Sex Difference In Christian Theology

How different are men and women? When does it matter to us -- or to God? Are male and female the only two options? In Sex Difference in Christian Theology Megan DeFranza explores such questions in light of the Bible, theology, and science. Many Christians, entrenched in culture wars over sexual ethics, are either ignorant of the existence of intersex persons or avoid the inherent challenge they bring to the assumption that everybody is born after the pattern of either Adam or Eve. DeFranza argues, from a conservative theological standpoint, that all people are made in the image of God -- male, female, and intersex -- and that we must listen to and learn from the voices of the intersexed among us.

God and Difference interlaces Christian theology with queer and feminist theory for both critical and constructive ends. Linn Marie Tonstad uses queer theory to show certain failures of Christian thinking about God, gender, and sexuality. She employs queer theory to dissect trinitarian discourse and the resonances found in contemporary Christian thought between sexual difference and difference within the trinity. Tonstad critiques a broad swath of prominent Christian theologians who either use queer theory in their work or affirm the validity of same-sex relationships, arguing that their work inadvertently promotes gendered hierarchy. This volume contributes to central debates in Christianity over divine and human personhood, gendered relationality, and the trinity, and provides original accounts of God, sexual difference, and Christian community that are both theologically rich and thoroughly queer.

Mainstream Christian theology has valued the integrity of the body and the goodness of God reflected in creation. However, it has also asserted the complementarity of "normal" male and female physiology. Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ offers the first systematic theology of the intersexed body. The book analyzes the theological implications of physical intersex conditions and their medical treatment. The medical assumption of what constitutes male and female bodies is shown to raise essential questions about the meaning of incarnation and bodiliness. The book argues for a theology that speaks to stigmatized and marginal bodies, examining the impact of such a theology on sex, marriage, sexuality, perfection, healing, and the resurrected body.

Intersex is an umbrella term for many different conditions that cause ambiguous sexual biology. Intersex people are "in between," neither clearly male nor clearly female. Intersex has been largely hidden through surgery and secrecy, but is now coming out into the open. Many intersex people have experienced physical, psychological, and relational pain because of the shame attached to their bodily difference. The existence of people with unusual sexual biology presents a challenge to the Christian ideal of humanity as male and female. How can evangelical Christians rightly respond to this phenomenon? Intersex in Christ provides a balance of grace and truth, upholding male and female as God's created intent, while insisting that there is a positive place in the kingdom of God and the world for people with unusual sexual biology. Intersex people are created in the image of God, because of the love of God. Jesus accepts, loves, and dignifies intersex people. The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for all people, however sexed. An evangelical response to intersex will therefore be one of acceptance, love, justice, and inclusion. Intersex in Christ will help both intersex Christians and the church to understand intersex through the lens of Christ.

The digital revolution has ushered in a series of sexual revolutions, all contributing to a perfect storm for modern relationships. Online dating, social media, internet pornography, and the phenomenon of the smartphone generation have created an avalanche of change with far-reaching consequences for sexuality today. The church has struggled to address this new moral ecology because it has focused on clarity of belief rather than quality of formation. The real challenge for spiritual formation lies in addressing the underlying moral intuitions we carry subconsciously, which are shaped by the convictions of our age. In this book, a fresh new voice offers a persuasive Christian vision of sex and relationships, calling young adults to faithful discipleship in a hypersexualized world. Drawing from his pastoral experience with young people and from cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines, Jonathan Grant helps Christian leaders understand the cultural forces that make the church's teaching on sex and relationships ineffective in the lives of today's young adults. He also sets forth pastoral strategies for addressing the underlying fault lines in modern sexuality.

This volume is a critical and constructive analysis of the sexually differentiated self in Karl Barth's Church Dogmatic. It secures in his Christocentric pattern of human agency an untapped resource for unsettling and reimagining the heteropatriarchal structure of human fellowship at the heart of his theological anthropology. Moving through Barth's doctrines of revelation, creation, theological anthropology, and special ethics, Faye Bodley-Dangelo locates the human agent in his broader project aimed at re-habilitating the subject of modern protestant theology. She argues the human actor comes into view as the recipient of Christ's redemptive activity, which redirects it out of self-aggrandizing isolation and into relationships of dependency, responsiveness, and ethical responsibility to multiple sites of divine and creaturely alterity. The book debates that Barth's model of human agency cannot on its own terms sustain his version of female subordination nor his repudiation of same-sex relationships. Rather, it contains ethically-oriented, critical and reflective mechanisms that resist the sexist heterosexist dimension of his theological anthropology and lend themselves to an anti-essentialist performative account of gender.

Charts a faithful theological middle coursethrough complex sexual issuesHow different are men and women? When does it matter to us -- or to God? Are male and female the only two options? In SexDifference in Christian Theology Megan DeFranza explores such questions in light of the Bible, theology, and science.Many Christians, entrenc

Should women be priests? Should women submit to their husbands? Is premarital sex okay? Inflammatory questions such as these have splintered Christianity and polarized the church. In Sex, Gender, and Christianity, a cadre of seasoned college professors offers the modest proposal that honest, fruitful conversations about these questions will take place only if we develop the ability to deal with sex, gender, and the Christian faith with the academic rigor and perspectives of our various disciplines. This volume contributes an unprecedented collection of first-rate articles from a variety of disciplines--from the social sciences to history, from literary criticism to theology--that will challenge college administrators, professors, and students to address fractious questions in an atmosphere of scholarly inquiry.