Editorial

It was wonderful to host an event last year considering the legacy of Marcella Althaus Reid – we entitled the event ‘Fetish Boots and Running Shoes’ in the hope that contributors made the connection between her work and the future it may hold. This event was largely enabled by Dr Hannah Hofheinz who worked with me in bringing speakers together at the University of Winchester so I am very grateful to her. These articles speak for themselves and cover a wide range of engagement with the work of Marcella but as you will see the main thrust of this issue is from the USA and Europe. Of course, some of our contributors may well argue that while based in the USA they are by heritage Latin American – a point that has to be acknowledged and at some stage investigated. On reflection afterwards we realized that a second event was needed to give voice to Asian and Latin American scholars and this will be held in Winchester in 2019. Of course, as Graham McGeoch reminded us, while Marcella was Latin American the majority of her writing was done amidst the grey stone of the University of Edinburgh, a surrounding he felt had to have an influence.

The overwhelming feeling of the symposium was that we had been robbed of much more provoking and stimulating work by the early death of this creative and brave theologian and this was a sadness I felt deeply as one who worked closely with her but realized that I knew only one of the many Marcella’s there were. However, I was also left wondering how this matter of legacy actually works, I respect the way in which the scholars gathered here have engaged with her work and indeed love much of the creativity we see – however! I am not yet sure what that however signifies but feel it is something about heart and soul which one cannot be expected to feel unless one had contact with the person and watched the thoughts form in mind and body – back to Graham’s point about grey buildings and austere statues of John Knox. Of course, it made me ponder how we convey theology these days, the thoughts, the orthodoxy or otherwise, but what about the person, the context of the internal world not just the external. Should we teach and learn ways of thinking or ways of being – a history teacher of mine used to say ‘let’s forget about the dates let’s just think about the people, dates are lists people are real’. Perhaps not a revolutionary idea but one I do feel is lacking in much theology these days – of course my grasp of historical dates is arguably slimmer than it might otherwise be but I do have a great fascination in motivation and influences on people!

So when we read the work of others, often in translation and almost always not in their company, what is it we actually can say about legacy? A dear colleague of mine from many years ago said, Jesus wrote in the dust and then scrubbed it out – and even that got messed up into dogma and exclusions. I leave the question with you because as one who enjoys writing I am pulled in two very conflicting directions – can we only express the moment or is there such a thing as theological legacy which is not destructive?