Public Theology is a rapidly growing international field of study which focuses on how Christian belief and practice engage with wider social issues. Yet, whilst the ultimate concern of public theology is the well-being of society, this body of theology has largely developed without integrating the thinking of feminist theology and its insights into womens' lives and experience. Public Theology and the Challenge of Feminism argues that public theology risks re-inscribing traditional constructs of public and private, civic and domestic, and uncritical notions of gender and the work and worth of people. The book brings together both theory and case material to expose how public theology has actively downplayed or ignored feminist perspectives and to reveal how constructive feminism can be for the future of public theology.

Public Theology is a rapidly growing international field of study which focuses on how Christian belief and practice engage with wider social issues. Yet, whilst the ultimate concern of public theology is the well-being of society, this body of theology has largely developed without integrating the thinking of feminist theology and its insights into womens' lives and experience. Public Theology and the Challenge of Feminism argues that public theology risks re-inscribing traditional constructs of public and private, civic and domestic, and uncritical notions of gender and the work and worth of people. The book brings together both theory and case material to expose how public theology has actively downplayed or ignored feminist perspectives and to reveal how constructive feminism can be for the future of public theology.

'Resurrecting Erotic Transgression' presents a feminist theological methodology based on the work of Julia Kristeva. This methodology provides the means for 'subjecting ambiguity', bringing to theology a recognition of the multiplicity of language and identity. A method of 'poetic reading' is proposed with a three stage process: articulation of the dualities present in and around a focal discourse; subversion of these dualities through a range of strategies; and the re-presentation of the discourse emphasising its ambiguous nature. The hermeneutical method of 'poetic reading' is explored in relation to three biblical texts and an image of the 'otherness' of God as whore.

Resurrecting Erotic Transgression presents a feminist theological methodology based in the poststructuralism of Julia Kristeva (b. 1941). This methodology provides the means for subjecting ambiguity or bringing into human communication (including theology) a recognition of the multiplicity of language and identity. Such recognition arises from sustained attention to the otherness or alterity of language and subjectivity. This attention produces an ambivalent enjoyment (jouissance) of the shattering of the idea of identity as unitary and singular, and an overturning of the effect of extant dualities in language and identity. A method of poetic reading is proposed with a three stage process: articulation of the dualities present in and around a focal discourse; subversion of these dualities through a range of strategies; and the re-presentation of the discourse emphasising its ambiguous nature. Kristeva's account of poetic language identifies a form of writing that precipitates jouissance. The concept of poetic language is appropriated for the claim that jouissance might also be the outcome of the reproduction or interpretation of discourse (i.e. reading), as well as of d