Parenting as Spiritual Practice and Source for Theology

This volume investigates how mothers can understand parenting as spiritual practice, and what this practice means for theological scholarship. An intergenerational and intercultural group of mother-scholars explores these questions that arise at the intersection of motherhood studies, religious practice, pastoral care, and theology through engaging and accessible essays. Essays include both narrative and theological elements, as authors draw on personal reflection, interviews, and/or sociological studies to write about the theological implications of parenting practice, rethink key concepts in theology, and contribute to a more robust account of parenting as spiritual practice from various theological perspectives. The volume both challenges oppressive, religious images of self-sacrificing motherhood and considers the spiritual dimensions of mothering that contribute to women's empowerment and well-being. It also deepens practical and systematic theologies to include concern for the embodied and everyday challenges and joys of motherhood as it is experienced and practiced in diverse contexts of privilege and marginalization.

Auteur

Claire Bischoff is Assistant Professor of Theology at St. Catherine University. She has served previously as adjunct professor of religious education at Lexington Theological Seminary. She has blogged about the spiritual practice of parenting for Keeping Faith Today, a lectionary-based resource for small Christian communities, and is the co-editor of My Red Couch and Other Stories on Seeking a Feminist Faith.

Elizabeth O'Donnell Gandolfo is the Edith B. and Arthur E. Earley Assistant Professor of Catholic and Latin American Studies at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her book, The Power and Vulnerability of Love: A Theological Anthropology, draws on women's experiences of maternity and natality to construct a theology of suffering and redemption anchored in the reality of human vulnerability.

Annie Hardison-Moody is Assistant Professor of Religion and Health in the Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences at North Carolina State University. Her work focuses on gender, reproductive health, foods and nutrition, and parenting. Her book, When Religion Matters: Practicing Healing in the Aftermath of the Liberian Civil War is forthcoming from Wipf & Stock Publishers.

Contenu

1.- Introduction.- 2.The Race of It All: Conversations between A Mother and Her Son.- 3. Inspired Mothering.- 4. And the "Hall Was Burned to the Ground": Mothers and Theological Body Knowledge.- 5. Transgressive Mothering As Wo/men's Human Rights Work... Holiness and the Human.- 6. On Good Mothering: Practicing Solidarity in the Midst of the Breastfeeding Wars.-7. Motherhood as Self-Giving and Self-Receiving Relationship.- 8. A Mother-Whore Is Still a Mother: Revelation 17-18 and African American Motherhood.- 9. Miscarriage Matters, Stillbirth's Significance, and The Tree of Many Breasts.- 10. Awake My Soul: Mothering Myself toward Recovery.- 11. Oceans of Love and Turbulent Seas: Mothering an Anxious Child and the Spirituality of Ambiguity.- 12. Parenting Elders: Finitude, Gratitude, and Grace.- 13. Motherhood and The (In)vulnerability of the Imago Dei: Being Human In the Mystical-Political Cloud of Impossibility.- 14. In Justice and Love: the Christian life in a home with mental health needs.- 15. "Courage Unparalleled Opened Her Utterly:" A Practical Theodicy.