sustain:if:able kiwi

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.

The Social Impacts of Listening Practices in Religious Organisations

The Social Impacts of Listening Practices in Religious Organisations: A pilot study*

This project applies research related to the science of listening to analyse how religious practices might contribute to social connection and human flourishing.

In religious settings, the importance of listening is emphasised. A range of religious activities could be said to facilitate listening, including contemplation, confession, examen and lectio divina. However, there is little theoretical or empirical research into the social dynamics surrounding these religious practices. In psychology, there is a growing body of research into the science of listening and how attention, comprehension, and intention contribute to social connection and human flourishing.

Hence, research is needed to understand how selected religious practices contribute to social connection and human flourishing in religious organisations. This twelve month pilot study will
• undertake a literature review to assess religious practices against the psychological framework of listening structures and listening as attention, comprehension, and intention
• conduct a real-world intervention by offering selected religious practices in small group settings in local religious communities
• conduct mixed-methods research to assess the social impacts of these interventions. Two religious practices will be offered. Quantitative data will be gathered using pre- and post-intervention psychological measures to assess social impact over time. Qualitative data will be gathered from participant observation, participant research diaries and summative focus groups exploring how religious practices contribute to social connection and human flourishing.

Hence, the research project will offer theoretical, practical and foundational benefits. Theoretically, the project creates an interdisciplinary dialogue between listening research in psychology and religious practices. Practically, the project sheds light on how religious practices might foster stronger connections within religious communities. Foundationally, this pilot study will guide further research into the social impact of religious practices.

The research project offers an exciting mix of academic outputs in psychologically-informed theology and research shared with religious communities and religious leaders. Some of the outputs include
• an academic article
• a conference presentation
• an online presentation of findings to interested church leaders
• an online workshop inviting interested researchers and religious leaders to consider further research into the role of listening in community building

For enquiries or to register interest in the online presentation or online workshop, please email s.j.taylor at otago.ac.nz (Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka; Psychology Cross-Training Fellow, University of Birmingham; Director AngelWings Ltd).

*This project was made possible through the support of a grant from John Templeton Foundation, awarded via the grant entitled “New Perspectives on Social Psychology and Religious Cognition for Theology: Training and Developing Science-Engaged Theologians,” University of Birmingham.

Reverse migration: insights from an 18th-century journey from the Pacific to Scotland

I’m delighted to have a chapter proposal accepted for a planned Migration and Religion in Australia and the Pacific volume with Springer Nature, edited by Rev. Dr. Titus S. Olorunnisola, Interim Director of Research at Whitley College, University of Divinity, Melbourne.

My chapter proposal is the first written output from my 2023 University of Glasgow Library Research Fellowship, where I was able to spend time immersed in a unique archive collection of mission archives at the the Archives and Special Collections of the University of Glasgow. My research fellowship was titled Race, justice and mission. During the archival search, I came across 19 letters written by an indigenous man, who was living in Scotland for two years in the 1860’s undertaking Bible translation work. The letters offer a glimpse of the theological resources that an indigenous migrant brings to their journey of migration.

Here’s the chapter proposal which I submitted a few months ago:

Reverse migration: insights from an 18th-century journey from the Pacific to Scotland

Historical imaginaries of migration to Australia and the Pacific focus on journeys north to south. Motivated by science, commerce and religion, Europeans embarked on so-called “South Sea Voyages.” However, in the corners of the archives are experiences from south to north, as indigenous peoples voyaged north (Brook, 2001; O’Malley, 2015). This paper analyses the experience of Williamu, an indigenous man from Aneitynum, an island in what is now Vanuatu, who lived in Scotland between 1861 and 1862 and worked alongside Rev John Inglis in Bible translation. During his time in Scotland, Williamu wrote nineteen letters, which provide a “vivid picture of the “First Impressions of Britain and its People”” by an indigenous man (Inglis, 1890, p. 317).

Theoretically, these letters open windows into a reverse migration. Missiology uses the term reverse mission (Adogame, 2013) to focus on the role of Christians from the global South in mission to Europe and North America. Williamu’s letters illuminate the role of indigenous peoples in Bible translation. They invite questions about the role of “reverse mission” and power dynamics present in the translation of Scripture. Further, the letters provide insight into the theological resources a migrant used to respond to grief and suffering. In particular, while in Scotland, Williamu hears news of the death of Dora, his wife, from “migratory” diseases. Hence, Williamu’s letters stand as the first written indigenous migrant theodicy of the Pacific. Research into reverse migration is needed to challenge historical imaginaries and foreground indigenous communities’ resources in journeys of migration.

Acknowledgements: The research was made possible by the University of Glasgow, the Archives and Special Collections, the resources of the Trinity College collections, and the award of a Visiting Library Research Fellowship in 2023.

The mission of local resilience centres

A devotional I shared at a monthly Church Council I chair.

First, a welcome to new members. We are grateful for your willingness to offer your wisdom, gifts, and experience. Second, a welcome to returning members. We are equally grateful for your willingness to offer your wisdom, gifts, and experience.

The gospel reading for Sunday is of particular relevance to a church council.

In Mark 10: 42-45: Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

So, just in case any of us imagine that being on a church council is a chance to lord it over a church, Jesus is quite clear. We are here to serve.

We serve because of verse 45, the example of Jesus who comes to serve. And as we are reminded in other places in the Gospels, Jesus serves not just people inside the church but all those who are in need. So we, as a church council, are called to serve this church and the wider community.

Today, we have our budgets and our agendas. As we make decisions, we are making them because we are here to serve the community.

I was thinking about what it means to serve the broader community as I drove past the church building a few weeks ago. It was the day after the floods, which closed our state highway and rationed our water supply and caused some of our neighbours houses to be red-stickered.

Outside our church, as you can see from the photo, the Council had set up a water tanker. As I drove past, people from the community were at the water tanker filling up containers with drinking water. So, we, as a church, were part of serving our community. In a very practical way, providing a parking place for a water tanker.

I was on a zoom today, learning about climate change and Christian faith. The speaker described local congregations in a time of climate change as resilience centres. The speaker observed how congregations have buildings, locations, connections and networks with the community. So, in times of emergency, a congregation can play a role in serving the community.

So today we can be thankful for the way we as a congregation could serve a few weeks ago. But we also need to think about what it means to serve again.

Because the recent rain event is likely to happen again. Our community is likely to experience floods and damaged roads and water challenges again. So we will have future opportunities to serve. There might be other things we can do as a congregation that might help us be a resilience centre, serving in this community, besides having a place for a water tanker to park.

So I’ll pause there and see if my devotional thoughts have sparked any reflections or pondering.

listening as community building in public spaces

It was great to begin a research side project yesterday and sit at a public community event doing some ethnography.

The side project is researching the science of listening and social connection, seeking to understand what happens when adults gather for an hour to have great literature read aloud. It is a pro-bono AngelWings Ltd project that complements and localises my Birmingham University/John Templeton Cross-training research into the social impact of listening in community organisations.

This research side project will use a mix of methods, including observation and interviews with readers and listeners. So yesterday involved not only observing, but also introducing myself and the research with information and consent forms.

Hence, the photo is of a brand new research journal and pen for taking notes, along with consent forms and information.

For those who want to know more about the project and the connections I am making between researching listening and community building, see here.

the fun of research coding Ordinary knitters

Today was fun.

Today was a research coding day.

Today was out with the coloured highlighters and A3 sheets of paper, seeking threads and weave in focus group interviews in the Ordinaryknitters project.

After the toil of transcribing and cleaning transcripts, today was about the joy of making patterns, listening to people who knit for Christian projects in public spaces.

I know there are computer programmes to help with coding. There are the cheap options ranging from highlighter and comment functions on Word, through to paid software like NVivo.

But somehow getting off screen is vitalising. Perhaps it’s because I’m analysing the words and thoughts of knitters, for whom the tactile is so present in their theology and practice.

Perhaps its the physical detaching in which words on paper are seen in different ways that words on a screen. And so new ways of seeing and linking emerge.

Today was fun. A reminder that any research project has moments of creativity and colour.

Visualising online climate change activism: public eco-theologies in grassroots climate-justice organisations accepted

I’m delighted to have news overnight of a journal article about my research into grassroots digital activism accepted for publication with Theology (UK based journal). The article is scheduled for publication early in 2025.

This is the first piece of writing from my Edinburgh IASH Fellowship sojourn in June and July this year. The article outlines my novel contribution to the study of digital activism, visual images, and the construction of public eco-theologies. The research in the article draws on the social media of two UK climate justice groups as illustrative.

It’s nice to take topics like activism and social media into a journal committed to broadening knowledge of contemporary theological studies.

Reading Allowed and aloud: Cultivating listening structures in a literary city

Paper acceptance!

I’m thrilled to have a paper accepted for Books and the city: the 2024 Otago Centre for the Book Annual Symposium (21-22 November, 2024). The symposium is local, so that’s always a bonus.

My paper applies “listening structures,” a theoretical framework I’ve been reading around as part of my University of Birmingham, Psychology Cross-training Fellowship Programme for Theologians, to a local activity – Reading Allowed – that I’ve enjoyed being part of for the last few years.

Paper title: “Reading Allowed” and aloud: Cultivating listening structures in a literary city

This paper analyses the benefits of reading books aloud in public city spaces. Qualitative research is used to investigate the social impact of “Reading Allowed” as a collective listening structure.

“Reading Allowed” is an event that runs monthly on the ground floor of the Dunedin Public Library. Since 2022, people have gathered in the late afternoon to hear stories for all ages. For 60 minutes, readers from the University of Otago and Friends of the Library introduce and share excerpts from classic and contemporary literature.

Listening structures is a phrase used by organisational psychologist Guy Itzchakov (2024) to advance the science of listening. Listening structures refer to the processes and practices that build the human capacity to pay attention, deepen comprehension, and amplify intention (Kluger and Guy Itzchakov, 2022). Hence, listening structures contribute to social relationships and collective flourishing between individuals and organisations.

This paper considers “Reading Allowed” as a listening structure. It draws from the researcher’s ethnographic participation as a listener at “Reading Allowed,” along with interviewing readers and listeners. Attention, comprehension, and intention are themes used to analyse the qualitative data.

New ways to conceptualise the places of books in a “literary city” are provided when “Reading Allowed” is theorised as a listening structure. The research is theoretically important in advancing scholarship regarding the public nature of listening structures. The research also has practical application for those who care about books in the lives of cities and their citizens.

Dr Steve Taylor,
Director AngelWings Ltd; Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
IASH Research Fellow, Edinburgh University

Knitting as public theological witness

Researching Ordinary Knitters – people who knit for Christian projects in public spaces – has been a research side project for me since August 2021. This paper, if accepted, will be the first public articulation of data.

A paper proposal: Knitting as public theological witness

LOUDFence knitted strawberries, Newcastle 2024

This paper examines the ways in which acts of making are public theology. Matthew Engelke has researched how the Bible Society in the United Kingdom is active in public domains. He uses “ambient faith” as an analytical tool to theorise Christian activity that challenges the political and civic constraints imposed by the modern secular imaginary.

This paper applies “ambient faith” to recent practices of knitting in which Christians have been publicly active through yarnbombing and social activism. This paper draws on interviews with fifty knitters in four countries, along with participant observation of public interactions with several knitted projects, including visible displays of solidarity with those affected by abuse. While knitting is commonly seen as a domestic activity, done in private spaces, this paper describes how making offers new ways of relating and gives voice, particularly to lay women. Making as “ambient witness” offers new ways to think about the nature of public theology and Christian witness.

living bread prayers as active, silent, take-home-able

I was leading worship and preaching at my local congregation. The text was John 6. A few years ago, I had used bread rolls. When baked hard, they can be written on with felt pens. It allows a tactile and personalised engagement, as people are invited to write on the bread roll.

This year, I built on the bread roll stations, particularly around prayers for others. I introduced our intercessions as being a time for active but silent prayer. I handed around the baked loaves of bread (cocktail rolls from a local supermarket). I observed they had been baked long enough to be hard enough to write on. I invited folk to pray actively, but silently, by using the felt pens and writing on the bread roll the name of a person or situation that needs Jesus as “living bread.” Perhaps we know someone who is not well, or a situation of conflict.

After several minutes of active silence, I then invited people to place their bread in a plastic bag. The invitation was to take their bread roll home. The plastic bag meant we wouldn’t get crumbs in our handbags or on car seats. And people could use the bread roll during the week, to keep holding, to keep praying, to keep adding things as they came to mind. It was a way of praying actively, silently and in a way that could be taken home into life beyond the gathered service.

It worked well.

Ordinary Time Festivals: An Application of Wisdom Ecclesiology published in Theology Today

I’m delighted with news of a journal article published with Theology Today, a peer-reviewed, quarterly journal connected to Princeton Theological Seminary.

Steve Taylor, “Ordinary Time Festivals: An Application of Wisdom Ecclesiology,” Theology Today (here). (It’s behind a paywall and I can provide an accepted version if folk don’t have institutional access).

Its been quite the writing journey. It began with some thoughts on festival spirituality in my 2005 The Out of Bounds Church? book. During 2018, I began reading theologian Amy Platinga Pauw, particularly her Bible commentary on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and her book Church in Ordinary Time: A Wisdom Ecclesiology. I wondered if her work on the doctrine of creation and her proposal for a wisdom ecclesiology could make sense of how churches engage in community festivals.

To develop my proposal, I used empirical research of three festivals – a harvest festival in Scotland, a Blessing of the Fleece service at a craft festival in Australia and a neighbourhood festival in Aotearoa New Zealand. I outlined the different ways in which these festivals provided concrete examples of new ways by which the church might theologically participate in their communities today.

I submitted the article around the middle of 2021. It was accepted early in 2022 and was finally! published online this week. I really enjoyed creating a dialogue between theology and qualitative research and was delighted to have the peer reviewers called it “interesting,” “helpful,” and “novel.”

Here’s the conclusion:

Hence, ordinary festivals provide imaginative possibilities for faith communities today. Instead of the present festive barrenness of ordinary time, new opportunities emerge. In ways similar to how the church puts energy into the seasons of Advent and Lent and the festivals of Christmas and Easter, the church can put energy in ordinary time into wisdom festivals. The church turns outward, finding imaginative ways to join hands with God’s ongoing work in creation, making ordinary time good news for church and world. A church could join an existing community festival, like Spin and Fibre, using Pauw’s themes to offer a distinct liturgical presence. A church could, like CompassionFest, offer ‘initiatory’ capacity for a new community festival. This would begin by paying attention through placemaking. The church could enrich existing festivals, for example, exploring ways that a harvest festival might deepen faith formation. As Jesus grew in faith through Passover, so Pauw’s six themes become similarly generative, deepening discipleship during ordinary time. Wisdom ecclesiology becomes a distinct resource, offering a Biblically formed and flourishing praxis of delight, wonder, and perseverance.

knitting is gendered

With Tom Daley knitting at the Paris Olympics, 3 years on from his knitting at the Tokyo Olympics, there is a fascinating article in The Conversation:

Knitting helps Tom Daley switch off. Its mental health benefits are not just for Olympians

The article notes the benefits of knitting for wellbeing and for community. The article also names the gendered nature of knitting. Knitting is an activity, usually done by older women, and normally at home. Each of these three reasons – wellbeing, community and gender – are reasons why I’m researching Ordinary knitters – people who have knitted for church projects. I am seeking to understand what happens when an activity, associated with women, is taken from the home to public places as an expression of Christian witness.

To date I’ve interviewed over 50 people, including people who have knitted Christmas angels to yarnbomb in their neighbourhoods, climate scarves to give to politicians and LOUDfence strawberries to express solidarity with survivors of church abuse. Given that only two of my participants have been male, knitting is clearly gendered.

What is fascinating is how in different ways, a hobby that is domestic and private is being made public. There is Christmas love made visible in streets and parks, concerns for future generations expressed in politicians offices and the secrecy that surrounds abuse made visible in public places. Knitting becomes a way for women to express a public theology.