Liberation Theology and Sexuality is a book about 'doing Liberation Theology in Latin America' in the twenty-first century. The style of doing theology remains the same, but this book reflects the work of a new generation of liberation theologians developing a theology that offers a wider and more complex critique of reality, with new perspectives on issues of sexuality, race, gender, culture, globalization and new forms of popular religiosity. Liberation Theology and Sexuality shows how Christianity in Latin America needs to take into account issues concerning sexuality and poverty, together with traditional religiosity and culture when reflecting on the construction of Christian faith and identity in the continent. For the first time, Liberation Theology and Sexuality presents a unique combination of Latin American theologians from more than one generation, reflecting on depth on these issues.

There are those who go to gay bars and salsa clubs with rosaries in their pockets, and who make camp chapels of their living rooms. Others enter churches with love letters hidden in their bags, because their need for God and their need for love refuse to fit into different compartments. But what goodness and righteousness can prevail if you are in love with someone whom you are ecclesiastically not supposed to love? Where is God in a salsa bar?
The Queer God introduces a new theology from the margins of sexual deviance and economic exclusion. Its chapters on bisexual theology, Sadean holiness, gay worship in Brazil and queer sainthood mark the search for a different face of God - the Queer God who challenges the oppressive powers of heterosexual orthodoxy, whiteness and global capitalism. Inspired by the transgressive spaces of Latin American spirituality, where the experiences of slum children merge with queer interpretations of grace and holiness, The Queer God seeks to liberate God from the closet of traditional Christian thought, and to embrace God's part in the lives of gays, lesbians and the poor.
Only a theology that dares to be radical can show us the presence of God in our times. The Queer God creates a concept of holiness that overcomes sexual and colonial prejudices and shows how queer theology is ultimately the search for God's own deliverance. Using liberation theology and queer theory, it exposes the sexual roots that underlie all theology, and takes the search for God to new depths of social and sexual exclusion.

Contents:
Introduction Part I: Queering theology 1. Kneeling, deviant theologians 2. Queering hermeneutics 3. Queering God in relationships: Trinitarians and God the orgy 4. Libertine disclosures 5. Permutations 6. The economy of God's exchange rate mechanism Part II: Queer promiscuities 7. Popular anti-theologies of love 8. Demonology: Embodying rebellious spirits 9. Queer holiness: Postcolonial revelations

Indecent Theology brings liberation theology up to date by introducing the radical critical approaches of gender, post-colonial and queer theory. Grounded in actual examples from Latin America Marcella Althaus-Reid's highly provocative, but immaculately researched book re-works three distinct areas of theology - sexual, political and systematic. It exposes the connections between theology, sexuality and politics, whilst initiating a dramatic sexual re-reading of systematic Theology.
Ground-breaking, intriguing and scholarly, Indecent Theology broadens the debate on sexuality and theology as never before.

Transsexual, transgendered and intersex people have become increasingly more visible since the 1990s, but the churches have been slow to recognize their lives and their contribution to theology and the churches. As theologians we are mystified by this, since a redemptive history based on the multiple possibilities of incarnational theology is best read as lived in trans/luminal spaces. Trans/formations is a passionate book borne out of the outrage felt at the ever narrowing boundaries of theology. It is passionate too because it comes from a deeply held incarnational belief that dares to take the lived experience of people seriously as part of the redemptive ground we share. It is a book that wishes to shake not shock, it seeks to shake us out of the contented narrowness of a cosy Christianity and into one that seeks always to expand the incarnational tent that is our home. The contributors ask questions not only of the churches and theology but at times also of gender and sexuality theorists. It is time we all thought anew, and this book hopes to aid that debate. Lisa Isherwood is Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies at the University of Winchester. Marcella Althaus-Reid was Professor of Contextual Theology at New College, Edinburgh. She died in February 2009. Contributors: Marcella Althaus-Reid, Hannah Buchanan, Krys Bujnowski, Marie Cartier, John Clifford, Susannah Cornwall, Malcolm Himschoot, BK Hipsher, Lisa Isherwood, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Lewis Reay, Elizabeth Stuart and Sian Taylder.

Does theology liberate only bodies with official desires, well-scrubbed skin, and sober clothing? Might it bring good news to the rest to madwomen of all sexes, dancers in smoky bars, devotees of disreputable saints? Marcella Altahus-Reid insisted on asking such questions sharply, unflinchingly, but with unfeigned joy. She shows us still how to answer them. --Mark D. Jordan, Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School. 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.

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.

Not since the 'Theology in the Americas' conferences and the heyday of EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologies) in the late 70's, have the most important theologians the world over met to discuss the future of theology and our globe. The World Forum on Theology and Liberation took place in Brazil in 2005 and was the meeting of the world's foremost thinkers and theologians concerned with contextual or liberation theologies. This book offers the reader a selection of the contributions to the first World Forum on Theology and Liberation, and as such offers readers a unique opportunity to read in English for the first time, many of the discussions, beliefs and aspirations. The ontributors believe that another world is in fact possible - one where justice will reign. This book provides the basis of their agendas and vision for the future. Without another understanding of God, without different religious practices and different theologies, another possible world cannot be built. The World Forum on Theology and Liberation is a product of the urgency tied to the hopes of the millions who participate in building a better future across the globe. The themes covered here include challenges and opportunities for religion in the 21st century, power, poverty and slavery, finding a middle ground between fundamentalism and modernity, differences in social contexts, languages and images of God, ethnic- cultural traditions and globalisation. Different chapters include European, African, Indian and American perspectives. Marcella Althaus-Reid was Professor of Contextual Theology at the University of Edinburgh. Ivan Petrella is Assistant Professor at the University of Miami. Luiz Carlos Susin is General Secretary of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation and editor of Teologia para Outro Mundo Possivel

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. Full Text - Short

Black Theology emerged in the 1960s as a response to black consciousness. In South Africa, it is a critique of power; in the UK it is a political theology of black culture. The dominant form of Black Theology has been in the USA, originally influenced by Black Power and the critique of white racism. Since then, it claims to have broadened its perspective to include oppression on the grounds of race, gender and class. In this book, Alistair Kee contests this claim, arguing that Black and Womanist Theologies present inadequate analysis of race and gender and no account at all of class or economic oppression.With a few notable exceptions, Black Theology in the USA repeats the mantras of the 1970s, the discourse of modernity. Content with American capitalism, it fails to address the source of the impoverishment of black Americans at home. Content with a romantic image of Africa, this 'African-American' movement fails to defend contemporary Africa against predatory American global ambitions. Blacks in the West, Kee claims here, are no longer the victims; they are the voters and consumers who should be able to influence western governments - the American government in particular - into changing policies towards Africa in particular and the third world in general. This book does not argue that Black theologians should give up, but that they should move on, for the sake of the black poor in America, the black poor in Africa and the third world. The failure of Black theologians to do so is a cause for concern beyond the circle of practitioners of Black theology.

Concilium has long been a household-name for cutting-edge critical and constructive theological thinking. Past contributors include leading Catholic scholars such as Hans Kung, Gregory Baum and Edward Schillebeeckx, and the editors of the review belong to the international "who's who" in the world of contemporary theology. Published five times a year, each issue reflects a deep knowledge and scholarship presented in a highly readable style, and each issue offers a wide variety of viewpoints from leading thinkers from all over the world.

Jung Mo Sung has pioneered a theological analysis of economics in his previous publications, developing a penetrating ethico-religious critique of the international capitalist systems, whose institutions he likens to altars. Where ancient idolatry had visible altars, the modern altar of the `global market god', is invisible, but still demands human sacrifices in the name of `objective' desires. Here Sung recovers theology's relevance for a world where the most dangerous idols - those that sacrifice millions of people upon the altar of wealth - have for too long been ignored by theology. Desire, Market, Religion, Sung investigates themes such as the struggle against social exclusion, the relationship between economics and religion in the 21 century, where global brands and global economies reigns supreme, and theology's role in the struggle against social exclusion and the giving of hope for plenty, when the reality is scarcity.

"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. Marcella Althaus-Reid is Professor of Contextual Theology at the University of Edinburgh. She is assistant editor of the Journal of Studies in World Christianity and a member of the advisory board of Concillium. Lisa Isherwood is Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies and Director of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Winchester. She is executive editor of the journal Feminist Theology.

The author has developed a new approach to doing theology, which examines Liberation Theology and Feminist Theology and marks a shift from these traditional critiques, resulting in what the author refers to as 'Indecent Theology'. The author uses Queer theory and Post Colonial analysis to show more clearly how this shift, especially from gender to sexuality, has occurred. The book also looks towards the future possiblities of a theology done in times of globalisation.To help to clarify this theoretical subject, the book is broken down into three areas. The first section deals with the genesis of Indecent theology, and includes material that is foundational, but not widely available until now. The second section looks more closely at just what Indecent Theology is, and the third section considers the future of Indecent Theologies, and ties up the questions raised in the earlier sections. Dr Marcella Althaus-Reid B.Ed, B.D, Ph.D was born in Argentina, and began her studies of theology in Buenos Aires. She is now senior lecturer in Christian Ethics, Practical Theology and Systematic Theology at the University of Edinburgh.

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.