The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender presents an unrivalled overview of the theological study of sexuality and gender. These topics are not merely contentious and pervasive: they have escalated in importance within theology. Theologians increasingly agree that even the very doctrine of God cannot be contemplated without a prior grappling with each. Featuring 41 newly-commissioned essays, written by some of the foremost scholars in the discipline, this authoritative collection presents and develops the latest thinking in these areas. Divided into eight thematic sections, the Handbook explores: methodological approaches; contributions from neighbouring disciplines; sexuality and gender in the Bible, and in the Christian tradition; controversies within the churches, and within four of the non-Christian faiths; and key concepts and issues. The final, extended section considers theology in relation to married people and families; gay and lesbian people; bisexual people; intersex and transgender people; disabled people; and to friends. This volume is an essential reference for students and scholars, which will also stimulate further research.

The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament provides a roadmap to the relevant problems, debates, and issues that animate the study of sex, gender, sexuality, and sexual difference in early Christianity. Leading scholars in the field offer original contributions by way of synthesis, critical interrogation, and proposals for future research trajectories.

Redeeming Gender argues that the problems about sexuality which continue to sap the churches' energies are really about gender. The dominant understanding of women's bodies in the Christian West has been that they are inferior versions of the superior male body. This 'one-sex model' of the human body was replaced during the Enlightenment with a model of two opposite sexes. However, both models are inadequate for a theological or a secular understanding of the sexed body. In this innovative work, Adrian Thatcher envisages relations between women and men no longer blighted by long-term patriarchy, androcentrism and sexism in church and world, but redeemed from these structural sins by the grace of Jesus Christ. Dissected into two parts, Part One explains the legacy of both the one-sex and two-sex theories. It uncovers the one-sex theory and its assumptions, and indicates its presence in early Christian thought. It then describes what happened in our social, intellectual and theological history, which leaves us thinking that there are two sexes. In Part Two, Thatcher contributes to an emerging theology of gender in which women and men are fully and equally valued, and in which sexual difference (insofar as it exists at all), is capable of transformation into joyful communion, reflecting the very life of God the Holy Trinity. He exposes the reliance of much Church and theological teaching about sex and gender either on biblical proof texts or upon the language and nomenclature of late modernity, rather than upon considerations of Theology and Christology. Thatcher also indicates how Theology and Christology, in the area of gender, envisions the redemption of human relationships.

Provides strong theological arguments for replacing the binary understanding of gender, and for the embracing of sexual minorities.

The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament provides a roadmap to the relevant problems, debates, and issues that animate the study of sex, gender, sexuality, and sexual difference in early Christianity. Leading scholars in the field offer original contributions by way of synthesis, critical interrogation, and proposals for future research trajectories.

More than ever before there is a need for in-depth dialogue between theology and sciences with regard to gender and human sexuality. This is especially true for Christian communities that are increasingly challenged by the many questions and experiences people have. This book provides the material to explore the various views and bring them together from a Christian perspective, based on a theological account of desire. It shows how gender, sexuality, and faith are positively connected without losing out on deep Christian values and norms.

Vile Bodies are bodies that have been vilified by Christian thought, often with catastrophic consequences. The bodies of women, Jews, Muslims, slaves, Blacks, LGBT people, children, wives have all been harmed by negative Christian teaching about bodies. This book sidesteps the endless controversies in the churches about sexuality and gender and goes deeper – unmasking instead the abusive theology that ensures these controversies and their harmful outcomes persist. Drawing extensively from scripture, and from two millennia of church history and theology, Vile Bodies slowly exposes how churches have preferred doctrine to compassion, orthodoxy to justice, and legalism to love, culminating in the global abuse crises in the churches that have largely destroyed their moral credibility.

This volume highlights the relevance of globalization and the insights of gender studies and religious studies for feminist theology. It focuses on the changing global contexts for the field and its movement towards new models of theology, distinct from the forms of traditional Christian systematic theology and of secular feminism.

Engagingly and clearly written by a highly respected theologian, God, Sex, and Gender is the first comprehensive introduction to a theology of both sexuality and gender available in a single volume. Makes a theological contribution to understanding the unprecedented changes in sexual and gender relationships of the last fifty years Discusses many topics including: sexual difference; sexual equality; gender and power; the nature of desire; the future of marriage in Christian sexual ethics; homosexuality and same-sex unions; the problems of sexual minorities; contraception in a time of HIV/AIDS; the separation of sexual experience from marriage; and offers new arguments for marriage and for chastity Offers a consistent and engaging introduction at the cutting edge of theological inquiry, which is contemporary, undogmatic, questioning, and relevant to readers' experience, interests, and needs Written lucidly and engagingly by an established and respected academic who has published widely in this area

The SCM Studyguide Pastoral Theology designed to support undergraduate courses for the training of clergy and lay pastoral workers at an accessible introductory level. The book aims to develop pastoral wisdom and integrity through a critical integration of theology and the human sciences. Introducing key themes in theological anthropology and pastoral practice, it shapes a creative pastoral vision which is deeply rooted in a Christian vision of what it means to be human and what it takes to care. Working with case studies, the book will introduce broad frameworks of understanding of issues such as growth, loss, and sexuality, together with critical perspectives on important aspects of practice such as language, power and boundaries. The book provides an accessible overview of key concepts in pastoral theology, offering key entry points for further discussion and study. Each chapter includes discussion questions and/or reflective exercises at the end of each chapter together with a short bibliography. Throughout the text, key summaries of learning will be indicated by boxed Practice Points.