RSS 1.0Gender and Theology
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Gender is a term which is used to denote "a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female" (Oxford Dict., OUP), but which stand for a social construct, by opposition to a reduction to a psycho-physiological determinism. Globethics Gender and Theology collection covers issues at the intersection of gender and theology with a strong focus on Latin America.
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Représentations et normes liées à la masculinité : construction d'un concept hier et aujourd'hui : pour une masculinité positive dans une perspective bibliqueVoici un livre qui touche à un tabou : la violence faite aux femmes et cela même au nom de vénérables institutions religieuses. L'auteur montre une insidieuse tactique de déstabilisation, car quand les femmes sont opprimées, toute l'humanité souffre. En tant que chef ecclésiastique, l'auteur désire ramener les gens à la vérité et à la volonté d'un dieu de paix. Malheureusement, même la Bible peut être utilisée comme alibi pour soutenir des structures qui nuisent à autrui, où les valeurs traditionnelles de patriarcat renforcent la subordination des femmes, dans "la masculinité négative". Au lieu d'abolir des valeurs traditionnelles et d’occulter certains passages bibliques problématiques, les prémisses d'une masculinité positive sont définies par le message biblique dans sa totalité et son unité.
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Too Many Dicks at the Writing Desk, or, How to Organize a Prophetic Sausage-FestAbstractThe key issue for this paper is the role of writing in both the production of and instabilities in prophetic masculinity. I draw upon three sources: the work of Lévi-Strauss concerning the "writing experiment," Christina Pettersen's exploration of the role of writing in constructing the ruling class in colonial Greenland, and some of my older work concerning the auto-referentiality of references to writing and scribal activity in the Hebrew Bible. Armed with these theoretical strings, the paper has two phases—what may be called "organizing the sausage-fest" and "too many dicks at the writing desk." The first concerns the production of masculinity, the second its problems.
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Ungraceful God: Masculinity and Images of God in Brazilian Popular CultureAbstractThe article investigates how God is represented in popular culture, especially in music, in Brazil. It gives a general background about Brazilian culture showing how religion is part of the identity constructions of Brazilian people and how it is marked by multiplicity, syncretism and hybridization. It then analyses two popular songs that make explicit statements about "who God is" and how those statements are related to traditional masculine gender constructions. Finally, the article discusses how issues of masculinity and religion have been approached in recent scholarship and points to the need for other ways of imagining God that are related to people's experience.
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Building bridges towards a more humane society : explorations in contextual biblical interpretation on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Bridging Gaps exchange programIn 1994, the Bridging Gaps programme started with four students at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Now, the programme that is aimed at engaging students in contextual theological reflections and intercultural exchange yearly brings a group of 15 students from all over the world to Amsterdam. This volume is the depiction and elaboration of the eponymous symposium that was held in 2020 to celebrate the Bridging Gaps programme’s 25th anniversary. Contributors are people who have been engaging with the programme as students, staff or representatives of partner organisations. This volume is divided into two: ‘Contextual theology and contextual biblical interpretation as catalysts for academic theology’ and ‘A catalyst for community: contextual theology and churches.’ The first part covers issues as LGBTQI+ acceptance, economy and impoverishment, gender-based violence and the position of women in biblical texts and churches. The second part of the volume concerns how local communities respond to a migration crisis and climate crisis.
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What to do with the Problem of the Flesh? Negotiating Orthodox Jewish Sexual AnxietiesFeminist and queer assessments of religion and sexuality often assume that regulation and affirmation of sexuality are incompatible. This article provides an alternative perspective. The article discusses three orthodox Jewish responses to the “problem of the flesh” – a purported incompatibility of carnality/desire and piety/religiosity: a traditionalist approach that sanctifies sexuality but problematizes desire; a pragmatic stance that desanctifies sexuality; and a reformist approach that affirms sexuality within the logics of Jewish orthodoxy. While these responses may seem inadequate solutions from critical, queer and feminist perspectives, as they are fraught with tradition, heterosexism and sexism, I make a case for a more generous interpretation by contextualizing these responses within orthodox Jewish culture.
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The Other Side of their ZealAbstractThis article tracks the harsh reality of homophobia in Korea, focusing on the homophobic rhetoric of Korean Christian fundamentalists. I suggest that the fundamentalists’ homophobic rhetoric can be looked at in line with their attempt to build up their bases of support. Facing the loss of their privileged social status in Korea, the fundamentalists have been seeking out a secure road through which they can survive and regain their influence. What they have found was, in addition to literal belief in the Bible, a political alliance with greater powers, namely, Korean right-wing politics and american Christian fundamentalism. Korean fundamentalists’ homophobic rhetoric reveals a crack through which we can observe how they have served as resident ministers of american Christian fundamentalists’ imperialistic vision of the world. This vision couples with the US government’s military deployments and its projects for global domination—whether it is to be proved as an unqualified failure or not.
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Who's Afraid of Gay Theology? Men's Studies, Gay Scholars, and Heterosexual SilenceAbstractDespite the growing body of gay scholarship in religious studies, there is a dearth of responses by heterosexual scholars in the field of men's studies in religion. Gay theology can still count more predictably on the ire of a conservative public than on a nuanced, non-homophobic critique by their heterosexual colleagues. What contributes to disregarding gay scholarly voices? Paradoxically, their voices are marginalized to the point of invisibility and yet are also in the center of public discourse. This article sifts through some reasons of why heterosexual men shy away from a public debate of the merits of gay scholarship. Besides methodological reservations, heterosexual male anxieties cause such weariness. Autobiographical insertions by gay scholars combined with discipline-transgressions may lead to ‘homosexual panic’ even among non-homophobic scholars. The article argues that heterosexual men's studies in religion need to overcome their silence and engage the scholarship of gay theology.
