About us
The cooperative is a project in public collaboration in the spirit of public theology. Drawn from the life of the Uniting Church in Australia, together we are asking, what does it mean to think the common good in our time and in our place? And who are the voices Christian theology has yet to listen to?
To explore these questions, we have established a number of focus areas, including academic research, public events and conferences, a Summer and Winter School, a publishing arm, and digital dialogue across our website and podcast. We want to make room for otherwise impossible conversations and hope you can join us.
Our values
Good faith
Listening hard
Difference
Accessibility
Partnership, not replication
Our staff
Dr Janice McRandal
Director
Dr Janice McRandal is a feminist theologian who works with critical theory to explore themes of systematic theology alongside politics and popular culture. Having worked in theological education for over a decade, Janice brings a wealth of experience in research and leadership. Along with her academic writing and research supervision, Janice provides oversight for the cooperative, developing a space for a broad and interdisciplinary public theology throughout the cooperative's programs and research streams.
Enquiries regarding research supervision can be made to [email protected]
Selected publications
Speaking of Christ/Christa/Christx, co-edited with Stephen Burns. London: SCM Press, Forthcoming 2024.
Contested Theology: bodies, sport, and motion. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, forthcoming 2024.
Whistling in the Dark: on the theology of Craig Keen, co-edited with Stephen John Wright. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2024.
Sarah Coakley and the Future of Systematic Theology, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016.
Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Difference: a contribution to feminist systematic theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2015.
“White failures of intersectionality”. In Together in One Place. Edited by Stephen Burns and Monica Melanchthon, TBA, forthcoming 2024.
“Does the Child Know there are Two? Maternal disruptions from disability”. In God of Interruption – Essays in Feminist-Maternal Theology (Interrupting Motherhood). Edited by Cristina Lledo Gomez and Julia H. Brumbaugh, Paulist Press, Forthcoming, 2024.
Massam. London: SCM Press, Forthcoming 2024.
“On not reading Barth: my measly resistance”. In Women in Theology: Method and Practice in the Digital Space. Edited
by Elissa Cutter and Alison Murray. Paulist Press, 2024.
“Risky Words, Dissenting Bodies”. In Whistling in the Dark: on the theology of Craig Keen. Edited by Janice McRandal
and Stephen John Wright. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2024.
“Saying No to Jesus: Feminist Theology and the Christian Liberal Fantasy”. In Cultural Afterlives, Jesus in a Global Perspective Volume 3. The Westar Studies Series. Edited by Gregory Jenks. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2023.
“You Don’t Understand Me: Serena Williams, Christology, and Non-Identity”. In Intersections and Fractures: (Re)visions of Feminist Theologies, Decolonizing Theology Series, Lexington Fortress Press. Edited by Stephen Burns and Rebekah Pryor. Lexington Fortress Press, 2022.
“Against Authority: writing feminist theology after the end of history”. In Power, Authority, Love. Edited by Kerrie
Handasyde and Rebecca Pryor. Routledge, 2021.
“Embodied Gods: Anthropomorphism and Subjectivity”. In Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Gender - ‘God’ Edited by Sîan Hawthorne, 2017.
“Being George Eliot: an impossible standpoint?”. In Sarah Coakley and the Future of Systematic Theology. Janice
McRandal, editor. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016.
“On Power and Silence: Reading Foucault with Coakley”. In Sarah Coakley and the Future of Systematic Theology. Janice McRandal, editor. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016.
“Gender: Difference, Sin and the Trinity”. In Speaking Differently: Essays in Theological Anthropology. Phillip Tolliday and Heather Thomson, eds. Canberra: Barton Books, 2013.
“Apocalyptic Disappointment: imperialistic teleology and the age of crisis”. In Colloquium. 2022, 54 no. 2:109-128.
“The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude”. In The International Journal of Systematic Theology. Vol 21, Issue 2. (2019), 223-225.
“Subject to Spirit: The Promise of Pentecostal Feminist Pneumatology and Its Witness to Systematics”. In
Pneuma 35:1 (2013), pp 48-60.
“A Free Man’s World: Open Theism and the Feminist Critique of Autonomy”. In Aldersgate Papers 9 (2011).
“Sarah Coakley: Systematic Theology and the Future of Feminism”. In Pacifica 24:3 (2011), pp. 300-314.
“Struggled For and Not Possessed: Language for the Divine and the Apophatic Turn”. In St Mark’s Review 215
(2011), pp. 71-86.
Our contributors
We are delighted to announce our 2021-2022 cooperative fellows; each collaborating with the cooperative over the coming year and each an important contributor to public theology in Australia.
Monica Melanchton
Academic Dean and Associate Professor, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity
Scott Kirkland
Stockdale Lecturer in Ethics, Trinity College, University of Divinity
Anita Monro
Principal, Grace College, the University of Queensland
Nika Hiraeth
Australian College of Theology
Jione Havea
Research fellow, Trinity Methodist Theological College
Anne Pattel-Gray
Head of the Australia First Nations Program, World Vision Australia
Peter Hobson
Superintendent Minister
Wesley Mission Queensland
Katecia Taylor
St Kilda Elsternwick Baptist Church, and University of Divinity
Linda Hamill
St Stephens Uniting Church
Partners and collaborators
We are also delighted to collaborate with the Australian Collaborators in Feminist Theologies, promoting the work of the ACFT and co-hosting events that engage the intersections of feminist and public theologies.