Lisa Isherwood – författare

Controversies in Feminist Theologies is a clear and accessible analysis of the current controversies within feminist theologies. It uses many of the themes of systematic theology to examine whether feminist theology has a future or whether its discourse and praxis has become bankrupt. The authors expand this question through an examination of whether the whole project of systematic theology has become outmoded. The book is the first to expose the myth of homogeneity and some of the common stereotypes and myths surrounding Feminist Theologies, from a methodological and thematic perspective. It addresses current stereotypes built around North Atlantic and Third World feminist theology, including issues concerning Mariology, the use of the Bible and the centrality of women's experiences in feminist praxis, while highlighting the richness of different and at times opposite positions in the debates of theology, gender and sexuality.

Controversies in Political Theology addresses the question of whether Christians should be struggling towards development or liberation. It explores the theologies of development and liberation, from their beginnings in the 1960s through their changes to the central arguments today. The contrasts are examined in the practice of faith-based aid agencies. The understanding of how to practice justice differs widely for development theology and liberation theology. Whilst the theology of development remain focused on the economic realm, on trade and consumption, the theology of liberation expands the discussion beyond the economic realm to deal with politics, race, gender and culture more generally. These different concepts of justice lead to very different actions in communities around the world. This book provides students with access to an in-depth view of these practices in a clear and concise context. The book looks not only at the theologies themselves but also how they came to emerge, and how they stand in contrast across the globe today.

This is a collection which brings together authors from around the world. The book dares to examine some of the most extreme approaches to the body that our society engages with. What makes this book unique is that it does not dismiss what may be the more difficult and challenging areas of the body and society, rather it embraces them as an embodied resource for the ever-expanding task of considering the nature of incarnation through the lens of body theology. Topics range from cosmetic surgery and the bible to the sacramental nature of self harm in young girls. Along the way the book looks at the Puritan heritage of 'Extreme Makeover' programmes and the pernicious theology inherent in 'Slim for Him' programmes.

Trans/formations is a new addition to "SCM's Controversies in Contextual Theology" series. Like anything coming from Marcella Althaus-Reid and Lisa Isherwood, it is controversial and challenging as well as highly original. The book will: make visible a range of trans lived experience [transgendered and transsexual], offer theological reflection on these experiences, create challenging theology from this experiential base, and provide a resource for churches and theology students not to date available. It includes an excellent range of contributors, including Elizabeth Stuart and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. This is a valuable addition to reading lists of courses on religion, gender and the body.

Queer theology is a significant new development and central to much current teaching and thinking about gender, sexuality and the body. Controversies in Queer Theology provides an overview of the main areas of difference and debate in queer theologies, engaging with and critiquing all the major writers working in this area. Susannah Cornwall shows how this field is still in flux and the highlights implications for employing queer methodologies across theological work.

Marcella Althaus-Reid was one of the most fascinating and controversial theologians of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Her strong personality and her iconoclastic work inspired a whole generation of theologians in the UK and worldwide. Marcella's creative life was cut short by her death from cancer in 2009. Yet she lives on, not least in those who have been inspired by her work and continue to engage with it. "Dancing Theology in Fetish Boots" draws together a number of world-class scholars and others who engage with the main themes of Marcella's work and show how the critical and controversial conversations which Marcella has begun can and do continue. It is therefore far more than a Festschrift, but a celebration of an intellectual life Marcella-style.

Relational theologies, such as feminist theology, ecotheology and liberation theologies of various kinds, turn our traditional starting point for theology on its head. They ask what it is that we experience and where it is that we intuit God manifests and creates in and through our relation and lack of relation with ourselves, others and the cosmos. This book aims to explore the concept of the emerging divine within human and non-human relationality. It is relationship and the relationality that enable knowledge of the divine to emerge. The editors and contributors make the concept of relational theology more widely understood and stimulating theological debate in this area. The collection is an excellent teaching resource for courses in liberation theology, feminist theology, ecotheology and Christian doctrine at upper undergraduate and MA level. The book offers new and original contributions by well-known authors such as Carter Heyward, Catherine Keller, Mary Grey, Ursula King, Beverley Clack, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Mary Condren.

The DARE Primer on Global Queer Theologies offers a radical redefinition of academic discourse and spiritual praxis through the lens of queer Christian theologians from around the world. This groundbreaking volume features contributions from scholars across Malaysia, Rwanda, India, the USA, the UK, Colombia, Nigeria, Mexico and El Salvador, each bringing a unique perspective to the forefront of theological study. Engaging with systematic theology, pastoral care, missiology, ritual, liturgical experiences, and spirituality, these theologians illuminate the transformative impact of queer theologies on traditional religious frameworks. At its core, the book delves deeply into the nuanced interplay between faith and sexuality, unravelling the intricate beliefs that shape the lives of queer believers. The contributors' profound reflections offer a rich tapestry of insights, demonstrating how queer theologies not only challenge but actively reshape contemporary theological understanding, religious practice, and missionary work. This work is indispensable for scholars and practitioners seeking to grasp the radical and far-reaching implications of queer theologies in a global context.

Women in Christianity in the Modern Age examines the role of women in Christianity in the 20th and early 21st Centuries. This edited volume includes eight important contributions from academics in the field. The modern era has been an age of social and religious upheaval, and the ravages of global warfare and changes to women’s role in society have made the examination of the place of women in religion a key question in theology. From theological concerns - engagements with the biblical texts by feminist and anti-feminist theologians, the modern role of Mary and women saints – to political and social debates on women’s ministry and place in society, and cultural shifts as expressed through theologically inspired artwork by women, Women in Christianity in the Modern Age provides an overview and in-depth studies of a tumultuous and changing era.This insightful text will be of key interest to students and scholars in Religion and Cultural Studies.

This book celebrates the legacy of theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid (1952‑2009), and her particular influence in Asia and South America. Her work has served as a significant source of inspiration to many scholars, ministers, and activists challenging heteronormative theologies, but her sudden death in 2009 cut short the nascent and elegant theological thought for which she so valued.Contributors to this book succinctly investigate aspects of the vast work of Althaus-Reid by discussing issues of gender, race, and sexuality in Asia and South America, utilising the liberation, queer and indecent theologies she espoused. Each chapter demonstrates how her legacy is alive and thriving today, but also points towards to the potential future impact of her prolific theological output. By highlighting the ground-breaking work of Althaus-Reid, this book will serve as a key reference for scholars of Liberation, Queer and Indecent Theology, as well as Asian and Latinx religions.

This book celebrates the legacy of theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid (1952‑2009), and her particular influence in Asia and South America. Her work has served as a significant source of inspiration to many scholars, ministers, and activists challenging heteronormative theologies, but her sudden death in 2009 cut short the nascent and elegant theological thought for which she so valued.Contributors to this book succinctly investigate aspects of the vast work of Althaus-Reid by discussing issues of gender, race, and sexuality in Asia and South America, utilising the liberation, queer and indecent theologies she espoused. Each chapter demonstrates how her legacy is alive and thriving today, but also points towards to the potential future impact of her prolific theological output. By highlighting the ground-breaking work of Althaus-Reid, this book will serve as a key reference for scholars of Liberation, Queer and Indecent Theology, as well as Asian and Latinx religions.

Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality provides a much-needed overview of the state of scholarship on Christian theological reflection on sexuality and sexual theology. Critically, it also intervenes in the cultural debate over sexuality by privileging feminist, queer, and other counter-normative perspectives. Comprising twenty-three chapters by a team of international contributors this volume is divided into four parts:• Normativity and transgression• Bodies• Economies and violence• Divinity.Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including consideration of the complexities of Christian theology in regard to contemporary sexuality debates. Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality is essential reading for students and researchers in the field of religion, sexuality, and Christianity.

This book uses the ubiquitous comparison between food and sex as a framework for examining a number of texts from the Hebrew Bible, as well as later readings of those texts and interpretive issues raised by the texts. A range of biblical texts in which both food and sex appear are analyzed in an interdisciplinary fashion with the help of both traditional tools of biblical scholarship and less traditional tools such as Queer studies and cultural anthropology. By utilizing a reading lens that relates food and sex to one another intentionally, rather than treating them separately, the book will among other things question the tendency of readers of the Bible to overstress the gravity of sexual matters in relation to other matters of potential ethical, theological, exegetical and cultural concern, such as food. At the same time, as the title Practising Safer Texts indicates, the book also proposes a pragmatic approach to biblical interpretation that uses strategies of "safer sex" as a sort of loose model.Such an approach assesses texts and readings of the Bible not in a universalizing fashion but rather in terms of their likely effects, for good or ill, on particular readers in particular contexts and situations (just as notions of "safer sex" ask us to assess sexual acts not in a moralizing fashion but, rather, in terms of their likely effects on particular persons.

The Sexual Theologian is the first collection of essays on radical sexual theology written by a group of internationally renowned scholars in this area. For the first time Queer theory and theology is articulated around themes from systematic theology such as Incarnation, death, the concept of God, Mariology, together with discussions on sexuality and mysticism.The essays show a "how to do" a radical sexual theology together with original, bold and transgressive thinking which have taken feminist theologies to a new dimension of action and reflection.

In the newest volume in the "Queering Theology" series, Lisa Isherwood examines the significance that celibacy may hold in the new millennium. She begins by considering the female body, how it has been used to underpin exploitative social systems, and how Christianity has tried to control the bodies of women through regulations about the female body. As part of this discussion, she looks at the work of Douglas, Foucault, Synnott, Butler, Braidotti, and others, in the area of 'body politics'. Isherwood argues that women have used celibacy to subvert the patriarchal system, and create space in which to flourish. Through a consideration of the work of McNamara, Ruether, Schussler-Fiorenza, Kitch, and others, she shows how women from Shakers and Beguines to cloistered sisters and feisty housewives claimed the gospel of equality through celibacy and in so doing impacted on their world. She considers the possibilities of reframing celibacy in the light of queer theory and radical theology, before going on to ask the questions: how do queer theory and radical theology shape our understanding of celibacy in the new millennium?How do we develop a concept of erotic celibacy that is both personally sexually fulfilling and allows the bodies of women to be sites of resistance to patriarchy? How can such a way of living be called queer? Ultimately, Isherwood shows that being erotically celibate challenges patriarchal society, and opens up new theological understanding.

This book explores the impact and contribution of post-theories in the field of Christian feminist theology. Post-theory is an important and cutting-edge discursive field which has revolutionized the production of knowledge in both feminism and theology. This book fills a gap by providing a text that can make authoritative statements on the use and status of post-theory in feminist theology, and secondly it makes an on-going contribution to the discourse of Christian feminist theology and its liberation agenda. Distinguished and established scholars contribute conclusive essays on the most recent and exciting developments in post-theory, feminism and theology.

God has assumed a significant role in the sex lives of believers. It is God who decrees which types of sexual expression are permitted, and which forbidden. Through the Church, a patriarchal sexual landscape has been enacted to control sexual bodies which exerts its influence even in our secular culture. The Good News of the Body is a wide-ranging anthology on feminist sexual theology. Noting that Jesus, while being declared divine, took human form, the volume questions what happens when the flesh, rather than the Word, is placed at the center of theological reflection. What happens when women's bodies form the incarnational starting point for sexual politics and theology? Contributors, including Rosemary Ruether, Mary Hunt, and Melissa Raphael, examine such topics as the possibility of a Roman Catholic approach to sexuality bringing together the three aspects of Christian love of eros, philia, and agape; Jewish sexual and mystical teaching; the de-sexing of the disabled; erotic celibacy; human sexuality and the concept of the goddess; and the sometimes surprisingly similar conclusions about contraception reached by feminists and popes.

God has assumed a significant role in the sex lives of believers. It is God who decrees which types of sexual expression are permitted, and which forbidden. Through the Church, a patriarchal sexual landscape has been enacted to control sexual bodies which exerts its influence even in our secular culture. The Good News of the Body is a wide-ranging anthology on feminist sexual theology. Noting that Jesus, while being declared divine, took human form, the volume questions what happens when the flesh, rather than the Word, is placed at the center of theological reflection. What happens when women's bodies form the incarnational starting point for sexual politics and theology? Contributors, including Rosemary Ruether, Mary Hunt, and Melissa Raphael, examine such topics as the possibility of a Roman Catholic approach to sexuality bringing together the three aspects of Christian love of eros, philia, and agape; Jewish sexual and mystical teaching; the de-sexing of the disabled; erotic celibacy; human sexuality and the concept of the goddess; and the sometimes surprisingly similar conclusions about contraception reached by feminists and popes.

Women in Christianity in the Modern Age examines the role of women in Christianity in the 20th and early 21st Centuries. This edited volume includes eight important contributions from academics in the field. The modern era has been an age of social and religious upheaval, and the ravages of global warfare and changes to women’s role in society have made the examination of the place of women in religion a key question in theology. From theological concerns - engagements with the biblical texts by feminist and anti-feminist theologians, the modern role of Mary and women saints – to political and social debates on women’s ministry and place in society, and cultural shifts as expressed through theologically inspired artwork by women, Women in Christianity in the Modern Age provides an overview and in-depth studies of a tumultuous and changing era.This insightful text will be of key interest to students and scholars in Religion and Cultural Studies.

This book brings together the narratives of diverse ministers from the Global South in order to show that queer theologies are impacting many parts of the world and queer lives are molding and enriching Christian ministry. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we are witnessing the emergence of queer faith-based communities in very different contexts and with very different histories. The perspectives included in the book form a tapestry that honors diversity among the Global South’s queer communities and ministries. They demonstrate the various ways in which queer ministry challenges and changes theological understanding as well as religious practice. Each chapter highlights issues pertaining to liturgy, sacraments, pastoral rites, and the personal faith journey that each minister underwent to foster pastoral queer theologies. Contributors focus on their understanding of the relationship between faith and sexuality, how rituals relate to the daily lives of queer believers, and the struggles they face within the political structures of religious institutions. The narratives highlight some of the challenges and mechanisms deployed to cope with ingrained LGBTIQ+ phobia. They also evidence how communities enact interreligious and multi-religious dialog and rituals while honoring faith and activism, and how prophetic ministries counter oppressive discourses and colonial performativities. This is a valuable resource for academics and religious leaders interested in the study of queer theologies, Asian, African, and Latin American Christianity, as well as ecclesiastical and liturgical issues.

This book brings together the narratives of diverse ministers from the Global South in order to show that queer theologies are impacting many parts of the world and queer lives are molding and enriching Christian ministry. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we are witnessing the emergence of queer faith-based communities in very different contexts and with very different histories. The perspectives included in the book form a tapestry that honors diversity among the Global South’s queer communities and ministries. They demonstrate the various ways in which queer ministry challenges and changes theological understanding as well as religious practice. Each chapter highlights issues pertaining to liturgy, sacraments, pastoral rites, and the personal faith journey that each minister underwent to foster pastoral queer theologies. Contributors focus on their understanding of the relationship between faith and sexuality, how rituals relate to the daily lives of queer believers, and the struggles they face within the political structures of religious institutions. The narratives highlight some of the challenges and mechanisms deployed to cope with ingrained LGBTIQ+ phobia. They also evidence how communities enact interreligious and multi-religious dialog and rituals while honoring faith and activism, and how prophetic ministries counter oppressive discourses and colonial performativities. This is a valuable resource for academics and religious leaders interested in the study of queer theologies, Asian, African, and Latin American Christianity, as well as ecclesiastical and liturgical issues.

This book explores the impact and contribution of post-theories in the field of Christian feminist theology. Post-theory is an important and cutting-edge discursive field which has revolutionized the production of knowledge in both feminism and theology. This book fills a gap by providing a text that can make authoritative statements on the use and status of post-theory in feminist theology, and secondly it makes an on-going contribution to the discourse of Christian feminist theology and its liberation agenda. Distinguished and established scholars contribute conclusive essays on the most recent and exciting developments in post-theory, feminism and theology.

Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality provides a much-needed overview of the state of scholarship on Christian theological reflection on sexuality and sexual theology. Critically, it also intervenes in the cultural debate over sexuality by privileging feminist, queer, and other counter-normative perspectives. Comprising twenty-three chapters by a team of international contributors this volume is divided into four parts:• Normativity and transgression• Bodies• Economies and violence• Divinity.Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including consideration of the complexities of Christian theology in regard to contemporary sexuality debates. Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality is essential reading for students and researchers in the field of religion, sexuality, and Christianity.

Presents a groundbreaking global exploration of queer theologies across religions, regions, and spiritual traditions Global Queer Theologies: Intercontextual and Interreligious Perspectives is an essential and timely resource for those seeking a comprehensive understanding of queer theologies as they emerge and evolve within diverse cultural, regional, and religious frameworks. While much of queer theological discourse has historically centered on the Global North and Christian traditions, this landmark volume decisively expands the conversation, drawing on multilingual scholarship and diverse lived experiences to illuminate the theological expressions of queer believers across global contexts. Demonstrating how queer communities actively reinterpret sacred texts and spiritual practices, the text serves not only as an introduction to queer theological thought but also as a teaching tool designed to foster inclusive classroom engagement. Structured for clarity and pedagogical effectiveness, each chapter presents a focused exploration of a religious tradition or theme, complemented by visual aids and discussion prompts that encourage critical reflection and dialogue. The contributing authors map the rich, complex intersections of faith, sexuality, and identity, amplify voices long silenced or overlooked, and illuminate the sacred narratives of queer believers from across the globe. Bridging theory with lived experience, emphasizing theological agency in marginalized contexts, Global Queer Theologies: Intercontextual and Interreligious Perspectives: Includes analysis of underexplored spiritual systems such as Shinto, Confucianism, paganism, and ancestral religionsEmploys a thematic and regional organizational structure that engages readers with both theory and practiceIncorporates glossaries for enhanced clarity and reader accessibility in each section and original diagrams and graphics that map religious structures and spiritual genealogies throughoutFeatures highlight boxes within chapters that introduce key thinkers, terms, and movements without disrupting the narrative flowContains discussion questions at the end of each chapter to support student reflection and faculty-led dialogueThe first volume of its kind to offer truly global coverage of queer theologies across major and minor religious traditions, Global Queer Theologies: Intercontextual and Interreligious Perspectives is ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in theology, religious studies, gender studies, and queer theory.

This exciting volume brings together a wide range of perspectives on one of the most important and challenging areas of modern theology. There are entries on all the major themes of Christian feminist theology, including models of God and of the Church, ethics and spirituality, sexuality and liberation. Many of the entries push their respective discussions beyond the rigid boundaries of previous theological discourse. Together they present the far-reaching concerns of feminist theology in an accessible and stimulating way. The compendium is both a resource and an inspiration for scholars and students of feminist theology and for all those who are interested in this field of reflection and activity.