Gender and Christian Ethics

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. 

Part I. Gender and Violence: 1. Aims and key terms; 2. The global gender crisis; 3. Gender binaries as theological problems; Part II. Double Vision: Catholics and Protestants Sexual Difference: 4. The Vatican and the war on gender; 5. Women, men, and Barth; 6. The conceit of complementarity; Part III. The Human Continuum: A Place for Everyone: 7. The continuum and the doctrine of God; 8. The human continuum: a place for everyone; 9. The masculine/feminine binary and the theological critique of culture; 10. The continuum and sacred texts.

Adrian Thatcher is the author of twelve books, most recently Redeeming Gender (2016), and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality and Gender (2015).