Dr Florence O’Taylor

Associate Lecturer in Christian Spirituality 
Email: f.otaylor@westcott.cam.ac.uk

Florence is a political theologian with a particular interest in the relationship between the mystical and prophetic traditions. Alongside her role as an Associate Lecturer in Christian Spirituality at Westcott House, she is a William Leech post-doctoral research fellow at St. John’s College, Durham University. Thinking with the Church at the Margins initiative within Methodism, her project aims to reflect theologically on ‘Recovery Church’, a community of people living with addictions that gather services that incorporate elements of the 12-Step programme, contextualised ritual and liturgy. This research builds on her doctoral thesis, which paid attention to the lived experiences of women living with addiction in order to develop an empirically grounded political theology of addiction. Her interest in addiction grew out of working for several years in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre alongside running a Christian ministry with women facing multiple forms of marginalisation.

In addition to her research and work at Westcott, she is an Associate Tutor at the Eastern Region Ministry Course, Cambridge, teaching Introduction to Spirituality and Discipleship.

Florence is on the Executive Committee for the Society for the Study of Theology. She is also Chair of Trustees for The Arch, a charity working to support women facing multiple forms of marginalisation in East London.

Florence’s research interests bring together Christian spirituality, liberationist, and political theology. She is particularly interested in thinking theologically about suffering in ways that take both subjective and socio-political realities seriously. Christian mystic, philosopher and political activist Simone Weil has become a particularly central conversation partner for her.

Publications

‘Learning to Hear Justly: Rupturing the Dominion of Force through Attention’, Crucible, The Privilege of Hope (2022), pp.8-17.

‘Room for Friendship: Building a counter-cultural community among women experiencing addiction – in conversation with L’Arche’, in Coming Home: A Theology of Housing, ed. by Malcom Brown, Graham Tomlin (United Kingdom: Church House Publishing, 2020), pp. 146-164.