What is the role of gender in Eastern Christianity? In this volume, Orthodox experts of different disciplines and cultural backgrounds tackle this complex question. They engage critically with gender issues within their own tradition.
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Archives for theological anthropology
Transgender Resources
Recent political strategies are using transgender people and their lives as a wedge issue to whip up fear and anxiety among voters. Below I've gathered a list of resources for understanding the issues and cutting through the anti-trans talking points offered in the media and by politicians.
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Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy: Beyond Male and Female
I'm pleased to announce that my first book will soon be released May 16, 2023!
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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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Gender Essentialism in Contemporary Orthodox Conversations on Homosexuality
Gender-essentialist interpretations of these Genesis passages are an exercise in question-begging: they assume that the essentialism modern readers point to is, indeed, a feature of the texts themselves. However, this is not the case.
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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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The Origin of Gender in Eriugena’s Periphyseon
In his presentation titled The Sleep of Adam, the Making of Eve: Sin and Creation in Eriugena,[*] Donald Duclow explores the gendering of humanity as related in John Scottus Eriugena's Periphyseon, with particular attention to some Eriugenian innovations on the theme. In many ways Periphyseon draws on previous works including those of Gregory of Nyssa[1] and Maximus Confessor. Yet John embellishes these previous accounts in ways that are both novel and uniquely his own. What follows is a brief exploration of several key points in Duclow's presentation, followed by a couple of reflections regarding distinctive moments in Eriugena's work.
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