The Bible, Sexuality, and Culture
We are living in a rapidly changing culture. Since the 1960s, the changes in our sexual ethics have become increasingly problematic. How are people—especially Evangelicals and other conservative Christians—supposed to respond? Does the Bible address these seismic changes? How is a believer supposed to raise a family in the cultural chaos of the twenty-first century? If you have asked any of these questions before, then this book is for you. Peterson argues forcefully that the changes in our culture are a direct result of a postmodern and post-Christian cultural rejection of the mandates established by God in the opening two chapters of Genesis. The reason Western culture is imploding morally is directly connected to the Enemy’s undoing of each of the Genesis mandates established by God for human and cultural flourishing. With Western culture’s rejection or undoing of every one of God’s mandates in Genesis, is there any hope for the survival of once-thriving Judeo-Christian cultures? Peterson tackles these and many other issues in a forthright and unreserved manner. This book is not for the faint of heart. It is a call for a return to cultural sanity rooted in the fear of God and his Word.
The Bible, Sexuality, and Culture
We are living in a rapidly changing culture. Since the 1960s, the changes in our sexual ethics have become increasingly problematic. How are people--especially Evangelicals and other conservative Christians--supposed to respond? Does the Bible address these seismic changes? How is a believer supposed to raise a family in the cultural chaos of the twenty-first century? If you have asked any of these questions before, then this book is for you. Peterson argues forcefully that the changes in our culture are a direct result of a postmodern and post-Christian cultural rejection of the mandates established by God in the opening two chapters of Genesis. The reason Western culture is imploding morally is directly connected to the Enemy's undoing of each of the Genesis mandates established by God for human and cultural flourishing. With Western culture's rejection or undoing of every one of God's mandates in Genesis, is there any hope for the survival of once-thriving Judeo-Christian cultures? Peterson tackles these and many other issues in a forthright and unreserved manner. This book is not for the faint of heart. It is a call for a return to cultural sanity rooted in the fear of God and his Word.
Bible, Gender, Sexuality
Grapples conscientiously with biblical texts at the heart of the church's debate over same-sex relationships This thought-provoking book by James Brownson develops a broad, cross-cultural sexual ethic from Scripture, locates current debates over homosexuality in that wider context, and explores why the Bible speaks the way it does about same-sex relationships. Fairly presenting both sides in this polarized debate — "traditional" and "revisionist" — Brownson conscientiously analyzes all of the pertinent biblical texts and helpfully identifies "stuck points" in the ongoing debate. In the process, he explores key concepts that inform our understanding of the biblical texts, including patriarchy, complementarity, purity and impurity, honor and shame. Central to his argument is the need to uncover the moral logic behind the text. Written in order to serve and inform the ongoing debate in many denominations over the questions of homosexuality, Brownson's in-depth study will prove a useful resource for Christians who want to form a considered opinion on this important issue.
Pure Desire
This thoughtful look at God's original purpose for His good gift of human sexuality offers Bible-based guidelines on how to live your Christian values in today's culture.
Reclaiming the Sacred
The second edition of Reclaiming the Sacred: The Bible in Gay and Lesbian Culture continues the groundbreaking work of the original, exploring the territory between gay/lesbian studies, literary criticism, and religious studies. This much-anticipated follow-up examines the appropriation and/or subversion of the authority of the Judeo-Christian Bible by gay and lesbian writers. The book highlights two prevalent trends in gay and lesbian literature—a transgressive approach that challenges the authority of the Bible when used as an instrument of oppression, and an appropriative technique that explores how the Bible contributes to defining gay and lesbian spirituality. Reviewers of the first edition of Reclaiming the Sacred hailed the book’s enterprise in exploring the area between literary criticism and religious studies. Whereas contemporary literary-critical theory has been slow to integrate religion and religious history into queer theory, this pioneering journal has addressed the issue from the start with a collection of thoughtful and though-provoking articles. This latest edition expands coverage to include noncanonical ancient texts, popular Victorian religious texts, and contemporary theater. Academics and lay readers interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and religious studies will gain new insights from topics such as: religious mystery and homosexual identity in Terrence McNally’s “Corpus Christi” same-sex biblical couples in Victorian literature homoerotic texts in the Apocrypha sodomite rhetoric in a seventeenth-century Italian text Radclyffe Hall’s lesbian messiah in her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness homosexual temptation in John Milton’s Paradise Regained Reclaiming the Sacred counteracts the manipulative and oppressive uses to which modern writers and thinkers put the Bible and the “morality” it is presumed to inscribe. An important tool for understanding the role of the Bible in gay and lesbian culture, this remarkable book makes a powerful contribution to the advancement of studies on queer sanctity.
