'Working for Change in the Position of Women in the Church': Christian Women's Information and Resources (CWIRES) and the British Christian Women's Movement, 1972-1990
Abstract
44 'Working for Change in the Position of Women in the Church': Christian Women's Information and Resources (CWIRES) and the British Christian Women's Movement, 1972-1990 SAGE Publications, Inc.2001DOI: 10.1177/096673500100002604 Jenny Daggers In 1992 the Christian Women's Information and Resources (CWIRES) project, which had been based in Oxford from 1979, finally closed its doors. Assembled during the CWIRES period as a resource for Christian women, the resulting archive of books and papers provides a mine of information concerning the life of a movement among Christian women, which gathered momentum from the early 1970s. In this article I analyse the developing concerns, structures and activities of the Christian women's groups which together made up the Christian women's movement, informed by my reading of CWIRES. 1. CWIRS (subsequently CWIRES) Trustees and Working Group, publicity leaflet (1989) (CW unlisted). The start date of 1972 reflects the year of formation of the Christian Parity Group—the first post-1970 group concerned with the position of women in the church—and the year of the first SCM publication to raise women's issues, Theology and Sexual Politics (London: SCM Press, 1972) (CW K17). The close date of 1990 reflects the final year in which new CWIRES acquisitions were