Sergius & Bacchus Books

GREENBERG, David: The Construction of Homosexuality

2010-03-25T10:01:00.001Z

"At various times, homosexuality has been considered the noblest of loves, a horrible sin, a psychological condition or grounds for torture and execution. David F. Greenberg's careful, encyclopedic and important new book argues that homosexuality is only deviant because society has constructed, or defined, it as deviant. The book takes us over vast terrains of example and detail in the history of homosexuality."--Nicholas B. Dirks, New York Times Book Review

Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews Copyright (c) VNU Business Media, Inc.
A densely documented study of societal attitudes toward homosexuality through the ages and across the cultural spectrum. To supply insight into prehistoric practices, Greenberg begins with homosexuality in tribal societies. In various Pacific Island tribes, for instance, prepubescent boys are placed under the aegis of an older male for manhood-training--which includes a ritualized pederastic relationship until the younger male marries. Throughout the world, a number of tribal societies regard nonritualized homosexuality for men and, occasionally, for women with considerable tolerance. The widespread homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome may, says Greenberg, have evolved from earlier rituals. The Christian era was characterized by official hostility to all nonprocreative sex, with horrendous penalties (castration, stoning, immolation) for homosexual acts. Such penalties were rarely invoked, and large medieval and Renaissance cities contained sizable male homosexual undergrounds. With Protestantism and the Industrial Age, attitudes hardened as a burgeoning middle class saw nonconformity as a threat to their values, children, and societal stability. Gay liberation has now produced a backlash triggered by the sudden visibility of homosexuals, with the AIDS crisis further ammunition against deviation. Every page here bristles with information: Greenberg cites over 2,300 books and articles. Although he relies on no original sources, he has assembled and interpreted well a mass of fascinating material.

MURRAY, Stephen O: Homosexualities.

2010-03-25T10:00:00.004Z

One of the world's leading authorities on global homosexualities has produced a magnum opus. Breathtaking in its historical and geographical scope, Stephen O. Murray's landmark work provides a sweeping examination of the construction of male and female homosexualities, stressing both the variability of the forms same-sex desire can take and the key recurring patterns it has formed throughout history. From imperial China to Tudor England, and from medieval Egypt to the Ottoman Empire to modern-day Japan, Murray expertly explores the full range of both behavior and meaning in same-sex relationships.

NAPHY, William: Born to be Gay

2010-03-25T10:00:00.003Z

HERDT, Gilbert H: Same sex, different cultures:

2010-03-25T09:59:00.001Z

Exploring gay and lesbian lives

Westview Press, 1997

204 pages

Because homoerotic relations can be found in so many cultures, Gilbert Herdt argues that we should think of these relations as part of the human condition. This new cross-cultural study of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals around the world, Same Sex, Different Cultures provides a unique perspective on maturing and living within societies, both historical and contemporary, that not only acknowledge but also incorporate same-gender desires and relations.Examining what it means to organize “sex” in a society that lacks a category for “sex,” or to love someone of the same gender when society does not have a “homosexual” or “gay/lesbian” role, Herdt provides provocative new insights in our understanding of gay and lesbians lives. Accurate in both its scientific conceptions and wealth of cultural and historical material, examples range from the ancient Greeks and feudal China and Japan to the developing countries of Africa, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand, from a New Guinea society to contemporary U.S. culture, including Native Americans. For all of these peoples, homoerotic relations emerge as part of culture—and not separate from history or society.In many of these groups, loving or engaging in sexual relations is found to be the very basis of the local cultural theory of “human nature” and the mythological basis for the cosmos and the creation of society. The mistake of modern Western culture, Gilbert contends, is to continue the legalization of prejudice against lesbians and gays.In this light, the book addresses the issue of “universal” versus particular practices and reveals positive role models that embrace all aspects of human sexuality. Finally, it offers knowledge of the existence of persons who have loved and have been intimate sexually and romantically with the same gender in other lands through divergent cultural practices and social roles.The most important lesson to learn from this cross-cultural and historical study of homosexuality is that there is room for many at the table of humankind.

NELSON, James B: Between two gardens:

2010-03-08T15:43:00.000Z

Reflections on sexuality and religious experience
Pilgrim Press, 1983

Thoughtful reexamination of human sexuality and the Christian experience. Discusses men's and women's liberation, singleness, abortion, the family, religious and moral questions related to homosexuality, and other issues.

The Spiritual Gifts of Gay Sexuality

2010-03-08T15:36:00.001Z

Spiritual direction is one of the best -kept secrets of the Catholic Church. This is unfortunate- the process needs to be better known and used. This is how Jesuit theologian James L'Empereur describes it:

the process in which a Christian accompanies others for an extended period of time for the process of clarifying the psychological and religious issues in the directee so that they may move toward deeper union with God and contribute to ministry within the Christian community.

I have unexpectedly been able to borrow L'Empereur's "Spiritual Direction and the Gay Person", which I would now like to prescribe to all my readers as required reading, with a 3 hour examination at the end of the course. I began reading last evening, and have been devouring it with enthusiasm. I am now about half way through, and not yet ready to offer a full and balanced assessment. (That will come later). Still, every page has important insights that I want to share or explore further. As an appetizer before the main course to follow, I offer some snippets today:

Here are the opening sentences:

Homosexuality is one of God's most significant gifts to humanity. To be gay or lesbian is to have received a special blessing from God. to be gay or lesbian is to have received a special blessing from God. All humans receive their own special graces from their creator, but god has chosen some to be gay and lesbian as a way of revealing something about Godself that heterosexuals do not.

This is a startling, unexpected beginning, but of course he goes on to explain and fully substantiate it, in a chapter that had me engrossed, and anxious to explore also all his references and sources (a task, I fear, which may be well beyond me.) Elsewhere, he makes another startling claim: he calls the gay state a "charism", exactly comparable to the charism of celibacy embraced by Catholic clergy. Both are charisms granted to just a few, from which the wider church can learn. Here I was reminded of an observation in one of our Soho Mass homilies, that if "homosexuality" is an environmental threat because it cannot lead to procreation, so is celibacy.) The key manner in which we who are gay or lesbian can teach the wider Church is in the manner of our sexuality, which is not exclusively about genital contact (in complete contradiction to the popular stereotypes), nor is it based in patriarchal patterns of domination and submission.

I should stress here that L'Empereur very carefully does not either endorse or condemn any specific form of sexual expression, whether in committed, faithful relationships, in recreational sex, or in voluntary celibacy: those decisions are to be reached by the person being directed, through the process, and not decided a priori. However, he does argue strongly that for all people, gay or otherwise, the historic dichotomy between sex and spirituality has been destructive. Instead of thinking of spirituality OR sexuality, we should be looking for spirituality THROUGH sexuality , possibly (but not necessarily) including genital sexuality. Gay people, he says, may find this easier than heterosexuals, who are often startled during counselling before , when he asks whether they expect to use their sexual union as a form of prayer.

In this book L'Empereur presents with great clarity and authority a number of the themes I have been grasping at on these pages. Another is the view that authentic Catholic teaching fully supports, not condemns, the homosexual and his/her struggle. Surprised? You shouldn't be. We know from painful experience of course, that approached from the perspective of sexual ethics, standard Catholic teaching is deeply hostile. L'Empereur reminds us that Catholic teaching is far broader than just sexual ethics. Approached from social justice, which is at least as important to the totality of teaching, a completely different picture emerges, one which demands compassion and support for the marginalised and oppressed, and requires that we work towards justice. This latter perspective has been profoundly influential in my own faith as it was formed under South African apartheid, and why I found Cardinal O'Connors instruction to the Soho Masses to present Catholic teaching on sexuality "in full, and without ambiguity". This is impossible: "in full" implies from a range of approaches, which are self-contradictory. When we think of the structure of Catholic teaching on homosexuality, far too often we see only the dominating monolith of the official Vatican teaching on sexual ethics, and especially the scaled down, reduced travesty that we find in the catechism. Reading this book, I am reminded that the teaching "in full" more closely resembles a crowded, diverse city, with many strands coming from the Vatican centre - and also important subsidiary nodes, such as those presented by theologians like L'Empereur. Historically, cities grew around single, strong centres. During the twentieth century, the development of private transport led to dramatic changes in city morphology, with the major growth occurring on the suburban or exurban fringes and in suburban business nodes. In some cities, it has been suggested, the traditional centre has virtually disappeared.

We may be seeing the same thing in theology. Comparable to private transport, the emergence of lay theologians and secular schools of theology have privatised the construction of new ideas. Instead of the ancient central monolith dominating the skyline, steadfastly preserving and protecting its traditional inheritance, suburban nodes are bubbling away, creating new forms and structures: liberation theology, feminist theology, gay and lesbian theology, queer theology; theology by discerned experience, theology of spirituality through sexuality - and so many more I have not yet encountered. With so much vitality at the suburban fringes, the "margins" lose conceptual significance. Will Vatican City in time become irrelevant, as some physical central cities have done?

Jayden Cameron thinks so, at the Gay Mystic. Read "Life Finds a Way".

(I will have more on this important book later - probably repeatedly.)

MACLAREN Brian: A New Kind of Christianity

2010-03-06T23:15:00.006Z

Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith

Harper Collins, 2010

320 pages

Examines 10 questions facing Christianity today, questions about authority, God, Jesus, how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of the gospel, sex, the future and pluralism, in a book that lays out a vision of what the church will look like for its next 500 years.

From Publishers Weekly

McLaren's fans and detractors have eagerly awaited this book, which promises to codify the beliefs he introduced in his bestselling A New Kind of Christian and other titles. McLaren, one of the most visible faces of the emergent movement, examines 10 questions the church must answer as it heads toward a new way of believing. McLaren deconstructs the Greco-Roman narrative of the Bible and addresses how the Bible should be understood as an inspired library, not a constitution. He moves into questions regarding God, Jesus, and the Gospel, urging us to trade up our image of God and realize that Jesus came to launch a new Genesis. The Church, sexuality, the future, and pluralism merit chapters, as does McLaren's final call for a robust spiritual life. Followers will rejoice as McLaren articulates his thoughts with logic and eloquence; detractors will point out his artful avoidance of firm answers on salvation, hell, and a final judgment. All sides will flock to this with glee. (Feb.)

Amazon User Review:

Brian McLaren has emerged as a voice that asks aloud the questions that many of us have wrestled with in silence. As a result, he has been lionized (and sometimes idolized) by those who find resonance with his theological ponderings. He has simultaneously been demonized and even slandered by those who are disturbed by his explorations into what it means to follow Jesus in the 21st century. He has become both an antenna and a lightning rod for the light and heat generated by the friction of Christianity's transition into post-modernism.

I have just finished reading McLaren's latest book, A New Kind of Christianity. Having read several of McLaren's other books, I would consider this one to be essential. I mean "essential" in two different ways:

1. "Essential" in the sense that A New Kind of Christianity is a streamlined and tightly focused distillation of ideas that McLaren has explored elsewhere. This book seems to contain the concentrated essence of what McLaren's theological labor has produced thus far. I often found points which he had sketched out in previous books now re-drawn in sharp, clear and muscular form. As a result--at under 300 pages--this book packs a great deal of theological, intellectual and inspirational punch.

2. "Essential" in the sense that A New Kind of Christianity is *the* Brian McLaren book to read, whether you haven't read anything else by him or whether you have read everything else by him.

The 10 Questions:

1. What is the overarching story line of the Bible?
2. How should the Bible be understood?
3. Is God violent?
4. Who is Jesus and why is He important?
5. What is the Gospel?
6. What do we do about the Church?
7. Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it?
8. Can we find a better way of viewing the future?
9. How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?
10. What do we do now? (How do we translate our quest into action?)

NAPHY, William: Born To be Gay

2010-03-04T15:34:00.001Z

A History of Homosexuality

“A global history of the lives of gay men and women from the earliest civilizations to the present day.”

Homosexuality ahs always been present in society. William Naphy’s book dramatically highlights the positive attitudes of bygone generations and cultures, as opposed to nineteenth century views of the “disease” of homosexuality.

There has long been an assumption in the West that views on sex and sexuality are basically similar worldwide. This has never been the case. Many ancient cultures actively promoted same-sex relationships as an integral part of adolescence or even worship. The rise of Judeo-Christian views forced homosexuality “underground”, leading to Henry VIII’s 1535 ban on homosexuality and Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for sodomy.

Born to Be Gay takes a radical look at homosexuality from Bacchanalian orgies to “Gay Pride”.

CONTENTS

Before Sodom and Gomorrah
”Joined in Life, Joined in Death”

The Birth of Homophobia
”They Must Be Put to Death”

Classical Civilizations and the Birth of Christianity
”Every Woman’s Husband and Every Man’s Wife”

Closing Minds
”The Amir Wants to See What I Look Like When I’m Sodomised”

Spreading Christian Values
”Because the White People Thought it was Evil”

Colonizing Minds
”They Had Grown From Childhood in Their Own Natural Way”.

DUBERMAN, Martin; CHAUNCEY, George; VICINUS, Martha: Hidden From History,

2010-03-04T14:26:00.001Z

Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past

New American Library 1989
Penguin 1991

579 pages

Lesbian and Gay History

Winner of two Lambda Rising Awards. "A landmark of a book and a landmark of ideas that will shatter ignorance and delusion."-Catharine Stimpson

CONTENTS

Introduction George Chaunsy Jnr, Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus

The Ancient World

Revolutions, Universals and Sexual Categories: John Boswell

Sex Before Sexuality: Pederasty, Politics and Power in Classical Athens: David M Halperin

Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in History

Preindustrial Societies

Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Judith C Brown

Homosexuality and the state in Late Imperial China: Vivien W Ng

Lesbians in American Indian Culture: Paula Gunn Allen

Male Love in Early Modern Japan: A Literary depiction of the “Youth” Paul Gordon Schalow

The Birth of the Queen: Sodomy and the Emergence of Gender Equality in Modern Culture,1660 – 1750 Randolph Trumbach

Sodomy in the Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century: Arend H Huussen, Jnr.

The Nineteenth Century

“Writhing Bedfellows” in Antebellum South Carolina: Historical Interpretation and the Politics of Evidence Martin Duberman

Knights Errant and Gothic Seducers: The Representation of Male Friendship in Mid-Nineteenth Century America Robert K Martin

“She Even Chewed Tobacco”: A Pictorial Narrative of Passing Women in America San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project

Inverts, Perverts and Mary-Anns: Male Prostitution and the Regulation of Homosexuality in England in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Gefffrey Weeks

Distance and Desire: English Boarding School Friendships, 1879 – 1920 Martha Vicinus

Early Twentieth Century

Iconography of a Scandal: Political Cartoons and the Eulenberg Affair in Wilhelmin Germany Jame D. Steakley

Discourses of Subjectivity: The New Woman, 1870 – 1936 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman Esther Newton

Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion? Homosexual Identities and the Construction of Sexual Boundaries in the the World war I Era Geoffrey Chauncey, Jnr

A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz age Harlem Eric Garber

Paris Lesbianism and the Politics of Reaction , 1900 – 1940: Shari Benstock

Russia’s Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution Simon Karlinsky

Swastika, Pink Triangle and Yellow Star: the Destruction of Sexology and the Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany

Erwin J Haeberle

World War II and the Postwar Era

Marching to a Different Drummer: Lesbian and gay GI’s in World War II Allen Berube

“Imagine my Surprise”: Women’s Relationships in Mid –Twentieth Century America Leila J Rupp

Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the South African Gold Mines T Dunbar Moodie (with Vivienne Ndatshe and British Sibuyi)

Homosexuality, Homophobia and Revolution:Notes towards an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience. Lourdes Arguelles and B. Ruby Rich

Gay Politics and Community in San Francisco Since WWII John D’Emilio

NIMMONS, David: The Soul Beneath the Skin, The

2010-02-04T12:43:00.001Z

The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay Men

St Martin’s Griffin, 2003

ISBN
031232040X, 9780312320409

255 pages

“Among the most acclaimed books on the gay male experience, "The Soul Beneath the Skin" explores the wide variety of social and ethical experiments in gay men's lives, and their implications both for gay men and society at large. David Nimmons radically reinterprets gay men's sexuality, intimate relationships and ethics by looking at seven patterns of behavior widely practiced by gay men but rarely acknowledged: non-violent public culture; high rates of altruism, service, and volunteerism; robust sexual caretaking; friendship patterns of diffuse intimacies; friendship with women; diverse forms of sexual union; and unique forms of bliss and pleasure seeking.
These social innovations, striking similar to the teachings of the great spiritual traditions, suggest a new and profound public ethics, a stirringly optimistic vision of a social revolution as radical as it is unnoticed.”

MOORE: A Question of Truth

2010-02-04T07:46:00.001Z

Christianity and Homosexuality

[Photo] (Continuum Books, 2003)

(Scripture, Theology, Sexuality)

Fr Gareth Moore was a Dominican priest, and lecturer in theology and philosophy at Oxford University. The title of this volume draws on the motto of his Dominican order, “Veritas”(“Truth”) and is also a reference to the Vatican’s chief document in condemnation of homosexuality, “Homosexualitatis Problema”, which concludes with an approving quotation of the verse from Scripture, “Speak the Truth in Love”. This document argues that this opposition is grounded in the clear lessons of scripture and natural law. Moore carefully and convincingly shows that these claims are deeply flawed – that in fact no scriptural texts condemn all such acts, and the argument from natural law is deeply flawed.

The strength of this treatment is that approaches the Vatican argument on its own terms – as theology. Fr Moore’s impeccable academic credentials as philosopher and theologian are used to develop a comprehensive, relentless refutation of the traditional arguments – and along the way provides a great deal of useful additional information from history and anthropology. He warns early on against responding to the Vatican arguments with criticism or suspicion of the persons making them. Instead, he urges, we need to replace a “hermeneutic of suspicion” with a “hermeneutic of charity”. In doing so, he does exactly what “Homosexualitatis Problema” claims to do, but singularly does not: “Speak the truth in Love”.

From the back cover:” A near incontrovertible demonstration that the antipathy of the Roman Catholic Church to homosexuality has no basis in scripture or the natural law. Cogently argued, elegantly written and brilliantly researched.” (Ben Summerskill, CE, Stonewall)

“In “A Question of Truth”, Gareth Moore, a Dominican priest, challenges the teaching of the Catholic Church on its own grounds. He scrutinizes the Church’s arguments, which are based on both the Bible and natural law, and finds them wanting. He subjects the Church’s beliefs to a meticulous and scholarly examination and concludes that there are no good arguments…against what have come to be known as homosexual relationships”.

Recommended.

Contents:

Closeted Queers in the Vatican
Materialism of pro-gays

A Question of Truth
The fortune and misfortune of gay Christians
Truth
Truth and Tradition
Truth and Authority
Overcoming Scepticism
.
“Homosexuality” “Homosexuality”, physical and psychological
The inadequacy of the CDF’s definition of homosexuality
Homosexual person
Homosexual desire and intentionality
The intentionality of desire
The intentionality of condemnation
.
The Bible Against Homosexuality?
I: Introduction and Old Testament Texts
Introduction
Use of the Bible in discussing homosexuality
The logic of condemnation
The concept of homosexuality in the Bible?
Genesis 19: 1-11
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
Back to Genesis 19
Cortese and the men of Sodom
What about the women?
.
The Bible Against Homosexuality?
II: New Testament Texts and Summary
Romans I
I Corinthians 6: 9-10
I Timothy 1: 10
Further remarks
.
The Bible for Heterosexuality
Genesis I
Lawler, Boyle and May
HP
The Image of God
Genesis 2
Difficulties in the Standard view
An alternative view
.
The Bible, Love and Experience
Can gays love?
Can gays love without struggling against being gay?
Is homosexuality a tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil?
.
Aquinas, Natural Law and Sexual Natures
”Nature”
Thomas Aquinas
Sex, Nature and Nurture
Natural sex, natural language
The Bible again
.
Homosexuality, Purpose and Happiness
Purpose
The emblematic importance of penile-vaginal intercourse
The purpose of human sex
Homosexual acts and homosexual happiness
.
Some Modern Arguments
Germain Grisez
Meaning

Conclusion

NOONAN, J: A Church That Can and Cannot Change

2009-11-17T20:37:00.005Z

The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching
Univ of Notre Dame Press, 2005

312 pages

Catholic, Moral Theology, Church History

Using concrete examples, John T. Noonan, Jr., demonstrates that the moral teaching of the Catholic Church has changed and continues to change without abandoning its foundational commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Specifically, Noonan looks at the profound changes that have occurred over the centuries in Catholic moral teaching on freedom of conscience, lending for a profit, and slavery. He also offers a close examination of the change now in progress concerning divorce.

“Homosexuality & Civilization”: on Reading Louis Crompton.

2009-11-14T10:42:00.003Z

There are many good books available on homosexuality in history, and thank God for that. These have a range of approaches, including scholarly, specialist tomes, more accessible pen-portraits of single notable people, or of single eras or regions. There is after all, an awful lot of history, containing an awful lot of queers.

For any historian, trying to make sense of the full sweep of history is an impossible task – there is just too much of it. Try to be too inclusive, and the reader will drown in the detail. Try to provide an intelligible, rounded account of particular periods in particular places, and far to much will be omitted. Louis Crompton goes for the latter approach, and provides a valuable, immensely readable book – but with some unavoidable but notable gaps (about which more below).

I prefer to begin by reflecting on the strengths, of which there are many. Reputable experts have been enthusiastic in their praise, so I make no attempt to assess its value as historical analysis. Instead, I will comment only on my personal reaction, as a general reader with some prior knowledge, but no specialist expertise.

Crompton has done a fine job of negotiating a careful balance between inserting too much detail for the specialist, and the superficial for the casual reader. The result, is a book that reads easily, with vivid, lively prose, but is always informative and thought-provoking. There is enough material in its 622 pages to be satisfying, but not daunting. (The 16 self-contained chapters which can be read in sequence as a whole, or savoured one bite at a time. ) I also loved the pictures, which are big enough to be appreciated, spread through the text and sufficient in number to be illustrative and satisfying, but not so many that they crowd out the text.

There are numerous arresting details. Right on the first page of the main text, a section heading reads: “A Millenium of Greek Love”. One thousand years? If Boswell is to be believed, that the clear and formal condemnation by the Christian churches dates only from the second millenium, then this Greek millenium of acceptance is longer than formal Christian proscription. This alone is worth thin king about – and comes even before reading the text proper.

Crompton of course, does not accept that Boswell is to be believed on Christian “toleration” in the early church, and presents a substantially harsher judgement on the teaching and practice of he Christian church. Against that, his two chapters on China and Japan includes tales of monastic love by Buddhist monks, some of which have comes down not just as historic tales, but as inspiring spiritual lessons. (Buddhism i s just one of many religious faiths that makes absolutely no moral judgement against homoeroticism, or any other form of sexuality.)

Regrettably, providing adequate space for the satisfying treatment of the periods and cultures he does include have led to some unfortunate omissions. For a work published in the 21st century, he has a curiously limited, Eurocentric view of “civilization”: He does include a chapter each on Judea, China and Japan, but nothing on the great flowering of Islamic civilization, which was so important during the European dark ages, nothing the early civilizations of India or the Middle East, and nothing on the Americas, neither pre-colonial nor the US, and nothing even from Europe of the last two centuries.

To give some idea of the challenges he has grappled with, consider the case of the section on Judea, which is important to make sense of the Christian response which followed. Slotted awkwardly between early chapters on Early and Classical Greece, Crompton dispenses with 1500 years of Jewish history in a single chapter. To resent these gaps would be unfair – he had to make some choices, we must accept the ones he has made, and enjoy the excellent book he has written, not the one somebody else might have done.

This is one I heartily recommend, for reading, to keep, and for occasional reference or rereading.

*******

“An encyclopedic survey of homosexulaity in Western and no-Western civilizations. Compton’s writing is vivid, lively and refreshing.” – David Greenberg (“The Construction of Homosexuality”)

“A minor masterpiece. Each chapter is a work of art in itself”. -William A Percy (“Encyclopedia of Homosexuality”)

“A master work of interpretative scholarship.” - Richard Labonte “A Different Light” bookshop).

“A one-of –a –kind, page-turning tour through gay history” – David Rosen (InsightOutBooks)

Same Sex Unions in Church History

2009-11-09T19:25:00.004Z

One of the delights I find in taking that “bracing walk in history” is the frequent discoveries that what we usually assume to be the “common sense” understanding of modern practices and institutions is nothing of the source, forcing us to rethink what in fact these mean. Two of these examples are of “traditional marriage”, and of priestly celibacy. Both of these I have referred to (separately) before, but never thought of combining them. Now I have come across a source that does consider them together, and presents the remarkable observation:

Indeed, the most learned authority on the subject argued forcefully that for the first thousand years Christianity required nuptial blessings only for priests; for the laity, an ecclesiastical ceremony was an honour, only permitted to those being married (to their own class) for the first time.

This statement comes from John Boswell, referring to the work of Korbinian Ritzer, in “Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” which I am now rereading. This was one of the first books on homosexuality and the church that I ever read, but I foolishly gave it away some years ago, thinking I would soon replace it – but never did. For a long time now I’ve been feeling the need to read it, and am now delighted finally to have a replacement copy.

In rereading a book, one often gets to see different aspects to those that were apparent on first reading, and so it is here. first, for the perspective that it offers on heterosexual relationships and “marriage” in classical and medieval times, which was so different to our modern conception of what “Traditional” marriage is supposed to have looked like, and also for the aside on the priesthood. Last month I came across a question on the New Zealand blog “Liturgy”, which bothered me, because it looked so simple, but there was no clear answer. The question out by Fr Bosco Peters was simple: It is clear that in the early church ordination was possible for married men, as it is today in the Eastern church, but before the reformation, is there any evidence that priests could marry after ordination? Fr Peters seemed to think that there was no such evidence:

I have been involved in some discussions about this. The contention is that there is no evidence in the Tradition of marriage after ordination. None! There is, according to that position, not a single example of marriage after ordination until the Reformation. I find this an astonishing and fascinating claim. I would be fascinated if any reader could come up with a refutation. Or, of course, references to this being correct.

I would imagine that Boswell’s quotation from Ritzer clearly settles that question: there would be no requirement for priests to marry in church if it were nto permitted fro them to marry at all. But my primary interest in “Same sex Unions” is of course the one that has caused all the fuss.

This book, like its predecessor Christianity Social Tolerance and Homosexuality is justly famous and celebrated among gay historians, activists and Christians for bringing to light a forgotten but important part of our lost history: that for many centuries the Christian Church in the East celebrated, in church, the union of same-sex couples in a liturgical rite. Unlike the earlier book, “Same Sex Unions” has evoked bitter controversy and come under fierce attack for the suggesting that ti might be in any way comparable to conventional, heterosexual marriage. It may have been for this reason that the English scholar Alan Bray was far more cautious in his alter book on the comparable rite in the Western church. Noting that the Western rite was called simply “sworn brotherhood”, (a close equivalent to the Eastern “adelphopoeisis”, which is quite literally “making of brothers”), Bray called his book simply “The Friend”, describing it as a discussion on “friendship”.

It is for this reason that I found the opening quotation above striking. Arguments over how far adelphopoesis in the East, or “sworn brothers” in the West, resemble modern marriage are completely misplaced: they should rather be compared with opposite sex relationships at comparable times, which were not necessarily blessed in church, were certainly not seen as sacramental until relatively late, and were most unlikely to have been about love or even friendship, but were essentially civil contracts to protect property and inheritance considerations.

I will leave it to the scholars to dig further into the ongoing controversy over the precise relationships conferred, and the significance of these liturgies for us today. Rather, I appreciate both these books just for reminding us of the indisputable evidence that male same sex couples in close relationships were known throughout the early church, both Eastern and Western, in both fact in in myth. In the East, Sergius & Bacchus (pictured on the cover of Boswell’s book) are the best known, but there are also Polyeuct and Nearchos, and the “two Theodores” (one of them better known to us as St George, of alleged dragon –slaying fame.”). In the Western church, for all Bray’s protestations that the “sworn brothers” signified nothing necessarily more than friendship, he cannot gloss over some key points. while some of the couples he describes were married and may well have had relationships that were not in any way erotic, that certainly does not apply to all. Just among the English kings, Edward II and Piers Gaveston, and later James I and Buckingham, had relationships that are well known were certainly more than simply platonic . Among the lesser known couples he describes, some were buried in shared graves, in a manner exactly comparable to some husbands buried with their wives. Let us also remember that an alternative word for the “sworn” brother was the “wedded” brother, united in a wedding -exactly the same as the word currently used for the celebration of a marriage. Sure, “wedding” then did not mean quite what it does today, but that is precisely the point.

A third gay Catholic medieval historian has a completely different approach to the issue, which I rather like. “Blessing Same Sex Unions” makes the important point that

At most church weddings, the person presiding over the ritual is not a priest or a pastor, but the wedding planner, followed by the photographer, the florist, and the caterer. And in this day and age, more wedding theology is supplied by Modern Bride magazine or reality television than by any of the Christian treatises on holy matrimony. Indeed, church weddings have strayed long and far from distinctly Christian aspirations. The costumes and gestures might still be right, but the intentions are hardly religious. Why then, asks noted gay commentator Mark D. Jordan, are so many churches vehemently opposed to blessing same-sex unions? In this incisive work, Jordan shows how carefully selected ideals of Christian marriage have come to dominate recent debates over same-sex unions. Opponents of gay marriage, he reveals, too often confuse simplified ideals of matrimony with historical facts. They suppose, for instance, that there has been a stable Christian tradition of marriage across millennia, when in reality Christians have quarrelled among themselves for centuries about even the most basic elements of marital theology, authorizing experiments like polygamy and divorce.

-Book Overview from “Google Books”

Finding God in Gay Lovemaking

2009-10-26T12:00:00.002Z

“An Erotic Encounter With the Devine” is the title of a post by Eric L. Hays-Strom at "Jesus in Love". In his post, he has a moving account of how deliberate prayer immediately before making love with his husband has led to intensely spiritual experiences – especially on one notable occasion in particular.

It would be unfair to copy too much of this personal story here, but some things are worth noting. Eric’s journey in combining the sexual and the spiritual came after listening to some tapes prepared by Michael B Kelly, who is a noted spiritual director and writer, specialising in the contribution that gay men’s erotic experiences can give to the the church’s fuller understanding of spirituality:

..we discovered a tape series about spirituality and sexuality, “The Erotic Contemplative” by Michael Bernard Kelly. I was immediately intrigued. On our two-ay drive home from Los Angeles to Omaha, we started listening to the tapes and discussing the questions that came in a guide with the tapes. It was probably amongst the most intimate conversations of sex, sexuality and spirituality I have ever had.

…..

Through the years our lovemaking has risen to an entirely new level when we intentionally invite God to be present to and with us. That is, when we prayerfully invite God’s Divine Presence to bless our lovemaking and to join with us in our lovemaking.
In my blog (http://scottneric.com/ontheroad) I have written about several experiences in my life in which I have known God’s presence, either as God or in the person of Jesus or of the Holy Spirit. So, in my own heart, and in my own soul, I know what the ecstatic experience of the Divine is like.

…..

(Here Eric recounts a particularly intense experience. To read it in the original, go to An Erotic Encounter With the Devine at Jesus in Love).

This is an important experience, and not uncommon. It gives the lie to official teaching, as do all other such experiences. If we are able to find God in our lovemaking, how can it possibly be wrong? (Michael B. Kelly is collecting personal stories of these kind of stories as part of his research for his doctoral degree in spirituality and gay men's erotic experiences. I again urge anyone who has such stories to tell, to share them with Michael. I know he will them most useful.)

The Intimate Dance of Sexuality and Spirituality

2009-10-25T10:13:00.004Z

I would expect that most of my lesbian & gay readers have known the liberating growth experience of coming out: at least to themselves and to close friends, or (where realistically appropriate), to family and colleagues. But how many, I wonder, have found the even greater joy of coming out to God? I mean here not just superficially, but fully and frankly, taking your sexuality deep into your prayer life, giving thanks for the joys and satisfactions, even the exhilaration of orgasm; sharing the pain of the frustrations and disappointments; even building the Lord into your sexual fantasies, or turning your fantasies into prayer?

This appears to be heretical, sacrilegious, but is not. It is an old idea, going back at least to the Song of Songs, and to the great mystics: St John of the Cross, St Theresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. Modern writers who have discussed this idea from a gay perspective include Daniel Helminiak, Michael B Kelly and John McNeill. (Jim Cotter and Jack Dominian are just two I know of who have done so from a more traditional heterosexual perspective).

Now I have come across another who has done so directly – Chris Glaser, who has put together a prayer collection under the title “Coming Out to God.”

I first heard of this book when it was recommended to the congregation by the celebrant during Sunday Mass - so it has the warm approval of at least one Catholic priest in good standing. Looking into it, I was particularly impressed by the powerful and moving writing of the introduction.

Glaser shares with us his own early struggle, torn between his innate sexuality and spirituality, which he believed, like most Christians, to be in some kind of conflict. Using a striking metaphor, picturing each of these two as strangers wary of each other at a dance, he tells how they first put out tentative feelers, then began cautiously to dance, each struggling for dominance and attempting to lead – before finding true partnership, and allowing the dance to lead them:

"When my sexuality began to emerge, my spirituality froze in fear, then nearly ran out of the room. But then it noticed other souls dancing gracefully, and realised it was missing their grace. My spirituality wondered if the lack of grace had something to do with rejection of the stranger on the other side of the room, my sexuality.

Timidly, one invited the other to dance. At first, they scarcely looked at each other… they were lousy dancers. Then they cast furtive glances at each other, sometimes angry or resentful, sometimes flirtatious and seductive….Finally they found times when the dance led them, and for brief moments they became perfect dancers, full of grace, true to each other. They danced together as my soul."

He also draws an important parallel between sexuality and spirituality, stating that they are both routes to intimacy in relationships: sexuality builds intimacy in human relationships, spirituality does in our relationship with the Lord. This equivalence thus makes them natural partners.

"Sexuality and spirituality are not opposing forces, as is frequently supposed today. Instead, both draw people into relationship. Sexuality draws us into physical relationships: touching, hugging…… kissing and intercourse. Spirituality draws us into relationships that both incl ude and transcend bodies because it includes and transcends that which is visible……Both our sexual and spiritual powers are holy, and therefore both my be profaned. At their holiest, these powers lead to love in all its many expressions. At their most profane, they may lead to apathy or hate. The integrity of both sexual and spiritual powers is called the soul."

The final observation that struck an enormous personal chord with me, was his statement that when we come out to God, we allow God to come out to us: to enter more fully into our own lives, which is the best defence we can develop against the homophobic bigotry that masquerades freely under the name of religion:

"In prayer, coming out to God as sexual-spiritual beings opens us up, I believe, to God coming out to us in the dance of Substance and Sensuality, spirituality and sexuality. Prayer becomes a place wherein the choreography of the dance of spirituality and sexuality gets worked out. When we allow the Lord of the Dance to lead, sexuality becomes responsible and spirituality becomes responsive."

For more details, and extracts from the introduction, see "Coming out to God".

Sweasey, P: From Queer to Eternity: Spirituality in the Lives of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual People.

2009-10-22T22:34:00.001+01:00

Diane Pub Co, 1997

239 pages

Multi-faith, Lesbian and gay, Spirituality

Asks why any self-respecting queer would want to have anything to do with spirituality. Answers come from a diverse collection of homosexuals, including Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Neo-Pagans and New-Agers, as well as queers who seek spirituality through drugs, nature, massage, dance, art, and sex. Contributions from 60 religious teachers that address: Do gays have a different perspective on life's mysteries, ecstasies and meaning? Can queerness be a spiritual advantage? What are the connections between sex and spirituality? What implications do spiritual beliefs have for politics, identity, and sexual behavior. Challenges social, religious and sexual orthodoxies.

O’Keefe, T; Fox, K: Trans People in Love

2009-10-22T22:33:00.001+01:00

Routledge, 2008

275 pages

Trans People in Love is an illuminating resource for members of the trans community and their partners and families; gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and intersex people; sexologists; sex therapists; counsellors; psychologists; psychotherapists; social workers; psychiatrists; medical doctors; educators; students; and couples and family therapists. Trans People in Love provides a forum for the experience of being in love and in relationships with significant others for members of the trans community. This honest and respectful volume tells clinicians, scholars,and trans people themselves of the beauty and complexity that trans identity brings to a romantic relationship, what skills and mindsets are needed to forge positive relationships, and demonstrates the reality that trans people in all stages of transition can create stable and loving relationships that are both physically and emotionally fulfilling.

ROGERS, J: Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality

2009-10-22T18:23:00.002+01:00

Westminster John Knox Press, 2009

208 pages

Christian, Gay and lesbian, Scripture

In this revised and expanded best seller, Rogers argues for equal rights in both the church and society for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people. He describes how he moved away from opposition to that support, charts the churchżs history of using biblical passages to oppress marginalized groups, argues for a Christ-centered reading of Scripture, debunks stereotypes about gays and lesbians, and explores texts used most frequently against homosexuals and gay ordination.In this newly revised edition, he maps the recent progress of major U.S. denominations toward full equality for LGBT persons, adds a new chapter that examines how Scripture is best interpreted by Jesus’ redemptive life and ministry, and updates his own efforts and experiences. The book also includes a guide for group study or personal reflection.

Garner, Abigail: Families Like Mine

2009-10-22T11:22:00.002+01:00

Children of gay Parents Tell It Like it Is

What is it really like to grow up with gay parents?

Abigail Garner was five years old when her mother and father divorced and her dad came out as gay. Growing up immersed in gay culture, she now calls herself a "culturally queer" heterosexual woman. As a child, she often found herself in the middle of the political and moral debates surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parenting. At the age of twenty-two, she began to speak publicly about her family and has since become a nationally recognized advocate for the estimated 10 million children growing up with LGBT parents. The creator of FamiliesLikeMine.com, Garner has written a deeply personal and much-needed book about gay parenting, from the seldom-heard perspective of grown children raised in these families.

Based on eight years of activism, combined with interviews with more than fifty sons and daughters, Families Like Mine debunks the anti-gay myth that these children grow up damaged and confused. At the same time, Garner's book refutes the popular pro-gay sentiment that these children turn out "just like everyone else." In addition to the typical stresses of growing up, the unique pressures these children face are not due to their parents' sexuality, but rather to homophobia and prejudice. Using a rich blend of journalism and memoir, Garner offers empathetic yet unapologetic opinions about the gifts and challenges of being raised in families that are often labeled "controversial."

As more LGBT people are pursuing parenthood and as the visibility of gay parenting is rapidly increasing, many of the questions about these families focus on the "best interests" of their children. Eloquent and sophisticated, Families Like Mine addresses these questions, providing an invaluable insider's perspective for LGBT parents, their families, and their allies.

Compellingly written…this should quickly become a mainstay resource for many family service agencies and public libraries serving LGBT patrons – American Library Association

Many people will find this a helpful book; its all-encompassing approach should draw in not only children of LGBT parents, but also friends and family, teachers, therapists and clergy who work with them. –Publishers Weekly

Children of gay parents shoot from the hip in Abigail Garner’s indispensible Families Like Mine. – Vanity Fair

Families Like Mine [is] a sort of Feminine Mystique about the children of gay parents, articulating their pride and their struggles with homophobia but also the grievances they have with their families - NY Times Magazine

Smart and impassioned…This is the new essential reading for LGBT families - Advocate

Garner offers humorous and often poignant insights not only into the joys and complexities of gay families, but the hardships the children in particular endure because of social resistance to their parents’ union- Publishers Weekly

Loughlin (ed):QUEER THEOLOGY:

2009-10-21T19:28:00.003+01:00

RETHINKING THE WESTERN BODY
Blackwell Pub, 2007

351 pages

Queer theology;

Contributors: James Alison, Tina Beattie, Daniel Boyarin, Virginia Burrus, Gavin D’Costa, Paul Fletcher, Christopher Hinkle, Amy Hollywood, Grace M. Jantzen, Mark D. Jordan, Gerard Loughlin, David Matzko McCarthy, Rachel Muers, Catherine Pickstock, Eugene F. Rogers Jr, Kathy Rudy, Jane Shaw, Elizabeth Stuart, Graham Ward, Linda Woodhead

“Well researched and passionately argued, this important collection of essays makes an original contribution to queer theology and to the debate about theology and sexuality in the 21st century.” Marcella Maria Althaus-Reid, University of Edinburgh

“Several elements combine to make this collection the most impressive outing yet for queer theology: the intellectual stature of so many of its contributors; the principled threading of theoretical rigor with an activist ethos that characterizes so much of its contents; and the panoramic historical sweep of the project as a whole. This volume is essential reading for all theologians and not just queer ones; for, as its editor rightly notes, theology has always been a much queerer enterprise than most of us have recognized.” Stephen D. Moore, Drew University

“Queer Theology makes an important contribution to public debate about Christianity and sex. A remarkable collection of specially commissioned essays by some of the brightest and best of Anglo-American scholars Edited by one of the leading theologians working at the interface between religion and contemporary culture Reconceptualizes the body and its desires Enlarges the meaningfulness of Christian sexuality for the good of the Church Proposes that bodies are the mobile products of changing discourses and regimes of power.”

Contents:

Subjectivity and Belief
Following the Still Small Voice
Sacramental Flesh
There Is No Sexual Difference
Sex and Social Reproduction
Eros and Emergence
Omphalos
Textual Reasoning and the Jewish
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Reformed and Enlightened Church
Sex and Secularization
A Queer Language of Life
Queer Trinity
Queen of Heaven

WEAKLAND: Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church

2009-10-21T19:08:00.002+01:00

Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2009

385 pages

“For many people, the name of Archbishop Rembert Weakland brings to mind only connotations of scandal ż the titillating tale of a prominent priest disgraced. But that whiff of dishonor barely begins to tell the whole story.In these pages Archbishop Weakland recounts his life from his childhood in rural Pennsylvania to his retirement from the archbishopric in 2002 at the age of 75, all in the context of the Church that he long served. Weakland takes readers with him to Rome, where he discovered the splendor of a whole new intellectual world, and then to New York for his extensive musical study at Julliard and Columbia University. From his early days in the priesthood to his struggles with pontiffs, Weakland details how he learned to become a leader and minister to his people and how his famously liberal beliefs affected his ministry. While he presents an honest account of the scandal he is so often recognized for, the complete picture beyond rumor and accusation may come as a surprise to many readers.Throughout his book Weakland describes with poignant honesty his psychological, spiritual, and sexual growth. Evocative and inspiring, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church tells the story of a life fully lived.”

MARIN, A: Love is an Orientation

2009-10-21T15:38:00.003+01:00

[Love Is an Orientation] is a book that will put most of you into an immediate struggle. You are going to read what Marin says about the situation between Evangelicals and the Gay community with intense appreciation, but part of your ingrained evangelical training will be talking to you the whole time, telling you to stop thinking about anything other than the abomination of Gay sex and the verses that apply. You’ll want to shut it and you’ll want to keep reading. You’ll know you need this and you aren’t hearing it anywhere else, but part of you will say you’re slipping into squishy, emerging liberalism.
You aren’t. You are applying the Gospel.

Internet Monk

Reflections on Brooten: Love Between Women

2009-09-28T14:31:00.003+01:00

I have just finished reading (for the first time - I will re-read it later) Bernadette Brooten's "Love Between Women", which has been a stimulating, enriching experience. Now, I totally lack the academic credentials to offer a formal review. 6000 miles from home, I am also without some of my standard books that I would normally consult to check the contents of my memory, further limiting any scope for accurate statements of fact.. However, in a former life I worked professionally as a market research analyst, presenting and interpreting research data for marketing managers at leading grocery manufacturers. I regularly told my clients that I didn't claim to have all the right answers, but I hoped to find the right questions. Brooten's book certainly raised a lot of good questions for me, and it is in a similar vein that I now share with you some thoughts.

First, the key purpose, methods and findings of the book. The purpose, of course, is clear from the subtitle: "Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism" - with a clear emphasis on "female". In this, it is the first such investigation, and represents an important complement to John Boswell, who in practice focuses heavily on male history. Like Boswell, she precedes her discussion of specifically Christian responses with a general survey of attitudes and practices in the wider Mediterranean world. Her methods are innovative, as she goes beyond the standard classical texts, adding to them records from magic, astrology and medicine. These are useful, because the standards texts, by an educated male elite, tend to focus on a male elite, with far fewer references to women. But magical binding spells to attract demonstrate the existence and public visibility among non-elites of female homoerotic desire, astrological writings show that the astrologers at least believed that sexual orientations of all kinds were determined at birth, and medical treatises showed a belief that some orientations were seen as diseased.

The two most important conclusions, though, which apply to both Christian and pagan perspectives were that the important distinctions in sexual partners were not on gender itself, but on the appropriate gender roles (that is, as the insertive or receptive partner in sexual penetration), and that there was a marked asymmetry in attitudes to male and female homoeroticism.

By this is meant that men thought of sexual intercourse only in terms of penetration, real or simulated, requiring an active, penetrating partner and a receptive, passive partner. It was further assumed that the natural role for men was active and inserting, the natural role for women was passive and receptive. It then follows that a woman taking an active role, or a man taking a passive role, was stepping outside of approved gender roles, which was at best shameful, and possibly mentally diseased, immoral or sinful.

The asymmetry arises in that the male and female conforming partners are treated differently: passive females are condemned together with their active female partners, while active men who penetrate other men, especially lower status men, generally escape criticism. (In addition to gender, other factors also influenced approved roles, notably age and status. Gender asymmetry continues with many more permutations for men than for women, but I ignore these here.)

This asymmetry is clearly demonstrated in "Love Between Women", but I thought less clearly explained. Brooten makes clear that the opprobrium on women who are passive partners is because the complete proper role is not just to be receptive, but to be receptive specifically to the male penis and seed. But then why is the proper male role not equally to be not just insertive, but specifically insertive into a woman? But many sources of the period (not all, but I summarise) clearly see no problem with males penetrating other males. Why not? With her focus primarily on women, this is one area where I think Brooten could have done more. Specifically, I wondered if the key might lie in the point made so clearly by Countryman in "Dirt, Greed and Sex": that women were seen as, and in law treated as, the property of men. Hence the sin of adultery was seen as a crime against another man's property - and even a receptive women having intercourse with another woman was offering what should have been reserved for a future lord and master.

High status men, however, were seen as naturally dominant, and so could take their pleasures (almost) where they chose without criticism. As Mark Anthony, who had affairs with both genders, has been quoted as saying (but not in this book), "What does it matter where a man puts his dick?" .

And now my questions, which begin to diverge from Brooten, as my interests are from the male perspective. First, those nasty words "para physin" which are widely assumed to refer to the gender choice of a partner. Would male readers or listeners have interpreted them so? Certainly, for a Roman citizen, "against nature" would have had a different meaning: to take the passive role. Otherwise, penetration of any other man would have been seen as natural, and of his slave as a recognised legal right. (Penetration of another citizen, especially an underage boy, was dishonourable, but not unnatural). Men in other societies would have seen things in similar terms.

Secondly, if the above surmise is correct, then the only reason that other forms of same sex intercourse are not acceptable is that they out the receptive male partner into the position of a woman, or in the case of a woman, she is not taking her "proper" place, receptive to a man. That is, the entire system is based on the now outdated belief that a woman is inherently inferior to a man, subjugated to his will (either husband or a male relative), and hence thought of virtually as his property. This was clearly stated by Clement of Alexandria (as reported by Brooten):

For him, nature allows people to enjoy lawful unions as fundamentally asymmetrical. for him, nature allows people to enjoy lawful unions for the purpose of procreation. Clement saw these lawful unions as fundamentally asymmetrical. A husband was head of his wife, and she had to be subservient to him. As a preventive against adultery, women were to shut themselves in their houses, avoiding unnecessary contact with any nonrelatives. If her husband behaved abusively to her, a wife had to endure the abuse and had no option except to leave. The wife may "never do anything against his will, with the exception of what is contributing to virtue and salvation." Like Philo, Clement assumes that males have been allotted an active role and females a passive role in life: this view forms an important basis for Clement's teachings about marriage.

But note also Clement's other views on men. Not only must they not behave as women sexually, they must at all times present a physically appearance which clearly affirms their masculinity:

"Clement particularly opposes shaving off one's beard or depilating one's bodily hairs. He argues that men must display their greater physical similarity to Christ by wearing beards, which symbolise men's stronger nature. their male nature, and their right to rule........"He who denies his masculinity in broad daylight will certainly prove himself to be a woman at night."

Now, Clement is an important figure in the development of a heterosexist theology hostile to same gender relationships. So the obvious next question : if the Magisterium has accepted and built on his hostility to homoerotic relationships, why has it not also built on his insistence on beards, male rule, and female submission? Conversely, if it has seen the wisdom in accepting male shaving and more balanced marital relationships, why has it not also seen the injustice in denying the validity of homoeroticism ? This is yet another example of the self-evident selectiveness inherent in the Magisterium.

The answer, I suspect, is that the plain truth of the matter is that for all its insistence to the contrary, in matters of social relationships the Magisterium follows and does not lead social attitudes. This was dramatically demonstrated n the notorious church support for slavery, and was strongly argued by John Boswell in the case of intolerance towards homosexuals.

So take heart - as society continues to accept our relationships, the Magisterium will inevitably be found to support them too.

My Holiday Reading: Gay Religious Books

2009-09-04T09:00:00.002+01:00

It has been a long time since I have felt able to spend any money on new books, so I was delighted over the last few weeks to find that I have been able to stock up, in two batches.

These are my new acquisitions, from which I will be selecting my holiday reading:

Bernadette Brooten: Love Between Women.

I was delighted to find this on the shelves of Foyle's yesterday, as it has long been on my wanted list. John Boswell and many other of the best known writers have a clear male bias, for which Brooten is often quoted as a female balance. However, she is also much more than just Boswell's female counterpart: she has a formidable reputation of her own for the quality of her scholarship. Her book appeared well after Boswell's,and quickly established itself as an equal classic. I look forward to reading her work for myself.

Chris Glaser: Coming Out as Sacrament

I have already had a quick read of this, and quoted from it here, but I definitely want to have another look and to digest it more slowly.

Marcella Althaus-Reid: The Queer God

This writer has intrigued me, ever since I read of her work in Elisabeth Stuart's helpful guide, Gay & Lesbian Theologies. I am expecting this book, which comes out of a starting point of Latin American liberation theology and queer theology, to be radically different, provocative and challenging. I do not expect to completely agree with her, but do fully expect to have my mental boundaries heavily pushed.

'The Best Cardinal Africa Never Had'

2009-08-28T18:14:00.003+01:00

(from the National Catholic Reporter)

Reviewed by Robert Blair Kaiser

Guardian of the Light: Archbishop Denis Hurley: Renewing the Church, Opposing Apartheid
By Paddy Kearney
Published by Continuum, $34.95

When I write my novel about Vatican II, one of its main characters will look a lot like Denis Hurley. He will be a bishop -- no, an archbishop. A very tall, very handsome, very well-spoken archbishop from South Africa. But he won't be a cardinal, because he will be the rarest kind of prelate, a man who tells the truth to power, even to the pope.

My imagination got running along these lines when I was racing this week through a new biography of the real Archbishop Hurley, one of my closest friends among the fathers of Vatican II. This magisterial work was written with loving care by Paddy Kearney. For three decades, Kearney headed a social action team in Durban, South Africa, called Diakonia, which Hurley founded.

In 1951, as chairman of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, Hurley drafted the first of a series of pastoral letters denouncing apartheid as "blasphemy" and "intrinsically evil." And then he put himself, body and soul, into a frankly political campaign to walk those ideas around the country. He marched in demonstrations alongside Desmond Tutu and Alan Paton. He encouraged Catholic schools to start admitting nonwhite students. He confronted Koevoet, the state security police, over its atrocities in Namibia, and found himself brought up on charges of sedition. (He beat the charges and won 25,000 rand from the state for malicious prosecution.)

At the age of 16, Hurley had been "very much a white boy," heading off in 1932 from his native Pietermaritzburg to priestly training in Ireland and then for seven years in Rome. There, he was captured by the social encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. "We ate and slept and pondered over Quadragesimo Anno," Hurley recalled, side by side with dusky seminarians from Sri Lanka whom he accepted as equals. He did his graduate thesis on the banks and big mining companies of South Africa, skewering them for their oppression of the poor and working classes.......

Read the full review at the National Catholic Reporter.

Common Journey, Different Paths

2009-08-27T08:34:00.000+01:00

Spiritual Direction in Cross-Cultural Perspective

The Queer Bible: Beyond family Values

2009-08-26T19:10:00.003+01:00

Under the heading, "A Way Back Behind Christian Homophobia", Adam Kotsko writes at the blog "An und fur sich" about a trilogy of books byTed Jennings: Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel, The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives in the New Testament, and the third in the set, Plato or Paul?: The Origins of Western Homophobia:

"The strategy here is clear, aggressive, and absolutely necessary: he absolutely abandons the defensive stance -of “explaining away” the supposedly “obvious” homophobic elements in the Bible that “everyone knows” about and instead presents us with a scriptural account that is deeply homophilic, even to the point of presenting us with a possible male lover for Christ himself."

Setting aside the weapons of hate

Even discounting the possibility that Jesus had a male lover (there are at least two candidates: John, the "apostle Jesus loved", and Lazarus), this is an approach I love. Given the way in which queers have for centuries experienced Scripture as a weapon of hate, it is understandable that after one has overcome a natural antipathy to dealing with Scripture at all, the first enquiry from lesbigay people is to find ways to respond to the infamous clobber texts, to learn to set aside the weapons of hate. This is technically relatively easy - the actual texts are few, out of 30 000 verse in a Bible written against a cultural background where homoeroticism was commonplace, and many scholars have shown how they have either been misinterpreted, or are of limited relevance to modern gay relationships.

More difficult is dealing with the residual emotional baggage: this is where books pointing to positive interpretations of Scripture are so valuable. Again, this should be easy - the fundamental message of the Gospels has nothing to do with hatred against anybody, but stresses love and inclusion for everybody - most especially social outsiders and the otherwise afflicted and oppressed. Still, for people with a homophile orientation, we can go well beyond the simple message of generic inclusion. Writers on Scripture have pointed to specifically queer values in Scripture, while historians have shown that the roots of popular hostility did not lie in Scripture at all: the Church followed popular prejudice, not the other way around.

I do not yet have personal knowledge of Jennings' books (but will explore further). There are other writers though who have covered much the same ground, with whose work I am more familiar.

Setting aside family values

Chris Glaser, in his excellent book, "Coming Out as Sacrament", has a chapter on "Coming out in the Bible", in which he reads several well known Scripture stories, from Adam & Eve in Genesis to Pentecost in Acts, as coming out tales. Among these, he presents the story of Jesus Himself as "Coming out of Family Values". The evidence he produces in support of this argument is that:

"his mother Mary was told that Jesus' own coming out would mean "that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword shall pass through your own soul too (Luke 2:35)";
At twelve years of age, Jesus ignored his family's departure from Jerusalem to sit in the temple, his "Father's house" (Luke 2:49);
He left His family and as far as we know, never married and never "begat" children;
He called his disciples away from their families (9:59:62), told them he had no home (9:57) ,, and claimed that His gospelk would "set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother." (Mathew 10:35-36);
When His family came to see Him, He declared, "Whoever does the will of god is my brother and sister and mother"(Mark 3:35);
Members of the new faith community addressed each other as brother and sister;
Jesus' own family of choice were three unmarried people - Martha, Mary and Lazarus;
In the New Testament, the biological, polygamous, prolifically procreative family of the Old Testament was superseded by the more vital, eternal and extended family of faith, a family to be expanded by evangelism and inclusivity rather than mere procreation;
Jesus had a special word of defence for the eunuch, who was an outcast in Israel because his body was mutilated, but more importantly because he could not procreate. "

I don't know about you, but to me, but none of this, neither Old Testament nor New, sounds particularly like the "traditional family values" that the fundies claim to be protecting because they believe them to be at the heart of Christianity.

Urban gay men as role models

Going beyond queer values in the Gospels to queer lives today, the American theologian Kathy Rudy argues that this Scriptural denial of modern "family values" implies that modern urban gay culture is more in tune with the Gospel message than the biological family which Christ's teaching rejected

"The church needs the model of gay sexual sexual communities because Christians have forgaotten how to think about social and sexual life outside the family".

Writing about Rudy's work, Elisabeth Stuart notes that

"The church has forgotten how to be a community, how to be the body of Christ and perhaps gay men have the grave task of teaching it to be a community wider than a family."

Wow!

How far have we come? Instead of simply sitting back and accepting the knee jerk, unfounded accusations of "Sodomy", we find that there are serious, credible Scripture scholars and theologians who have first, shown that the traditional use of the clobber texts to atack us is at best inappropriate, or possibly totally unfounded; that there are positive role models in Scripture, in both the Old Testmament and the New; that far from encouraging traditional family values, the Gospel message opposes themwith what are quite frankly queer values, and that far from the fundies being in a position to lecture us on how to behave, we should be teaching them a thing or two about the Gospels and how to move beyond an unChristian "Focus on the Family" to a wider "Focus on Community"!

Beyond gender.

Rudy continues, says Stuart, to "construct a sexual ethic which is communal in nature and queer in its politics." Because in recent centuries there has been so much emphasis on first reproduction and then on complementarity as the sole purposes of sex, the result is that "celibacy, singleness and communal life, which have been valued for so long in Christian history, no longer have a place in Christian life."

In a neat inversion of the story of Sodom, "for Rudy the story of Sodom teaches us that what is ultimately pleasing to God about sexuality is the quality of its hospitality. This is not to say that every stranger must be offered sex, but that sex must cultivate an openness and warmth to strangers, it must open our hearts, break down our boundaries, and push us beyond ourselves. Hospitality is procreative, it expands and widens the community. When we open our homes to outsiders, the private space of the home becomes the public space of the Church, and so not only is gender collapsed but so is the dualism between private and public. The cult of domesticity is destroyed and replaced by an ethic which subverts worldy concepts of gender and understands sex in the context of building up the body of Christ."

How far from James Dobson is that?

Where to Begin Reading?

2009-08-18T20:16:00.000+01:00

With such a wealth of titles available, and the field constatnly expanding, the obvious question is where to begin? To which the obvious reply is, where are you starting from?

The question matters. You need to be clear on whether you want a simple introduction, a general but comprehensive overview for playpeople, or a scholarly tome filled with notes, sources and all the necessary qualifications, ifs and buts. Are you looking for approaches rooted in Scripture, or Church teaching, or both? From a gay male, lesbian, or trans perspective? All these questions, and more, will influence your choice. In my detailed posts for each book, I have attempted to provide answers to these questions. The labels included in each post will help you to find books on a specific topic. With time, I will be building in thematic lists, a search engine, and other means to access exactly what you personally will find helpful - but all these refinements take time, while I am simultaneously trying to expand the number and range of books included. I crave your patience.

In the meantime, I offer some suggestions of what might be the most useful for specific purposes:

Theology /Sexual Ethics: Catholic

2009-08-18T09:51:00.000+01:00

"Theology" and "Church Teaching" are here used very broadly. The books listed are not necessarily in accordance with church teaching - some may not be recognised as theology at all by traditional theologians. (The list includes titles from the emerging disciplines of queer theology and indecent theology, as well as more familiar approaches). Nor should listing be taken as recommendation - that depends very much on your own staring point. But all are serious, respected contributions from a Catholic perspective. Follow the links to find out more.

(This is a new site. Some of these titles do not yet have full descriptions, but be assured I am working them. Patience, please.)

Alison, James: Faith Beyond Resentment 2001, 239 pages

Alison, James: On Being Liked, 200? 168 pages

Alison, James: Undergoing God 200? 246 pages

Althaus - Reid: The Queer God

Althaus - Reid: Indecent Theology

Althaus - Reid: Sexual Theologian

Boswell: John: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality

Cleaver: Know My Name 1995, 161 pages

Coleman: Homosexuality, Catholic Teaching and Pastoral Practice. 207 pages

Collins: Sexual Ethics and the New Testament 2000

Comstock: Gay Theology Without Apology

Comstock & Henking: Que(e)ryig Religion

Coulton: The Bible, the Church, and Homosexuality

Davies & Loughlin: Sex These Days

Goss: Jesus Acted Up

Goss: Queering Christ

Hasbany: Homosexuality & Religion

Hunt: Fierce Tenderness

Isherwood & Stuart: Introducing Body Theology 1998

Jordan: The Ethics of Sex

Jung, Patricia Beattie: Sexual Diversity and Catholicism

Liuzzi: With Listening Hearts

McNeill, John: The Church and the Homosexual 1996, 266 pages

McNeill, John: Taking a Chance on God 1996, 213 pages

McNeill: Sex as God Intended 2008, 266 pages

Moore, Gareth: A Question of Truth 2003, 308 pages

Moore, Gareth: The Body in Context 2001, 242 pages

Stuart, Elisabeth: Just Good Friends 1995, 261 pages

Stuart, Elisabeth: Religion is a Queer Thing 1997, 152 pages

Stuart, Elisabeth: Christian Perspectives on Sexuality & Gender

Stuart, Elisabeth: People of Passion

Stuart, Elisabeth: Daring to Speak Loves Name 1992, 192 pages

Stuart, Elisabeth: Gay & Lesbian Theologies 2003, 125 pages

Stuart, Elisabeth: Exploding Mystery

What to read next?

2009-08-17T16:08:00.000+01:00

Earlier, I discussed some books that might be suitable for the lesbigay Christian who is just beginning the attempt to reconcile faith and sexuality ("Where to begin reading?"). These, generally speaking, may be thought of as the "defensive" books, providing us with the means to answer the standard hostile arguments.

Once these arguments have been dealt with, though, many people will want to explore faith from a more positive, more assertive perspective - for example, exploring Scripture or prayer & spirituality from a gay perspective.

Horner's "Johnathan loved David" is a well-known & widely recommended look at same- sex relationships in the Bible. "Take back the Word" (ed Robert Goss) does not look at specfically gay or lesbian passages in Scripture, but rather looks at other well-known passages and offers interpretations from a queer perspective.

This is precisely what James Alison does. He is a former Dominican priest and lecturer in theology, who is now an independent theologian, writing and lecturing to groups around the world. He does not write only about gay issues, but in a notable set of three books, he writes specifically "theology from a gay (male) perspective" - not gay theology. These books, all much admired and commended, present sound, tightly reasoned theology, but in an informal, non-academic style. These three books, best read in sequence, are "Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay", "On Being Liked", and "Undergoing God."

For those willing to work with a more academic treatment, a book I found immensely useful is Elisabeth Stuart's "Gay & Lesbian Theology: Repetitions with Critical Differences." The value of this book for me was in its concise summary of the development of different approaches to theology from an LGBT perspective, from its early beginnings, through liberation theology, queer theology, indecent theology and beyond. In summarising the key ideas, she also introduces the reader to some of the important thinkers and writers presenting these new strands in theological thinking.

Spirituality & Prayer Booklist

2009-08-16T22:24:00.000+01:00

BOISVERT: Out on Holy Ground

GLASER: Coming Out to God

GLASER: Coming out as Sacrament

GLASER: Come Home

HELMINIAK: Sex and the Sacred

O'BRIEN: Praying From the Margins

MATTMAN, Urs: Coming In

McNEILL: Sex as God Intended

History Booklist

2009-08-16T21:25:00.000+01:00

BOSWELL: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homose

BOSWELL: Same-sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe

BROOTEN: Love Between Women

BRAY: The Friend

BOISVERT: Sanctity and Male Desire

CARROL, James: Constantine's Sword

FABER: The Oxford Apostles

JORDAN: The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology

JORDAN: The Silence of Sodom

KUNG Hans: The Catholic Church

KRAMER & D'ANGELO: Women & Christian origins

MACY, GARY: The Hidden History of Women's Ordination

MADIGAN & OSIEK: Ordained Women in the Early Church

NISSINEN: Homoeroticism in the Biblical World

PUTERBAUGH, DYNES (eds): The Crucifixion of Hyacinth

Priesthood and Clerical Abuse Booklist.

2009-08-16T19:57:00.004+01:00

Boisvert & Goss: Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Abuse - Breaking the Silence

Cozzens, D: The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood.

Crosby: Rethinking Celibacy, Reclaiming the Church

DOYLE & SIPE: Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes- The Catholic Church's 2000 Year Trail of Sexual Abuse

FRAWLEY–O’DEA: Perversion of Power

MITCHELL, T: Betrayal of the Innocents

RIGERT, Joe: An Irish Tragedy

SIPE, A.W.R: Sex, Priests and Power

Trans gendered, bi booklist

2009-08-16T18:15:00.000+01:00

ALTHAUS-REID: Indecent Theology

COMSTOCK & HENKING: Que(e)rying Religion

MOLLENKOTT: Omnigender

SERRANO, J: Whipping Girl

TANIS: Trans gendered

Scripture Booklist

2009-08-16T11:01:00.000+01:00

BOSWELL: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality

COUNTRYMAN: Dirt, Greed and Sex

COULTON: The Bible, The Church and Homosexuality

COLLINS: Sexual Ethics and the New Testament

GOSS & Webb (eds): Take Back The Word

HELMINIAK: What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

HORNER: Johnathan Loved David

MOORE: God's Beauty Parlour

STONE: Practicing Safer Texts

SPONG: The Sins of Scripture

SCROGGS: The New Testament and Homosexuality

ALTHAUS-REID: The Sexual Theologian

2009-08-13T22:07:00.000+01:00

Essays on God, Sex and Politics

Continuum International 2005

134 pages

"The Sexual Theologian is the first collection of essays on radical sexual theology written by a group of internationally renowned scholars in this area. For the first time Queer theory and theology is articulated around themes from systematic theology such as Incarnation, death, the concept of God, Mariology, together with discussions on sexuality and mysticism. The essays show a "how to do" a radical sexual theology together with original, bold and transgressive thinking which have taken feminist theologies to a new dimension of action and reflection."

ALTHAUS- REID, M: The Queer God

2009-08-13T21:58:00.003+01:00

"There are those who go to gay bars and salsa clubs with rosaries in their pockets, and who make camp chapels of their living rooms. Others enter churches with love letters hidden in their bags, because their need for God and their need for love refuse to fit into different compartments. But what goodness and righteousness can prevail if you are in love with someone whom you are ecclesiastically not supposed to love? Where is God in a salsa bar? The Queer God introduces a new theology from the margins of sexual deviance and economic exclusion. Its chapters on bisexual theology, Sadean holiness, gay worship in Brazil and queer sainthood mark the search for a different face of God--the Queer God who challenges the oppressive powers of heterosexual orthodoxy, whiteness, and global capitalism. Inspired by the transgressive spaces of Latin American spirituality, where the experiences of slum children merge with queer interpretations of grace and holiness, The Queer God seeks to liberate God fromthe closet of traditional Christian thought, and to embrace God's part in the lives of gays, lesbians, and the poor. Only a theology that dares to be radical can show us the presence of God in our times. The Queer God creates a concept of holiness that overcomes sexual and colonial prejudices and shows how queer theology is ultimately the search for God's own deliverance. Using liberation theology and queer theory, it exposes the sexual roots that underlie all theology, and takes the search for God to new depths of social and sexual exclusion."

Contents:

Introduction: Theology in Other contexts: on gay bars and a Queer God.

Part 1.

Queering Theology

1. Kneeling: deviant theologians

2. Queering hermeneutics

3 Queering God in relationships: Trinitarians and God the Orgy

4. Libertine disclosures

5. Permutations

6. The economy of god's exchange rate mechanism

Part 2.

Queer promiscuities

7 Popular anti-theologies of love

8 Demonology: emodying rebellious spirits

9 Queer holiness: post-colonial revelations

Notes

Bibliography

Idex

ALTHAUS-REID: Indecent Theology

2009-08-13T18:00:00.000+01:00

Althaus-Reid, M

Indecent Theology

Theological Perversions in sex, Gender and Politics

"By examining the dialectics of decency and indecency and exploring a theology of sexual stories from the margins, this book brings together for the first time Liberation Theology, Queer Theory, post-Marxism and Postcolonial analysis in an explosive mixture. Indecent Theology is an out of the closet style of doing theology and shows how we can reflect on the Virgin Mary and on Christology from sexual stories taken from fetishism, leather lifestyles and transvestism. It is based on the sexual experiences of the poor, using economic and political analysis while unveiling the sexual ideology of systematic theology."

ALISON, JAMES

2009-08-13T17:30:00.000+01:00

Alison is a former Dominican priest, now practicing as an independent theologian and writer with an excellent reputation. Among his many books are three of particular importance for LGBT readers. For an appreciation of Alison’s work, see

ALISON: Faith Beyond Resentment

2009-08-13T17:28:00.000+01:00

Alison, James

Faith Beyond Resentment fragments catholic and gay

Darton, Longman Todd,

The first in the series, this is valuable for the telling of parts of his own story, as well as reflections on dealing with the appropraite relationship of LGBT Catholics with the institutional church, and with God.

Reviews:

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

ALISON: On Being Liked

2009-08-13T17:27:00.000+01:00

Alison, James.
On Being Liked
Darton Longman Todd

(Catholic, Theology, Gay Male)

For an interview with James Alison about this book see the Christian Century

ALISON: Undergoing God

2009-08-13T17:26:00.000+01:00

ALISON, JAMES

Undergoing God

From the cover blurb:

“It is not easy to come away from reasding James ALison wtithout a sense of being deeply moved, challenged, and grateful for his glimpse of the truth of things. Undergoing God sets our comfortable worlds on a new axis.”
- Martin Laird
“An original and challenging book which shows the ongoing relevance and dynamism of the Catholic faith for our most profound questions of desire, worship, sexuality and truthfulness.”
-Tina Beattie

Strongly Recommended by QTC;

Listed by Martin Pendergast;

ALISON: Other Titles

2009-08-13T01:23:00.000+01:00

BOISVERT & GOSS: Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Sexual Misconduct: breaking the silence

2009-08-12T22:21:00.003+01:00

Breaking the Silence

Explores the issue of homoeroticism in Catholic culture and the controversy surrounding clerical sexual misconduct.

This timely and compelling collection critically analyzes the official Roman Catholic hierarchy's attitude toward homosexual clergy. Inspired by Mark Jordan's controversial The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, the essays-edited by Boisvert (dean of students, Concordia Univ.) and Goss (pastor, MCC Church) and written by leading scholars and religious practitioners-attempt to debunk the myth that gay priests are pedophiles and are responsible for the moral decline of modern Catholic values. In fact, this refreshingly positive assessment of gay American Catholic priests attempts to reverse the present atmosphere of suspicion and redirect the blame at hypocrisy while giving voice to victims. Hard-hitting, articulate, and characterized by a prophet's righteousness, these sound essays are essential reading for both clergy and laity trying to come to terms with the recent sex abuse scandals. A wonderfully enlightened read; recommended for academic and public libraries.-John-Leonard Berg, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Platteville

Celibate Men, Ambivalent Saints, and Games of Desire Donald L. Boisvert
Naming the Mechanisms of Self-Deception: A cAll to Liberation for Gay Roman Catholic Clergy David M. Mellott
Speaking Loud or Shutting Up: The Homosexual -Type Problem Edward J.Ingebretsen
Silencing Sodom Chuck Colbert
Anglican Bodies: The Gift of Heretical Liminality and the Risk of relaxed Vigilance Jay Emerson Johnson
Duplicity Writ Large Mary E. Hunt
Always a Bride, Never a Groom Robert F Goss
Pandora's Gauntlet: Curiosity Enough to Care and Hope Enough to Question Marie Cartier
A Welcome Voice Breaks the Silence in an Exclusively Male Clerical Tradition Lorine M Getz
Where Have all the Young Girls Gone? Mary Ann Tolbert
Breaking the Silence in Public: A Case Study Michael Kelly
Those Troubling Gay Priests Bernard Schlager
Lessons from our Neighbours: An Appreciation and a Query to Mark Jordan Karen Lebacqz
Neither do I: A Meditation on Scapegoating William Glenn
Catholicism and a Crisis of Intimate Relations Edward J. Ingebretsen
After Silence Mark D. Jordan

BOISVERT: Out on Holy Ground

2009-08-12T22:21:00.000+01:00

Boisvert, Donald L.

Out on Holy Ground

Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality

(Pilgrim Press, 2001)

Catholic, Spirituality, Gay Male.

From Google Books:

"Is gay spirituality a genuine type of religious expression, or is it simply another example of identity politics? Since the onset of the AIDS epidemic that has disproportionately struck their community, gay men have published a wide range of materials, from autobiographies to theologies, that ask, What is gay spirituality as a religious expression in North America?

The first book to weave together these various strands into an organized response, "Out On Holy Ground" culls information from diverse sources both within and outside religious institutions. Gay scholar Donald Boisvert presents his findings topically as theology, myths and symbols, rituals, and spiritual culture to paint a compelling portrait of gay spirituality as a serious cultural expression.

"Out On Holy Ground" takes the conversation about gay spirituality to the next level so we can understand spirituality as a pivotal factor in the development of gay identity."

BOSWELL: Same-sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe

2009-08-12T22:13:00.000+01:00

Boswell, John

Same Sex unions in Pre-Modern Europe

Harper-Collins, 1994

412 Pages

Christianity, History, Same Sex Unions, Lesbian & Gay

Strongly Recommended by QTC

If "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" created an academic revolution in the still unfolding story of LGBT history in the church, this was the book that really threw the cat among the pigeons. With scrupulous academic rigour, Boswell collected strong evidence that not only was 'gay marriage' legal and commonplace in classical civilization, but that the Christian church recognised and blessed some kind of same-sex union in a formal liturgical rite. The reaction has been fierce, with counter-arguments that these rites were not about 'marriage', but simply about 'friendship'. To make sense of the debate, one has to recognise that in classical times the very concept olf 'marriage' as we now understand it, simply did not exist. If the rite Boswell describes was not "gay marriage", nor was any other form of marriage comparable to what we now know as "straight marriage".
However you choose to interpret the institution, it seems that two things are now clear: It is now widely accepted that whatever the precise significance, some form of "same-sex union" existed and was recognised by liturgical blessing within the church; and that academics might disagree with Boswell's interpretation, but can no longer ignore it.
This book should be compulsory reading for anyone with a serious interest in same- gender relationships in church history.

From Google Books:

"Boswell convincingly establishes that, from ancient times to the 18th century, throughout Christian Europe, same-sex union rituals honored a form of ""gay marriage."" Working from church manuscripts, mainly in ancient Greek, that describe the ceremonies, Boswell carefully traces the historical context in which these practices occurred, exploring premodern beliefs about love and marriage, both gay and heterosexual."

-Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews

"JOHN BOSWELL'S Same-Sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe, .. is both a virtuoso display of learned ingenuity and the same old mixture much as before. Readers familiar with Mr. Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980) will find here, if anything, an even more dazzling tableau of linguistic versatility, apparently exhaustive investigation, flashing insight, and relentless inventiveness. ......

Yet as in the earlier book, Mr. Boswell's extraordinary skills and industry are deployed with such tendentiousness, exaggeration, special pleading, and occasional banality that the work deserves, at very best, the distinctive verdict of the Scottish courts: not proven."

- David Wright in National Review, 1994

BOSWELL: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality

2009-08-12T22:06:00.000+01:00

Boswell, John

Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality

Gay People in Western Europe from the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century
(University of Chicago Press, 1980)

Christian, History, Theology, Scripture, Lesbian and Gay

Strongly recommended

Absolutely the most important book in any LGBT faith library, this can be thought of as the text that started it all: gay church history, queer theology, scriptural analysis of LGBT sexuality: all trace either their beginning or fundamental early shaping to this book. Highly academic and bristling with footnotes, Greek & Latin quotations, and copious appendices, it is intimidating to a non-academic, but well worth the effort. Even if you do not think of yourself as a scholarly type, read it (then re-read it later.)

BROOTEN: Love Between Women

2009-08-12T17:52:00.001+01:00

Brooten, Bernadette

Love Between Women

Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism

Univ of Chicago Press, 1998

412 pages

Christian, Church History, Lesbian

"Love Between Women" examines female homoeroticism and the role of women in the ancient Roman world. Employing an unparalleled range of cultural sources, Brooten finds evidence of marriages between women and establishes that condemnations of female homoerotic practices were based on widespread awareness of love between women.
"An extraordinary accomplishment. . . . A definitive source for all future discussion of homoeroticism and the Bible".--Mary Rose D'Angelo, "Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review"
"[Brooten's] convincing analysis . . . not only profoundly reshapes our understanding of the past, but it should also shape the way in which that past, particularly the early Christian texts with their immense normative weight, will be used for the future".--Anne L. Clark, "Journal of Lesbian Studies"
" "Love Between Women" gives contemporary debates on sexuality a carefully delineated past. It boldly insists upon a different future, one informed by history but not tyrannized by it".--Susan Ackerman, "Lambda Book Report"
"Fascinating, provocative and lucid. . . . Brooten has made a fundamental contribution to women's and gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, and classics".--Elizabeth A. Castelli, "Women's Review of Books"
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Studies Book, 1997

BRAY: The Friend

2009-08-12T17:47:00.000+01:00

Bray, Alan

The Friend

1994

380 pages

Catholic, History, Same-sex Unions, Lesbian & Gay.

Recommended, but academic in tone: not always easy reading.

From Google Books:

"In the chapel of Christ's College, Cambridge, some twenty years ago, historian Alan Bray made an astonishing discovery: a tomb shared by two men, John Finch and Thomas Baines. The monument featured eloquent imagery dedicated to their friendship: portraits of the two friends linked by a knotted cloth. And Bray would soon learn that Finch commonly described his friendship with Baines as a connubium or marriage.

There was a time, as made clear by this monument, when the English church not only revered such relations between men, but also blessed them. Taking this remarkable idea as its cue, The Friend explores the long and storied relationship between friendship and the traditional family of the church in England. This magisterial work extends from the year 1000, when Europe acquired a shape that became its enduring form, and pursues its account up to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ......

Finely nuanced and elegantly conceived, The Friend is a book rich in suggestive propositions as well as eye-opening details. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of England and the importance of friendship in everyday life. "

— History Today’s "Book of the Year, 2004"

“Bray’s loving coupledom is something with a proper historical backbone, with substance and form, something you can trace over time, visible and archeologicable. . . . Bray made a great contribution in helping to bring this long history to light.”

James Davidson, London Review of Books

Contents:

Editor’s note
Introduction

Wedded Brother
Friend to Sir Philip Sidney
Families and Friends
The Body of the Friend
Friends and Enemies
Friendship and Modernity
Coda: the Lickey Hills, August 1890
Afterword: Historians and Friendship

BOISVERT: Sanctity and Male Desire

2009-08-12T17:43:00.000+01:00

Boisvert, Donald

Sanctity and Male Desire

A Gay Reading of Saints

Reviewing this book, Toby Johnson notes that atlhough it might appar to of interest only to Catholics, in fact it should be recommended also to others.

"The stories of the saints are teaching mechanisms by which particular virtues, talents, life-situations, and manifestations of zeal are personalized. The various traits and powers of God as healer, miracle-worker, and wish-granter are personified in the stories of flesh and blood human beings. Especially for children learning Christian doctrine, the saints are symbols and demonstrations of theological propositions and religious concepts much easier to understand and identify with than the abstractions they represent. They are role models of the good Christian life."

Full review bu Toby Johnson at White Crane
From Google Books:
"Human desire is a path to spiritual wholeness," says author Donald Boisvert, in this unusual look at how saints--and one's devotion to them--can be sites for the confirmation and celebration of homoerotic desire. The author comes to the topic as a gay scholar of religion and draws upon his own experience of saints including his years in seminary beginning at age 13. Saints can inspire desire and, through eclectic readings of their lives and imagery, the author suggests meanings and strategies attached to the emergence of same-sex attraction. The book contains 12 chapters that focus on saints, including: Michael the Archangel; Sebastian and Tarcisius; John the Baptist; Joseph; Paul and Augustine; the Ugandan and North American martyrs; Francis of Assisi; Dominic Savio and other boy saints; Damien and the missionary saints; Peter Julian Eymard and the Eucharist; and gay saints.

COZZENS, D: The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood.

2009-08-11T23:03:00.001+01:00

A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul

Liturgical Press, 2000

148 pages

Catholic, Priesthood

In The Changing Face of the Priesthood, Cozzens takes a long, honest look at the present state of the priesthood. He provides this examination not merely from an empirical, scientific perspective but also from a personal, pastoral perspective. Drawing on clinical data, church documents, and his nearly forty years of pastoral experience, Cozzens gives shape and form to the changing face of the priesthood. Through his reflections he leads readers to both concern and hope for the priesthood of the twenty-first century.

COMSTOCK: Unrepenting, Self-Affirming, Practicing,

2009-08-11T21:38:00.003+01:00

Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay People Within Organized Religion

COLEMAN: Homosexuality

2009-08-11T21:21:00.000+01:00

Coleman, Gerald

Homosexuality - Catholic Teaching and Pastoral Practice

From the back cover:

"Father Coleman consistently displays a reverence for the complexity of this issue, but a respect that is "wise", grounded in the Church's authentic wisdom about the meaning of morality, and here specifically about the meaning of sexual morality. On a subject as difficult and at times as controverted as homosexuality, one does not always find the calm and the balance seen in"Homosexuality: Catholic Teaching and Pastoral Practice" ...When readers complete this book, they will fnd an attitude to wards homosexual women and men that is honest, respectful and grounded in fine scholarship and research."

(Cardinal Roger Mahoney, Archbishop of Los Angeles)

From Google Books:

"An in-depth, thorough and respectful presentation of the Catholic position on homosexuality, from a theological and pastoral perspective."

COMSTOCK: Gay Theology Without Apology

2009-08-11T21:11:00.000+01:00

Comstock, Gary

Gay Theology Without Apology

Pilgrim Press 1993

183 pages

Theology, Lesbian & Gay Theology, Scripture

Presenting a theology forged out of personal experience, informed and guided by Scripture and tradition, Comstock holds up the contradictions in the Bible and examines the various facets of Jesus--not to condemn inconsistencies, but to draw from them the strengths and beauty they may hold for everyone who claims Christianity as his or her faith
On-line review

COUNTRYMAN: Dirt, Greed and Sex

2009-08-11T19:34:00.000+01:00

Countryman, L William

Dirt, Greed and Sex

Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today

290 pages

Christian, Scripture, Theology, Sexual Ethics, Lesbian & Gay

COULTON: The Bible, The Church and Homosexuality

2009-08-11T19:24:00.000+01:00

Coulton,

The Bible, the Church and Homosexuality

(Darton, Longman, Todd, 2005)

104 Pages

Anglican, Scripture, Theology, lesbian & gay

Strongly Recommended as brief introductory text.

CHITTISTER: Heart of Flesh

2009-08-11T18:36:00.002+01:00

A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men

Heart of Flesh presents a very real look at what it means to live out a feminist spirituality in a world that glamorizes violence and legitimates domination. Best-selling author Joan Chittister unmasks the effects of sexism on both men and women and describes a spirituality that makes healthier, happier human beings of us all.
According to Chittister, the patriarchal culture that has shaped our world has also now brought us to the edge of destruction with its dualisms, hierarchies, and inequality. Chittister outlines the historical realities that produced this situation and describes how patriarchal culture and spirituality maintain their hold on us. She then argues that there is another way, abetter way, and introduces us to a feminist worldview that, in recognizing the full humanity of women, leads us to fresh, healthy ways of being and relating.

COLLINS: Sexual Ethics and the New Testament

2009-08-11T18:00:00.000+01:00

Crossroad, 2000

200 pages

"From the internationally acclaimed Catholic biblical scholar, this is a meticulous reading of biblical teaching on sexuality, giving insight into how a disciple of Jesus is called to live out his or her existence as a sexual being."

CLEAVER: Know My Name

2009-08-11T17:17:00.000+01:00

Cleaver, Richard

Know My Name

A Gay Liberation Theology

Westminster John Knox Press, 1995

Catholic, Theology, Queer Theology, Gay Male

Strongly recommended

Shows how the techniques of liberation theology can be used by us all to contribute to the development of a new, more realistic theology of sexuality. Also valuable for some scripture meditations on well known texts, approached from a gay perspective.

COMSTOCK & HENKING: Que(e)rying Religion

2009-08-11T17:14:00.001+01:00

QUE(E)RYING RELIGION: A CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY
(CONTINUUM, 1999)

From Google Books:

“Que(e)rying Religion includes but moves beyond tradition-based experiential writing by turning to the academic study of religion. It includes work that compares or focuses on different religious traditions, such as various forms of Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Native American spiritualities. It also incorporates writing on various geographical areas and historical time periods. By assuming a wide definition of religion, it raises questions about the terms religion and religious themselves. Read together, the contents of Que(e)rying Religion provide access to a broad selection of work at the intersection of religious studies and lesbian/gay/queer studies.”

With a name like this, how can I not like it? “Queering the Church shares my own decelaring an advocacy I share, while “Querying” the Church is a critical stance I subscribe to.

(Queer Theology)

Cited by Elisabeth Stuart

COUNTRYMAN & RITLEY: Gifted by Otherness

2009-08-11T15:24:00.000+01:00

Countryman, L William & Ritley, L. R.
Gifted by Otherness
Gay & Lesbian Christians in the Church

(Church Publishing, Inc., 2002)

164 pages

from the opening chapter:
“The vocation of being caught in the middle.”

“From the perspective of Christian faith, this awkward business of living on the boundary looks very much like vocation – a call from God. When you answer such a call, you discover the meaning of your life. God has drawn us to this difficult place in order to reveal God’s grace to us and in us and trhough uis. The boundary where we’re living, however inconvenient, is a place rich in spiritual discovery – which means of course, that it is also largely uncharted territory. No ready mde tradition tells us how to be gay and lesbian Christian. This is a vocation God has created in our own time to bring about a new enrichment of the gospel.”

In the past two decades or so the issue of homosexuality has taken center stage at national and regional denominational meetings and in local church communities. The response of the majority of churches ranges from condemnation to toleration of the gay and lesbian community, neither of which offers much hope for homosexual Christians. In "Gifted by Otherness", L. William Countryman and M. R. Ritley conclude that being gay or lesbian is not actually a problem at all; rather it is a vocation, and, in fact, a gift to today's church.
As "outsiders" gay men and lesbians challenge the church to be inclusive of all God's children -- the central message of the gospel. "God has drawn us to this difficult place", they write, "in order to reveal God's grace to us and in us and through us". Basing their book on retreats they have presented to churches and seminaries, Countryman and Ritley explore what it means to affirm, not merely accept, being gay or lesbian, as well as Christian. Written primarily for the lesbigay community, and for their families and communities, they explore the ways in which the gay and lesbian community can appropriate and re-tell the biblical story, and find confidence in their unique spiritual journey and gifts. This pro-active and self-affirming book provides new hope for those who feel that it is impossible to be gay or lesbian, as well as Christian.

Reviews:

From Charles Allen, Anglican Theological Review:

"Again and again, the authors exhibit how, for them, coming to terms with their sexuality and coming to terms with God are inseparable (though not always recognized). And in so doing they repeatedly summon other gay and lesbian Christians to find grace-full moments in the often painful twists and turns of their own stories. Discovering such moments and celebrating them with the church is perhaps the most crucial ministry God's gay tribe can pursue. "
"Those who want to rehash old arguments will doubtless need to look elsewhere. The authors consistently refuse to engage them. But those who want to pause in wonder at the utter strangeness of God's summons will be delighted to find a book that finally speaks to and for them."

CHELLEW-HODGE: Bullet-Proof Faith

2009-08-11T15:15:00.001+01:00

Chellew-Hodge, Candace

Bullet-Proof Faith

A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay & Lesbian Christians

192 pages

Christian, Spirituality, Scripture, Lesbian and Gay

From Google Books:

This thoughtful, practical guide shows readers a way through the minefield of condemnation and persecution faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians and helps foster a faith that is bulletproof--impervious to attacks, yet loving and savvy in its approach. Bulletproof Faith is filled with useful insights and proven spiritual practices that deflect attacks and enhance and strengthen faith by turning attacks into opportunities for spiritual growth.

Praise for Bulletproof Faith

"Gay and lesbian Christians are constantly demoralized and told they are not children of God. In Bulletproof Faith, Chellew-Hodge reassures gays and lesbians that God loves them just as they were created and teaches them how to stand strong, with compassion and gentleness, against those who condemn them."
--Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

"It is an amazing truth that gay and lesbian Christians need to develop a bulletproof faith in order to survive the attack of other Christians. That, however, is the experience of many homosexual persons. Candace Chellew-Hodge has in this book committed herself to the task of making that survival a reality. I salute her and her work."
--John Shelby Spong, author, Jesus for the Non-Religious

"We know the Religious Right is wrong about same-sex relationships and it's time to move on. But how to withstand their relentless attacks and find lasting peace of soul? Candace Chellew-Hodge offers a practical guide. It met me right where I am. It will touch and help heal many others, too."
--Daniel A. Helminiak, professor of psychology, University of West Georgia, and author, What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

Interview with Candace Chellew-Hodge: Religion Dispatches

CROSBY, M: Rethinking Celibacy, Reclaiming the Church

2009-08-11T11:06:00.000+01:00

In this courageous work Michael Crosby offers a trenchant analysis of mandatory celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church. He shows how the imposition of celibacy has now revealed a deeper issue: the abuse of power as well as the abuse of women and homosexuals in the Church. Crosby asserts that:

To argue that the present discipline of mandatory celibacy is based on the New Testament is a misuse of scripture:

Imposed celibacy continues to be used as a means of maintaining clerical control through fear and intimidation;
A religious system demanding celibacy exposes a deeper control: the abuse of power endemic throughout the system;
While difficult to live out even when freely chosen, enforced celibacy can result in dysfunctional behaviors at all levels.

Integrating his personal experience as a celibate and cleric with biblical exegesis, historical study and the behavioral sciences, Crosby believes that:

Healthy celibacy demands intimacy with God and others;
A healthy church will reorder its current power dynamics in a way that mitigates sexual abuse;
This will once again reveal Roman Catholicism to be a religion with an inspiring model of evangelical life and witness.

This updated revision of Crosby's award winning Celibacy: Means of Control or Mandate of the Heart? also addresses the abuse of power in the Catholic Church by those male, clerical celibates who control it. He convincingly points the way to a Church that will be - with all its ministers - healthier and holier.

CROMPTON, L: Homosexuality & Civilization

2009-08-11T10:53:00.000+01:00

Harvard University Press, 2003

622 pages

History, sexuality, lesbian and gay history

How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan.
Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World.
Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great.
Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece.
Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.

For my own assessment, see "On Reading Louis Crompton"

For other reviews, see:

Reed Business Information:

In this notable monograph, impressive for its breadth and readability, an early pioneer of gay and lesbian studies attempts the Herculean task of chronicling the history of homosexuality in Europe and parts of Asia from Homer to the 18th century. In a series of short vignettes, Crompton, emeritus professor of English at the University of Nebraska, relates the "rich and terrible" stories of men and women who have been immortalized, celebrated, shunned or executed for the special attention they paid to members of their own sex. Two chapters on China and Japan are a welcome addition to the usual Eurocentric focus. ....Crompton's work will be valuable to scholars of all stripes. (Oct.)

International Gay and Lesbian Review:

Though he has made major contributions to gay studies (especially his book “Byron and Greek Love”), “Homosexuality & Civilization” is his masterpiece

Contents:

Preface

Early Greece 776 -400 BCE

Judea 900BC - 600 CE

Classical Greec 480 -323 BCE

Rome and Greece 323 BCE -138 CE

Christians and Pagans 1- 565 CE

Darkness Descends 476 -1049

The Medieval World 1050 -1321

Imperial China 500 BCE - 1840

Italy in the Renaissance 1321 - 1609

Spain and the Inquisition 1407 -1700

France from Calvin to Louis XIV 1517 - 1715

England from the Reformation to William III

Pre-Meiji Japan 800 -1868

Patterns of Persecution 1700 - 1783

Sapphic Lovers 1700 -1793

The Enlightenment 1730 -1810.

Conclusion

CARROL, James: Constantine's Sword

2009-08-11T08:51:00.000+01:00

The Church and the Jews: A History

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2002 (Reprint)

768 pages

Church History, Catholic - Jewish relations, Anti-Semitism

In this "rare book that combines searing passion . . . with a subject that has affected all of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), the novelist and cultural critic James Carroll maps the two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has sparked in his own life as a Catholic. "Fascinating, brave and sometimes infuriating" (Time), this dark history is more than a chronicle of religion. It is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. Drawing on his well-known talents as a storyteller and memoirist, Carroll has created "a deeply felt work, a book that measures the 'sweep of history' against [his] experience as a man of the church" (San Francisco Chronicle). A courageous and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader, "CONSTANTINE'S SWORD is a history written to change the way people live" (Talk).

EQIAL RITES: Cherry, K & Sherwood, Z,

2009-08-11T08:25:00.000+01:00

Lesbian & Gay Worship, Ceremonies and Celebrations

Westminster John Knox, 1995

167 pages

Christian, lesbian & gay, worship

This much-needed collection of worship services, ceremonies, and celebrations is attuned to the unique needs of sexual minoritites. The rites, written primarily by lesbians and gay men, include liturgies of spiritual beginnings, healing, blessings, holy communion, and pride and enpowerment. Also included are funeral and memorial services, seasonal and holiday rites, and covenant rites for couples. More than a collection, Equal Rites is also a reference book for creating unique and meaningful worship services that address significant aspects of lesbian and gay spirituality.

DAVIES & LOUGHLIN: Sex These Days

2009-08-10T19:48:00.000+01:00

Essays on Theology, Sexuality and Society

Sheffield Academic Press

223 pages

"What has been lost, what has been gained, in replacing sexual orthodoxy with the 'heresies' of postmodern sexualities? In the recent past-even within living memory-sex has usually been a matter of monogamous heterosexual marriage and the procreation of children. Other sexual practices were seen as deviations from the 'patriarchal' norm. Today things are different, and western liberal societies promote and celebrate a growing multiplicity of sexual, familial and procreational practices and relationships. Nine writers assess the directions in which our societies are being led."

CONTRIBUTORS:

Tina Beattie: teaches feminist theology at the University of Bristol

Jon Davies: Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies , University of Newcastle on Tyne

Norman Davies: Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow, Department of Religious Studies , University of Newcastle on Tyne

Janette Gray RSM: A Sister of Mercy currently undertaking doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge; author of Neither Escaping nor Exploiting Sex: Women's Celibacy

Gerard Loughlin: Senior Lecturer, Head of Department of Religious Studies, University of Newcastle on Tyne

Phillip Mellor: Lecturer in Religious Studies, Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds.

Chris Shilling: Senior Research Fellow, Depatment of Cultural and Historical Studies, University of Portsmouth

Alan Storkey: Chair of Movement for Christian Democracy, author of Marriage and its Modern Crisis: Reparing Married Life.

Elizabeth Stuart: Senior Lecturer, University of Glamorgan; co-editor of the journal, Theology and Sexuality.

Adrian Thatcher: Professor and Director of Centre for Chrisitan Theology and Education, Uni versity College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth.

Linda Woodhead: Lecturer in Religious studies, University of Lancaster

DUFFY, Eamonn: Saints and Sinners.

2009-08-10T14:19:00.001+01:00

A History of the Popes

Yale University Press, 2006 (3 ed)

474 pages

Church History, Papacy.

This engrossing book encompasses the extraordinary history of the papacy, from its beginnings nearly two thousand years ago to the present day. In this new edition, the final chapter has been expanded to cover the last years of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI. nbsp; Praise for the earlier editions: nbsp; “[A] minor masterpiece which is everything good, popular history ought to be. . . . The most comprehensive single-volume history of the popes in print.”—John Adamson,Sunday Telegraph nbsp; “Duffy enlivens the long march through church history with anecdotes that bring the different pontiffs to life. . . .nbsp;Saints and Sinnersis a remarkable achievement.”—Piers Paul Read,The Times(London) nbsp; “Will fascinate anyone wishing to better understand the history of the Catholic Church and the forces that have shaped the role of the papacy.”—Gloria J. Tysl,Christian Centurynbsp; nbsp;

"The best One Volume History of the Papacy ever written", T.F. X. Noble.

DOYLE & SIPE: Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes:

2009-08-10T08:35:00.000+01:00

The Catholic Church's 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse

EDWARDS: Gay Lesbian Liberation

2009-08-09T21:29:00.003+01:00

A Biblical Perspective
Pilgrim Press, 1984

153 pages

Examines the Bible's position on homosexuality, argues that homosexuals should not be cut off from the church, and applies the precepts of liberation theology

Edwards, George

Gay/Lesbian Liberation:

A Biblical Perspective

ENGEL: The Rite of Sodomy

2009-08-09T18:18:00.000+01:00

Engel,, Randy

The Rite of Sodomy

New Engel Publishingm 2006

1282 pages

HEALTH WARNING!

This is NOT a book I would normally recommend - it comes from a right wing perspective, obsessed with an imaginary "Homosexual Collective", and its influence, and appears to confuse homosexuality and paedophilia. Still, it could be useful to see how the other side thinks - and to examine the evidence for gay influence in the postconciliar Vatican.

"The Rite of Sodomy tracks the rise of homosexuality in the Catholic hierarchy, diocesan priesthood and religious life in the United States over a span of 100 years and three generations of prelates. It examines all facets of this intergenerational phenomenon on the life of the Church, yesterday, today and tomorrow. The text is broken down into five mini-book sections each examining a different aspect of homosexuality in the Roman Catholic Church. Section I looks at pederasty, homosexuality in its most pervasive and universal form, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, to the rise of the Modern State in the mid-to-late 1800s. Section II exams the complex nature and causes of male homosexuality, describes homosexual acts and behaviors, and provides an in-depth look at the secular Homosexual Collective and the inordinate power it exerts over the individual homosexual. Sections III and IV document the growth of the vice within the American Church (AmChurch) with special attention to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/U.S. Catholic Conference and Catholic dioceses headed by homosexual cardinals and bishops. There is biographical data on more than 30 homosexual prelates and detailed case studies on homosexuality and pederasty in six major religious orders. A carefully researched report on New Ways Ministry, one of the most influential pro-homosexual auxiliary organizations in AmChurch, illustrates the total ineptitude of the Holy See in confronting morally subversive agencies within its own ranks. Section V brings all elements of the controversy over homosexuality in the Catholic Church under one roof the dome of St. Peters. An examination of the role played by Pope Paul VI in connection with the rise of a gay clergy in the Universal Church brings this blockbuster work to its startling conclusion. The Rite of Sodomy contains 4,523 endnotes, a bibliography of over 350 books, and a full Index."

EVANS: Queer and Catholic

2009-08-09T18:11:00.000+01:00

Routledge, 2008

364 pages

Catholic, memoir, lesbian

How does one reconcile the tension between the community of one's own Catholic upbringing and a sexuality and gender identity that may be in conflict with some of the tenets of the faith - especially when one is a member of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex community? "Queer and Catholic" offers a source of comfort to members of these communities, focusing on not only practicing Catholics, but also the entire experience of growing up Catholic. This unique book discusses Catholicism beyond its religiosity and considers its implications as a culture of origin. This widely varied and entertaining book pulls together a comprehensive collection of essays, stories, and poetry that together represent an honest and engaging reflection of being a queer person within the Catholic experience.

ELLISON, M M & PLASKOW, J (eds) : Heterosexism in Contemporary World Religion

2009-08-09T16:44:00.000+01:00

Problem and prospect

Pilgrim Press, 2007

232 pages

Interfaith, heterosexism

Heterosexism - not homosexuality - is a key prejudice in today's world, often supported by religious statements and practices against sexual minorities. This book seeks to draw out strands in each major religious tradition that foment against such practices.

FUERSTEIN: Sacred Sexuality

2009-08-08T20:08:00.002+01:00

The Erotic Spirit in the World's Great Religions

Inner Traditions, 2003 (Illustrated Reprint)

256 pages

Multifaith, Sexuality, Spirituality

A historical, cross-cultural survey of sexuality as a sacred spiritual practice

• Examines sacred sexuality in the world's religious and mystery traditions

• Explores contemporary sexual stress syndrome resulting from the absence of the sacred in sexual practice

• Reveals how to find the sacred in the ordinary

This book examines the history of sexuality as a sacramental act. In spite of our culture's recent sexual liberalizations, sexual intimacy often remains unfulfilling. Georg Feuerstein instructs that the fulfillment we long for in our sex lives can only be attained once we have explored the spiritual depths of our erotic natures.

Feuerstein delves into a wide variety of spiritual traditions--including Christianity, Judaism, goddess worship, Taoism, and Hinduism--in search of sacred truths regarding sexuality. He reveals that all of these great teachings share the hidden message that spirituality is, in essence, erotic and that sexuality is inherently spiritual. From the erotic cult of the Great Mother and the archaic ritual of hieros gamos (sacred marriage) to the institution of sacred prostitution and the erotic spirituality practiced in the mystery traditions, Feuerstein offers a wealth of historical practices and perspectives that serve as the bases for a positive sexual spirituality suited to our contemporary needs.

FORD: Disclosures

2009-08-08T19:58:00.001+01:00

Ford, Michael

Disclosures

Conversations Gay and Spiritual

FABER: The Oxford Apostles

2009-08-08T14:21:00.000+01:00

Faber, Geoffrey

The Oxford Apostles

Faber & Faber, 1933

Published a long time ago, but still of interest to those with an antiquarian bent, as it is said to be

"The first book to take seriously the hom oeroticism of the Catholic movement in the 19th century - pp. 32-35 presents Newman as a sublimated homosexual." (LGBT Catholic Handbook, Calendar of Lesbian Gay and Transgendered Saints.")

FRAWLEY–O’DEA: Perversion of Power

2009-08-08T10:48:00.000+01:00

Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

"If one could have only one book on the sexual abuse crisis in the United States Catholic Church Frawley–O’Dea’sPerversion of Power would be the top choice. This book is a comprehensive summary and analysis of the data available at this time. She summarizes the John Jay Survey (2/27/04) commissioned by the United States bishops and used by them as the definitive word on clergy abuse and a justification for calling the disaster over. But O’Dea puts that claim and other clerical rationalizations, denials, and deceptions to the test.
She writes convincingly because she has a command of the facts plus the psychological and analytic skills to spotlight the vagaries of the complicated institutional and personal distortions and suffering at the heart of the catastrophic situation of clergy violating children and the vulnerable and the authorities in charge excusing, covering up, and participating in schemes that cheat believers and society of honest leadership and protection. As one reviewer summed up the book’s message, “there is no more hypocritical and perverse exploitation of power than the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.”
This book is of lasting value because it reports an epic crisis in context, makes it understandable, and challenges the fundamental misconceptions that produced the calamity in the first place and keep structures in place that will repeat another crisis if not adequately met with the insight and experience even now available. The author provides a vade mecum for those who want to understand abuse of the vulnerable and protect children from the domination and abuse of dangerously powerful forces"

- Richard Sipe

FORTUNATO, J E: Embracing the Exile

2009-08-08T08:32:00.000+01:00

Healing journeys of gay Christians

Review by John McNeill in National Catholic Reporter, 1993, available from Find Article

GOSS: Jesus Acted Up

2009-08-07T21:47:00.001+01:00

HarperSanFrancisco, 1994

240 pages

"Former Jesuit priest Goss (an executive headhunter who's also a gay activist with a doctorate in comparative religion) starts this combative study by asking how gays and lesbians can be Christians. After explaining that Christ was ``queer,'' he concludes that gays and lesbians may be the only true Christians, and exhorts them to reclaim their Church"

Goss, Robert:

Jesus Acted Up

A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto

GRAHAM: Discovering Images of God

2009-08-07T21:40:00.001+01:00

narratives of care among lesbians and gays

Westminster John Knox Press, 1997

205 pages

Christian, lesbian & gay, biography, pastoral ministry, theology

Larry Graham has interviewed gays and lesbians across the country and has discovered a new sense of God at work through all people. These insights bring new images of God that are more true, more faithful, and more deeply connected to the pains and joys of everyone's life.

Graham, Larry Ken

Discovering Images of God

Narratives of care Among Lesbians and Gays

GLASER: Coming out as Sacrament

2009-08-07T21:09:00.001+01:00

Glaser, Chris

Coming Out as Sacrament

Geneva Press 1998

153 pages

Gay Christian author and activist Chris Glaser proposes that coming out--as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered--has biblical precedence and sacramental dimensions.

"When denied traditional means of grace, the sacraments of the church, we who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and family and friends of those who are, celebrate the sacrament of coming out, revealing the sacred in our lives: our love, our lover, our lives, our families, our community, and our unique perspective on God. Coming out is a theme in scripture in a way homosexuality is not. Biblical characters came out to be the people they were chosen and called to be, and the Bible is the coming out story of God--coming out of the closet of heaven, down from the mountaintop of requirements (Mt. Sinai), to enter our lives compassionately as God-with-us, who suffers with us, rejoices with us, and loves us unconditionally. This book critiques a traditional view of the atonement, suggesting the crucifixion was the result of human will, not God's--that God's will was the resurrection, that God chooses life for God's child and children, not death. Using the work of Rene Girard, I consider the scapegoat mechanism's applicability to how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people are scapegoated by society and religious institutions today. Finally, I offer seven "rites for the soul" by which the reader or groups may reclaim biblical affirmations and their baptism and their church, and celebrate coming out in a ritual that combines elements from the traditional seven Christian sacraments. This book is different from my other books in that I sustain one careful argument throughout the book, using pastoral and personal experience as well as biblical and theological knowledge to sustain the theme of Coming Out as Sacrament. "

- Chris Glaser

From the "Institute for Welcoming Resources":

"Gay Christian author and activist Chris Glaser believes that sexual minorities, often denied their churches' traditional sacraments, have found unique access to the sacred in their lives; coming out of the closet. Glaser persuasively argues that coming out - as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered - has biblical precedence and sacramental dimensions. Using personal and biblical illustrations, he discusses coming out as an act of vulnerability, much like a sacrificial offering of ancient times, that invokes God's presence and effects atonement, or reconciliation. In this engaging book he shows how coming out, like other sacraments, may serve as a means of grace-that is, an experience of God's unconditional love. In the final chapter, Glaser proposes seven new "rites for the soul," including a ritual for coming out."

Contents:

Ch 1. Coming Out as Sacrament

Ch 2. Sacrifices & Scpegoats

Ch 3. God & Violence

Ch 4. Coming Out in the Bible.

Coming out of innocence & shame: Adam & Eve
Coming out as dreamers: Joseph & his "rainbow coat".
Coming out of oppression : Exodus
Coming out of the wilderness: Numers, & entry into Canaan
Coming out to love: Johnathan & David, Ruth & Naomi
Coming out of privilege: EstherComing out of "traditional family values": Jesus' life & teachingComing
Coming out as ourselves: Samritan woman at the well
Coming out for grace: Saul / Paul
Coming out empowered: Pentecost

Ch 5 God Comes Out

Avoiding stereotypes and name calling
"Personing" the issue
Revelation as Sacrificial Offering
Folly of he Cross
Living Sacrifices

Ch 6. coming Ou as Celebration

Undoing the Scapegoat Mechanism
Larger than Life Faith

Ch 7: Rites for the Soul

Biblical affirmation: Blessing one another
Coming Out: Witness to the Resurrection
Call to Repentance: Confessing homophobia & heterosexism
Turning the tables: Ritual of Anger & grief.
Embracing our cause: Ritual of commitment to justice
Reclaiming our aptism: Turning church upside down
Celebrating Commonwealth: Rite of God's victory

GLASER: Coming Out to God

2009-08-07T20:15:00.000+01:00

Glaser, Chris

Coming Out to God

Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men

168 Pages

Catholic, Spirituality, Prayer, Lesbian & Gay

This is a collection of prayers written from an explicitly gay perspective. I particularly liked Glaser's introduction, in which he argues that contrary to popular practice, sensuality and sensousness is deeply embedded in ancient traditions of worship:

"The prophet Miriam led women in a dance celebrating God’s deliverance of her people from Pharaoh’s armies. King David danced almost naked in the religious procession bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem….. The body was not originally confined in worship to sitting, standing and kneeling, as in most churches today. Worship was an invitation to dance, in celebration and in service. Worship was a bodily and sensual experience."

"Sexuality and spirituality are not opposing g forces, as is frequently supposed today. Instead, both draw people into relationship. Sexuality draws us into physical relationships: touching, hugging…… kissing and intercourse. Spirituality draws us into relationships that both incl ude and transcend bodies because it includes and transcends that which is visible……Both our sexual and spiritual powers are holy, and therefore both my be profaned. At their holiest, these powers lead to love in all its many expressions. At their most profane, they may lead to apathy or hate. The integrity of both sexual and spiritual powers is called the soul.

Christianity sanctifies both body…and spirit …clearly by its single most revolutionary theological assertion: God’s “Word became flesh” (John 1:14)

He then continues the dancing theme but creating an image of Sensuality and Spirituality as two strangers at a dance, wary of each other, trying to assert superiority before finally finding a true partnership in dance. In this partnership, Glaser argues, lies integrity.

"For most of us, our spirituality dances awkwardly with our sexuality, if at all. Because we are taught that sexuality and spirituality are opposing forces, we either allow our spirituality to intimidate or dominate our sexuality, or we ignore our spirituality to enjoy our sexuality, or we do a little bit of both. "

"Yet in Christian tradition there have been moments of insight that serve as correction to the tendency to separate sexuality and spirituality. In the late fourteenth century, Julian of Norwich wrote, “Our sensuality is grounded in Nature, in compassion, and in Grace…in our sensuality, God is… God is the means whereby our Substance and our Sensuality are kept together so as never to be apart”.

He concludes:

"So let us enjoy our spiritual as well as our sexual lovemaking and the intimacy and integrity they may afford us, for, therby, we aqre reminded hat we belong in God's world: created in God's image, called for community, and citizens of a spiritual commonwealth."

Strongly Recommended

From Google books:

"In this collection of sixty prayers . . . Chris Glaser opens new vistas to us in prayer, discipleship, and the relationship between spirituality and sexuality. . . . This book is a classic in devotional literature which one will return to again and again".--Merrill M. Follansbee, co-founder of the Sacramento chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays."