Theology and Sexuality recent issues

List of Contributors

2008-04-11

Editorial: Sacred and Profane--Gender, Spirituality and Identity in Contemporary Culture

Hinds, H. — 2008-04-11

Performing Jesus: A Queer Counternarrative of Embodied Transgression

Sheffield, T. — 2008-04-11

This essay argues for performative gender identities that are simultaneously multiple by analyzing the Augustinian interpretation of Genesis 1—3 and how this reading has been used to support normative gender and sexuality. I contend that certain ancient gender narratives which have been read through religious discourse as condemning 'heretical' or 'monstrous' bodies, can actually be reread as alternative engagements with the Chalcedonian body, that most holy of bodies (for Christianity). As a result, these alternative narratives offer us a place from which to construct a permeable and transgressive position and through which to rethink not only ancient battles over Jesus' body, but also, more importantly, the continuing impact of those ancient struggles in terms of gender and religious identification today. By using critical theological studies, I assert that a queer reading of the Chalcedic body, analyzed alongside transgender narratives, is a site from which to construct identities of hybridity and transgression that disrupt ancient and contemporary fictive narratives of normative gender and sexuality.

Transformations of the Sacred in Contemporary Chicana Culture

Messmer, M. — 2008-04-11

Focusing on the transformation of the sacred icon La Virgen de Guadalupe into a secularized and sexualized modern woman in illustrations by Yolanda M. López and Ester Hernández, the rearticulation of ex-votos in Sandra Cisneros's short story 'Little Miracles, Kept Promises', and the development of a lesbian form of spirituality in Ana Castillo's Massacre of the Dreamers, this essay argues that it is the tradition of syncretism and cultural hybridization within the folk version of Mexican Catholicism and its concomitant propensity toward the deconstruction of binary oppositions (such as colonizer versus colonized; male versus female; body versus soul; sexuality versus spirituality) that forms the basis for many of the feminist revisions, reinterpretations, and transformations of Catholic figures, motifs and texts in contemporary Chicana art.

'Mystic Atheism': Julia Kristeva's Negative Theology

Bradley, A. — 2008-04-11

This article examines Julia Kristeva's paradoxical concept of a 'mystic atheism'. It falls into three parts. First, it briefly surveys Kristeva's psychoanalytic account of Christian theology in Au commencement était l'amour (1985). Secondly, it assesses Kristeva's analysis of the Christian mystical tradition from Teresa of Avila to Angela of Foligno in such works as Le féminin et le sacré (1999) and the three volumes on Le génie féminin (1999— 2002). For Kristeva, Christian mysticism represents a key moment in the transition from theology to psychoanalysis: what she locates within the work of the female mystics is a so-called 'mystic atheism', that is to say, an affirmation of an other within the subject as opposed to the divine other that supposedly lies outside it. Finally, the article offers some critical comments upon Kristeva's own 'mystic atheism': I argue that—like much negative theology—Kristeva's psychoanalysis remains ontotheological in form and that this dimension expresses itself in a problematic tendency to anthropomorphize the other within. In conclusion, I will suggest that Kristeva's 'mystic atheism' ultimately remains within the theological tradition it seeks to call into question.

Violence and the Sacred in the Fiction of Julia Kristeva

Greaney, M. — 2008-04-11

This article examines the relatively neglected fiction of Julia Kristeva, especially her 'gothic roman noir' The Old Man and the Wolves, in relation to her theories of violence and abjection. It focuses on the various kinds of excitement and anxiety provoked by notions of border-crossing and metamorphosis in her fiction, and explores her critique of the banality of secular modernity and her nostalgic evocations of sacred space. I also discuss the paradox of her problematic use of detective fiction—a direct product of secular modernity—as a vehicle for this critique.

Hidden Subjects: Rereading Eve and Mary

Sawyer, D. F. — 2008-04-11

Eve and Mary are two archetypes that persist within our culture at its most profound level despite world views imposed by Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought. Since these figures are impossible to expel from our imaginations, revisiting them in the light of contemporary ideas of identity and gender might prove to be a useful means of understanding their cultural impact. In this article extracts from the work of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva are discussed which feature our two archetypes, framing them through the lens of gender critique. Their work clearly illuminates the status of these figures within our realities, and drawing on their observations, suggestions are made as to how we might re-figure both Eve and Mary as the true subjects of the foundation narratives they inhabit.

Chocolate and Bread: Gendering Sacred and Profane Foods in Contemporary Cultural Representations

Steel, J. — 2008-04-11

According to Maud Ellmann, food is `the thesaurus of all moods and all sensations' (Ellmann 1993: 112). It is, she suggests, not only an important signifier within culture and the symbolic order, but it also plays a vital role in our sense of self. This claim provides the starting point for this article's analysis of two symbolically charged foodstuffs: bread and chocolate. In what ways, and to what ends, are these foods gendered? How do these foods shape the construction of identities? And how do their associations with notions of the sacred and the profane inform those constructions? These questions will be addressed by focusing on two contemporary female-authored novels: Chocolat by Joanne Harris (1999) and Give Them Stones by Mary Beckett (1987).

List of Contributors

2008-02-12

Editorial

Stuart, E., Walton, H. — 2008-02-12

Godly Sex, a Queer Quest of Holiness

Grovijahn, J. M. — 2008-02-12

Drawing from sources as varied as the Catholic Catechism, feminist theologies and queer studies, this work offers a Creation-centered anthropological exposition of sexuality that is embedded in God's originating act of Eros in Creation. Recovering an understanding of sexuality that is both sacramental and erotic opens theological conversation into an understanding of Creation as portraits of erotic relationality, capable of wedding justice to sexuality. Within this theological portrait of human sexuality as an expression of God's own self-revelation in Creation, a new articulation of queer sexuality emerges, providing distinct insights into the holiness of sex. Working from multi-denominational Christian sources of queer narrative and theology, the author poses four distinct contributions or queer insights into sexuality. These contributions not only deepen our understanding of Eros and God but also sex and the common good.

What Is Queer? Theology after Identity

Loughlin, G. — 2008-02-12

This article discusses various uses of `queer' in theology, from the queerness of theology itself to queer as insult, and as insult turned. But it is chiefly concerned with queer as what David Halperin calls an `identity without an essence'. As such, queer is a movement, a deployment, which unsettles all attempts to fix theology—and God—within the contingent lineaments of heteropatriarchy. Queer is what all theology should be.

Jouissance, Generation and the Coming of God

Norman, R. — 2008-02-12

This essay explores the place of jouissance in recent theory, traces its roots in Romantic conceptions of the Sublime, and contrasts it with alternative interpretations of orgasm in theological tradition. The key problem with jouissance is that it can act as a cipher for the silencing of women in theological discourse. More positive interpretations of orgasm place an emphasis on generative pleasure—such interpretations were an important part of an older theological tradition including Tertullian and Hildegard. It becomes possible to draw on traditional sources when constructing liberative theological interpretations of sexual activity. As Aristotle argued, orgasm is pneumatic.

The Kenosis of Unambiguous Sex in the Body of Christ: Intersex, Theology and Existing `for the Other'

Cornwall, S. — 2008-02-12

Intersex conditions might be more usefully explored in light of theologies from impairment rather than those from sexuality. The areas of concurrence between intersex conditions and disability feed into theologies which fully respect and take into account such bodily states. Hegemonies of `goodness' and `normality' which lead to the marginalization of intersexed and impaired bodies are grounded in theological beliefs which fail adequately to `queer' oppressive socio-cultural discourses. The disability theology of John M. Hull is used to argue that the `ideologies of dominance' which assume the `sighted world' to be the only `real world' are also evident in assumptions that the binary-sexed world is the only real world; and that it is appropriate for theologians to query and subvert such assumptions. Kenotic behaviour in the realm of gender identity might involve the ceding of sexed signification by those who are not intersexed, rather than the assimilation or unchosen `correction' of those who are.

Circum-Religious Performance: Queer(ed) Black Bodies and the Black Church

Crawley, A. T. — 2008-02-12

This essay addresses how the black body is the site of sacred and secular contention, how it can traverse, transcend and transgress normative ideologies through both the real and imagined performance of movement, through physical peregrinations across, through and around spatial planes. This essay utilizes both queer and performance theories as foundational for understanding the rhetorics of the institutional Black Church in the United States with regard to issues of queer(ed) sexualities and erotics. It discusses how the queer(ed) black body is a production of its movements from place to place, from the church to night club and back and how this instantiates both possibilities for flourishing as well as trauma concurrently. It also utilizes a sermon preached by Pastor Willie Wilson of Washington, DC to illustrate how the queer(ed) black body is produced through voyeurism, fetishism and erotic imagination.

Book Review: HIRST, Jacqueline Suthren and Lynn Thomas (eds.), Playing for Real: Hindu Role Models, Religion, and Gender (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. xii + 190, {pound}20.99 hbk

Sweetman, W. — 2008-02-12

List of Contributors

2007-08-20

Editorial

Walton, H., Stuart, E. — 2007-08-20

Gay Men as Virtuosi of the Holy Art of Bricolage and as Tricksters of the Sacred

Savastano, P. — 2007-08-20

Organized around the anthropological concepts of `bricolage', `bricoleur', `cognitive mazeway' and `trickster', and partially based on ethnographic research, this article hypothesizes that: (1) by virtue of their exclusion from most of the world's religious traditions, queer men find themselves in a kind of spiritual `Diaspora'; (2) gay men have been forced by circumstance to forge a diverse array of spiritual practices, re-interpret or invent alternative sacred myths, produce their own mystical writings, and form diverse intentional spiritual communities; (3) in becoming masters of bricolage, queer men unwittingly function in the role of the trickster figure for each other and for the wider heteronormative culture in which they are embedded; and (4) sex is one of the central axes around which their spiritual practices and spiritual experiences are organized.

Anonymity Desirable, Bibliography Not Required: A Journey from Psychiatry to Theology

McCallum, N. — 2007-08-20

As a teenager in the 1990s, I lived in Scotland. I was ensnared by the psychiatric system at that time, in that place. Contrary to popular rhetoric, I don't consider myself to be one of psychiatry's survivors: I will never quite recover from its effects. This article documents how psychiatry slipped into my life with furtive steps, quickly led me to in-patient wards and permanently tattooed its legacy on my body and mind. It is an experiment in reflective creative writing, combining socio-political and theological analysis; and its tale is true. Now, I am a theologian. My theologizing isn't immune from the shadow permanently projected into each now from my encounter with psychiatry. This story is written out of a conviction that all of our theologies have their separate past lives, integrally tied to the experiences, occluded or otherwise, of any person who attempts to think and speak of God.

That the Sacrament Is Always There: Towards a Eucharistic Ethic

Godin, M. — 2007-08-20

Eucharistic ethics have often been conducted by arguing how we should act from what we do in the sacrament, but such an argument is more rhetorical and homiletical than particularly eucharistic. This paper explores possible readings of Eucharistic ethics before making suggestions focusing on attending to the passionate presence of Christ and, in so doing, to the presence of others. This attention is met in the body and in the personal, particular stories of the people around the table.

A Straussian Take on Heterosexuality and Patriarchy?: Leon Kass's The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis

Woolwine, D. — 2007-08-20

Leon Kass's The Beginning of Wisdom is given a close reading. Kass's treatment of heterosexuality and patriarchy is analyzed. It is shown that Kass's interpretation of the biblical text involves contradictions as well as the importation of viewpoints foreign to the authors of Genesis.

A Silence that Speaks Louder than Words: Responses to `Who's Afraid of Gay Theology' by Bjorn Krondorfer

Walton, H., Stuart, E. — 2007-08-20

Overcoming Heterosexual Anxiety before Gay Theology

Livingston, D. J. — 2007-08-20

`Who Is Not Afraid of Gay Theology?' Comments to Bjorn Krondorfer

Musskopf, A. S. — 2007-08-20

On Writing Religion, `Gay' and `Straight': An Open Letter to Bjorn Krondorfer

Haldeman, S. — 2007-08-20

Response to Bjorn Krondorfer's `Who's Afraid of Gay Theology? Men's Studies, Gay Scholars, and Heterosexual Silence'

Longwood, W. M. — 2007-08-20

Rejoinder: Navigating through Troubled Language

Krondorfer, B. — 2007-08-20

In response to the constructive criticism of four male scholars of religious studies, this piece clarifies some of the arguments of my earlier essay, `Who's Afraid of Gay Theology?'. It argues for a cautious approach to identify one's gendered and sexed identity as an author within men's studies since such self-revelation may narrow the range of possible textual readings. The unintended consequence may be lesser rather than the wished-for greater transparency of both text and author. This essay makes a few suggestions of how to navigate the difficult terrain of language, gender, social privilege, and male intimacy.

List of Contributors

2007-04-23

Editorial

Stuart, E., Walton, H. — 2007-04-23

Sexual Symbolism, Religious Language and the Ambiguity of the Spirit: Associative Themes in Anglican Poetry and Philosophy

Norman, R. — 2007-04-23

In the seventeenth century, the word `spirit' stood euphemistically for semen and erections. Shakespeare knew this, as did the more explicitly theological poets, Donne and Herbert. These euphemistic meanings were exploited by the latter when writing religious poetry. Moving beyond the sexual language typical of much Christian mysticism, Donne also drew on renaissance ideas of metempsychosis which allowed him to view sperm as something physically connected with the spirit of a man, and potentially associated with the Holy Spirit itself. The reproductive potential of sperm was further associated with the creative power of the poet, and poetry became for Donne and Shakespeare a substitute for sexual reproduction. The ambiguous, playful and erotic spirit of poetry is considered as in terms of the equally ambiguous, playful and erotic spirit of theological language.

Who's Afraid of Gay Theology?: Men's Studies, Gay Scholars, and Heterosexual Silence

Krondorfer, B. — 2007-04-23

Despite the growing body of gay scholarship in religious studies, there is a dearth of responses by heterosexual scholars in the field of men's studies in religion. Gay theology can still count more predictably on the ire of a conservative public than on a nuanced, non-homophobic critique by their heterosexual colleagues. What contributes to disregarding gay scholarly voices? Paradoxically, their voices are marginalized to the point of invisibility and yet are also in the center of public discourse. This article sifts through some reasons of why heterosexual men shy away from a public debate of the merits of gay scholarship. Besides methodological reservations, heterosexual male anxieties cause such weariness. Autobiographical insertions by gay scholars combined with discipline-transgressions may lead to `homosexual panic' even among non-homophobic scholars. The article argues that heterosexual men's studies in religion need to overcome their silence and engage the scholarship of gay theology.

Touching the Taboo in Sacred Space: Reading Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose as a `Catalyst for a Sexual Discourse of Resistance' in the Black Church

Moore, D. — 2007-04-23

Sex-talk is often differentiated or eradicated from God-talk within the Black church in America; as a result, many pertinent issues like androcentrism, heterosexism, homophobia, and violence against women continue to flourish because of the lack of dialogue regarding sexuality. Because of this womanist theologians like Kelly Brown Douglas have convincingly argued that people of African descent must engage in a `sexual discourse of resistance', particularly the Black church in America, if true wholeness is to be achieved. This paper will explore themes present with Sherley Anne Williams's novel, Dessa Rose, which may be useful as catalysts for such a discourse.

Uncovering the Eros of God

Blevins, J. — 2007-04-23

Discussions of God's love focus on agape and rarely consider eros as a quality of love between God and human beings. This effacement of eros leaves theological thinking trying to articulate descriptions of unambiguous love. In fact, love is ambiguous and multiple; by thinking theologically about eros we find new ways to think and write about that ambiguity. This essay represents an attempt at such thinking and writing by describing the problems of ignoring eros by looking at the sexual theology and ethics of Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. It then points to alternatives in light of the apophatic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius.

Spirituality and Sexual Abuse: Issues and Dilemmas for Survivors

Crisp, B. R. — 2007-04-23

Sexual abuse profoundly affects survivors to the extent that they are unable to maintain previously held viewpoints or ways of being, including those relating to their spirituality. Certainly the experience has considerable potential to complicate the spiritual lives of survivors. For Christian survivors, this may include how they perceive and relate to both themselves and God as well as affect participation in sacraments such as eucharist and reconciliation. Spiritual traditions often promote the embracing of silence, but this may be problematic for survivors who have been silenced and unable to give expression to their experiences. Similarly, socialization resulting in beliefs that Christians should always forgive and/or never be angry needs to be overcome. While negotiating these pitfalls may result in explorations of spirituality being even less straightforward for survivors of sexual abuse than it is for others, a transformative spirituality within a Christian framework can be realized.

Poems

Herbert, M. — 2007-04-23

A Review Article: Jewish American Circumcision

Slavet, E. — 2007-04-23

Book Reviews: FINNEGAN, Frances, Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. xii + 256, {pound}14.99 pbk

Loades, A. — 2007-04-23

Book Reviews: ALTHAUS-REID, Marcella (ed.), Liberation Theology and Sexuality (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. x + 192, {pound}45 hbk

Cornwall, S. — 2007-04-23

Book Reviews: ALEXANDER, M. Jacqui, Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), pp. 424, {pound}15.95 pbk

Rudy, K. — 2007-04-23

Book Reviews: WASKUL, Dennis and Phillip Vannini (eds.), Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. xiv + 297, {pound}55 hbk

Cornwall, S. — 2007-04-23

Books Received

2007-04-23