In this book Sarah Coakley confronts a central paradox of theological feminism - what she terms 'the paradox of power and vulnerability'. Whilst gender theory has in recent years given an increasingly nuanced account of the worldly 'powers' that serve to stifle human flourishing, feminist theology has been loath to acknowledge that form of surrender to divine 'power' which can alone sustain authentic human freedom, and chasten the abusive will to power in both women and men. But how are the narratives of divine and human 'powers' to be disentangled? When is 'submission' a mark of false consciousness, and when not? Coakley examines this issue through the lens of spiritual practice, philosophical enquiry and doctrinal analysis, arguing that contemplative practice must be the sustaining matrix of any truly liberative human empowerment.

Sarah Coakley is Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr., Professor of Divinity at Harvard University. She previously taught at Oriel College, Oxford, and at the Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University. She is the author of Christ Without Absolutes (1988); the editor (with David A. Pailin) of The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine (1991), and editor of Religion and the Body (1997). She is currently working on a systematic theology, the first volume of which will appear as God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay 'On the Trinity' (forthcoming).