What does motherhood mean in a world shaped by theology, tradition, and lived experience?
How do pregnancy and birth challenge religious ideas about women, bodies, and God?
Join Tina Beattie, Margaret Hebblethwaite, and Chine McDonald for an accessible conversation exploring motherhood through feminist theology, Marian thought, and contemporary social realities. Drawing on personal insight, theology, and cultural critique, the speakers will reflect on pregnancy, childbirth, and the relationship between mother and child, asking what these experiences reveal about faith, identity, and power today.
Speakers
Professor Tina Beattie is a leading feminist theologian and former Professor of
Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton. Her books include God’s Mother,
Eve’s Advocate, New Catholic Feminism, and Theology after Postmodernity. Her new
book, A Theology of Becoming: Body, Blood, Birth, and Sacrifice, is published by Cambridge University Press.
Margaret Hebblethwaite is a theologian, writer, and frequent contributor to The Tablet, most recently in a series of articles on the mother of Jesus. Her groundbreaking book Motherhood and God, published in 1984, caused controversy at the time for developing the idea of God as mother and calling God “she” throughout.
Chine McDonald is a writer, broadcaster, and Director of Theos Think Tank. She is the author of God Is Not a White Man and Unmaking Mary: Shattering the Myth of Perfect Motherhood, and writes on theology, race, gender, and social justice.
Wednesday 25 February 2026:- 6.00 – 7.00 pm GMT