Making the Difference: Gender, Personhood and Theology (Religious Studies: Bloomsbury Academic Collections) - Hardcover

Elaine L. Graham

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 147428177X ISBN 13: 9781474281775

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016

Synopsis

One of the most significant phenomena within the Western church in the second half of the twentieth century has been the emergence of feminist theology. This both reflects and promotes pastoral and policy concerns about the proper roles and relationships of women and men within the Christian church, such as the validity of women's priestly ministry, the use of inclusive language in liturgy and the metaphorical naming of God. At the heart of the debate is the question of the meaning and significance of gender in theology and Christian practice.

Within the human and social sciences, the analysis of gender is treated as an essential aspect of human behaviour. By contrast, within the church there has been little sustained or disciplined attention to the nature and underlying significance of gender. Theological discourse and church policy have too often displayed ignorance and unexamined assumptions about the crucial issues involved. Graham attempts a more detailed and critical inquiry into how an analysis of gender can affect policy, practice and discourse within the church. Focusing on three major disciplines - anthropology, biology and psychoanalysis - she demonstrates how these offer profound implications for our understanding of the foundations of human culture and identity, for theological studies and for Christian practice.

About this title

Review

"Christians of all traditions are discovering that questions of gender are challenging virtually every aspect of belief and practice", writes Elaine Graham, a Lecturer in Social And Pastoral Theology at the University of Manchester; in Making the Difference she attempts to answer some of these questions. Part One gives an overview of the topic, specifically by exploring the rise of gender "as an issue within the social and human sciences, and the ways in which commentators in theology and the churches have treated such evidence". Part Two examines the way gender has been categorised in Anthropology, Biology and Psychoanalysis; and Part Three extends this by looking at particular themes that arise from the study of gender: ways of defining the body, ideas of nature, and male-female differences. The final chapter then summarises and concludes with a provisional "theology of gender". Here she rejects the idea of "an essential human nature outside the relations and interactions of human culture", and thus with it the notion "of an eternal, pre-existent human nature". While she acknowledges that "it may well be that there is a definitive difference between inhabiting a male body and a female one ... we must recognise the extent to which our understanding of our bodies, and of ourselves as bodies, is always culturally constructed and mediated".

Well balanced and affirmative of both women and men in this minefield of a topic, Graham is also meticulous and exhaustive in her documentation. Her book presents a splendid overview of current research on the meaning and significance of gender in theology and in Christian practice. --Doug Thorpe

About the Author

Elaine Graham is Grosvenor Research Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Chester, UK.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 147428177X
• ISBN 13: 9781474281775
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272