Steven J.Sutcliffe and Ingvild SaelidGilhus, eds: New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. Durham: Acumen, 2013; pp. 298 (original) (raw)
Looking Back and Moving Forward The 10th Anniversary of Religion and Gender (2021)
Religion and Gender, 2021
Religion and Gender exists 10 years! Launched in 2011, Religion and Gender has established itself as the leading interdisciplinary journal for the study of gender and religion from inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives. The 10th anniversary of Religion and Gender is of course also an ideal occasion for looking back, reflecting and moving forward. In this anniversary editorial, we hope to accomplish looking back and reflecting on the journal developments as well as moving forward, or at least generating openings towards new directions. The latter means that we want to rethink the main stakes of Religion and Gender in terms of what should be crucial in discussions about religion and gender for the next 10 years.
Religion in Sexual Space REVISED Sept 219
Religion in Sexual Space
1. A History of Asymmetry Generally speaking, religion bears the stamp of patriarchy-the belief in male superiority and their right to dominance over women. Popes, cardinals, gurus, sadhus, druids, buddhas, patriarchs, abbots, lamas, bishops, mullahs, imams, khalifs, ayatollahs, and so on. All men. Even God is more often "father," whether as head of the Trinity or as the High God of the Indian tradition, Dyaus-Pitr. Muslims insist on 'covering' women, but never their men. Why? Orthodox Jewish men thank God each day that they were not born women. In the Orthodox synagogue, men occupy the main precinct, but women hide in the gallery. Christian women need to be purified-"churched"-after childbirth; Orthodox Jewish women need to be purified in the mikva bath. Paul sternly warned women to be silent in the churches. Buddha must always be male. Homosexuality is condemned as an unnatural "abomination," when it has been, respectively, long-lived and victimless. This discussion will explore critical reactions to such asymmetrical beliefs about men and women, straight and gay, primarily by leading women scholars in the study of religion. Concentrating on women scholars is primarily dictated by the historical fact of women having been most disadvantaged by the lopsided frequency of patriarchy in religion. For men, patriarchy is typically assumed to be "natural," simply the way things are and always have been. Men, therefore, have little to explain. Women, on the other hand, have had to explain why things are not, or ought not be, what they seem to be. Women are more acutely aware of these asymmetries because they are its victims. A sense of moral outrage, accordingly, incentivizes women to criticism of the cultural and historical contingencies that make them "inferiors" according to a patriarchy that denies them justice. Part of the meaning of being "feminist" author is the acceptance of the commission to tell the truth about patriarchy by telling the truth about women. Scholarship in the area of sex and religion, therefore, takes much of its rise from feminist criticism of the ideology of natural inevitability upon which patriarchy in religion rests. This historical asymmetry, in turn, explains why women dominate the production literature we are going to discuss in this chapter. Women simply have a great deal more at stake in exposing the "fake news" of the patriarchal natural right to dominate in religion.
God, Sex, and Gender: An Introduction, by Adrian Thatcher (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011)
Studies in Christian Ethics, 2014
The ordering of terms in the title God, Sex, and Gender is representative of the book as a whole, in which the divine character and action frame the ethics of 'having sex.' As such articulations have been politically fraught in recent years, it is refreshing that the author aims to convey 'the exhilaration of thinking theologically about sex, sexuality, sexual relationship, and gender roles' (p. xi). Adrian Thatcher teaches at the University of Exeter and has published widely on sex, marriage, and family, becoming an important voice on these themes (he is currently editing the Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality and Gender, planned for 2015). The present publication is an opportunity for Thatcher to offer his scholarly and pastoral experience in a 'comprehensive core text' for university and seminary students as well as general readers (p. xi). The book's format provides well for its intended audience, succinctly defining termsfrom transgender to kenosis-in offset panels in the margins while interspersing the main body of text with shaded panels directing questions to the reader. The queries are often challenging and appropriately open-ended, such as when he asks the reader to consider how her place of worship might already be 'gendered,' as well as how 'gendering' takes
Studying Gender and Religion: A Look Back and a Look Forward
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, vol. 1, 2005
The world's religions have been (and continue to be) extremely varied in their concepts of and approaches to the supernatural and divine, but all of them are gendered, that is, they have created and maintained differences between what it means to be male and female. Conversely, religious ideas are influenced by gender structures arising from other parts of the culture, such as the family or the state. Religious traditions have been used both to strengthen and to question existing gender structures, providing ideas about hierarchy as well as complementarity and equality. Though religious leaders have attempted to create and enforce uniformity through specific religious texts, patterns of worship, clerical personnel, court systems, and alliances with political leaders, individuals have often chosen to interpret supernatural instructions and divine will regarding gender differently, creating variety not only among religions but within them. Because ideas about gender and religious be
Openings: A Genealogical Introduction to Religion and Gender
Religion and Gender, 2011
Religion and Gender is the first refereed online international journal for the systematic study of gender and religion in an interdisciplinary perspective. The journal explores the relation, confrontation and intersection of gender and religion, taking into account the multiple and changing manifestations of religion in diverse social and cultural contexts. It analyses and reflects critically on gender in its interpretative and imaginative dimensions and as a fundamental principle of social ordering. It seeks to investigate gender at the intersection of feminist, sexuality, queer, masculinity and diversity studies.
This chapter describes how people learn to re-conceptualize gender and sexuality through engaging with contemporary spirituality. The focus will be on the actual practices and processes whereby this is done, with the intent to go beyond the self-descriptions of spiritual discourses about gender and sexuality. Our aim is to show how spiritual practices, often described as liberating and empowering, may create new gendered hierarchies. Furthermore, we argue that in order to fully understand contemporary spiritual practitioners and their conceptualizations of gender and sexuality it is important to contextualize these against the background of the cultural and religious environment they grew up in (Fedele 2013; Fedele and Knibbe 2013; Knibbe 2013a). We will show that spirituality, and the new ways of relating to oneself, the world and others it entails, is often in dialectical tension with this background, paradoxically keeping it alive while breaking with it. In the cases described below, we
Gender and religions. Freedom, identity and limits
2016
Editorial 1 1. Feminist theology, queer theology and reflections on gender For some time now a gender studies perspective investigating the processes through which identity is constructed and represented has permeated various fields of knowledge (from sociology to architecture, law to philosophy, medicine to economics). However, it still appears to play only a marginal and controversial role in religious studies, understood in its most diverse articulations and manifestations. 1 This article is the product of a close collaboration between the authors. However, final editing on the first section was carried out by Laura Scudieri and on the second section by Orsetta Giolo. The first section aims to introduce the elements of the debate, while the second focuses on the complex relationship between critical theories and theologies.
Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 2023
The Essay presents provocative peer-reviewed scholarship that examines the field-wide implications of the latest re- search queries in Religious Studies. In this edition, Jessica Albrecht, a doctoral student at the University of Heidelberg, stresses the need for scholars to consider the role of the body within the critical study of religion. Albrecht argues that greater attention to material and corporeal relations is nec- essary for Religious Studies to advance its intellectual and pedagogical goals, goals that in the 21st century are presum- ably interested in decolonization. The Bulletin is pleased to publish this expanded version of this article, of which the original appeared in the German publication “Geschlecht, Sexualität, Verkörperung verqueert: Ansätze und Leitfragen in religionswissenschaftlicher Forschung und Lehre,” Handbuch der Religionen (forthcoming).