Sex, Gender, and Christianity

Should women be priests? Should women submit to their husbands? Is premarital sex okay? Inflammatory questions such as these have splintered Christianity and polarized the church. In Sex, Gender, and Christianity, a cadre of seasoned college professors offers the modest proposal that honest, fruitful conversations about these questions will take place only if we develop the ability to deal with sex, gender, and the Christian faith with the academic rigor and perspectives of our various disciplines. This volume contributes an unprecedented collection of first-rate articles from a variety of disciplines--from the social sciences to history, from literary criticism to theology--that will challenge college administrators, professors, and students to address fractious questions in an atmosphere of scholarly inquiry. ""This is a courageous book. At a time when clouds of fear and confusion hover over college classrooms when it comes to talking about sex and gender, here we have a responsible and creative treatment of these thorny topics. It would be a mistake to bypass this book as yet another treatment of sex and gender, because you will not find anything else like it."" --Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies, Duke Divinity School ""Sex, Gender, and Christianity is a much-needed corrective to polarizing arguments about women's roles and their expectations for equality. Probing historical exemplars from Eve to Carrie Bradshaw, the book's authors exchange heat for light on a topic that sorely needs the latter. This will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate courses in both religious and gender studies."" --Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion, USC Annenberg School for Communication Priscilla Pope-Levison is Professor of Theology and Assistant Director of Women's Studies at Seattle Pacific University, and Affiliate Faculty in Women Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists (2004). John (Jack) R. Levison is Professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific University. He is the author of Fresh Air: The Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life (2012); Filled with the Spirit (2009); and Texts in Transition: the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (2000). Together they are the authors of Jesus in Global Contexts (1992) and editors of Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible (1999).