Mukti Barton

Mukti Barton (nee Mukhopadhyay) teaches (half-time) Black and Asian Theology and Bible and Liberation. She also works half-time as Bishop’s Adviser for Black and Asian Ministries in the Diocese of Birmingham. Mukti is passionate about scripture, liberation and justice. This passion comes from her own experience of being a Black woman and seeing how Black people and women are treated in societies. In her theology classes, as biblical texts dialogue with contemporary contexts, the Bible empowers people to work towards God’s kingdom and justice.

Mukti has a wide experience of life as an Indian Christian born and brought up in a clergy family in West Bengal, as a clergy wife with two sons in England and as a USPG (the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) missionary family in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh she was involved in women’s groups and became the founder director of an ecumenical women’s centre for doing theology from women’s perspective. After eleven years in Bangladesh she came back to England and gained her PhD degree from the University of Bristol, for her thesis, now published as a book: Scripture as Empowerment for Liberation and Justice: The Experience of Christian and Muslim women in Bangladesh. Her History (hons) degree was from Calcutta University.

She remains connected with Asian women’s theology through the Asian Women’s Resource Centre for Culture and Theology, based in Malaysia, and with Black and Asian people’s theology in Britain through the Black and Asian Network in the Diocese and the Black Theology Forum.

Areas of Interest:

Black and Asian Liberation Theology

Black and Asian Women’s Liberation Theology

The Bible and Liberation

Theology, Ministry and Spirituality in Multicultural Britain

Theological Reflection on Colour, Gender and Class Issues

Theology and Power Issues

Indian Christianity

Indian Christian Spirituality

Indian Christian Saints

Gender in Different Religions

Liberation and Justice in Different Religions

Publications

Books:

• Creation and Fall and the Women of Bangladesh: A Contextual Study, Dhaka: Netritto Proshikkhon Kendro, 1992.
• Scripture as Empowerment for Liberation and Justice: The Experience of Christian and Muslim Women in Bangladesh, Bristol: Centre for Comparative Studies in Religion and Gender, University of Bristol, 1999.
• Rejection, Resistance and Resurrection: Speaking out on Racism in the church, London: DLT, 2005.

Articles:

• “Jesus Christ and the Sexual Exploitation of Women”, in In God’s Image, June 1990.
• “Woman and Man in Creation”, in Chung, Lee Oo, et. al. eds., Women of Courage: Asian Women Reading the Bible, Seoul: Asian Women’s Resource Centre for Culture and Theology (AWRC), 1992. “For You are a Woman”, trans., Zeenat Ahmed, in Michele Guinness ed., Tapestry of Voices: Meditations on women’s lives, London: Triangle, SPCK, 1993.
• “Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and the Bengali Muslim Women’s Movement” in Dialogue & Alliance: A Journal of the International Religious Foundation, vol. 12 - No. 1, New York: Spring/Summer 1998.
• “A Bangladeshi Woman’s Decade”, in In God’s Image, Vol. 17. No. 4, 1998. Liberation Spirituality as a ignal of Transcendence: Christian and Muslim Women in Bangladesh, Oxford: Religious Experience Research Centre, Westminster College, 1998.
• “Hermeneutical Insubordination Toppling Worldly Kingdoms”, in Joe Aldred, ed., Sisters with Power, London & New York: Continuum, 2000.
• “The Christ We Share”, book review, in Viewpoints: Insights into Education and Training in Today’s Church, Issue 8, Spring 2001.
• “Becoming Disciples: Readings in Matthew”, in Words for Today Notes for daily Bible reading 2002, Birmingham: The International Bible Reading Association, 2001.
• “The Skin of Miriam Became as White as Snow: The Bible, Western Feminism and Colour Politics”, in Feminist Theology, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
• “From Victim to Victor: A Black Feminist Re-Reading of Genesis 38” in The Women’s Christian Yearbook 2003, Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2002.
• ‘I am Black and Beautiful’ in Black Theology: An International Journal, vol. 2, no., 2, London, Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2004.
• “Race, Gender, Class and the Theology of Empowerment: An Indian Perspective”, in Ursula King and Tina Beattie, Gender, Religion and Diversity, Cross-Cultural Perspectives, London, New York: Continuum, 2004, (Paperback edition 2005).

Book: Hospitality or Hostility? Procedures at European Ports.

Mukti loves gardening, which revitalises her in body, mind and spirit