Elizabeth Edman is a queer priest. She is also a priestly queer. It is from the perspective of these intertwined and inseparable identities that her new book (on sale tomorrow, May 17), Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know About Life and Love and How It Can Revitalize Christianity (Beacon Press, $25.95), challenges Christians to embrace queerness and to boldly proclaim a faith that “is and must be queer” (3).
Of course Edman doesn’t mean that straight Christians must turn gay. Queerness extends far beyond sexuality, it is “an impulse to disrupt any and all efforts to reduce into simplistic dualisms our experience of life, of God” (3). Queerness stands at direct odds with binary distinctions, legalism, and fundamentalism. It is an affront to the side of Christianity that dominates so much of the …show more content…
It is her hope that lessons gleaned from queer experience “will provide trajectories for Christian inquiry that could bring new energy and urgency to the progressive church and its proclamation of the gospel” (13).
In Queer Virtue, Edman explores the essential teachings of Christian traditions in the light of queer experience, and then draws upon the virtues of queer identity to lay out a path for revitalizing Christian practice. Issues like identity, community, pride, risk, family, authenticity, hospitality, love, and intimacy are crucial to the future of Christianity, and the queer perspective speaks to each of them. By drawing attention to these shared ethical foundation of the Christian and queer communities, Edman encourages to renew a conscious commitment to love and
Of course Edman doesn’t mean that straight Christians must turn gay. Queerness extends far beyond sexuality, it is “an impulse to disrupt any and all efforts to reduce into simplistic dualisms our experience of life, of God” (3). Queerness stands at direct odds with binary distinctions, legalism, and fundamentalism. It is an affront to the side of Christianity that dominates so much of the …show more content…
It is her hope that lessons gleaned from queer experience “will provide trajectories for Christian inquiry that could bring new energy and urgency to the progressive church and its proclamation of the gospel” (13).
In Queer Virtue, Edman explores the essential teachings of Christian traditions in the light of queer experience, and then draws upon the virtues of queer identity to lay out a path for revitalizing Christian practice. Issues like identity, community, pride, risk, family, authenticity, hospitality, love, and intimacy are crucial to the future of Christianity, and the queer perspective speaks to each of them. By drawing attention to these shared ethical foundation of the Christian and queer communities, Edman encourages to renew a conscious commitment to love and