Elaine Storkey
Writing
62 articles, columns and reflections from 2004 to 2024, including pieces for the Church Times, Dagen and Woman Alive.
2024
Woman Alive magazine
Hagar: a woman for all seasons
Genesis 16. 1-16; Genesis 21 8-21 One of my students did a research project on the lives of marginalised women in Addis Ababa. She found that few of the group she engaged with had any…
2023
Goma
Jo and Lyn Lusi, Congo
Living in Turbulent times: A story that needs to be told Amongst the many daily demands on time, I am struggling to fulfil a task, which I see as my chief calling at present. For the last…
2022
Woman Alive magazine
The angels who came first
Two Gospel angles on the visits of the angels. Matthew 1 18-25; Luke 1 26-36 We regularly come across angels in the run-up to Christmas. We see them in displays in shops and online stores…
Obituaries
Obituary Ronald J Sider
Ronald J Sider 1939- 2022 With the death of Ronald Sider we say ‘a dieu’ to one of the most significant evangelical Christian voices of the last 60 years. Born in in Erie, Ontario, Canada…
2020
Challenges
A challenge to self-protection
Some years ago, I was in Amsterdam to speak at an enormous celebration of Christian ecumenism. The speakers were billeted together in a pleasant retreat centre and enjoyed congenial…
2019
Scars Across Humanity
Scars Across Humanity – Book Award 2019
I’m delighted that the second edition of Scars Across Humanity, published 2018 by IVP Academic, won top award in the Politics and Public Life section of CT Book Awards. This was their…
Scars Across Humanity
Martha – Women Alive Series
Martha Study passage: John 11: 1-44 You’ve heard this description more than once: “She’s such a Martha!” It’s meted out, critically, to any woman who feels everything lies on her shoulders…
Women
The Bleeding Woman – Woman Alive Series
From February 2018 I have been writing a series for Woman Alive on what we might learn from the challenges faced by women in the biblical narratives. Each month I examine a different…
2018
Scars Across Humanity
Next edition Scars Across Humanity IVP
Delighted to post that a new edition of Scars Across Humanity will be published by IVP on Feb 20 2018. Here’s a snippet from the revised first chapter: Breaking the silence The reality of…
2017
Obituaries
Tribute to Jill Saward
Many of us were devastated to hear of the death of our friend Jill Saward on January 5th 2017, at the age of 51. The BBC, national press and social media have responded with many tributes…
2016
Scars Across Humanity
Intimate Partner Abuse: profile of abusers
The Rob Tichener profile on The Archers (BBC Radio 4) has been carefully constructed. It accurately reflects the attitudes, controlling behaviour and motivation of many abusers. The way his…
Scars Across Humanity
Campaign Trail
Confirmed Itinerary February 16- May 24 2016 Feb 16 St Edmundsbury Cathedral: ‘Roots of Violence’ Feb 21 Radio Ulster: Sunday Sequence Feb 21 BBC 1 Big Question- Is Atheism the Rational…
Woman Alive magazine
How to Spend Lent?
Time Out. Time in Apparently Lent has been trending on Twitter! I’m wondering what that says about the way Christians have taken up the challenge of social media. For the rest of Lent I am…
2015
Scars Across Humanity
The art of the reviewer
A thank you to my reviewers A book becomes a very personal part of life for an author, so exposure to reviewers can be quite an invasive process. To have someone else pick over your…
Scars Across Humanity
Gender-based violence as a weapon of war
Scars Across Humanity Posting 14 Chapter 9 Sexual Violence and War From any angle, war and terrorism are a horrible blight on the human race………. War embodies a gender paradox. It is…
Scars Across Humanity
Surviving Abuse – your stories
Scars Across Humanity posting 13 I am posting, with permission, two of the responses sent to me from readers of my page who have survived abuse. One, in her 20s, wishes to remain anonymous…
Scars Across Humanity
Surviving rape
Scars Across Humanity Chapter 9 Rape After emails from a few people, in this posting I’d like to sound the more hopeful note, which ends the harrowing stories in the chapter on rape and the…
Scars Across Humanity
Rape
Scars Across Humanity Posting 11 Chapter 8 Rape We are told to forgive and forget . . . But I couldn’t forgive and I couldn’t forget . . . Then I realized . . . I have a right to remember…
Scars Across Humanity
Trafficking and Prostitution
Chapter Scars Across Humanity Posting 10 Chapter 7 Money Sex and Violence: Trafficking and prostitution Sexual exploitation eroticizes women’s inequality and is a vehicle for racism and…
Scars Across Humanity
Intimate-partner Violence
Scars Across Humanity Post 9 Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide: Violence in the Home ‘In an article for the US magazine Glamour, editor-at-large Liz Brody tells a story familiar to people who…
Scars Across Humanity
Honour Killings
Scars Across Humanity Post 8 Whose ‘honour’? Killings and femicide as reprisals for shame He told me that in his society, a man is like a piece of gold, a woman is like a piece of silk. If…
Scars Across Humanity
Child Marriage? – child abuse
Scars Across Humanity Post 7 Chapter 4 Early and Enforced Marriage: child abuse by another name This is an issue about life, families, communities, broken dreams and shattered bodies. It is…
Scars Across Humanity
Female Genital Mutilation
Scars Across Humanity Post 6 Chapter three: Female Genital Mutilation ‘The pain of circumcision is like a heavy burden I always carry with me. It is like darkness in my life, in my chest…
Scars Across Humanity
Chapter 2 Violence begins before birth
Scars Across Humanity Post 5 Chapter 2 Violence Begins Before Birth: Selective Abortion and Infanticide (Photo- campaign to save the girl foetus) Having a girl is to plant a seed in someone…
Scars Across Humanity
Introduction and Chapter 1 Quotes
Scars Across Humanity Post 4 Over the next few days I’m offering quotations and brief excerpts from the beginning of each chapter, so you can think about whether it’s a book you might want…
Scars Across Humanity
Chapter Contents Page
Scars Across Humanity- post No. 3 Chapter Contents Thanks for all your interest. As promised – some more information of what’s in the book. The Introduction focuses on the justice-seeking…
Scars Across Humanity
Scars Across Humanity. Launch Dates
Launch Dates will be updated over the next few weeks. Launches will be in different formats depending on context. So far, confirmed dates are: October 23 Dedworth Festival 4pm and 7pm –…
Scars Across Humanity
Scars Across Humanity
My new book will be published on November 25th to coincide with the UN Day for the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women. I shall be giving the title and heading quote for each…
2014
Women
Harriet Tubman on International Women’s Day
It is not difficult to be inspired by Harriet Tubman. She was a woman who suffered injustice, oppression, brutality and betrayal, yet persevered and trusted God to enable her to keep going…
2013
Church Times
The Clash of Civilizations and the Plight of Christians
This autumn marks the 20th anniversary of Samuel Huntington’s perceptive essay ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. Arguing that in Europe the ‘Velvet curtain of culture has replaced the Iron…
Church Times
No need for protection
Some years ago I was in Amsterdam to speak in an enormous celebration of Christian ecumenism. I breakfasted each day with a Catholic monk who was on his way to serve a community in the…
Church Times
Justice That The G8 Summit Can Bring
This was written for the Church Times in May 2013 Our world can provide enough food for everyone, yet one in every eight people on this planet goes to bed hungry. The problem is intensified…
Church Times
A Moral Issue That Challenges Us
This was written for the Church Times in February 2013 Gender has been very much on the global agenda over the last few weeks. The ‘One Billion Rising’ demonstrations across the world on…
2012
Church Times
Sentencing the Violator
This was written for the Church Times in December 2012 The review of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, published last week, signifies a new breadth of awareness about crimes of sexual…
Church Times
The Cost of Courage
This was written for the Church Times in October 2012 It only takes one shocking event to reveal to the world the ordeals suffered by human beings who struggle daily under oppression. That…
Tear Fund
Transformation in Action
Africa is a needy continent. Outside the capital cities one soon becomes aware of the endemic poverty with children suffering from malnutrition and people struggling for a livelihood. Yet…
Church Times
Telling Another’s Story
This was written for the Church Times in May 2012 Many years of communicating had not prepared me for writing a biography. It is a sobering task to tell someone else’s story faithfully. I…
Church Times
Public honour – Private horror
This was written for the Church Times in March 2012 The dramatic suicide of 16 year old Amina Filali who drank rat poison rather than suffer ongoing brutality, has rightly brought Moroccan…
2011
Obituaries
Remembering Henri Nouwen
This was written for the Church Times in September 2011 This week saw the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Henri Nouwen. Had he lived he would still be only 79. His death may have…
Dagen
The Soul of Pakistan
Over the last two weeks many people in Britain have talked of a fight for the ‘soul of Pakistan’. Shahbaz Bhatti was the second prominent Pakistani politician this year to be killed for…
Church Times
The Odd God of Atheism
This was written for the Church Times in January 2011 Meeting a former university colleague I noticed with interest how some of his previous views had changed. This wasn’t surprising, for…
Dagen
Fighting a Cause
This week the British Red Cross in the UK has been fighting to safeguard its reputation. The problem is not, however, scandal or embezzlement. It is not like the aggravated fraud which sent…
2010
Dagen
New Vision. Old Legacy
The contest between David and Ed Milliband for the leadership of the British labour Party has opened up our recent social and political history. Their father, Ralph Milliband was one of…
Dagen
A Hung Parliament?
This was written for Dagen, May 2010. The result of the British General Election was widely predicted. The outcome, as expected was a ‘hung parliament’. The very phrase signifies…
Church of England Newspaper
Icon or Image?
Tourism in Turin has clearly been high on the agenda this week. The city has been geared up for millions of visitors as the Turin Shroud goes on public display. Viewers will be restricted…
Church Times
Big Profits from Cheap relationships
This was written for the Church Times in January 2010. Some people’s New Year Resolution is to find more exciting relationships. At least that is what we are told by online dating agencies…
Church Times
Hope for Haiti
This was written for the Church Times in January 2010. The devastating earthquake has brought Haiti’s needs into the consciousness of millions. A neglected half-island in the Caribbean…
2009
Dagen
Refusing their Claims
This was written for Dagen October 2009 We have become used to news of the global financial crisis, but now in the UK we find we have a local crisis also. It is one not of scarcity but…
Church Times
Abuse is Not Intimacy
This was written for the Church Times in September 2009. Years ago, I was challenged at the end of a talk to make a response to St Peter’s insistence that women are the ‘weaker vessel’ (1…
Church Times
More than Justice
This was written for the Church Times in May 2009. So which of us has not backed the Gurkha campaign, or nodded consent every time Joanna Lumley spelt out their case? For weeks, the public…
Church Times
Lost Childhoods
It has been interesting to read the figures on teenage pregnancies in the light of the recent report commissioned by the Children’s Society. In discussing childhood struggles today, A Good…
Church Times
Prophets and Priests
This was written for the Church Times in January 2009. The forecasters have been out in force for 2009. Predictably, what they see in store for us in the coming year is gloomy, whether we…
2008
Church Times
A Question of Access
This was written for the Church Times August 2008 Having spent a couple of months on crutches, after a ligament injury in my knee, I’ve been particularly tuned in to how people relate to…
Church Times
Dangerous Truth
This was written for the Church Times in June 2008 In the Church we have an ambivalent attitude towards journalists. Blame of the media is almost a mantra – especially for its obsession…
Church Times
Loss of Trust
This was written for the Church Times in January 2008 Issues of trust are cropping up all over the place, mostly involving the lack of it. We fear we may not be able to trust banks with our…
2007
Dagen
BBC Today Programme is Half A Century Old
This was written for Dagen in October 2007 It is striking that this month we celebrate a key British broadcasting institution. For since it began, not only has there been change in…
Church Times
Gathering the Resolve
This was written for the church times August 2007 Nearly 30,000 people were at the Big Green Gathering in Somerset. Coming by car was discouraged, parking charges were heavy, and the whole…
Church Times
Death at Easter
This was written for the Church Times in March 2007 Murder has been very much in the news over the last weeks. A man stabbed in a flat in Rhyl, a beautiful young woman visiting Japan found…
2006
Church Times
Conflict in Thailand
This was written for the Church Times in September 2006. It was something of a coincidence that a trip to Thailand for an International Consultation on Conflict should end with a military…
2005
Church Times
Not Forgiving Debts
This was written for the Church Times February 2005 The debt forgiveness campaign has taken a steady move forward this week with the G8 summit and its commitment in principle to cancel…
The Times
All Schools are Faith Schools
This was written for The Times, Education Section in January 2005 As new concepts become established in our normal vocabulary we often need to question the assumptions they carry. This last…
2004
Independent
A Minimalist God?
This was written for The Independent in December 2004. I’ve always loved reading Anthony Flew. As a philosophy student in the 60s and a recent convert to Christianity, I was intrigued by…