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. She studied at the University of Oxford before pursuing her Master’s and PhD at the University of Durham, where she has written a political theological anthropology of addiction. Her thesis is an empirically grounded project during which she spent a year alongside a Christian support group for women living with addictions. This research 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. 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, theological anthropology, 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.