Sex and the Church: Gender, Homosexuality, and the Transformation of Christian Ethics [Paperback]

Kathy Rudy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 1998

Why has the Right's anti-gay agenda been so successful in galvanizing a broad spectrum of Christians to political action? Why have the issues of gay ordination and gay marriage come to dominate liberal Christian discussions of sexuality? What questions about sexual orientation, sexual ethics, and Christian community are not being asked as a result?

Sex and the Church is a groundbreaking book that brings lesbian and gay theory and experience to bear on questions of sexuality and its relationship to Christian life. Ethicist Kathy Rudy begins by showing how the Christian right's campaign for "family values" has profoundly shaped American debates about gender and sexuality, and how mainline Protestant denominations have responded by focusing narrowly on questions of inclusion and exclusion, rights and privileges for lesbians and gay men. She then moves the debate onto a new level, drawing on queer theory and the lives of gay and lesbian Christians to answer new questions: Are gender and sexual orientation categories by which we should define ourselves and judge each other? Is the nuclear family the best site for Christian commitment? What is the purpose of sex, and what does it have to do with God? And what kind of intimate relationships best contribute to the formation of Christian community? Rudy concludes by proposing a new Christian sexual ethic that adapts the ancient notions of unitivity and procreativity to the church of today.

This provocative work offers a powerful vision of a renewed Christian community, open to all.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of the major opponents of the gay rights movement has been conservative, organized Christian churches. Gay lives and gay sexuality have been viewed by many Christians as antithetical to their religious beliefs and dangerous to society as a whole. In Sex and the Church, theologian Kathy Rudy reevaluates traditional Christian positions on both sexuality and gender and comes up with surprising questions and conclusions. Is gender a good--or even moral--way to evaluate a person's relationship to God? How do we discuss the morality of sexual behavior? Is the traditional family the best social structure for a Christian commitment? Rudy is respectful to mainstream Christian beliefs but determined to pursue her arguments even when they conflict with orthodoxy. Rudy's text is smart, incisive, and fearless in its attempt to locate the meaning and truth of "morality" in sexual desire and everyday life. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Rudy (ethics and women's studies, Duke Univ.) invites Christians to examine their ideas of family, community, and the morality of sex. Rudy argues that by asking whether gay and lesbian couples should be ordained or married, we avoid other sociosexual questions. The question is not male or female, gay or straight, but how the act of sex affects one's relationship with God and the Christian community. Rudy examines various understandings of sexuality, both historically and currently, in order to codify a Christian-based system of sexual ethics. As the Christian Right brings a resurgence in the popularity of the cult of domesticity, with women and mothers being the connection for the family to God, we genderize the relationship with God. Rudy argues that society will be able to transform the church and find God only by returning to a Christian community and open discussions of moral and immoral sex. Scholarly work for large religious collections.?L. Kriz, West Des Moines P.L., Ia.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; 2nd Edition edition (June 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807010359
• ISBN-13: 978-0807010358
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #388,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hmmm...Interesting..., May 17, 2000

By 

Tanja L. Walker "Tanja L. Walker" (Norman, OK USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sex and the Church: Gender, Homosexuality, and the Transformation of Christian Ethics (Paperback)

Rudy's take on gender theology and how we as Christians can move past it are at once liberating and a little bit scary. I wholeheartedly agree with her call to return to the community of the Christian church, that our relationships should be based around baptism, not family, and that how we relate to God and to each other should be not be based on our gender or sexuality. Her concept of what constitutes moral sex, though, needs to be studied with care. To base the morality of the sex act on community needs and hospitality invites a misread that would sanction all sorts of irresponsible sex acts under the guise of "communal sex." I don't necessarily disagree, but I think a more thorough explanation of what exactly this version of moral sex does and does not look like would have been in order.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The title is misleadsing, July 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sex and the Church: Gender, Homosexuality, and the Transformation of Christian Ethics (Hardcover)

Kathy Rudy's book is subtitled, Gender, Homosexuality and theTransformation of Christian Ethics. From that one might think thatthe thrust of the book would be about how the Church can transform her moral sexual ethics. However, half the book is spent on analyzing the position of the Christian Right. While this part seemed well documented, one wonders whether that should have been given as much space given the stated focus of the book. Only in the last chapter does Rudy actually deal with complementarity, unitivity and her addition to the ethic, hospitality.

Her detailed analysis of the Christian Right is perceptive, but that same attention to detail is skipped in the last chapter.

The book was disappointing in the sense that the title and subtitle seemed to suggest another kind of approach. END