Some Christians are anxious and uncomfortable about gender diversity and transition. Sometimes, they understand these issues as a rejection of God's intention for creation. Gender diversity has also been assumed to entail self-deception, mental ill-health, and dysphoria. Yet, humans are inherently transformative creatures with a vocation to shape their own worlds and traditions. Transformative creaturely theology recognizes the capacity of gender to shape humans even as we also question it. In this book, Susannah Cornwall reframes the issues of gender diversity and transition in constructive Christian theological terms. Resisting deficit-based discourses, she presents gender diversity in a way that is positive and non-oppositional. Her volume explores questions of the licit limits of technological interventions for human bodies, how gender diversity maps onto understandings of health, and the ethics of disclosure of gender diversity. It also brings these topics into critical conversation with constructive Christian theologies of creation, theological anthropology, Christology, and eschatology.
While transgender and non-binary identities are increasingly visible, too many Christians have either maintained a fearful silence, or have attacked 'transgenderism' as a threat to Christian faith and practice. More serious theological reflection is needed, not least of all in the Roman Catholic tradition. Moreover, the Catholic context presents particular challenges that are relevant beyond the Catholic world, due to the Church's widespread involvement in healthcare provision and education, and its traditions of thought around these activities. This volume considers the various questions to do with trans people in the life of the Church from an interdisciplinary, Catholic, ecumenical perspective, reaching out to academics, clergy and educated lay readers. It brings together perspectives from a variety of disciplines to provide a rigorous, wide-ranging engagement with these pressing issues; and includes a number of trans contributors, making their voices present in these discussions, which are about them, but from which they are often excluded. The first three chapters illustrate the development of Catholic thinking on transgender issues in recent decades. The second section of the book considers transgender identity from multiple perspectives: canon legal; legal; sociological, clinical; bioethical; and educational. The last two chapters of the second section shift the focus in the direction of theology and pastoral practice, themes that are explored by emerging theological scholars in the third section of the book.
Trans Formations is not a book about trans and non-binary Christians it is a book by trans and non-binary Christians. Who they are, what they experience, and what they understand stretches beyond trans-apologetics to formative anthropological and theological notions without which the body of anthropological and theological knowledge is incomplete. They have things to say about God and about being human and their yet-to-be-accessed insights matter. Whilst there is an abundance of material about trans ethics, there is little trans-written theology or theological anthropology that is formative, rather than trans critical or trans-apologetic. Situated within a queer paradigm, this book presents the identities, insights, and ideas of ten diverse trans and non-binary Christians. Alex Clare-Young, through their own identity, experiences, and insights of researching alongside nine other wonderful human-beings, writes their trans formational journey into being.
In this incisive work, Sam Ashton provides a compelling, consistent and erudite argument for a foundational approach to the matter of sexual difference, drawing on biblical and doctrinal material and using resources in their original languages. He tracks and traces the sexed body as it moves from creation, through the fall, to redemption now, and final consummation not yet. In doing so, Ashton presents what is perhaps the strongest case that can be made for 'male and female He created them'. Each chapter privileges biblical exegesis, drawing upon figures in church history (notably Augustine and Aquinas) as and when they illumine Scripture. By doing so, the book considers the difficulty presented to sexual dimorphism by the phenomenon of intersex. Ashton seeks to develop an understanding that is generous, inclusive and affirming, so he works carefully through the writings of Thatcher, Song and Cornwall in a way that invites engagement and dialogue. With the complete divine drama in view, the book offers synthetic judgments about what remains essential for the structure of the sexed body as it travels through history and what may be accidental to the sexed body's direction within a particular theo-dramatic act. Ashton concludes by considering ways to transition from dogmatic judgments about intersexuality to the moral-pastoral care of concrete intersex individuals, briefly thinking about the complex matter of marriage.
A groundbreaking collection of writings that place queer ritual at the center of the theological conversation. In this collection of essays, leading scholars in queer theology and liturgical studies explore the ways in which the distinctive theological voices of LGBTQIA+ Christians challenge and expand thinking and practice around worship in new directions. This challenge has expanded in the past decades, as obstacles to the full participation of queer Christians—particularly in marriage and ordination—have fallen. Organized into three main parts, the volume begins with an introduction to queer engagement with ritual practices, continues with a series of case studies that examine queer texts and contexts, and concludes with an examination of the horizons of queer liturgical theology and practice. Throughout the volume, Queering Christian Worship provides new imagination and tools to those who study and curate Christian worship across traditions.
What is a feminist theologian to do with Christianity's patriarchal inheritance? She can avoid the most patriarchal aspects of the theological tradition and seek resources for constructive work elsewhere. Or she can critique misogynistic texts and artifacts, exposing their strategies of domination to warn against replicating them. Both approaches have merits and yet, without other interpretive strategies, they reaffirm that the theological tradition does not belong to women and others marginalized by gender. They cannot transform the discourse. But within feminist theology are the seeds of another approach, aimed at just such transformation by reworking the theological landscape to become hospitable to all those marginalized by gender. Attunement: The Art and Politics of Feminist Theology identifies trajectories resonant with this alternative approach and from them, describes and develops attunement as a third, generative path for feminist theologians. Attunement is an aesthetically-invested approach to texts and artifacts that self-consciously co-creates as it interprets. Aware of what the text affords the reader, attunement constellates images, texts, and insights to build or augment positive affordances in the text and diminish negative ones. Natalie Carnes describes why this approach is significant for feminist theology, maps its roots in a long history of gender-marginalized individuals claiming authority, describes how it casts interpretation as both an aesthetic and political event, and notes how it might provide a way forward in vexed topics in feminist theology.
In 2014, Time magazine announced that America had reached “the transgender tipping point,” suggesting that transgender issues would become the next civil rights frontier. Years later, many people—even many LGBTQIA+ allies—still lack understanding of gender identity and the transgender experience. Into this void, trans biblical scholar Austen Hartke brings a biblically based, educational, and affirming resource to shed light and wisdom on gender expansiveness and Christian theology. This new edition offers updated terminology and statistics, plus new materials for congregational study, preaching, and pastoral care. Transforming deftly weaves ancient and modern stories that will change the way readers think about gender, the Bible, and the faith to which Jesus calls us. Hartke helps readers visualize a more inclusive Christianity, equipping them with the language, understanding, confidence, and tools to change both the church and the world.
Although the origins of Christianity lie in the Near East, Europe and Christianity have an exceptional relationship, since most Europeans perceive Christianity as a Western - more precisely, as a European - religion. The region has seen rapid social change in the 21st century, set off by factors including energy crisis and environmental awareness, poverty and exclusion, falling birthrates and increased migration, changing attitudes to sexuality, gender and family life, and challenges to Europe's idea of itself and place in the global order. Amidst all this flux, this volume focuses on one particular issue: the rapidly changing profile of the Christian faith that has shaped the life of the European continent for a millennium and more.At a time when patterns of Christian life and worship appear to be dying out, yet traces of new life are also appearing, this volume maps out the current reality of Christianity in Western and Northern Europe with all its questions and uncertainties.
Drawing upon Edward Schillebeeckx's theology and Judith Butler's philosophy, Adam Beyt uses the framework of nonviolent hope to construct a Catholic political theology responding to dehumanizing violence. Dehumanizing violence names words, institutions, or acts violating the inherent dignity of being made in the image and likeness of God. Theology can participate in dehumanizing violence by claiming an uninterrogated universality that marginalizes bodies due to their perceived differences such as gender, race, sexuality, or ability. The book's constructive project integrates Schillebeeckx's and Butler's thought with queer theory and phenomenology to model embodiment as an “enfleshing dynamism” between bodies and signification. The text then posits Catholic discipleship as incarnating hope by defending the humanum, the new humanity announced through God's Reign. Combining reflections from Schillebeeckx and Butler, this hope centers discipleship as nonviolent world building. Concluding with a sustained reflection with the writings of Franz Fanon and Walter Benjamin, the final chapter sketches a Catholic solidaristic response to contemporary struggles against the necropolitics of colonizing and state violence through assemblies of hope.