Elaine Storkey (born 1 October in Wakefield) is an English philosopher, sociologist and theologian. She is known for her lecturing, writing and broadcasting.
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Storkey is the eldest of three children to James and Anne Lively. She grew up in Ossett, West Yorkshire, and was educated at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, doing postgraduate work in philosophy at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and York University, England.
In 1968 she married Alan Storkey an economist, writer and lecturer, with whom she has had three sons.
After research on Ludwig Wittgenstein's work, Storkey's first academic post was in philosophy in Oxford, as a tutor at Manchester College, Oxford.[1]
She left Manchester College, Oxford to marry and join her husband on the faculty of the University of Stirling. She started broadcasting with the BBC in 1986, after they both returned from a period of lecturing at Calvin College, Michigan and Covenant College, Tennessee in the United States. She has since been involved in many documentaries, arts, news and current affairs programmes. She has been a presenter on Radio 4's Thought for the Today for over 20 years[2] and has written many scripts for the BBC World Service. Elaine Storkey has authored several books including What's Right With Feminism, The Search for Intimacy and Mary's Story, Mary's Song. She has also been a member of the General Synod of the Church of England since 1987, serving on the Archbishops Rural Commission and the Cathedrals Commission. For many years she wrote for The Independent and now regularly writes for the Swedish newspaper Dagen and for the Church Times. During the 1990s she collaborated with Roman Catholic author and theologian Magaret Hebblethwaite and they co-authored a book exploring Christian feminism from two different traditions.[3] Their writings on women are widely used within the Roman Catholic as well as other churches.[4] Storkey was also a close colleague of the Biblical scholar, Catherine Clark Kroeger, whose obituary she wrote in July 2011[5]
After many years teaching and writing with the Open University and presenting radio and television documentaries on gender, race and ethnicity, Storkey succeeded John Stott as Executive Director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC)[6] in 1991, a post she held until 1999. She also taught at King's College London. In 1997 she became President of Tearfund, a Christian relief and development charity, and has since been involved in monitoring aid, relief and advocacy work in countries of the Global South.[7] In 2010 she and her husband, Alan, became founder members of Restored, an organisation committed to advocating against violence to women.
Storkey has served on many other boards and councils, including the Crown Nominations Commission, the environmental agency A Rocha, the global advocacy group, Micah Challenge, and as Vice President of the University of Gloucestershire. She is currently Chair of Fulcrum, a Church of England think-tank.[8] She holds a Lambeth DD degree and was given an honorary PhD from the University of Gloucestershire.
Storkey's Created or Constructed grew out of lectures given at the University of New South Wales in Australia.[9] From 2003 to 2007, Elaine Storkey was a colleague of Alister McGrath as Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. Amidst much publicity in 2008, after 12 members of the academic staff had resigned, critical of the leadership of the college principal, Richard Turnbull, she took Wycliffe Hall to an employment tribunal. The college admitted that it did not comply with employment law and was ordered to pay compensation. She continues to teach on the Christian Mind course at Oxford University.[10] She became a member of High Table at Newnham College, Cambridge in January 2008 and in February 2009 she was appointed as Director of Education and Training for the Church of England's Church Army.[11] In the summer of 2009 she held a Cambridge Templeton Fellowship in Journalism[12] and in 2010 she became Chair of The Church and Media network.[13] Among the lectures she has given since summer 2010 are the Frumentius Lectures,[14] the Annual Barnardo Lecture[15] the 'Global Gender Lectures' for the Cymru Institute[16] the Oliver Lyseight Annual Memorial Lecture[17] A fuller list of lectures can be found on the author's webpage[18]
Storkey lectures across the world, including in Haiti, India and Ethiopia and is a prominent feminist evangelical. Her writings have brought a biblical perspective to the feminist movement.[19] She is concerned to highlight the impact of climate change and global poverty,[20] as well as of sexual violence, on women. She has visited many African countries and been involved in advocacy. She was awarded a life-time award for services to women by the American group CBE in 2008.
Books
What's Right with Feminism SPCK 1985
Mary's Story, Mary's Song Harper-Collins 1993
Magnify the Lord Harper Collins 1996
The Search for Intimacy Hodder Headline 1994
Conversations on Christian Feminism with Margaret Hebblethwaite: Harper-Collins 1999
Created or Constructed: The Great Gender Debate Paternoster Press 2000
The Origins of Difference Baker Book House 2002
Word on the Street Old Hall Press, 2005
Other publications
'The Production of Social Divisions', Social Sciences: A Foundation, Open University Press 1985
'Sex and Sexuality in the Church', Mirror to the Church, Editor Monica Furlong, SPCK. 1986
Faith in the Countryside, Report of the Archbishops' Commission on Rural Areas, co-author. 1990
'Modernity and Anthropology' in Faith and Modernity, edit Sampson, Sugden, Samuel, Lynx. 1994
'Dooyeweerd's Anthropology – The Male-Female Dimension' in Christian Philosophy at the Close of the Twentieth Century, Assessment and Perspective, Sander Griffioen, Bert M. Balk, ed. Uitgeverij kok Kampen 1995
'Sexuality and Spirituality' in David Torrance, Family, Sexuality and Spirituality Hansel Press 1997
'A Commentary – New Testament Study Bible' with Catherine Kroeger and Mary Evans CUP 2002
'Theology and Gender' in A Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology CUP 2008