Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective

 

Martti Nissinen, Kirsi Stjerna

Fortress Press, 2004-03-01 - 208 pages

 

Nissinen's award-winning book surveys attitudes in the ancient world toward homoeroticism, that is, erotic same-sex relations. Focusing on the Bible and its cultural environment-Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Israel-Nissinen concisely and readably introduces the relevant sources and their historical contexts in a readable way.Homoeroticism is examined as a part of gender identity, i.e., the interplay of sexual orientation, gender identification, gender roles, and sexual practice. In the patriarchal cultures of the biblical world, Nissinen shows, homoerotic practices were regarded as a role construction between the active and passive partners rather than as expressions of an orientation moderns call "homosexuality." Nissinen shows how this applies to the limited acceptance of homoerotic relationships in Greek and Roman culture, as well as to Israel's and the early church's condemnation of any same-sex erotic activity.For readers interested in the ancient world or contemporary debates, Nissinen's fascinating study shows why the ancient texts - both biblical and nonbiblical - are not appropriate for use as sources of direct analogy or argument in today's discussion.

 

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Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism

 

Roger A. Sneed

Palgrave Macmillan, 2010-07-28 - 221 pages

"This book challenges Black religious and cultural critics to rethink theological and ethical approaches to homosexuality. Sneed demonstrates how black liberation theology and has often characterized homosexuality as a problem to be solved, and his work here offers a different way for Black religious scholars to approach Black homosexuality and religious experiences. Drawing on a range of Black gay writers from Essex Hemphill to J.L. King, Sneed identifies Black gay men's literature as a rich source for theological and ethical reflection and points Black religious scholarship toward an ethics of openness"

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The Queer God

Marcella Althaus-Reid

Routledge, 2003-12-09 - 186 pages

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.

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Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance

Janet R. Jakobsen, Ann Pellegrini

Beacon Press, Apr 15, 2004 - 192 pages

In this revolutionary new book, scholars Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini confront the issue of sexual regulation head-on by supporting the idea of having sexual freedom just as we have religious freedom in this country. In their carefully constructed argument, they fight the idea of loving the sinner but hating the sin, suggesting we should, in the case of sex, love the sin. Turning from sex to religion, the authors question why in the United States the principle of religious freedom is so rarely realized in practice. They end by providing a new way of considering freedom for both sexuality and religion, after laying out precisely how the two are intertwined.

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Queer Theology: Rethinking the Western Body

Gerard Loughlin

John Wiley & Sons, 2007-11-27 - 351 pages

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.

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The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays

Stephen D. Moore

Society of Biblical Lit, 2010-10-04 - 465 pages

The sixteen essays assembled in this volume, four of them co-authored, chart the successive phases of a professional life lived in the interstices of Bible and “theory.” Engaging such texts as the Song of Songs, 4 Maccabees, Mark, Luke-Acts, John, and Romans, and such themes as the quest for the historical Jesus, the essays simultaneously traverse postmodernism, deconstruction, New Historicism, autobiographical criticism, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, masculinity studies, queer theory, and “posttheory.” Individual essay introductions and periodic annotated bibliographies make the volume an advanced introduction to biblical literary criticism

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