Methodology – The Shiloh Project

Becoming a Pauline Scholar

by Grace Emmett on May 13, 2021

Today’s post in the Pushback series is from Grace Emmett (King’s College London). Grace recently defended her PhD thesis on the topic of the apostle Paul’s masculinity. You can find out more about her research on her Humanities Commons page, or by following her on Twitter.

I recently defended my PhD thesis on Paul and masculinity, entitled ‘Becoming a Man’, a nod to 1 Cor 13:11 wherein Paul claims to have ‘become a man’. Essentially, my thesis turns this claim into a series of questions: what sort of man does Paul become, and what’s the process by which he negotiates masculinity? Once the corrections are out the way I will, apparently, have become something myself: a Pauline scholar.

I say ‘apparently’ for two reasons. First, I am hardly expecting an ontological change to happen when I take on the title ‘Doctor’. I will not suddenly transform into a person who has expertise relating to Paul; rather, that knowledge has been curated over a number of years and will always be a work-in-progress. Second, despite finishing the thesis and passing my viva, I still struggle to view myself as a ‘proper’ Pauline scholar.

So why exactly is this a struggle? I am hardly the first person to have experienced imposter syndrome, after all. And yet the nature of my imposter syndrome does, I think, have some specific ties to the nature of my research. Researching masculinity has often felt like a peripheral pursuit within Pauline studies, an experience no doubt true for many others employing modes of analysis that go beyond a strict historical-critical approach. This happens in explicit ways—a comment left online, for example, mocking my research and signed off simply with ‘1 Timothy 2:12–14’. But this impression of being on the fringes asserts itself in more subtle ways too: either when others seem genuinely confused about what a study of Paul’s masculinity might entail, or, at the other end of the spectrum, when those who feel strongly about defending a particular version of Paul’s masculinity feel compelled to interrogate my methodology in a manner that amounts to ‘methodsplaining’.^[1]

Serving as a counterpart to the term ‘mansplaining’, ‘methodsplaining’ functions as a form of gatekeeping, whereby proponents of traditional research methods (e.g. historical-critical) determine what is and is not a legitimate research approach. This is more than just something that happens on a one-to-one level; it is fundamental to the way that we cultivate knowledge within biblical studies. Method gatekeeping happens from the outset in terms of what we privilege teaching to students when they first embark on a biblical studies degree, through to the way we structure opportunities to present in academic spaces, like the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. It doesn’t take long to notice the units that have a ‘marked’ interpretive approach (e.g. ‘Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible’), in contrast to those that are ‘unmarked’ (e.g. ‘Pauline Epistles’).

Even the means by which one accesses these types of academic spaces is already structured in such a way that it is easier for some rather than others to participate. In the course of the global struggle with the coronavirus pandemic, events offered in a virtual format have demonstrated that greater accessibility is possible when participation is not restricted to those who can only attend in person. As such, the cancellation of the international meeting of SBL (rather than migrating it online) has denied many researchers residing outside of the States a more accessible opportunity to participate in the Society this year—a fundamental reason why the international meeting exists in the first place.^[2]

More commendable is SBL’s recent announcement that the annual meeting will be offered in a dual format, with some sessions offered virtually and others in-person.^[3] Although not the hybrid format many of us had hoped and asked for, it is, understandably, going to take some time to work out what the ‘new normal’ is for large-scale conferences and how we can move forward in a way that prioritises inclusivity. In the long term, offering virtual participation will benefit a whole host of individuals: disabled scholars, pregnant scholars, scholars with caring responsibilities, unvaccinated scholars, and many others for whom international travel is restrictive—to say nothing of the environmental cost of requiring some members to fly thousands of miles to participate.

Failing to prioritise inclusivity limits the potential richness of biblical studies. Attending to who is able to participate in academic conversations about biblical texts is interwoven with how those texts are studied. Denise Buell explicates this relationship well when she writes:

It is thus of crucial importance to attend to what is habitual and routine in our methods and approaches and not only to the ‘body count’ of who gets PhDs, appointments, tenure, and promotion. That is, attention to who participates at the undergraduate, graduate, and faculty levels in New Testament and early Christian studies matters but always in the context of the very shapes and orientations of the spaces, physical and intellectual, in which this work unfolds. Reorienting the fields of biblical and early Christian studies is an undertaking that also requires deep engagement with the histories of our interpretive approaches and willingness to adopt new perspectives.

Buell is here primarily writing about the way whiteness is intertwined with New Testament and early Christian studies (and see Ekaputra Tupamahu’s recent essay for how whiteness informs particular research topics, such as the Synoptic ‘problem’). Buell’s helpful observation about the intertwining of the who and the how has also been a useful prism for me to reflect on gendered dynamics within Pauline studies.

The way that masculinities research has felt peripheral mirrors the way that I as a woman can feel peripheral in academic spaces. It is hardly necessary to repeat here that biblical studies remains a male-dominated guild (with 75% of its members identifying as men in the most recently available statistics). And so it is not a surprise that this manifests in ways such as being asked if I’m the wife of the male colleague I’m standing next to at a conference drinks reception. Or being told by a senior scholar early on in my PhD to be prepared for the fact that if I presented on Paul in a forum like SBL that some men might actually get up and leave, unwilling to accept that a woman might have something worthwhile to say about Paul. Simply being warned about the potential of such dynamics in an academic context made me wonder how welcome I and my research were in such spaces, ludicrous as such a warning seemed.

There are two scripts of normativity at work here: one sketches out the contours of what a biblical scholar should look like (which extends beyond gender of course), while the other gestures to how a biblical scholar (perhaps particularly a Pauline one) should conduct their research. While one might expect that these undercurrents of masculine- and method-normativity are most consistently embodied by men, women are by no means immune from enacting these scripts too. In some ways, it is as a result of the actions of other women that I have felt most undermined. There is one particular incident that sticks out in my mind that I would eventually come to label as misogynistic, and it was reading Hindy Najman’s essay ‘Community and Solidarity: Women in the Academy’, recommended by a friend, that helped me finally give that particular incident a name. It is this quote in particular that I’ve turned over in my mind many times since: ‘We need to watch the behaviour of women against women, even by those who write treatises against sexism. We are all vulnerable and we are all capable of acts of violence’.

It is for all these reasons, then, that I often do not feel like a ‘proper’ Pauline scholar. ‘Proper’ is, of course, doing a lot of unspoken work in that sentence, guided by the scripts of masculine- and method-normativity to dictate what a model Pauline scholar should look like and how they should behave. But perhaps I can embrace being an improper Pauline scholar instead, with the hope that what constitutes ‘proper’ Pauline scholarship might itself become a more exciting, expansive, and inclusive proposition. In this sense, I hope I add to the ‘body count’, as Buell puts it, when it comes to gender diversity. But more than that I hope that my work adds to the ‘manuscript count’, as it were, contributing to other longstanding efforts to interrogate how our field is constructed and imagine how it might be reconstructed.

^[1] Thanks to Dr Chris Greenough for introducing me to this term, coined by sociologist Dr Jane Ward.

^[2] It is wonderful news that STECA is planning to offer an alternative forum for those who had papers accepted at ISBL to present.

^[3] The efforts of Professor Candida Moss and Dr Meghan Henning were instrumental in encouraging SBL to reconsider its original plans for a solely in-person meeting format.

Opening Conversations about GBV with Visual Media

by Chris Greenough on February 27, 2021

Images can be very powerful and can communicate an abundance in an instant.

Visual media can be effective tools for teaching.

Because gender-based and sexual violence are distressing, images depicting or implying gender-based or sexual violence are highly likely to be distressing, too. It can be difficult to negotiate communicating a truth, being sensitive to and respectful of victims of violence, and avoiding voyeurism, all at the same time.

Using images to open conversations and for teaching can be very effective in moving closer towards the elimination of gendered violence.

Here are three quick examples.

In an earlier post we presented the artwork of graphic designer Pia Alize. Her work depicts accounts of gender-based violence from the Bible. These images have now formed the focus of two well attended interactive workshops with ministerial candidates, both led by Dr Mark Aidoo of the Trinity Theological Seminary in Legon, Accra (Ghana). Church leaders are highly likely to be confronted with situations of gender-based violence in their parishes. Consequently, training in first response to disclosures of gender-based violence, and knowledge about how to facilitate support and protection for victims is crucial. Mark reports that the images generated lively engagement and that participants reported feeling transformed and reading the Bible with new sensitivities.

Workshop with Dr Mark Aidoo of the Trinity Theological Seminary in Legon, Accra (Ghana) [2]

Workshop with Dr Mark Aidoo of the Trinity Theological Seminary in Legon, Accra (Ghana) [3]

Episcopal Relief & Development has produced a wide array of images to stimulate conversations about a range of difficult and complex topics – including about economic abuse and also gender-based violence. Each of these images tells a story. Episcopal Relief & Development leads group work on reflecting on the images, encouraging participants to associate the themes portrayed with events in their own lives, and exploring the repercussions of abusive actions. This then leads on to devising active strategies of resistance.

Resource from Episcopal Relief & Development

Lastly, here are ‘Lent doodles’ by Charlotte Gibson. Charlotte is a Church of England ordinand and reads the Bible together with groups of women in the Women’s Theology Network. Their aim is to explore the continuing relevance of the Bible’s stories. This has included also discussion of stories of violence against women of the Bible, like Bilhah, Dinah, and Hagar, depicted here.

Religion and Gender Journal: Call for Manuscripts for Special Issue on Religion, Gender and Violence

by Sarah-Jane Page on November 23, 2019

Religion and Gender Journal

Call for Manuscripts for Special Issue on Religion, Gender and Violence

The journal Religion and Gender invites article proposals for a special issue on Religion, Gender and Violence. The relationship between religion and violence is highly contested and has come under considerable scrutiny by scholars of religion. Less understood is the relationship between gender, religion and violence and this special issue aims to contribute to understandings of the ways in which religion intersects with institutional, familial and public gendered violence as explored through current research via an interdisciplinary lens.

With the current roll out of public inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse across Ireland, England and Wales, Scotland, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it is clear that at a global level, it is religious organizations that have had the most widespread and highest levels of abuse against children with characteristically poor institutional responses to victims and their families. Public inquires have clearly established that religious organizations made strategic decisions to limit reputational damage at the cost of child safety and the implications of this for religious institutions is yet to be fully understood.

Violence against women and children in domestic settings where religion is a significant factor has also been the subject of ongoing and recent research indicating that there are specific issues at play for women and children in experiencing and reporting abuse and how it is managed by faith traditions. In important public debates on the status of gender diversity and difference, for example the marriage equality issue, there have been forceful responses to vulnerable cohorts from religious leaders, in social media and religious publications.

At the same time, there has been an important counter discourse articulated by religious groups around building religious and social capital that contributes to a pluralist understanding of the value of multi-religious societies and gender diversity. These discourses, most often articulated by more liberal religious groups but also increasingly by mainstream faith traditions, utilize the language of social justice and theological interpretation to construct narratives of gender inclusion and equity. This brings faith traditions into conflict within themselves over the framing of gender relations for the new century.

For this special issue, we invite manuscripts that address this convergence from a variety of perspectives on the function and meaning of gender, religion and violence and its counter-discourses.

The editors are particularly interested in receiving manuscripts that showcase empirical research that address, but are not limited to, the following areas and/or questions:

o What role does gendered violence play in mainstream religious groups re maintenance of the faith tradition?

o How are the impacts and experiences of gendered violence managed by religious organisations with regard to pastoral care and processes of remediation?

o Who are the victims of gendered violence in religious organisations?

o In what ways can feminist theory and theology contribute to and expand understandings of religion, gender and violence?

o What role does non-religion and/or secularity play in relation to responding to and managing the disclosure of violence in religious organisations.

o How well do public inquiries address gendered religious violence and what are the impacts on religious organisations with respect to particular case studies?

Submissions should be between 5000 and 8000 words in length (including abstract, footnotes and references). See Brill’s page for further information on submitting an article https://brill.com/view/journals/rag/rag-overview.xml Affiliation and email address should be supplied in the first submission. In order to guarantee a blind review process, all submissions should be anonymized with the name of and references to the author removed from the text. We are happy to receive inquiries about prospective submissions.

Please send all queries to the special issues editors:

Kathleen McPhillips, University of Newcastle, Australia

Email: [email protected]

Sarah-Jane Page, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

Email: [email protected]

SUBMISSION DATES

15 January 2020: Abstract Submission

15 August 2020: Full manuscript submission

Autoethnography: The Voice of a Sexually Abused Body

by Sophie Witherstone on May 24, 2019

Sophie Witherstone is a PhD student at the University of Chester. She is currently researching the utility of Ignatian Spirituality for female survivors of sexual abuse, focusing on embodied aspects, and the ways that this tradition reconnects sexually abused women with their own bodies and with God.

Autoethnography: The Voice of a Sexually Abused Body

Autoethnography, or self-narrative, is a qualitative research method that delves into the personal experiences and stories of the researcher themselves. The researcher’s personal and meaningful experiences are used as a source of a data, which can speak into academic research in ground-breaking ways. This method fosters the liberation of vulnerable and silenced voices, such as the voices of abused bodies (Olson, 2004; Fletcher, 2018; Crisp, 2004). Using the privileged platform of academia in order to present their own unique voice in such a creative way allows the researcher to reach out to those other abused bodies that remain silenced and hidden.

Autoethnography also gives the researcher license to portray their experiences in whatever way they choose, giving them authority and ownership over the effect their voice can have on others. It has been described as a “therapeutic” method for vulnerable voices, such as the voices of those who have experienced sexual abuse, offering a means of healing through writing (Ellis et al, 2011).

My own autoethnographic research is situated in feminist theology, where the silenced voices of sexually abused bodies are rarely heard (Morton, 1985). Abuse and trauma theologies (Rambo, 2010; Brock & Parker, 2001; Manlowe, 1998) have represented the sexually abused body, but there has been a lack of visibility in terms of the self-representation and self-expression of such bodies. In particular, the female sexually abused body has not been taken seriously enough. Certainly, some feminist theologians have tackled the issue of women’s silencing and abuse within the androcentric traditions of Christianity considering the ways that such silencing adds to women’s experiences of abuse. For example, abuse theologian Marie Fortune engages with women’s consequential experiences of God (and of religion as an institution) as survivors of sexual abuse, particularly where members of the clergy are the perpetrators (Fortune, 1983; 1998, 350-356; see also Sands, 2003). Building on the work of feminist theologians such as Fortune, methodologies such as autoethnography can further bring the voices and experiences of violated women to the surface.

In my research, I engage with the method of autoethnography because I am interested in the real, lived experiences of concrete bodies – of bodies that demand to be taken more seriously in academic reflection. My own body is no exception to this demand, and that is why autoethnography is particularly liberating for me – it does not discount my experiences from my research and does not perpetuate the silencing caused by my abuse.

Within autoethnography, the researcher delves into painful experiences, yet as Ellis (2004, 110-111) proposes, the pain need not take over. The ethnographic research process is purposeful and meaningful in evoking emotion, but this does not need to be negative emotion despite the depth of pain within experiences of abuse. The freeing of the vulnerable voice through autoethnography can begin to remove the hold that the abuse has had on survivors. According to Ettore, there is often a redemptive power in the use of self-narrative (2017, 357) – it has the potential to be emotionally transformative for the researcher themselves, and for their readers and academic peers. As a result, women may become reassured and encouraged that all women’s experiences can be heard, are valuable, and are unique – deserving to be expressed in their own ways. Indeed, authethnography can be a powerful platform for the voices of allabused and violated bodies, whatever their gender. The vulnerable self-exposure of revealing one’s own narrative of abuse opens a door to readers’ participation in one’s stories and thus, as Chang (2008, 145) puts it, a “mutual vulnerability” may unfold. For me, this “mutual vulnerability” represents a coming together of abusedvoices; uniting and forming a stronghold that encourages more silenced voices to speak out and be heard.

Frédéric Glorieux, BWR (black white red) naked #4

Sexual Storytelling: Engaging with the ‘Messy’ Bodies

Sexual storytelling is a lens that we can apply to autoethnographic research, as demonstrated by feminist liberation theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid (1997) and sociologist Ken Plummer (1995). Sexual storytelling involves the inclusion of any experience related to the sexual, such as stories of sexual abuse, sexual behaviour, and sexual desires(Plummer, 1995, 4). Althaus-Reid uses sexual storytelling within theological reflection, describing it as a method of writing authentically and honestly, without leaving God outside our bedroom doors (2000; 2003). For Althaus-Reid, this radical notion is an attempt to “queer” theological hermeneutics, contrasting with more “normative” Christian frameworks that have only restricted and suffocated the freedom to embrace who we are before God (2003).

Within my research, the use of “sexual storytelling” is particularly meaningful as it allows women (and allbodies) to extract fragments of meaning and hope from their narratives of sexual abuse. In the revelation of these vulnerable stories, women may finally feel a sense of control and authority over the narratives of oppression and violence imposed upon them by the restrictions of the Christian tradition that have consumed their lives. The freedom in writing one’s own experiences of sex, particularly of abusive sex, can provide a sense of literary agency and control, which may be liberating for the abused body who lost control during their abuse and in their lives after the abuse. Sexual storytelling allows the freeing of the self from the androcentric bonds of Christianity. And, while some abused bodies feel that their only option is to walk away from their faith community (a place where they feel misrepresented or marginalized), for me, autoethnography offers another alternative solution to tackle this experience.

Although the concept of sexual storytelling can be freeing and allows God to be included in the sexual experiences of sexually abused bodies, this image and way of doing theology may be too overwhelming and invasive for those who are vulnerable. I am aware of the dangers of suggesting that God is in our bedrooms. For a sexually abused body like myself, sex is a fearful space, and (despite it not being the case for me) sex can be a space that has no hope of healing potential. It is therefore important to acknowledge some of the issues that need to be taken seriously when engaging with this method of sexual storytelling.

Working with abuse theologies, Susan Shooter (2012, 14) considers how the shattered boundaries experienced by survivors can cause difficulty in their intimate relationships; picturing ourselves intimately before God may be an uncomfortable task. All sexually abused women ought to be taken seriously, and granted patience in our journey towards rediscovering and re-entering sexual spaces. It is not easy to let ourselves back into the sexual realm, let alone for us to allow God to walk with us once again into this traumatic space. However, the method of sexual storytelling within theology works to reassure other sexually abused women that the fearful thought of God existing in our bedrooms can be the meeting point that saves us – where we conquer and rebel against the abuse. Locating God where the abuse happened is an act of revolt that may put a stop to the suffocation of spirit, setting God’s presence free into all the spaces in our lives.

Therefore, as Althaus-Reid argues, sexual stories exist within indecent theological reflection in which there are no pages cut from the books of our sexual experiences (2000, 146). Althaus-Reid’s imagery here is significant for sexually abused bodies, as it reassures these bodies that they do not have to censor their trauma, restricting themselves to only the “appropriate” experiences that will not upset those who listen to them. Althaus-Reid wants to eliminate this censorship, especially within Christian theology, as she argues that theology has thus far limited its engagements with sexuality to neat, tidy, and unrealistic boundaries (2003, 61).

As researchers who engage with self-narrative approaches, we should not have to eliminate the sexual, dirty, dark, or messy experiences from our stories. In doing feminist theology, we ought not to begin with those bodies considered “normative,” but should dare to do theology from a sexually abused body, as Grovijahn demands in her theological reflection on embodiment (1998, 29). As my own narrative consists of stories of sexual abuse, it is important for me that all stories – including those considered “obscene” (Goss, 2003) – are voiced and not silenced.

Althaus-Reid challenges the disembodied theological method of writing abuse, and asks, “why is the tortured male body of Christ less offensive than a woman’s tortured body?” (2000, 111). With this shocking image being laid before us, Althaus-Reid demands that abused women’s bodies be taken seriously and not ignored or brushed aside. For, such brushing aside only continues to distort and suppress the confidence and dignity of the abused female body. The work of theologians such as Althaus-Reid creates a revolt against the stigma surrounding “non-normative” bodies – it allows for an inclusion of all types of bodies that have not been taken as seriously as those defined as “ordinary” (Althaus-Reid, 2003). Althaus-Reid suggests that this can become a reality when we defamiliarize ourselves with the heteronormative God, and look instead to a stranger-God who may, like so many non-normative bodies, be left outside the gates of traditional theology (2003, 59).

Grovijahn (1998, 29) likewise argues that we ought to begin our theology from a place of authenticity, where we can be ourselves – daring to do theology from a sexually abused body. Similarly, Greenough (2018, 30) proposes that writing the sexually abused self into theological research can “enable individuals to move from sexual shame to embracing themselves.” Using sexual storytelling within queer theology, Greenough offers an “undoing” methodology in which honesty and vulnerability liberate the researcher to be reflexive on a deeper level. Greenough looks to “undo” the “diluted” (9), “normative theology” or “vanilla theology” (13) that engages with sex and the body, and to work towards a theology that uses sexual stories as a central framework that will “disrupt sexual ideology in Christianity” (23). It is a theology that is firmly grounded in the messiness of life (32) – finding God in our everyday experiences of sex and the body.

When researching the sexually abused body, feminist theology begins with the locus of the female body. It asks: how and where do women experience God? This question has led feminist theologians to begin their theology in the bodies of women of all shapes and sizes (see e.g. Isherwood, 2007who engages with “fat” female bodies). For Carter Heyward, “God is immersed in our bodyselves – in all our particularities” (1989, 103). In these particularities, Heyward refers to sensuality and the erotic, arguing that if we use the Bible as our primary authority, and we live in “denial of our bodyselves” (94), we will be pulled apart from the embodied God, each other, and ourselves (95). Heyward proposes that Christianity has developed a fear of the erotic (“erotophobia”) and has thus separated God from the realm of the sexual (1989, 5). She suggests that this is why distorted relational acts, such as sexual abuse, occur. Fear creates a divide from self, others, and God. She laments, “We have been stripped of our capacities to delight in ourselves, one another, and [God]” (1989, 4). Until we take our bodies more seriously and treat our bodies as authoritative, she warns, we will remain “untouched and untouching” (Heyward 1982, xviii). “Our bodyselves know better,” she suggests, “They speak the truth” (1989, 106).

Our bodies tell us so much about God and our personal relationships with this embodied God. We will come to understand that the bodies of women – their sexual acts, their sensory experiences – are the real presence of the divine (Isherwood, 2010, 78). We can learn a great deal about God in all our experiences, even in the surprising places such as the journey of healing and recovery from sexual violence.

References

Althaus-Reid, M. (1997). Sexual Strategies in Practical Theology: Indecent Theology and the Plotting of Desire with some Degree of Success. Theology and Sexuality, 1997(7), 45-52.

Althaus-Reid, M. (2000).Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics.London: Routledge.

Althaus-Reid, M. (2003).The Queer God. London: Routledge.

Althaus-Reid, M. (2004). “Pussy, Queen of Pirates”: Acker, Isherwood and the Debate on the Body in Feminist Theology. Feminist Theology,12(2), 157-167.

Althaus-Reid, M., & Isherwood, L. (2008). Controversies in Body Theology. London: SCM Press.

Brock, R. N., & Parker, R. A. (2001). Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for what saves us. Boston, MA: Beacon Press

Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as Method.Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast.

Crisp, B. R. (2004). Spiritual Direction and Survivors of Sexual Abuse. The Way, 43/2, 7-17.

Ellis, C. (2004). The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Qualitative Social Research, 12/1.

Ettore, E. (2017). Autoethnography as Feminist Method: Sensitizing the Feminist ‘I’. Oxon: Routledge.

Fletcher, M. A. (2018). We to Me: An Autoethnographic Discovery of Self, in and out of Domestic Abuse. Women’s Studies in Communication, 41/1, 42-59.

Fortune, M. (1983). Sexual Violence: The Unmentionable Sin. New York, NY: The Pilgrim Press.

Fortune, M. (1998). Is Nothing Sacred? The Betrayal of the Ministerial or Teaching Relationship. In, C. J. Adams & M. Fortune (ed.). Violence against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook. New York, NY: Continuum, 351-360.

Goss R. (2003). Marcella Althaus-Reid’s ‘Obscenity No. 1: Bi/Christ’: Expanding Christ’s Wardrobe of Dresses. Feminist Theology,11/2, 157-166.

Greenough, C. (2018). Undoing Theology: Life Stories from Non-Normative Christians. London: SCM Press.

Grovijahn, J. M. (1998). Theology as an Irruption into Embodiment: Our Need for God. Theology and Sexuality, 1998/9, 29-35.

Heyward, I. C. (1982). The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation.Maryland, MD: University Press of America.

Heyward, I. C. (1989). Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God.San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.

Isherwood, L. (2000). The Good News of the Body: Sexual Theology and Feminism. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Isherwood, L. (2004). The Embodiment of Feminist Liberation Theology: The Spiralling of Incarnation. Feminist Theology, 12/2, 140-156.

Isherwood, L. (2007). The Fat Jesus: Feminist Explorations in Boundaries and Transgressions. London: Darton Longman & Todd.

Manlowe, J. L. (1998). Seduced by Faith: Sexual Traumas and their Embodied Effects. In, C. J. Adams & M. Fortune (Ed.). Violence against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook. New York, NY: Continuum, 328-338.

Morton, N. (1985). The Journey is Home. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Olson, L. N. (2004). The Role of Voice in the (re)construction of a Battered Woman’s Identity: An Autoethnography of One Woman’s Experiences of Abuse. Women’s Studies in Communication,27/1, 1-33.

Plummer, K. (1995). Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds.London: Routledge.

Rambo, S. (2010). Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining (1st Ed.). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.

Sands, K. M. (2003). Speaking Out: Clergy Sexual Abuse: Where are the Women? Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 19/2, 79-83.

Shooter, S. (2012). How Survivors of Abuse Relate to God: The Authentic Spirituality of the Annihilated Soul.Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.

Feature image courtesy of Jon Nagl (Flickr, https://flic.kr/p/8Yvbs4)

Grant for Research with Ugandan LGBT Refugees

by Shiloh Project on March 8, 2019

Congratulations to Adriaan van Klinken and Shiloh Project co-director Johanna Stiebert (University of Leeds) on their latest grant success!

Adriaan van Klinken and Johanna Stiebert (University of Leeds) have secured a research grant from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust, for a project entitled “Tales of Sexuality and Faith: The Ugandan LGBT Refugees Life Story Project”. The project uses community-based participatory research methodology to undertake life story research among Ugandan LGBT refugees in Kenya.

The project engages established methodologies in feminist, queer, and postcolonial studies that emphasise the political and epistemological importance of autobiographical storytelling in research with marginalised groups. Expanding this existing scholarship, the project develops an innovative approach that explores the potential of biblical stories to signify the queer lives of the Ugandan refugees. Foregrounding the popularity of the Bible in contemporary Africa, and conceptualising biblical appropriation as a decolonising and queer process, the project reclaims the Bible as part of African queer archives.

We’re looking forward to hearing more about the project later this year!

Fuzzy, messy, icky: The edges of consent in biblical rape narratives and rape culture (video)

by Rhiannon Graybill on October 15, 2018

This paper was the closing keynote address for The Religion and Rape Culture Conference.

Abstract: This paper explores the fuzzy, messy, and icky boundaries of “consent” in biblical rape narratives and in rape culture.. More specifically, I want to bring feminist literature problematizing the notion of consent to bear on biblical stories of sexual violence and rape, as well as the ways in which we as feminists read and respond to those stories.. Consent, including such formulations as “affirmative consent,” “enthusiastic consent,” and “consent at every stage,” has played – and continues to play – an important role in attempts to respond to sexual violence.. However, the emphasis on consent has also engendered feminist and queer critiques. Notions of consent assume a fully self-present, self-controlled, and able subject: the very sort of subject that feminist and other postmodern critique has aptly criticized.. Discourses of consent ignore the ways in which, in Sara Ahmed’s words, “A feminist account of gender as a social relation might need to include analysis of how women willingly agree to situations in which their safety and well-being are compromised” (Willful Subjects) or in Wendy Brown’s formulation, “Consent …functions as a sign of legitimate subordination” (States of Injury). Such feminist critiques of consent vie uneasily with feminist readings of biblical rape texts, which often seek to recover women’s voices, or at least to commemorate their stories (Phyllis Trible famously punctuated her Texts of Terror with gravestones for four of patriarchy’s victims: Hagar, Jephthah’s daughter, Tamar, and the Levite’s concubine; all but one the victims of sexual violence).. But if we take this critique seriously, what happens to a feminist biblical hermeneutic of sexual violence? I will explore this question via a wandering itinerary through the biblical rape texts, beginning with Tamar, Dinah, and the Levite’s concubine, and then moving to consider what I will call border cases.. My central concerns are (1) how can a feminist hermeneutic of sexual violence respond to feminist and queer critiques of consent discourse, (2) what might we learn from observing not simply the paradigmatic “rape plots”(Susanne Scholz) or “rape narratives” (Frank Yamada) but also what I will call the “icky, messy, and fuzzy edges” of both rape stories and consent discourses? (Of course, this icky, messy, and fuzzy space is also the space named by rape culture, at least in one formulation of the term.) Thus I will turn from the rape plots to the icky, messy, and fuzzy narratives found elsewhere. Finally, I am interested in (3) what postures feminists might adopt toward these texts beyond the position of mourning or of recovering.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

Dr Rhiannon Graybill received her MA and PhD from Berkley, University of California and is currently Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Program Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Rhodes College, Memphis. Dr Graybill is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible whose work brings together biblical texts and contemporary critical and cultural theory. Her research interests, on which she has written prolifically, include prophecy, gender and sexuality, horror theory, and psychoanalysis and ancient Near Eastern literature.

Some of Dr Graybill’s current teaching includes modules on The Bible and Social Justice; The Bible, Sex and The Body; and LGBTQ Biblical Interpretation. She is the author of Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (published by Oxford University Press, 2016). Dr Graybill’s upcoming monographs include “The Cannibal Bible” and “Eve Take The Wheel: Queer Feminist Readings of Biblical Women”, they are also working on a commentary to the book of Jonah with Steven L. McKenzie and John Kaltner. Dr Graybill is currently on the editorial boards for both the Review of Biblical Literature and Biblical Interpretation.

Header image: Slime [via pixabay]

Research as Resistance: Survival strategies for researching violence

by Rachel Starr on September 4, 2018

Abstract: Feminist research into violence, within sacred texts, traditions and contemporary contexts, tends to be motivated by a desire to confront and challenge violence. This is certainly true of my own research into how dominant theologies of marriage function as risk factors in contexts of domestic violence.

This paper explores how being ‘research active’ can be understood as a form of active resistance. It suggests that this resistance begins with paying attention to forms of violence that have been normalised or ignored. Biblical scholar Gina Hens-Piazza argues that readers must be willing to name every occurrence of violence within a text; to fail to do so is to risk failing to name and resist violence encountered in everyday living. Secondly resistance requires commitment to a range of voices and methods of investigation, rather than reliance on tried and tested methods. In so doing, such resistance is creative, in reimagining both problems and solutions.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

Rachel Starr is Director of Studies (UG programmes) at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, UK. She completed her doctorate at Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos (Protestant Institute for Advanced Theological Studies) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her book, Reimagining Theologies of Marriage in Contexts of Domestic Violence: When Salvation is Survival is published by Routledge in April 2018.

Header image: Ni una Menos (Not One Woman Less) march in Santa Fe, Argentina. 2018. Photograph by Agustina Girardo [via WikiCommons]