I'm pleased to announce that my first book will soon be released May 16, 2023!
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Archives for Eastern Orthodoxy
New Book: Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality
Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the last decade has witnessed a new-found openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians.
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Bridging Voices Project Links
A collection of links related to the Bridging Voices: Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Identity and the Challenges of Pluralism and Sexual Diversity in a Secular Age project.
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Nature, Person, Gender: An Anthropological Postscript
Following Lossky’s metaphysics, sex and gender are not hypostatic (personal), but rather are characteristic of our common human nature.
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Origins of Contemporary Orthodox Gender Essentialism
Gender essentialism in contemporary Orthodoxy has its roots in a variety of sources that were incorporated into nineteenth-century German Romanticism. These include the androgyne of Plato’s Symposium, ideas of preincarnate male and female paired souls in Lurianic Kabbalah, and the writings of the German mystic Jakob Böhme.
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Orthodoxy, Sexuality, Gender: The State of the Conversation
A presentation outlining the current state of the broader academic Orthodox conversation about theological anthropology, gender, and sexuality.
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Marriage, Family, and Scripture
A piece originally published on the Public Orthodoxy blog of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University and subsequently reprinted in Toward the Holy and Great Council: Theological Reflections.
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Strange Bedfellows Scapegoat Russia’s Gays
It's been a busy few months for anyone paying attention to issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Russia.
This summer the Russian parliament passed a bill prohibiting the so-called "promotion of nontraditional sexual relations" in the presence of minors, a euphemistic expression replacing language in the initial bill which more explicitly prohibited "the promotion of homosexual relations." The new law gives no explicit definition of "promotion," resulting in an environment where Russia's mass media has curtailed any reporting that might portray LGBT people or their relationships in a positive light.
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Murder in Volgograd – Part 2
In a previous post I presented some information about the murder in May 2013 of Vladislav Tornovoi in Volgograd, as well as some background information for framing the discourse around homosexuality in Russia. This post continues where the last left off.
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Murder in Volgograd
I wrote this piece back in May, hoping for publication with the Divinity School's Sightings column. But writing about current events is like trying to hit a moving target. Before it could be published, there were new developments in the case, requiring significant revision to remain under a 750-word limit. So I've decided to post here. This is the first installment on this subject.
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