God’s Kinde Love: Julian of Norwich’s Vernacular Theology of Grace

God’s Kinde Love book is the first first full-scale study of Julian of Norwich’s doctrine of grace. The thesis of the book is that Julian of Norwich developed a sophisticated, multifaceted doctrine of grace that reflected a profound knowledge of the theological tradition; at the same time, Julian resisted the dominant theological tradition and its established socio-political alignments, and she offered instead a new theological paradigm: that of God’s kinde love. Through a close reading of the Long Text, and in particular through an analysis of Julian’s use of the word grace, Lamm identifies three distinctive, interrelated facets of Julian’s doctrine of grace. Julian’s theological brilliance and artistry comes through as she develops these three facets by means of kinetic imagery that Julian develops thematically. These three facets of her doctrine of grace are so intricately bound up with the most important theological discussions that Julian had added in the Long Text that those additions cannot be fully understood apart from her theology of grace. To date, scholars have not noted the exponential increase in Julian’s use of the term grace in the later editions of her book, Showings. The reason for this increase was evidently twenty years of prayerful reflection on the meaning of her original revelations in light of scripture; a secondary revelation she received that Love was the meaning; and, Lamm suggests, the socio-political context of a post-Revolt England. This is where the vernacular, and in particular the range of associations of the Middle English kinde enter into the discussion.