Jeffrey S. Siker - Böcker

Few issues today cause more public - and private - debate than the interaction of homosexuality and religion. From the question of gay marriage to the place of gays and lesbians within faith communities, religious leaders and lay members must deal with these issues for now and for years to come. What is the historical position of the major denominations? How are people of faith balancing their beliefs? This encyclopedia provides an overview of the various attitudes and responses that religions have had to the presence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons within their communities. This is the most comprehensive volume to date on the intersections between religion and homosexuality.The coverage in Homosexuality and Religion: An Encylopedia is comprehensive: Synthetic overview essays examine topics such as Homosexuality, Religion, and the Law, Homosexuality, Religion, and the Biological Sciences, and Homosexuality, Religion, and the Social Sciences. The A-Z entries cover a wide range of religious traditions across the world. From African American Churches to Buddhism, Episcopalians, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, the Metropolitan Community Church, Mormonism, Presbyterians, the Roman Catholic Church, Seventh Day Adventists, Southern Baptist Churches, Unitarian Universalist, and more. Entries contain significant bibliographic references, including websites, for further study Homosexuality and Religion treats the complete cross-section of religious traditions and their understanding of and approaches to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons.

Disinheriting the Jews is a scholarly work of great interest and significance for both Christians and Jews. Jeffery Siker shows how strongly the figure of Abraham has shaped our religious identities. He also uses the portrayals of Abraham by early Christians as a new means of understanding the dynamics involved in the church's separation and estrangement from Judaism. Siker argues that the separation was precipitated by historical contingencies more so than by Christian identity, and in so doing suggests self-corrections that could mend the rift between Christianity and Judaism.

Outstanding authorities on Scripture, tradition, reason, biology, ethics, and gendered experience discuss one of the most divisive debates in the church today: the place of homosexuals in the community of faith. Each perspective is explored by two writers, one more conservative, the other more liberal.

The first full-length study to trace how early Christians came to perceive Jesus as a sinless human being. Jeffrey S. Siker presents a taxonomy of sin in early Judaism and examines moments in Jesus' life associated with sinfulness: his birth to the unwed Mary, his baptism by John the Baptist, his public ministry - transgressing boundaries of family, friends, and faith - and his cursed death by crucifixion. Although followers viewed his immediate death in tragic terms, with no expectation of his resurrection, they soon began to believe that God had raised him from the dead. Their resurrection faith produced a new understanding of Jesus' prophetic ministry, in which his death had been a perfect sacrificial death for sin, his ministry perfectly obedient, his baptism a demonstration of perfect righteousness, and his birth a perfect virgin birth. This study explores the implications of a retrospective faith that elevated Jesus to perfect divinity, redefining sin.