RECLAMING LIBERATION THOLOGY: LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND SEXUALITY
ED. BY MARCELLA ALTHAUS REID

Liberation Theology and Sexuality is a book about ‘doing theology in Latin America in the twenty-first century. Marcella Althaus-Reid has drawn together a number of the most exciting Liberation Theologians currently working in Latin America and beyond, whose work offers a wider and more complex critique of reality which is prepared to engage with issues of sexuality, race, gender, culture, globalization and new forms of popular piety. The contributors show that Christianity in Latin America cannot avoid taking into account and engaging with issues concerning sexuality and poverty when reflecting on the construction of Christian faith and identity. They represent Liberation Theology in motion: dynamic, unsettling, still struggling with orthodoxy while engaging in the broad struggle for justice that includes sexual justice.

Publication Date: 2009, By SCM Press.

SPACE FOR GRACE: CREATING INCLUSIVE CHURCH 
by GILES GODDARD

'Inclusive' is a term that is most closely associated with questions of human sexuality, but in relation to theology and to local church life it has many more dimensions which this book explores. Like so many others, the church of which Giles Goddard is rector was, fifty years ago, almost exclusively white, middle class and male-led. As the local community became more diverse, change was inevitable. Theology has followed rather than led this change and this book reflects on what inclusive theology is starting to look like in practice. Including stories of people who have either been instrumental in this change or who have stayed faithful through its various stages, it explores key questions for every local church: embracing the evangelical, orthodox and liberal and seeing beyond labels, treating everyone as equal before God, sharing leadership and responsibility, recognising that freedom needs limits, drawing people from the margins to the centre, and managing change. Theological reflection follows each story and an honest appraisal of the practical impact of change.

Publication Date: 2008, By Canterbury Press Norwich

THE EROTIC WORD, SEXUALITY, SPIRITUALITY AND THE BIBLE
David M. Carr

Historically, the Bible has been used to drive a wedge between the spirit and the body. In this provocative book, David Carr argues that it can - and should - do just the opposite. Sexuality and spirituality, Carr contends, are intricately interwoven: when one is improverished, the other is warped. As a result, the journey toward God and the life-long engagement with our own sexual embodiment are inseparable. Humans, the Bible tells us, both male and female, were created in God's image, and eros - a fundamental longing for connection that finds abstract good in the pleasure we derive from the stimulation of the senses--is a central component of that image. The Bible, particularly the Hebrew Bible, affirms erotic passion, both eros between humans and eros between God and humans. In a sweeping examination of the sexual rules of the Bible, Carr asserts that Biblical "family values" are a far cry from anything promoted as such in contemporary politics. He concludes that passionate love - our preoccupaton therewith and pursuit thereof - is the primary human vocation, that eros is in fact the flavoring of life.

Publication Date: 2005, By Oxford University Press.

ORIGINAL SIN: ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENTS, CONTEMPORARY MEANINGS
Tatha Wiley

In a clear and methodical manner Tatha Wiley explores the many dimensions of the conflicting yet fundamental concept of original sin. She explores the Christian origins, patristic developments and medieval interpretations of original sin, then traces the emergence of the idea of original sin, the questions the idea answered, and the development of original sin as a Christian doctrine in the early centuries of Christianity. Finally, she brings the discussion to the present with the modern scientific, historical, and philosophical challenges posed to the doctrine along with contemporary reinterpretations of it. This book is valuable reading for theologians, university and seminary graduate students, and nonprofessionals who may be intrigued by this subject.

Publication Date: 2002, By Paulist Press.

SEXUALITY
Ed. by Robert A. Nye

Sexuality has always been an obsessive human concern; it has often been the real subject of cultural, religious, and political discourses that did not dare to mention it or did not have the language for addressing it directly. We now possess both the language and the cultural temerity to discuss sexuality as straightforwardly as we like, and with a frankness that would have shocked people a few decades ago. It now seems impossible to contemplate human happiness without some measure of sexual fulfilment, although that remains a notoriously elusive and negotiable ideal. Nor is it possible now to think about our identities or the identities of others without factoring in sexual tastes and orientation. The central message of this book is that we are unlikely to understand the promise or the limits of our contemporary sexualities unless we understand those of the past.

Publication Date: 1999, By Oxford University Press.