Gender and Christian Ethics

Provides strong theological arguments for replacing the binary understanding of gender, and for the embracing of sexual minorities.

This book is for students of theology, Christian ethics, and religious and gender studies; and everyone longing for the full acceptance of women and LGBTIQ people in the churches and beyond. It exposes the roots of prejudice against women and sexual minorities, and offers constructive proposals for gender justice.In this book, Adrian Thatcher offers fresh theological arguments for expanding our understanding of gender. He begins by describing the various meanings of gender and depicts the relations between women and men as a pervasive human and global problem. Thatcher then critiques naive and harmful theological accounts of sexuality and gender as binary opposites or mistaken identities. Demonstrating that the gendered theologies of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Barth, as well as the Vatican's “war on gender” rest on questionable binary models, he replaces these models with a human continuum that allows for sexual difference without assuming “opposite sexes” and normative sexualities.  Grounded in core Christian doctrines, this continuum enables a full theological affirmation of LGBTIQ people. Thatcher also addresses the excesses of the male/female binary in secular culture and outlines a hermeneutic that delivers justice and acceptance instead of sexism and discrimination.