This groundbreaking study explores the later lives and late-life writings of more than two dozen British women authors active during the long eighteenth century. Drawing on biographical materials, literary texts, and reception histories, Devoney Looser finds that far from fading into moribund old age, female literary greats such as Anna Letitia Barbauld, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Catharine Macaulay, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Jane Porter toiled for decades after they achieved acclaim -- despite seemingly concerted attempts by literary gatekeepers to marginalize their later contributions. Though these remarkable women wrote and published well into old age, Looser sees in their late careers the necessity of choosing among several different paths. These included receding into the background as authors of "classics," adapting to grandmotherly standards of behavior, attempting to reshape masculinized conceptions of aged wisdom, or trying to create entirely new categories for older women writers. In assessing how these writers affected and were affected by the culture in which they lived, and in examining their varied reactions to the prospect of aging, Looser constructs careful portraits of each of her Subjects and explains why many turned toward retrospection in their later works. In illuminating the powerful and often poorly recognized legacy of the British women writers who spurred a marketplace revolution in their earlier years only to find unanticipated barriers to acceptance in later life, Looser opens up new scholarly territory in the burgeoning field of feminist age studies.

What does retirement mean for Church of England clergy? Fourteen retired clergy reflect on their experiences in retirement and discuss the challenges and opportunities of this new stage of life.

This book explores this rediscovery, first in the Roman Catholic Church and then in the Episcopal Church and other Churches of the Anglican Communion, and looks in particular at how both grassroots and official work played a role in renewing and restoring the liturgical celebrations of Holy Week.

For many people in the churches, the recent decline in membership among women has been a distressing and deepening reality. For centuries, women have been the mainstay of church life - those who managed housekeeping and catering chores, provided secretarial duties, organised fundraising and supervised the religious education of children, as well as being the majority of worshipping communities everywhere. Without their presence, churches have witnessed serious declines in family participation, the collapse of Sunday schools, and lower involvement in study groups. Inevitably, there is a deepening concern among older churchgoers for the future of their parishes and church life. The author's previous book Freedom from Sanctified Sexism was a history of women in the Australian Anglican Church from the end of the nineteenth century to 1992, when women were finally admitted to the Australian Anglican priesthood. Gender-Balanced Belief moves on from there. Mavis Rose acknowledges the significance and success of the Movement for the Ordination of Women but alerts us to deeper, more endemic realities of church life and governance that have prevented the full participation of women, especially in significant areas of church leadership. She explores the reason for this situation: the entrenched resistance among leaders of the churches to accept women in ministry, based on flawed theology, out-of-date approaches to the Bible tradition, as well as unhealthy and sexist approaches to the equality of women and their legitimate rights in contemporary society. Gender-Balanced Belief calls on the churches to respect the Jesus tradition of including all people - irrespective of sex, class or ethnic group - to establish the reign of God in our time and place. In this way, women - and men - of faith may rediscover the heart of the gospel and recognise in renewed church structures effective contexts for proclaiming the good news and witnessing to its teaching.

On first publication in the 1960s, "Honest to God" did more than instigate a passionate debate about the nature of Christian belief in a secular revolution. It epitomised the revolutionary mood of the era and articulated the anxieties of a generation.

Ten essays highlight different aspects of Jonathan Edwards's life and legacy and show how his teachings are just as relevant today as they were three centuries ago.