This book is a collection of essays written over a period of three decades by the eminent British practical theologian, Elaine Graham, the Grosvenor Research Professor at Chester University, England. Graham has been a leading feminist voice in the international discussion of practical theology emerging over the past three decades.

This book is highly recommended for students, clergy and reflective lay leaders, as well academics with interests in feminism, practical theology and cultural studies. The essays are highly readable. At the same time, a number are real gems which introduce readers to complex areas of contemporary interest. Want an introduction to the ways technology may be changing human nature? Go to chapter 18, ‘Post/Human Conditions’. Want an introduction to gender theory and its implications for Christian theology? Go to chapter 6, ‘Gender, Personhood, and Theology’. This book is especially important for students and academics in practical theology. Not only does it provide insight into Graham's own development as a feminist practical theologian, but it also serves as an introduction to her model of practical theology. The essays address larger issues of disciplinary method and scope, even as they focus on particular contexts and topics. Graham is committed to an incarnational, inductive theology in which embodied experience is the starting-point of thinking about and responding to God. The essay form of the book proves to be a very effective way of embodying this commitment.

The essays of the book are not arranged in chronological order, but rather are gathered into five parts which trace themes prominent in Graham's work over time. Part 1 is ‘Feminist Theology and Pastoral Care’ and contains essays in which Graham brings feminist thinking and practice into dialogue with the traditions and practices of Christian pastoral care. A dialectic of critique and reconstruction is evident in these essays as well as other parts of the book. Cumulatively, the essays criticise British pastoral care for the virtual absence of any literature on the needs and experiences of women, reflecting the structures of sexism and clericalism dominating church and society. They also begin the task of reconstructing the fundamental assumptions and practices of pastoral care, going beyond the individualistic, therapeutic focus of professional/ordained caregivers to forms of care emerging out of the experiences and needs of women, and are mutual, transformative and critical.

The second part of the book is ‘Religion, Culture, and Gender’ and explores fundamental assumptions about sex and gender, providing an extremely helpful overview of these issues over the past thirty years. The essays in this section of the book begin the task of rethinking the nature and purpose of practical theology, a central theme of the third part of the book as well, ‘Theology and Practice’. If ‘sex’ refers to biological and physiological dimensions of personhood and ‘gender’ to the psychological, interpersonal and cultural practices by which ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ identities are constructed, then what roles might religion and the church play in the emergence of new practices of gender which promote freedom and wholeness for women? This is, perhaps, the fundamental question posed in the essays of these two parts of the book. In answering this question, Graham proposes an approach to practical theology orientated towards communities of transforming practice which give priority to the healing and liberation of women and generate new insights about God, spirituality, liturgy and other dimensions of the Christian life.

The fourth and fifth parts of the book, ‘Public Theology’ and ‘New Technologies and Post/Human Futures’, reflect Graham's strong belief that practical theology must engage issues of the common good, a belief that is already evident in her commitment to feminism. In these parts of the book she draws on a variety of fields, such as philosophy, social ethics and sociology, to explore post-industrial urban life and our ‘technoscientific’ world in which human biology is surrounded and transformed by technology.

The broad scope, highly readable writing style and intellectual depth of the essays in this book make it a volume worth owning.