sustain:if:able kiwi

IAPR 2025 abstract acceptance

Well this was not in the 2025 bingo sheet but delighted to have a conference paper accepted for the biennial International Association for the Psychology of Religion in Birmingham 2025.

Titled: Listen up: The Social Impact of selected religious practices, my paper will present initial findings from my social impact of religious practices research with Psychology and Theology Cross training fellowship, funded by John Templeton. Over 12 months, I am undertaking action research by gathering people to explore spiritual practices over 8 sessions and inviting their feedback through pre- and post-survey, keeping a research journal and sharing their experience in focus groups.

For years I have offered teaching in mission and discernment. This research project allows me to explore in greater depth what is happening for people and how the Spirit might be present through spiritual practices.

While I’m naturally curious, I find working across disciplines quite intimidating. The Psychology and Theology Cross training team have been so helpful. They provided encouragement to submit. They provided several abstracts from previous conferences to help demonstrate what it means to write up research in the domain of psychology (which is so different from theology). Further, they also offered feedback on abstract drafts, not only suggesting additions but also offering edits to help keep the abstract within the required word limits. So constructive!

Finally, I’m also grateful for grant funding from John Templeton which makes this possible. Being an independent scholar, there are significant costs in attending conferences and funding makes presenting research possible.

Best of all, my partner-in-life and research, Dr Lynne Taylor, has also had her research accepted. So we will get to experience Birmingham together.

It means a 3rd consecutive experience of a UK summer, following on from my Glasgow University funded research in 2023 and my IASH/Edinburgh University funded research in 2024.

3 weeks in UK for research presentations

I’m in the United Kingdom for 3 weeks, from 23 March to 14 April, 2025. I am excited to speak about three different research projects that I’ve been working on for several months.

First, I am in Glasgow, speaking at the University of Glasgow on Mission, Empire and Coerced Migration on Thursday 27th March, 5pm. This is the fruit of my 2023 University of Glasgow Library Research Fellowship.

Second, I am in Edinburgh as part of the Festival 55th of IASH. I am co-ordinating the Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium where I am one of 6 people delivering a paper. This is fruit of my time as a Research Fellow at IASH in Edinburgh in June/July 2024.

Finally, I am in Birmingham for the Psychology and Theology Cross-training fellowship. As part of this week in Birmingham, I am presenting a work-in-progress on my research into the social impact of spiritual practices in religious organisations.

Then home. Yippee.

introducing spiritual practices

I’m researching spiritual practices. The project is part of a Psychology and Theology Cross training fellowship, funded by John Templeton, that extends over 12 months.

I’m researching the social impact of spiritual practices. I could research by reading Scripture or exploring church history or reading books that seek to describe and explain spiritual practices. But I’m curious about how people respond to spiritual practices.

So I’m looking for people willing to explore spiritual practices over 8 sessions and to give feedback on their experiences in several ways, including several surveys, two focus groups and keeping and individual journey.

This week I offered an introductory session in a local Christian congregation to consenting adults. Arriving to an empty church, I noticed they had several couches in their foyer. I pulled several chairs around the couches into a circle and got myself organised.

Each couch and chair got a Bible verse and a post-it note. During the session, people would choose a brightly coloured pen to underline a key phrase that stood out to them from the Bible passage and write down their ideal snacks that I could provide to sustain us through our sessions. I got out a Bible and my go-to book, The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Calhoun. I laid out my teaching notes, along with my research diary and pen for taking my own notes as people shared.

It was great to be researching with people, beginnning a conversation about their experiences of spiritual practices and what it might mean to “learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:30, The Message).

Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium: April 4

I’m thrilled to have pulled together and to be part of the Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium, in Edinburgh on 4 April, 2025.

The day involves 6 papers, presenting research on faith-based digital activism in Asia, Africa and Oceania. The full colloquium programme, with abstracts and author details, is Conference programme Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism.

The Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium is nested within the 55th Festival of IASH, exploring fruit of their three year project around decoloniality. To further my June/July 2024 research fellowship with IASH, I proposed a gathering around indigenous digital faith-based activism. I wanted to gather other scholars from diverse contexts with the hope of working toward an edited book.

IASH agreed. Other sponsors came on board, including Researching Indigenous Studies and Christianity Network (RISC), the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI) and the Centre for the Study of World Christianity (CSWC). A call for papers went out in late November. Blind peer review happened through January, along with lots of ongoing organising with IASH. It has been a thrill to work with different research centres and to collaborate with scholars from diverse contexts. And in a few weeks, to be able to present some of my research into Oceanic digital activism in Edinburgh.

People can attend either virtually or face to face.

To register for in-person at IASH, RSVP Dr Steve Taylor at kiwidrsteve@gmail.com and advise any dietary or access requirements. Lunch is provided. Bookings are limited to 8 people.

Virtual delegates can register here. This will allow access to the Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium plus all events associated with the IASH’s 55th Anniversary Celebrations: Institute Project on Decoloniality Conference on Thursday 3 April and Friday 4 April.

Race, Justice and mission: Glasgow archival perspectives on missionary engagement and South Pacific “blackbirding”

With a nod to sea shanties and the need to decolonise history, here’s a summary of some writing I’ve just completed, and a presentation I’ll be doing at Trinity College, University of Glasgow, in a few weeks time.

Race, Justice and mission: Glasgow archival perspectives on missionary engagement and South Pacific “blackbirding”

“There once was a ship that put to sea … to bring us sugar and tea and rum.” Sea shanties make for catchy TikTok viral hits. They also make visible mercantile activity and migratory labour flows upon which empires expanded.

Historical imaginaries often begin with ships that put to sea and journey from north to south. Yet in the corners of the archives are experiences from the Pacific northward, as Indigenous peoples engaged in what they saw as reciprocity in Oceanic voyaging.

This paper analyses the work of Williamu, an Indigenous man from the islands then called the New Hebrides, who lived in Scotland between 1861 and 1862. During his time in Scotland, Williamu wrote nineteen letters. These were translated by Rev John Inglis, who in 1883 was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Glasgow for his linguistic skills.

Williamu’s letters, housed in the University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections, provide a remarkable account of the Indigenous meeting the imperial. They also contain tragedy as Williamu processes the death of his wife, Dora, from diseases carried by ships that put to sea.

This paper will examine these letters using frames of locating, initial encounter and theodicies of migration. It will document the agency of Indigenous people as initiative takers and the presence of “sugar and tea and rum” in the histories of migration and religion.

Listening with Purpose: A Theologian Reflects on the Interface between Theology and Psychology

I am privileged to be building bridges between theology and psychology as a Psychology Cross-Training Fellowship Programme for Theologians Fellow. This 16 month interdisciplinary programme is run by the University of Birmingham and is funded by John Templeton. It involves 3 intensives in Birmingham, monthly online coaching and mentoring. It also funds a small part-time research project over 12 months – in my case researching the social impact of religious practices. I wrote about the interdisciplinary experience a few weeks ago and the Cross-Training blog picked it up. My blogpost was prompted by a post from my mentor, Dr Guy Itzchakov, who researches empathic and non-judgmental listening at the University of Haifa. I’m cross-posting what I wrote for the Cross-Training blog here:

A few weeks ago, I cycled over a recently completed bridge. The modern two-lane structure, with eye-catching visual features, spans Mata-au, the South Island’s largest river. A 136-year-old single-lane bridge remains, repurposed for cycling and walking.

The two bridges got me thinking about the nature of interdisciplinary research. The historic single-lane bridge used traffic lights to regulate traffic flow. Each side took turns. Crossing meant waiting for cars from the other side to hurtle on past. In contrast, the recently built two-lane bridge allows both sides to move. The result is improved safety and new traffic flows.

Photo by Lynne Taylor at https://lynnetaylor.nz/.

Building bridges is the aim of the Psychology Cross-training Fellowship Program for Theologians. The Fellowship feels like the making of a modern two-lane bridge. Rather than separate disciplines hurtling past each other, the Fellowship invites the fields of psychology and theology to create new flows of traffic by exploring shared interfaces.

Listening
One shared interface between psychology and theology is listening. Psychology has explored how high-quality listening improves social connection. The intentional use of two ears builds community and enhances human flourishing. Research has outlined the essential roles of attention, comprehension and intention in high-quality listening.

Theology has commended listening as a spiritual imperative, a way of responding to God’s command to “listen” at Jesus’s transfiguration (see, for example, Matthew 17:5). Listening is then embedded in a range of spiritual practices.

But, like cars waiting to cross a one-lane bridge, research in psychology and theology has had little impact on the inquiry of the other. In a recent blog post, Professor Guy Itzchakov reflected on the interdisciplinary possibilities for listening between psychology and theology. As a psychologist in the science of listening, he utilised themes of connection, empathy, and loneliness to suggest that listening is a practice that “transcends disciplinary boundaries.”

Psychologists like Dr Itzchakov conduct research at one end of the bridge. As a practical theologian, I start at the bridge’s other end. At my end of the bridge, while listening to God is considered important, and listening is taught in practical ministry courses, empirical research into the social impact of religious listening practices is rare. What might building bridges with psychology contribute to theology? How might psychological theories of listening as attention, comprehension, and intention, illuminate sacred religious texts?

Attention
Attention involves being fully present to a speaker without internal and external distractions. Humans have a unique ability to filter sounds. We can listen closely in a noisy café or hear the voice of a loved one in a throng of people.

Attention provides ways to understand silence as a Christian practice. Christian services of worship often include silence as an element of corporate prayer or in hearing Scripture read aloud.

Silence is thus an antecedent or a precondition of quality listening. One cannot pay attention if one is speaking. Through the lens of attention, the religious practice of silence can be understood as similar to warming up before exercise. The practice of silence involves stretching the listening muscles in preparation for enhancing social connection.

Hands formed together create a red heart. Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash.

Comprehension
Comprehension refers to how listeners signal they understand the speaker. Summarising what I think I have heard from another demonstrates listening and deepens our sharing.

The lens of comprehension illuminates the practice of lectio divina, particularly in group settings. Latin for divine reading, lectio divina encourages listening to sacred texts. When used in groups, there is often a time of sharing what individuals are hearing. This sharing deepens comprehension. Sometimes, the interpretations of others in the group provide insight and deepen connection. At other times, diverse interpretations or provocative questions raise hermeneutical questions and encourage respect across differences.

Intention
Intention describes how the speaker experiences a listener. High-quality listening involves communicating acceptance, empathy, and curiosity. Sometimes, this is verbal, with words of agreement. At other times, it is through back-channel behaviours like body posture or a nod.

In The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Calhoun introduces the practice of slowing and describes its use at the start of a meeting: “I want to give you a moment of silence to leave behind what you are coming from. I want us to be present to each other in our discussion together. Take some deep breaths and relax. We will start in one minute” (2015, 90). Slowing is a practice that signals an intention to fully present.

Through the lens of attention, slowing, like silence, is like a warming-up exercise. The intention of being “present to each other” enhances the possibility of high-quality listening.

Hence, psychology illuminates the social dynamics embedded in spiritual practices. Attention, comprehension and intention provide ways to think about the role of listening in religious practices.

The “I am” as a Listener
Attention, comprehension and intention can also be used to analyse theologies of revelation. A particularly striking description of God occurs in Exodus 3, a narrative of great significance to the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. God is a listener in the account of Moses and the burning bush. The “I am” pays attention as they hear the cries of the suffering in Egypt (3:7). The “I am” communicates comprehension as they send Moses to respond to human misery (3:10). The “I am” signals intention by instructing Moses to take off his sandals as an observable listening posture (3:5).

The narrative in Exodus also describes what it means for humans to listen. Moses pays attention by choosing to hide his face (3:6). His comprehension is deepened because he asks multiple questions (3:11-13). His intention is signalled as he returns to the suffering community from which he had earlier fled (4:29).

Moses’s behaviour can guide religious practice. The Exodus narrative encourages questioning the Divine and choosing solidarity with the suffering as a way of service. Ecclesiologically, the church glimpses ecclesia discens and the behaviours that mark a learning community.

Attention, comprehension and intention illuminate Moses encounter with “I am.” For the Abrahamic religious traditions, listening is defined, not as a one-sided monologue but as a co-creative movement toward solidarity with the suffering.

Conclusion: Listening as a Theological and Psychological Practice
Theology has much to learn from psychology. Attention, comprehension, and intention illuminate the social dynamics embedded in spiritual practices and provide ways to analyse theologies of revelation. As a practical theologian, I am finding practical and intellectual, individual and communal benefits in building a two-lane bridge with psychology.

Flow a theological film review of an ecological fable

Monthly I write a film review for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 180 plus films later, here is the review for February 2025.

Flow
A theological film review by Dr Steve Taylor

Flow is an animated and imaginative delight. A meowing cat must face her fear of water. In the face of rising waters, the cat sees a passing boat. Making a leap of faith, the cat pounces into a floating animal ark. Carried away by a sudden flood, an unlikely crew of animal creatures are swept toward uncertainty.

Flow is also a cinematic winner, awarded the 2025 Golden Globe [update – and an Academy Award] for best-animated feature. Big-budget studio films like Disney and Pixar have traditionally scooped film animation. Flow’s low-budget win is a triumph for Latvian film-maker, Gints Zilbalodis. It is also a ground-breaking moment for indie film and open source animation software, which was used by Zilbalodis and his animation team.

The animal characterisation in Flow is superb. Each animal’s journey across unknown waters is filled with humour. Cats cough hairballs and dogs chase tails. Secretary birds learn to steer, while lemurs and capybara learn to share. Together these animals learn that their survival relies on trust.

While Flow will attract families and delight lovers of cats and animals, the movie also offers much as an “ecological fable.” Flow’s animal ark floats past statues likely made by human hands and cities built by human endeavour. There are signs of civilization, yet humans are absent. Is Flow an apocalyptic telling of the collapse of human civilization? Or an imaginative reflection on pre-history of our planet? Approached as fable, Flow invites us to think imaginatively, first about ecology, then about theology.

Flow connects with several Genesis stories. In the beginning, in Genesis 1, God’s Spirit hovers over the waters. From the waters emerge sky, land and swarms of living creatures. Those of Pacific origin find in these verses the beginnings of a moana theology.

Flow invites us to think imaginatively about creation’s prehistory without humans. After all, there were no humans for five and a half of the six days of creation in Genesis 1. The earth grew and multiplied in ways unique and creative. Flow invites us to think with and among the creativity of the early days of the Spirit’s work in creation.

A few chapters later, in Genesis 6 to 9, God’s Spirit again hovered over the waters. In the Noah narrative, we read of an ark adrift on rising flood waters. We hear of animals together seeking salvation and a bird who acts as God’s messenger, a winged bearer of good news of ecological survival.

Flow invites us to think imaginatively about the survival of animals of both sea and land. After all, the rise of flood waters as described in Genesis 6 to 9 must surely have been a gift for fish, sharks and whales. As the waters of the deep burst forth, those who swim experienced new room to play. Equally, as floodwaters shrink, sea creatures of the deep risked becoming beached. In a world of finite resources, the ecological imagination of Flow reminds us that expansion for some is a contraction for others. Approaching Genesis in light of Flow offers animated and imaginative reminders of the Spirit’s work in a world without humans.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is the author of “First Expressions” (2019) and writes widely in theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

pausing and projects

It is good to pause. It is better to pause with coffee.

Today I’m pausing with coffee after submitting a research application. The application is for travel, accommodation and research assistance to enable a small qualitative research project to better understand a citizen science climate justice initiative by a denomination.

Research applications take time. Applications are always a bit of a punt with funding never guaranteed. However, every application advances my thinking. Putting words on a paper sharpens connections. Developing costings require planning. So an application becomes a way of crafting new futures.

I’ll hear more about this application in May. Until then back to the other (eight) research projects I have at different stages of completion. But only after a pause. With coffee!

introducing ordinary time festival research

(used with permission).

Delighted to be published in Theology Today journal (last article, scroll down. Or go here). Here’s a bit of the backstory, something I wrote when the article was published online in August. Now that it’s published in paper, here’s a short video of me introducing the research.

For those who like to read not watch, here’s the script:

I’m Steve Taylor, I research and write. Recently I’ve written about why – and how –  Christians can love festivals.

The Christian year is divided into the major seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter on the one hand, and ordinary time on the other. Churches and ministers and lay people put hours of time and energy into celebrating the major seasons. Christian feasts and festivals like Christmas, Easter and Pentecost gather lots of attention. Which then raises the question – if we put so much time in the major seasons around Christmas and Easter, then how should ordinary time be celebrated? What might it mean for our faith and our life as a church to put energy and focus into festivals in ordinary time?

I began to research if there are ways to connect ordinary time with festivals. Theoretically, one place to explore why – and how –  Christians can love festivals is the work of Amy Plantinga Pauw. Amy read the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and called for the value of ordinary time. From Proverbs and Ecclesiastes she drew out 6 themes of

• making new,
• longing,
• giving,
• suffering,
• rejoicing
• joining hands

She called this a wisdom ecclesiology and argued these 6 themes are essential to life of the church. So that’s a possible why. Which raises the question of how? How can Christians love “ordinary time” festivals?

So I researched three “ordinary time festivals,” three ways that local churches and local ministers and lay people could put some “Christians love festivals” energy into ordinary time. I used video footage and web documents and newspaper reports and I discovered that “wisdom ecclesiology” to research

• A harvest festival in Scotland, occurring in a farming shed during Covid
• a spin and fibre festival celebrating wool and craft in Australia.
• a local community festival started by a group of local churches in Aotearoa New Zealand

Three different types of ordinary time festivals in 3 different countries.

I discovered evidence of those 6 themes. And where they were not found,  I suggested some easy ways that the missing themes could be added. I also suggested a 7th category, what I called local placemaking, to add to Pauw’s wisdom ecclesiology. Because the empirical research made clear that ordinary time festivals are a great way of celebrating the particularity, the special, the incarnated qualities of a local community.

So my why and how research has implications for churches wanting to connect with their communities. First, those wisdom ecclesiology themes of

• making new,
• longing,
• giving,
• suffering,
• rejoicing
• joining hands
• placemaking

give a reason for churches and groups to love ordinary time festivals. Second, ordinary festivals give a how – how might churches work in particular and local ways to placemake – to connect the wisdom of Christian ordinary time with the special qualities of our local communities.

If you want to read more see my article in a journal called Theology today. Called “Ordinary-Time Festivals: An Application of Wisdom Ecclesiology.” Theology Today Volume 81, issue 4. Or follow my blog – emergentkiwi.org.nz – where I place resources and thinking. Because, Christians can love festivals.

colours and community building

Today was the first church council meeting of the year. By way of devotion, as Chair, I took along a box of different coloured pens. Placing the pens in the middle of the group grabbed attention and created curiousity. A perfect way to begin.

“What was the colour of your Christmas,” I asked? “What was the colour of your summer?” Folk chose colours. “And if you want to test your colours, feel free,” I then said, as I handed around small pieces of paper.

After a few minutes of choosing and colouring, we shared with each other about the colours we had each chosen.

It worked splendidly. A real depth of sharing. New insights about each others realities. Greater awareness of how we could pray and support each other.

Then some questions about what being good news might mean among us. What if the range of colours among us also connects with the experience of folk in the community? What does the range of colours mean for how we preach and care as we move toward Christmas in 2025?

And so a prayer as the meeting began, that our work as a council would engage the full reality of the colours among us and the community in which we are part.

Choosing colours was a simple exercise that resulted in sharing of stories and supportive listening. Choosing colours builds healthy teams.

Making and Christian witness in Australia today: journal article acceptance

Thrilled. Delighted. Stoked.

I’ve just had news of journal article acceptance by Colloquium, an international peer-reviewed journal, for an article titled: “Making and Christian witness in Australia today.”

I’m thrilled with the blind peer reviewer comments, which were just so positive.

• Reviewer 1 – “Excellent article. Well focused and innovative theme, clear methodology and aims, sound research design, and thoughtful practical theology and mission implications – all well written”
• Reviewer 2 – “This is a creative and interesting article about Christian witness as ‘making’.”

I’m delighted to have a piece of qualitative research on the topic of knitting accepted in a scholarly academic journal.

I’m stoked because it’s the first concrete sign of academic writing progress on the Ordinary knitters research project. I’ve been quietly working away on the research for over 3 years. I have over 45,000 words written on a book. But a book takes so long to write and I wanted some way of testing the waters regarding academic suitability. So I peeled off a slab of the data, 14 of the more than 50 interviews. I then applied a different analytical lens, using the marks of mission to analyse the data rather than reflexive thematic analysis.

Thrilled. Delighted. Stoked. Here’s the abstract, keywords and acknowledgement.

Abstract: Christian witness is generally framed as occurring through words and deeds. This paper explores making as another approach to Christian mission. Christian theology understands God as Maker. Yet, making as a domain of Christian practice rarely features in theological accounts and mission thinking. Craft in general and knitting in particular is popular in contemporary society, yet there is little research into Christians who make in mission. Hence this paper conducted qualitative research, including “scavenge” ethnography and interviews with knitters, to investigate contemporary acts of making by Christians in Australia. Some makers knitted angels to yarn bomb at Christmas, while others knitted scarves in climate activism. The Marks of Mission were deployed as a holistic frame, with all five Marks evident in the knitting of angels and scarves. The interviews unravelled understandings of making as a joyful experience of active praying that provided distinct ways of relating. Making allows ordinary people, particularly women, to participate in mission as telling, teaching, tending, transforming and treasuring. In a contemporary culture saturated with words and cynical of deeds, the research has significance for how mission and theology are conceived in contemporary Australia and practised in local church contexts.

Keywords: activism – knitting – making – qualitative research – mission – witness

Acknowledgements: My thanks to the knitters willing to show and tell, to peer reviewers for their attention to the craft of writing and to AngelWings Ltd for the allocation of pro-bono time to undertake this research project.

social impact of religious practices: pilots and letter boxes

I’m researching the social impact of selected religious practices. The 12 month research project is funded by John Templeton, located in the University of Birmingham and administered through the University of Otago, where I am a Research Affiliate with the Centre for Theology and Public Issues.

I am using an action research approach, in which I invite people to share a selected religious practice for a period of time. I conduct a survey at the start and end, using several established psychological scales, to explore if participants experience any changes in aspects of social connection and human flourishing. I ask participants to keep a journal, writing weekly about their experience of the practice. I also host a focus group in which participants reflect together on their experience of the religious practice. These three modes of gathering information uncover how religious practices are experienced in relation to social aspects.

In November, I gained ethics approval.

In December, I began a pilot. Undertaking a pilot allows me to get things up and running. It also gives me feedback on different parts of the research, testing the questions I am asking and understanding how much time is involved.

This pilot involves working with a local congregation who have an established religious practice. During Advent, the congregation are invited into four weeks of slowing and silence in daily life. This is facilitated by lighting a candle for a defined period of time. The practice occurs during the worship service. People are also invited to take and light a candle daily in their homes, as a way of continuing the practice in daily life. During Advent, the length of silence slowly increases (in this case, one minute in week one, two minutes in week two, and so on). Could this practice, of slowing and being silent, impact social connection and human flourishing?

In this pilot, I am testing two of my three modes of data gathering. Participants interested in being part of the research have given their ethical consent. They have each been sent a survey. They have also been given a journal, in which they are invited to respond each week to four questions about their experience.

Which meant that this week my time as a researcher included dropping journals in letter boxes and wondering what people will write, as they reflect on their experience of this particular religious practice. Such is the joy of undertaking empirical research into the real life experiences of religious practices in daily life.

The social impact of selected religious practices research project is one of seven different research projects I am currently involved in. For example, I’m also involved in researching digital activism, experiences of reading out loud, knitting as craftivism and race, justice and mission in the history of Oceania. Plus I’m undertaking longitudinal evaluations of different interventions in two church organisations and have just wrapped up a project writing resources to encourage ecological readings of Advent and Christmas Bible readings.

Knitting as public theological witness: spoken presentation feedback

For the last three years, I have been interviewing people who knit for Christian projects in public spaces. To date I’ve conducted 50 interviews with knitters, coded all the transcripts and done reflexive thematic analysis of two (of the four ) knitting projects. This has resulted in around 45,000 words toward a possible book on craftivism as public Christian witness. (To keep up with the project, click follow on the Ordinary Knitters Facebook page I have set up.)

A few months ago, I proposed a paper for the Systematic Theology Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (STAANZ). I thought it would be very helpful for my research to try to summarise 45,000 words into a 2,300 word paper as a way of clarifying key ideas.

I delivered the paper today. I began with several stories of knitting to introduce how knitting connects and making empowers. I defined public theology using Elaine Graham and ambient witness using Matthew Engelke. I offered an overview of theologies of making in Christian history. I then explored one of the four knitting projects I have researched and described how the knitting of strawberries to express solidarity with victims and survivors of church abuse could be seen as an expression of public ambient theological witness. I brought the interviews into conversation with Sara Ahmed, and outlined how her work around citational practices helped me realise the importance of informal and side-by-side formation in knitting.

Participants asked a range of excellent questions. I try to take handwritten notes of the questions I get asked after a presentation. Taking notes gives me time to think about how to respond. It also means I can sit more thoroughly and more thoughtfully with the questions at later date.

Here is my recollection of the 5 questions I was asked, along with a summary of my brief responses.

1. Did the knitters you interviewed knit alone or together? Both. I interviewed people who knitted in groups and people who knitted alone. In both categories there were descriptions of a rich set of relationships, including informal, through which connections between people were being made.

2. How was Mary be utilised as a theological resource? One of my interview participants described connecting Mary with the strawberry plant, as a representation of the simultaneous generativity of runners and flowers and a symbol of “exuberant defiance.” The connections between the reproductivity of strawberries and Mary as bearer of God’s reproductive action in the world offers some fascinating way to think theologically about creation and redemption.

3. Do younger people knit? Are expressions of craft taking shape differently in different generations? There is research that indicates that younger people are still enjoying discovering knitting. Examples include Tom Daley, the British Olympic diver and Ella Emhoff hosts a knitting club. Equally, there are ways of making, for example digital activism, that are more widely present among younger generations.

4. Was there evidence in your interviews of knitting as a spiritual practice? Yes. I felt I had two groups of participants. One group tended to knit with the television on and were knitting with their attention focused elsewhere. A second group knitted and reflected during the interview that they were intentionally thinking about the person they were knitting for. The interview process helped them realise how this was a material form of prayer for others.

5. (Later in the day.) You talked about the importance in the interviews of grandmothers and mothers. Have you read Kat Armas’s Abuella Faith regarding the role of grandmothers in faith? No, but that is a very helpful suggestion.

My thanks to STAANZ for accepting my paper and for the thoughtful engagement by participants. Now back to writing.

Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium call for papers

A research project I am currently working on ….

Call for papers: Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium
4 April, 2025. Hybrid, alongside a face-to-face gathering at the University of Edinburgh

Digital technology is changing the world. In response to global challenges, diverse grassroots faith-based organisations, indigenous or otherwise, are using digital technologies to activate for justice. These activists draw on contextual wisdom and religious resources and express their activist commitments publicly in social media forums. Some of these organisations describe themselves as indigenous. Others find terms like grassroots more helpful. Academic analysis of these local digital activisms provides ways to learn with and from online theologies that are immediate, provisional and contextual.

We live in a society that places increased importance on visual communication. A feature of grassroots digital activism is the use of visual images to activate for change. These include posting digital images, still and moving, that communicate Indigenous ways of knowing, repurposing memes to elevate local approaches and the use of emojis to centre the visual in activist communication. The visual grammar of digital activism provides rich resources for studying grassroots theologies.

Decolonial methodologies offer ethically formed and academically fruitful ways to research with and among grassroots digital activists. Digital and visual ethnography provides ways to learn with and from local communities. Sharing initial research findings with activists generates further learning in hermeneutical spirals of insight. Case study approaches provide ways to amplify the local and bring diverse contexts into conversation with other local contexts.

The Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium invites papers that explore questions around grassroots digital faith-based activism. Themes could include:
• Case studies of faith-based activist organisations from diverse grassroots contexts, Indigenous or otherwise
• Insights from cross-indigenous case study comparisons
• Examination of the theologies present in grassroots digital faith-based activism
• The formation, development, identities and motivations, either of individual activists or grassroots organisations
• The role of gender in grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism
• The interplay between local theologies and established theologies
• Theological and ethical issues in the interplay between online and offline identities in activism
• Ways that online images interrogate, destabilise and complexify established hierarchies, whether religious, cultural or political
• Theologies and philosophies present in the grassroots repurposing of memes
• The challenges of activism given the pressures of surveillance, ideologies and political states
• The interplay between online visual identities and Indigenous epistemologies
• The ways that online Indigenous activisms are conceptualising relationships between religious resources and local cultures, religion and science, technologies, or politics

Reflective and evaluative presentations by grassroots faith-based online activist groups are welcomed.

Organisors and supporting groups include:
• Steve Taylor, Director AngelWings Ltd, Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
• Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh, expressing the 2021-2024 Decoloniality research focus.
• Researching Indigenous Studies and Christianity network
• Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Edinburgh
• Centre for Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh

Timeline:
Submissions open: 1 December 2024
Submissions close: 15 January 2025
Acceptance notices by: 1 February 2025
Draft paper of 2000 words by: 21 March 2025

All proposals will be blind peer-reviewed. Face-to-face attendance is not required, as the colloquium organisers will offer different ways to engage across diverse time zones, including paper presentations and breakout discussions. The colloquium is organised with a view to an academic book publication and runs in parallel with a public engagement project that will use podcasting to amplify activist voices (if funding application is successful).

Questions and paper proposals to: Steve Taylor, kiwidrsteve@gmail.com, Director AngelWings Ltd, Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka.