Abstract

For 40 years, from the age of fifty, Alison Gent made the cause of women in the church and the secular world her work. She described herself, quoting Austin Farrer, as a ‘walking sacrament’. Gent was, from her youth, a woman of faith and she expressed this faith within the life of the Anglican Church with acts of devotion such as daily attendance at the Eucharist, and sacred reading of scripture and the lives of the saints. She also was active in the world with acts of charity and support for the church’s mission. Gent, however, was not a stereotypical bearer of Christian charity. She was in court as spokesperson for young drug offenders, participated in support groups for gay and lesbian people and divorced Anglicans and helped set up women’s refuges. Gent’s very public support for secular groups such as the Women’s Liberation Movement, the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, and the International Women’s Day Marches meant that her reputation in the church as an eccentric and rebel was confirmed while her standing in the Women’s Movement was always in question because of her convictions concerning God, the church and marriage. My paper will focus on the Women’s Liberation Movement as a form of life within which Gent adapted her Christian living and learned new language games. I will use a narrative theology methodology developed from Wittgenstein and Lindbeck to interpret this part of Alison’s life and how it can inform the connection of sacred and secular in women’s affairs.