appears so pluralistic as to lack any religious cohesion. The priestly role as mediator before God of society's deepest pains, losses, joys and irresolvable anxieties is here reimagined, and brought freshly to life though moving narratives of pastoral encounter. Above all, the priest is seen as one who goes on ‘praying for England' in decisive but often uncelebrated ways, prayer being the chief measure and test of the priest's representative role. This is a deceptively simple volume - theologically accessible but often deeply moving and profound. In it a new vision is sketched of how Christian priesthood can go forward today with humility, understated dignity, and spiritual power. It will be of special interest to English churchpeople in an ‘established' setting, but is written no less with an ecumenical and international readership in mind.

In this book Sarah Coakley confronts a central paradox of theological feminism - what she terms 'the paradox of power and vulnerability.' Confronts a central paradox of theological feminism – what Coakley terms 'paradox of power and vulnerability'.Explores this issue through the perspective of spiritual practice, philosophical enquiry and doctrinal analysis.Draws together an essential collection of Sarah Coakley's work in this field.Offers an original perspective into contemporary feminist theology.

Pain is immediate and searing but remains a deep mystery for sufferers, their physicians, and researchers. As neuroscientific research shows, even the immediate sensation of pain is shaped by psychological state and interpretation. At the same time, many individuals and cultures find meaning, particularly religious meaning, even in chronic and inexplicable pain.This ambitious interdisciplinary book includes not only essays but also discussions among a wide range of specialists. Neuroscientists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, musicologists, and scholars of religion examine the ways that meditation, music, prayer, and ritual can mediate pain, offer a narrative that transcends the sufferer, and give public dignity to private agony. They discuss topics as disparate as the molecular basis of pain, the controversial status of gate control theory, the possible links between the relaxation response and meditative practices in Christianity and Buddhism, and the mediation of pain and intense emotion in music, dance, and ritual. The authors conclude by pondering the place of pain in understanding--or the human failure to understand--good and evil in history.

According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics.Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning.The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.

Is it possible to see, hear, touch, smell and taste God? How do we understand the biblical promise that the 'pure in heart' will 'see God'? Christian thinkers as diverse as Origen of Alexandria, Bonaventure, Jonathan Edwards and Hans Urs von Balthasar have all approached these questions in distinctive ways by appealing to the concept of the 'spiritual senses'. In focusing on the Christian tradition of the 'spiritual senses', this book discusses how these senses relate to the physical senses and the body, and analyzes their relationship to mind, heart, emotions, will, desire and judgement. The contributors illuminate the different ways in which classic Christian authors have treated this topic, and indicate the epistemological and spiritual import of these understandings. The concept of the 'spiritual senses' is thereby importantly recovered for contemporary theological anthropology and philosophy of religion.

The thought of Gregory of Nyssa, the youngest of the fourth-cenrtury 'Cappadocian' Fathers, is currently at the centre of a number of important theological debates. This collection of specially commissioned essays calls the long-accepted interpretation of Gregory's trinitarianism into radical question. Gregory of Nyssa, the youngest of the fourth-century 'Cappadocian' Fathers, is currently at the centre of a number of important theological debates. Calls the long-accepted interpretation of Gregory's trinitarianism into radical question. Urges a reading of his 'pedagogy of desire' that will cause a major reconsideration of his methods of trinitarian exposition.

Dionysius the Areopagite, the early sixth-century Christian writer, bridged Christianity and neo-Platonist philosophy. Bringing together a team of international scholars, this volume surveys how Dionysius’s thought and work has been interpreted, in both East and West, up to the present day. One of the first volumes in English to survey the reception history of Dionysian thought, both East and WestProvides a clear account of both modern and post-modern debates about Dionysius’s standing as philosopher and Christian theologianExamines the contrasts between Dionysius’s own pre-modern concerns and those of the post-modern philosophical traditionHighlights the great variety of historic readings of Dionysius, and also considers new theories and interpretationsAnalyzes the main points of hermeneutical contrast between East and West

A fascinating collection of essays exploring a fresh contemporary approach to the person and doctrine of Jesus ChristHow should Christians think about the person of Jesus Christ today? In this volume, Sarah Coakley argues that this question has to be 'broken open' in new and unexpected ways: by an awareness of the deep spiritual demands of the christological task and its strikingly 'apophatic' dimensions; by a probing of the paradoxical ways in which Judaism and Christianity are drawn together in Christ, even by those issues which seem to 'break' them most decisively apart; and by an exploration of the mode of Christ's presence in the eucharist, with its intensification, 'breaking' and re-gathering of human desires. In this sequel to her celebrated earlier volume of essays, Powers and Submissions, Coakley returns to its unifying theme of divine power and contemplative submission, and weaves a new web of christological outcomes which remain replete with controversial implications for gender, spirituality and ethics.The Broken Body will be of interest to those working in the fields of systematic theology, philosophy of religion, early Christian studies, Jewish/Christian relations, and feminist and gender theory."Fusing biblical and patristic theology, analytic philosophy, and spiritual tradition, Sarah Coakley has produced a fascinating, inspiring, and compelling account of Christ's identity, and its importance for questions of life."—Professor Mark Wynn, University of Oxford"Coakley argues that good Christology arises only from intellectual and spiritual postures learnt by encountering Christ openly. This volume subtly and powerfully facilitates such encounter, with God and, in him, with our neighbours, especially the Jewish people."—Professor Judith Wolfe, University of St. Andrews"Everything we have come to expect from Sarah Coakley is here in this extraordinary collection: wonderful clarity; startling and fruitful comparisons, within and beyond the theological canon; a brisk defiance of feminist conventions that in turn sharpens and deepens feminist analysis; a resistance to cheap theological certainties; and an abiding faithfulness, anchored in Christ, borne aloft by the Spirit. Christology is here shown to embrace abjection and jouissance, to advocate sacrifice that is itself the end of patriarchal violence, and to demand a eucharistic sharing that is incomplete without solidarity to the outcast and the poor, themselves the face of the living Christ. In these essays Coakley exemplifies the semiotic richness of priest and scholar, a breaking open of theological reserves that will transgress, startle, renew, instruct. This is sacrifice, re-made."—Professor Katherine Sonderegger, Virginia Theological Seminary

Faith, Rationality and the Passions presents a fresh and original examination of the relation of religious faith, philosophical rationality and the passions. Contributions see leading scholars refute the widely-held belief that religious Enlightenment forced passion and reason apart. Leading Philosophical experts offer new research on the relation of faith, reason and the passions in classic and Enlightenment figuresOverturns the widely-held presumption that the Enlightenment was responsible for creating a gulf between reason and passionPresents original and innovative research on the importance of the late-19th century creation of the category of ‘emotion’, and its striking difference from classic ideas of passionBrings together secular science and philosophy of emotion with philosophical theology to seek a new integration of belief, emotion and reason

This study provides a new critical assessment of Jean Daniélou's classic rendition of the theme of "spiritual sensation" in the work of Gregory of Nyssa, arguing that it has surprising wider relevance for such pressing contemporary cultural problems as racism, sexism and addiction to pornography.

The Vowed Life reflects on a paradox in the Church today: one that represents an important challenge to its mission and witness. Vows continue to be made sacramentally in the Church, yet there remains a great longing for a vowed life which would be truly transforming and life-giving. Vows are simultaneously alluring and unappealing: lay memberships of religious orders have escalated, yet very few traditional religious communities have attracted younger members due to their more demanding lifelong commitments. The Vowed Life explores why and how this has come to be, and how the Church urgently needs to respond to this paradoxical challenge.Returning to baptism as the anchor of all other Christian vows, a range of contributors consider whether the longing for forms of life thatare profoundly life-changing is a displaced desire for something that should be intrinsic to Christian life. In a Church that prioritises pastoral sensitivity, they ask how those demands could be newly expressed for our culture. In seeking a coherent theology of vows in liturgical practice and sacramental context, they find that fresh attention to ‘the vowed life’ also has much to offer to the Church’s continuing conversations about sex, gender and identity, and to a ‘mixed ecology’ approach to the life of the Church and its mission.

Arguably the most imaginative and energetic church response to the pandemic has been that of HeartEdge, the interdenominational church renewal movement founded at St Martin in the Fields by Samuel Wells but now extending beyond the UK to Europe, North America and Australia. From serving thousands of meals on London’s streets to becoming, in all but name, an online conference centre and theological college offering hundreds of events, one outstanding feature of its programme has been Samuel Wells’ monthly conversations about the future of the Church with leading figures from Britain and America, attended by large online audiences. This volume offers a distillation of those conversations which, instead of being preoccupied with decline, focus on what Christian presence and practice might look like in the world that is being reshaped by what the pandemic has revealed, and the theology that is needed to sustain such a vision.

The traditional landscape of Anglican parish ministry is irrevocably changing. Priests have traditionally understood themselves as maintaining centres of prayer and spiritual care for people in a particular place, but urgent pressures on parish ministry are changing this. For God's Sake seeks to discern what priests are called to do in the new shape the church is taking. It looks for signs of God’s kingdom in today’s signs of the times, and ways of being both faithful and creative in the face of an uncertain future. A range of contributors explore first-hand the contradictions and paradoxes of a priest’s daily life, reflecting on how the wisdom of the past and the new initiatives of evangelization are shaping their vocation to prayer, study and speaking the good news of Jesus Christ.