Explainer

Creed

Feminism

Royalty

27 September 2023

7 min read

Parliament’s floor tiles that empowered a queen

From Palace of Westminster floor tiles fit for a Queen to feminist theology, Belle Tindall takes a thought journey.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A grand highly dercorated hall in the neo-gothic style, with encaustic tiles in the foreground.

The Royal Gallery in the Houses of Parliament.

Houses of Parliament 360° virtual tour.

Engraved into the floor tiles of Westminster’s Royal Gallery are the words Cor Reginae in Manu Domini, which is the Latin script from the biblical book of Proverbs. However, there is one salient difference, one which has caught both my attention and imagination. In English, the original Proverb reads,

‘in the Lord’s hand is the king’s heart’

But what is written on the floor of the Royal Gallery is,

‘the Queen’s heart is in the hand of the Lord’

Right there, on the floor of the Palace of Westminster, is a little piece of feminist theology.

In a parliament that was the apogee of Victorian values and sentiment, the political and cultural epicentre of an Age that was (ironically) remembered in reference to a woman but was nevertheless pontificated on laws that treated women as chattels, these tiles were theological dynamite (as opposed to literal dynamite – that was a few centuries earlier).

Female empowerment was present below the feet, if not within the hearts and minds, of the men who oversaw an era of undeniable and near-absolute patriarchy.

Feminism: A little context

Feminism is not an easy concept to define. It isn’t black and white, however much we wish that it were. In truth, it more accurately resembles the entirety of the grey scale. It cannot claim to be singular any more than the female experience is singular. In reality, it is brimming with nuance, complexity, and subjectivity. What’s more, I would confidently wage a bet that you have arrived at this article with an already in-tact pre-conception of the term. None of us approach feminism neutrally, be weary of anyone who claims to do so – it is simply impossible. Therefore, we are not only faced with the endless external nuances of feminism, but we’re also tasked with sifting through our differing internal understandings. Like I say, it’s about as definable as the shade of grey.

Nevertheless, for the sake of being on the same page, allow me a moment to try. A moment to (briefly) unpack what I mean by the term feminism. For that, I will borrow the words of award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who influentially declared that feminism is the belief in ‘the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.’

That’s it.

To me, feminism is nothing more, and certainly nothing less than that. Of course, as a self-proclaimed feminist, it’s necessary for me to plunge the dark depths of the subjective nature of such a belief. But it is more important to ensure that I continually come back up to the surface for a deep breath of air, and I consider Chimamanda’s over-arching definition to be that air.

With Chimamanda’s words filling our lungs, let us dive beneath the surface for a moment.

Feminism has, and still does, get worked out in the most tangible of ways: through marches on the streets, protests outside government buildings, petitions, boycotts, legal battles and demands. All of which is advocating for the empowerment of women, the restoring of an equilibrium, and the ensuring of that all-important equality of the sexes.

As well as the macro-examples that adorn the history books and media outlets, we must also acknowledge the micro-battles; the thousands upon thousands of non-news-worthy conversations, changes, and decisions that nudge the individuals and communities involved toward the very same goal of equality. After all, feminism is as personal as it is political. And all of these actions, past and present, whether they be macro or micro in scale, are (often imperfectly) working toward the practical, tangible, measurable flourishing of women and therefore society.

And so, with all of that practical work going on – with the many battles won and the many more that are raging on - why on earth would we need something as abstract, as contemplative, as time-swallowingly-indulgent as feminist theology?

I’m glad you asked.

Feminist theology as an imaginative endeavour

By way of an answer, I’d like to return to those words on the floor of the Palace of Westminster. Victoria was the Queen. She wore the crown, she sat on the throne, she lived in the palace, she presided over the government, she ruled over the country. All the evidence was there; it would have taken a rather large dose of delusion for anyone to have questioned it. And yet, according to the existence of those floor tiles, the tangible evidence wasn’t quite enough.

Queen Victoria’s right to be such was ultimately held by the divine. So much so, that the intangible was made tangible, literally carved into the ground that she (and others) would walk upon. And therein lies the need for feminist theology.

Whether one considers themselves to be Christian or not – or even religious, for that matter – we all have ‘imaginative landscapes’. Not ‘imaginative’ as in fantasy, but rather, ‘imaginative’ as in our landscapes of thought. These are the interior places where we attach meaning to our experiences, and therefore judge the significance of every waking moment. As Francis Spufford so eloquently puts it,

'we are meaning-making creatures. We cannot stop making enchantments.'

This is also the realm in which we wonder about the existence of God, the mysteries of our universe, and the significance of ourselves.

And so, it’s in those places, as well as the practical, that work is being done toward the equality of the sexes. It’s in those places that we must grapple with the inherent value of women. Because, in many ways, those are the truest places. Those are the places where reality is crafted, ordered, and understood. It is in those places where truth is sought, viewpoints are galvanised, and actions are decided upon. Feminist Theologian, Serene Jones, writes it this way,

‘Closely tied to the view of practical transformation is feminist theology's contention that changing society requires both changing laws and practices and challenging the categories and processes we use to think about life and to make sense of our world.’

In short, feminism has work to do in both the seen and the unseen. Feminist theology, therefore, is an imaginative endeavour. Which makes it a profoundly important one.

It is the work of digging into biblical texts with an un-denied bias, a particular mission, a sole question that needs answering. We do so in order to uncover what the maker thinks of the made (the maker being God, the made being women), and from there do all other feminist inclinations flow. We find evidence of the empowerment of women in the divine agenda, so it naturally gets included in ours. We spot profound equality of the sexes present in the original blueprint of a flourishing earth, and so we work in partnership with it. We find validation of female worth, value and power in the pages of the Bible, and then work about writing it into the pages of the history books. And on it goes. We get things straight in our imaginative landscapes, and then we get them straight everywhere else.

Did the fact that Queen Vicotria walked upon those affirming floor tiles eradicate any possibility of sexism or misogyny? I doubt it. But I like to think that it was a profound start-line, a radical piece of feminist theology that we are still running to catch up with.

You may be thinking that this is interesting, albeit utterly irrelevant. Because we now live in a secular society, one where we don’t need any kind of God to legitimate the way we perceive anything – least of all ourselves. This is not the good old Victorian era, after all.

And to such arguments, I may be tempted to direct you toward the work of Nick Spencer or Tom Holland and suggest that we’re not quite as secular in our values as we first appear. Or perhaps I could point you to the discography of Nick Cave, Lauryn Hill, Paul Simon or Stormzy and question whether our craving for something truer than what we can see is a craving we’ve truly progressed beyond? Or even bring to your attention the fact that the Barbie Movie is the highest grossing film of the year (you didn’t really expect me to not mention that film in an article about feminism, did you?), and argue that we’re obsessed with wondering what we’re for, what makes us who we are, what generates our value. It is an itch we cannot stop scratching.

I could point to all those things. But oddly, I don’t feel the need to. Because I think you know, as do I, that our imaginative landscape is there, and it matters. We know it, we engage it, we feel it.

And that’s why feminist theology matters. At least, to me.

Gosh. All those thoughts from a few floor tiles. Maybe I need to get out more.

All insights into the Palace of Westminster are curtesy of Richard Hall; architectural historian and author of The Palace of Westminster: Faith, Art, and Architecture: an illustrated guidebook that uncovers the Christian legacy that underpins the visual culture of the Palace of Westminster.

Article

Attention

Creed

Education

Psychology

1 April 2025

6 min read

We miss so much when we only see what we are looking for

Explaining why we don't see the unseen - with the help of a gorilla.

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Manuel Bonadeo on Unsplash.

In a thriving Pentecostal Church on an English city street, a room full of worshippers are singing, clapping, dancing and throwing their hands in the air. The preacher cries “Come, Holy Spirit!” and there are cries of “Amen!” and “Yes Lord!” One person has tears on their cheeks.

A few doors down, a few dozen Anglicans also gather. Heads bent over their liturgy books, there is a hum of responses and an air of reverence. “Give us the joy of your saving help: and sustain us with your life-giving Spirit.” The altar candles flicker as the community settles itself into pews. The Holy Spirit is no less present to these worshippers, although they respond in a completely different way.

Both churches share one creed, in which they commit to their belief in God as the source of all things, seen and unseen. Whilst Pentecostal theologies tend to focus on the observable and unpredictable signs of the Spirit at work, many Anglicans would describe the Spirit in terms of an inner experience, perhaps one that is cognitive rather than physical. But either way, Christians share one belief – that God is present in the world, and we call that the Holy Spirit.

However, there are also hundreds of people who walk past both of these churches, week by week, who would never dream of setting foot inside. Many of them will think that anyone who believes in God is deluded or deceived. Such rationalist thinkers often have a strongly monist view of the world, in which everything, even mysterious things such as human consciousness and perception of non-physical entities, must have a physical or biological basis. As Ebenezer Scrooge says to the apparent ghost of Marley in Charles Dickens’ book, A Christmas Carol, “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

It is almost impossible to convince someone who hasn’t had a first first-hand experience of God that anything like the Holy Spirit exists. Many nay-sayers, I suspect, quietly (or maybe not so quietly) believe that their unbelief is because they are more rational and maybe even more intelligent than those who get excited by such things. But there is another possible explanation for why some people apparently cannot, or will not, see the unseen.

The British education system is heavily orientated towards STEM. Even when more creative subjects such as literature find their way into the syllabus, they are often studied in a rather dry and analytical way. Notwithstanding the efforts of the occasional maverick teacher, I recall much time spent learning how to identify the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare, and little (if any) time learning to articulate how his sonnets made me feel. Such a system turns out good scientists, but it may be that in doing so it trains our young people out of being able to perceive a whole raft of things which are arguably just as important to human flourishing.

The world around us contains significantly more sensory input than our minds can process, so we simply don’t pay attention to most of it.

A “selective attention test” can quickly prove this point. I did one recently with a room full of psychology undergraduates, almost all of whom had identified as monists. “Since you guys are the brightest and the best,” I simpered “let’s do a little intelligence test. Apparently only five per cent of the general population get the answer right to this puzzle, but in this room, I expect the success rate will be a little higher…”

Having primed them by flattering their egos, I proceeded to show them a video called “The Monkey Business Illusion”, designed in 2009 by scientists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. During the short film, a group of people pass basket balls to each other, and viewers are asked to count how many times the players wearing white shirts pass the ball. It seems simple enough, and when the film ended, I asked the students how many counted the right number of passes. Almost every hand in the room went up. No surprises there.

Then I asked the more important question – who saw the gorilla? There was a smattering of laughter, and this time only about half of the hands went up. Meanwhile, the other half of my students were looking around at their peers, utterly confused…

But it was true. In “The Monkey Business Illusion”, a person in a 6ft gorilla costume walks right across the middle of the scene, weaving through the players in the game. However, because most viewers are intently focussed on watching the players in white, they simply don’t perceive it. You can try this for yourself - the video I’m talking about can be found easily on YouTube, and if you follow the search term “selective attention test” there are many others like it.

The material point is that the world around us contains significantly more sensory input than our minds can process, so we simply don’t pay attention to most of it. If you pause for a moment right now, you might notice that there is the hum of a heater in your room, or the noise of traffic outside, or the smell of an air freshener, or that a piece of your clothing that is too tight – things you were simply not aware of until I pointed them out. It’s common that we don’t perceive things until something else makes us think that they are important. If someone tells you that your house might have structural damage, you will suddenly start to notice every creak that comes from your walls and ceilings, even though those creaks have probably been happening for years.

As social beings, we can be easily conditioned into paying attention to certain things and ignoring others. If I tell a group of students that intelligent people are highly attentive to the players in white shirts, I increase the likelihood that they simply will not notice a gorilla.

There is good research to show that children, even in our modern and secular society, are inherently spiritual – most young kids believe in God, or gods, fairies and the existence of many things unseen. But this is not celebrated in our STEM focussed education system, wherein young minds are highly conditioned to let go of such “irrational” beliefs and trust in the full explanatory power of science. It is so effective that, by the time they get to my classroom at university, I’ve got little hope of persuading any of my monists that there was a 6ft gorilla without showing the video again and letting them see it for themselves.

But there are always some people who are willing to challenge the idea that Marley was just an undigested bit of beef. There are always some people who attend churches of one type or another, or practice other forms of spirituality and religion. Some pray, some meditate, and many take part in rituals. This trains them in what anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann calls “micro-processes of attending”, leaving them more ready to perceive spiritual things instead of screening them out of their conscious awareness. How they respond might depend on preferred tradition – dancing, liturgy, or a little bit of both. But all agree that there is something going on that is unseen and important.

Many STEM educated, highly rational and fully committed monists no doubt think that those who attend churches are deluded and deceived into perceiving unseen things are simply just not there. These nay-sayers have been taught, implicitly and explicitly, that it is more intelligent to believe in the all-explanatory power of science. But perhaps it is they who have been deluded and deceived? As the Monkey Business Illusion demonstrates, if you flatter someone’s intelligence enough, it becomes entirely possible to hide a 6ft gorilla in plain sight.

Watch the Monkey Business Illusion

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