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Recent Submissions

Spiritual Direction in the Workplace: Releasing Spiritual Consciousness
(WellSpring Centre Inc., 2021-08-04) Miles, Bernadette; Lock, Ann; Whitley College
As organisations navigate increasing complexity, uncertainty, and rapid change, there is growing recognition that sustainable leadership requires attention to the inner life as well as organisational performance. This chapter explores the contribution of spiritual direction and spiritual conversation to the development of spiritual consciousness in the workplace. Drawing on insights from leadership studies, organisational development, spirituality, and the Christian contemplative tradition, it argues that spiritual direction offers a practical framework for helping individuals and organisations attend to their deepest values, purpose, and identity. Central to this exploration is the concept of kardia, the spiritual centre of a person or organisation, where meaning, creativity, and transformation emerge. The chapter examines the role of the spiritual director in creating reflective and confidential spaces where leaders and groups can explore the stories, assumptions, and patterns that shape organisational life. It proposes that spiritual conversation can release creative potential, deepen self-awareness, strengthen discernment, and foster healthier organisational cultures. By integrating spirituality into workplace practice, organisations can move beyond individualism, fear, and reactivity towards greater interconnectedness, creativity, and shared purpose. Spiritual direction is presented not as a religious intervention but as a process of awakening spiritual consciousness, enabling individuals and organisations to align more fully with the life-giving spirit at the heart of their work.
Howard, Barbara
T&T Clark Handbook of Sexualities in the Bible and Its Reception
(Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) Blyth, Caroline; Greenough, Chris; Wollaston Theological College
The T&T Clark Handbook of Sexualities in the Bible and Its Reception emerges within a long and complex social, cultural and political landscape, wherein biblical texts frequently become battlegrounds over identity politics, human rights and sociocultural values. These cultural (mis)appropriations of the Bible’s allusions to sexuality can have a significant (and sometimes deeply damaging) impact on the lives of those who already inhabit minoritized and marginalized identities. Biblical passages have long been weaponized in public discourse concerning LGBTQIA+ rights, gender recognition, reproductive autonomy and HIV/AIDS, and they have likewise been located in debates around gender equity, sex work, hegemonic masculinity, misogyny, rape culture and gender-based violence (its causes and prevention). In religious education and pastoral guidance, harmful narratives around purity culture persistently leverage biblical authority in ways that undermine feminist progress and perpetuate the specific stigmatization of girls’ and women’s sexualities. Consequently, scholarly engagement in each of these areas is ethically imperative and activist orientated. The handbook contributes thoughtfully and constructively to this critical dialogue by offering nuanced perspectives that can counteract harmful misappropriations and foster more inclusive, informed and compassionate interpretations. Moreover, our aim has been to offer a wide range of insights into biblical sexualities that will speak to broad readerships, and we hope that the interdisciplinary nature of the chapters and their contextual relevance will appeal not only to scholars and students across various academic disciplines, including sexuality and gender studies, queer studies, biblical and religious studies, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and psychology, but also to religious leaders, activists, practitioners, faith community members and informed lay readers who seek deeper, critically nuanced understandings of sexualities in biblical traditions and their reception history, as well as their contemporary implications
She’s a Knockout: Sexuality, Violence, and Piety in the Book of Judith
(Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) Blyth, Caroline; Greenough, Chris; Wollaston Theological College
Interpretations of the titular character from the apocryphal book of Judith tend to label her as either a morally bankrupt femme fatale or a chaste and pious widow who temporarily masquerades as a fatal woman during her seduction and murder of Assyrian general Holofernes. In this seminar presentation, Caroline Blyth argues that Judith’s faith in God and her femme fatale credentials are not mutually exclusive. Taking inspiration from the world of women’s boxing and from some of Judith’s cultural afterlives, Blyth suggests that Judith draws on all the sources of her strength – her faith in God, her beguiling beauty, her deceitful lips, and her embodied sexuality – to knock out the enemy and claim victory for the Lord, herself, and her people. Her character therefore invites readers to think beyond restrictive heteropatriarchal notions of ‘acceptable’ (or plausible) femininity and female sexuality and imagine the myriad ways that women can be women.
Liturgical Practices for Full Participation: Creating Opportunities for Engagement in Corporate Worship for People Living with Intellectual Disabilities at the Mooroolbark Salvation Army
(2023-05) Spiller, Catherine; Eva Burrows College
The Mooroolbark Salvation Army is a place of welcome and acceptance for people with disabilities. However, people with intellectual disabilities often have limited opportunities for engagement in corporate worship. The act of worship is a practice everyone should be able to participate in, but barriers often limit engagement for people with disabilities. This project thesis explored and sought to address these barriers and create opportunities for full participation for people with intellectual disabilities. A small diverse group of people from the Mooroolbark Salvation Army came together for ten weeks commencing in February 2022 to consider how to attend to engagement opportunities in worship. During the weekly sessions, the group explored the topics of worship and liturgy. Theological themes such as the body of Christ and the imago Dei were also discussed in relation to full participation. The group also spent time participating in a variety of liturgical practices. These practices were then reviewed, and consideration was given to how each could be used or adapted to facilitate full participation for people with intellectual disabilities. The group then constructed twelve liturgies that seek to provide a variety of ways for people to engage in worship. These liturgies are the beginning of a journey to foster full participation for the people of the Mooroolbark Salvation Army who live with intellectual disabilities.