Queerness and Christianity, often depicted as mutually exclusive, both challenge received notions of the good and the natural. Nowhere is this challenge more visible than in the identities, faiths, and communities that queer Christians have long been creating. As Christians they have staked a claim for a Christianity that is true to their self-understandings. How do queer-identified persons understand their religious lives? And in what ways do the lived experiences of queer Christians respond to traditions and reshape them in contemporary practice? Queer Christianities integrates the perspectives of queer theory, religious studies, and Christian theology into a lively conversation—both transgressive and traditional—about the fundamental questions surrounding the lives of queer Christians. The volume contributes to the emerging scholarly discussion on queer religious experiences as lived both within communities of Christian confession, as well as outside of these established communities. Organized around traditional Christian states of life—celibacy, matrimony, and what is here provocatively conceptualized as promiscuity—this work reflects the ways in which queer Christians continually reconstruct and multiply the forms these states of life take. Queer Christianities challenges received ideas about sexuality and religion, yet remains true to Christian self-understandings that are open to further enquiry and to further queerness.

Popular narratives cite religion as the driving force behind homophobia in Africa, portraying Christianity and LGBT expression as incompatible. Without denying Christianity’s contribution to the stigma, discrimination, and exclusion of same-sex-attracted and gender-variant people on the continent, Adriaan van Klinken presents an alternative narrative, foregrounding the ways in which religion also appears as a critical site of LGBT activism. Taking up the notion of “arts of resistance,” Kenyan, Christian, Queer presents four case studies of grassroots LGBT activism through artistic and creative expressions—including the literary and cultural work of Binyavanga Wainaina, the “Same Love” music video produced by gay gospel musician George Barasa, the Stories of Our Lives anthology project, and the LGBT-affirming Cosmopolitan Affirming Church. Through these case studies, Van Klinken demonstrates how Kenyan traditions, black African identities, and Christian beliefs and practices are being navigated, appropriated, and transformed in order to allow for queer Kenyan Christian imaginations. Transdisciplinary in scope and poignantly intimate in tone, Kenyan, Christian, Queer opens up critical avenues for rethinking the nature and future of the relationship between Christianity and queer activism in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.

If the church is ever tempted to think that it has its theology of grace sorted, it need only look at its reception of queer black bodies and it will see a very different story. In this honest, timely and provocative book, Jarel Robinson-Brown argues that there is deeper work to be done if the body of Christ is going to fully accept the bodies of those who are black and gay. A vital call to the Church and the world that Black, Queer, Christian lives matter, this book seeks to remind the Church of those who find themselves beyond its fellowship yet who directly suffer from the perpetual ecclesial terrorism of the Christian community through its speech and its silence.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christians details the processes through which LGBT Christians resolve the fraught tensions between their religious, sexual and gendered identities, and examines the associated changes to their religious practice in the pursuit of “authenticity.” The book moves between richly described first-person accounts and clear theoretical analysis, contextualising the disucssion within contemporary theories of religion and same-sex attraction. Through careful qualitative research with LGBT Christians in the Australian Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), and the Uniting Church, Bronwyn Fielder and Douglas Ezzy show that although painful self-questioning and struggle is experienced by some LGBT Christians, many people ultimately find a resolution and a sense of peace with their sexual identity as LGBT Christians. The pursuit of authenticity is shown to be driven by participants' essentialist understanding of sexuality and gender, and the centrality of religiosity to their sense of self. Offering insight into how participants transform their relationships, emotions, beliefs, and ritual practices in order to make this authentic life possible, this study is an important contribution to the field of religion and sexuality.

One of the hot–button issues of our day is fully addressed in this comprehensive new resource on homosexuality. This well–researched and highly readable guide is the perfect go–to manual for families, church workers, counselors, pastors, civic leaders, schools, and those who themselves struggle with same–sex attraction. Readers will find the answers to these and many more important questions: What is homosexuality? Is the tendency for homosexuality genetic? How should the church respond? What’s the proper response when a relative or friend announces they’re gay? What are the legal and civic ramifications of homosexuality? Should homosexuals serve openly in the military? What about gay marriage and adoption? Authoritative authors Joe Dallas (Desires in Conflict, When Homosexuality Hits Home) and Dr. Nancy Heche (The Truth Comes Out) tackle the hard questions about same–sex attraction in this helpful volume.

"Argues that LGBTQ Catholics and their allies have been struggling for recognition and pastoral care in the U.S. Catholic Church since the 1940s, using a variety of strategies to integrate their faith and sexuality and navigate the institutional church"--

LGBTQ Christians read, love, scrutinize, become absorbed with, and find deep spiritual meaning in the Bible. As these testimonies show, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer Christians are inaugurating a fresh, exciting, new era in biblical interpretation. It is they whose rare insights into particular Bible stories and characters, told with poignancy and clarity, reveal a gay-friendly Bible and a gay-friendly God who cherishes and needs them just as they are. It is they who are running to the Bible with a longing for the Holy Spirit that far surpasses that of too many straight Christians. If given free rein, these inventive, challenging, and profoundly engaged evangelists may be the ones we have been waiting for to rescue biblical interpretation from those who too often are not only hurtful but dismal and boring. Thank God for them!