You Can, If You Want To: Navigating Christian Faith, Conscience, and matters LGBTQ+

by James Alison

Bloomsbury presents You Can, If You Want Navigating Christian Faith, Conscience, and matters LGBTQ+, written and read by James Alison

What if Christianity was far more liberating than the culture wars suggest? Can the conflict concerning Christianity and homosexuality be viewed from a more interpretative lens? James Alison, a Catholic priest who is also a gay man, has been wrestling with the matter for over forty years.

This luminous and rigorous book dismantles the fear-based binaries which have dominated conversations in the Church. Striving to address potential concerns about accepting LGBTQ+ individuals within the church, James draws on scripture, tradition and his lived experience to form a broader understanding of faith and humanity.

Audible Audio

Published July 3, 2025

About the author

James Alison (b. 1959) is a Catholic theologian, priest and author. He grew up in an evangelical family in England and converted to Catholicism as a teenager. Alison studied at Oxford and earned his doctorate in theology from the Jesuit Faculty in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He was a member of the Dominican order from 1981-1995.

Reviews

[Kit]

let's see if this is something i can give my dad in hopes he will see my humanity

[Britt]

DNF at page 202. I might come back and finish this someday, but I'm losing patience with the writing style. I think that if I read the phrase "the lamb standing as one slain" or "the horizontal God" one more time, I might scream.

[Cecilia Cicone]

DNF. I wanted to like this so much, but the writing is difficult to read and there are absolutely no footnotes beyond the Scripture citations. For a Scripture book, saying things like “the word for lamb is the same as the word for servant in Aramaic” is great until you remember that the New Testament was written in Greek.

[Keren Kang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book difficult to read--more due to his esoteric style of writing which was harder for me to follow. I did sense that much of this book went "over my head"...so dense and rich. So, not an easy read for me, but I did garner some valuable bits regarding translation, history, culture, etc. And, this book really makes me want to read and study the Bible--especially some passages mentioned--with more detail and understanding.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

The section on shame is going to be important to me and I plan to reread it several times to understand how.