Readings from the road: Contextual bible study with a group of homeless and vulnerably-housed people

Readings from the Road, a British Academy-funded small research project, investigated the use of Contextual Bible Study (CBS) with a group of homeless and vulnerably-housed people at a soup kitchen in South-West England. The transient nature of the homeless community presented particular challenges in using this method, but the non-directive and democratic nature of CBS proved valuable. The authors discuss three themes arising from the study sessions: home and place, judgment and stigmatization, and the figure of Jesus. Participants’ linking of biblical themes with their own experiences and broader social events are explored. The authors note that consciously privileging the experience and knowledge of those whose narratives or reading sites are silenced or devalued by mainstream religious traditions is not unequivocally positive, but that the homeless participants’ liminal, insider-outsider relationship to the rest of society is a significant factor in their ability to query and subvert established discourses, providing flashes of imagery which might be deemed prophetic. </jats:p

Recognizing the Full Spectrum of Gender? Transgender, Intersex and the Futures of Feminist Theology

Copyright © 2012 by SAGE PublicationsThe recognition that female embodiment and feminine experience are legitimate and specific sites of the revelation of God’s love has been one of the most significant developments in theology in the last hundred years. However, an over-emphasis on feminine experience as supervening on female embodiment risks erasing unusual sex-gender body-stories and perpetuating the idea that only some bodies can mediate the divine. Feminist Theology’s future must involve a reexamination and re-negotiation of what it is to be feminist theologians without fixed gender essences. Does Feminist Theology have space to hear from and nurture the voices of those whose gender experiences (especially as transgender, ‘third’ or otherwise) challenge a binary, either-or model? Can Feminist Theology, in contrast to much secular feminist theory, give space at the table to those whose sex-gender life stories undermine the notion that there is such a thing as a common or biologically-contingent feminine experience in the first place

The Kenosis of Unambiguous Sex in the Body of Christ: Intersex, Theology, and Existing ‘for the Other’

Copyright © 2008 W. S. Maney & Son LtdIntersex conditions might be more usefully explored in light of theologies from impairment rather than those from sexuality. The areas of concurrence between intersex conditions and disability feed into theologies which fully respect and take into account such bodily states. Hegemonies of ‘goodness’ and ‘normality’ which lead to the marginalization of intersexed and impaired bodies are grounded in theological beliefs which fail adequately to ‘queer’ oppressive socio-cultural discourses. The disability theology of John M. Hull is used to argue that the ‘ideologies of dominance’ which assume the ‘sighted world’ to be the only ‘real world’ are also evident in assumptions that the binary-sexed world is the only real world; and that it is appropriate for theologians to query and subvert such assumptions. Kenotic behaviour in the realm of gender identity might involve the ceding of sexed signification by those who are not intersexed, rather than the assimilation or unchosen ‘correction’ of those who are

Contextual Bible Study: Characteristics and Challenges

Copyright © Liverpool University Press 2012At the Modern Church conference in February 2011 I gave a presentation on Contextual Bible Study, with reference to a research project I undertook with Revd Dr David Nixon at the University of Exeter in 2010. In this project we used Contextual Bible Study with a group of homeless and vulnerably-housed people at a soup kitchen in South-West England. The paper we wrote, which contains much of the same material as my Modern Church conference paper, was published in Expository Times 123.1 (October 2011), 12-19, and gives far more detail about the specificities of our project, as well as reproducing some of the excerpts from contributions by the homeless participants which I cited at the conference. In this short piece, therefore, I will focus on the rationale behind Contextual Bible Study, and will then go on to give a short summary of the ways in which we deemed it both a useful and a problematic methodology for use with this particular group of peopl

‘State of Mind’ versus ‘Concrete Set of Facts’: The Contrasting of Transgender and Intersex in Church Documents on Sexuality

Copyright © 2009 W. S. Maney & Son LtdIntersex in Church documents has, thus far, been given very little coverage in its own right. However, it is sometimes presented as a foil to transgender; a “natural” if unfortunate state in contrast to the resolutely “non-biological” state of transgender. This serves to stigmatize transgender, and fails to understand the extent to which intersex disrupts binary, dualistic notions of sex and gender in their entirety. Utilizing opposites such as biological/non-biological is not, in fact, the most useful way to represent the relationship between intersex and transgender. Rather, it must be acknowledged that both conditions profoundly undermine the givenness of certainty and either/or tropes as “goods” when it comes to sex identity at all. This article gives a brief summary of some occurrences of the unproblematized contrasting of intersex and transgender in some Church documents, and suggests that they are being contrasted in the wrong ways

Ratum et Consummatum: Refiguring Non-Penetrative Sexual Activity Theologically in Light of Intersex Conditions

The norms which render penetrative vaginal sex between heterosexuals cosmically different in significance from non-penetrative and nonheterosexual acts of sex are problematic and possibly unjustifiable in light of physical intersex conditions. Roman Catholic Canon Law states a marriage is not consummated until the spouses have performed “in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring.” The paper shows that this is exclusive of those with atypical genital anatomy and represents an inadequate theological understanding of mutual relationship. Obsession with penetrative vaginal sex is echoed by surgeons who perform corrective surgery of children with atypical genitalia, and repeats cultural codes which over-value it. Adrian Thatcher’s theology of betrothal is used to show that a more processive understanding of marriage and consummation is desirable, and that there are robust theological grounds for celebrating some types and occasions of sexual intimacy outside marriage

British Intersex Christians' Accounts of Intersex Identity, Christian Identity and Church Experience

Copyright © 2013 W. S. Maney & Son LtdIntersex conditions cause a physical ambiguity of sex, and affect around 1 in 2,500 people. This analysis draws on qualitative, semi-structured interviews and/or questionnaires with ten intersex Christians. Overwhelmingly, participants’ church experiences across denominations were more positive than negative. Several participants referred to Bible passages important to them in formulating positive identities as intersex and Christian. A common theme was participants’ belief that God intended them to be intersex, and most understood their Christianity as a source of strength. However, they were not uncritical of the Christian tradition, especially regarding teachings on sex, gender and sexuality. British Christian denominations’ documents on personhood, sex, gender and sexuality barely mention intersex. This is unlikely to change if church policymakers do not become more aware of the existence of intersex and the experiences of intersex people. Further engagement with intersex will be crucial in formulating pastorally sensitive and theologically robust accounts of human sex, gender and sexuality in the future

Readings from the Road: Contextual Bible Study with a Group of Homeless and Vulnerably-Housed People

Copyright © 2011 by SAGE PublicationsReadings from the Road, a British Academy-funded small research project, investigated the use of Contextual Bible Study (CBS) with a group of homeless and vulnerably-housed people at a soup kitchen in South-West England. The transient nature of the homeless community presented particular challenges in using this method, but the non-directive and democratic nature of CBS proved valuable. The authors discuss three themes arising from the study sessions: home and place, judgment and stigmatization, and the figure of Jesus. Participants’ linking of biblical themes with their own experiences and broader social events are explored. The authors note that consciously privileging the experience and knowledge of those whose narratives or reading sites are silenced or devalued by mainstream religious traditions is not unequivocally positive, but that the homeless participants’ liminal, insider-outsider relationship to the rest of society is a significant factor in their ability to query and subvert established discourses, providing flashes of imagery which might be deemed prophetic

Embodied Ministry: Gender, Sexuality and Formation

This is the author's post-refereed manuscript, made available under the publisher's Open Access Policy https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/open-access-policy/ . The final version was published in Theology & Sexuality, Vol 20(3) pp. 183-187, and is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1355835815Z.00000000048n/