Queer Christianities: Lived Religion in Transgressive Forms

by Kathleen T. Talvacchia (Editor), Mark Larrimore (Editor), Michael F. Pettinger (Editor)

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.

Genres: Religion, Theology, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 21, 2014

Reviews

[Ellis Billington · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s crunch time for my masters thesis, and I finally got to read this book that’s been on my tbr for ages! I really enjoyed this—it lives up to its title in that it’s about queer Christianities, plural. The multiplicity of experience and thought in here means the reader won’t agree with every chapter, but even the chapters the reader won’t agree with will be thought-provoking (at least, that was the case for me). My only point of criticism is that Part Three: Promiscuities could have been fleshed out a lot more—it felt way too short and pretty tame compared to what I was expecting.

[Allison Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, though very academic. Not bedtime reading. Will have to come back to this one.

[Nick Kinsella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. A thorough survey of much of the theory and practice around Christians who are LGBT. Highly recommend and will be revisiting and exploring further.

[Chelsey Hillyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

By exploring contemporary experience as well as Christian tradition, the authors of this collection effectively queer Christianity, posing the question in the final chapter, "Are all Christians queer?"

[Mills College Library]

270.08664 Q382 2015