Gay Spirituality: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation....... - Softcover

Johnson, Toby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555835236 ISBN 13: 9781555835231

Publisher: Alyson Publications Inc, 2000

Synopsis

Identifies a transformation in contemporary religion, explaining how the gay community may experience a unique form of enlightenment, and offering insight into culture, traditions, and metaphysical assumptions from a gay perspective. Original.

About this title

Review

"Challenging but worthwhile reading, this book is recommended for most collections." -- Library Journal, 2000

From the Author

My great spiritual teacher was Joseph Campbell. I'd been deeply affected by reading his work. Campbell's great observation is that there's a major transformation happening in religion today as we come to look at the various faiths from over and above, outside any one of the them. For when you look at religion from that perspective, you get a different understanding of what it's about. It's not about "God" as some external being out there watching and threatening to punish human beings for breaking taboos or about Jesus or the Blessed Mother or about heaven and hell or Vishnu and Krishna and reincarnation or Allah and Holy War. The myths of religion are about how WE should think about life and about ourselves in order to live a full, contributing life. It's all about human consciousness.

As in so many things, gay people are just slightly out in front of the crowd. We model how to think about religion. (And because religion has been so inhumane specifically towards us, we demonstrate why everybody should be thinking about it differently). The book is divided into three parts: 1st, how to think about religion; 2nd, the various themes and groups thru which gay spirituality gets manifested, and 3rd, what the myths of the world religions really mean when looked at from the gay/outsider's perspective: what afterlife is really about. All of it intended to demonstrate and argue that being gay is "having drawn a long straw in this lifetime," a blessing.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alyson Publications Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1555835236
• ISBN 13: 9781555835231
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276