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June 12, 2008

Two books to help win arguments about 'traditional' marriage


If you're looking for some resources to use in arguing against the far right's definition of "traditional marriage," consider these two books by The late John Boswell. A distinguished professor at Yale University's Boswell's books Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe and Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality provide solid historical data on what is - and is not - "traditional."  One of our readers has suggested The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality  as an easier read than Boswell's scholarly works. 

Re: Few books have had the social, cultural, and scholarly impact of John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Arguing that neither the Bible nor the Christian tradition was nearly as hostile to homoeroticism as was generally thought, its initial publication sent shock waves through university classrooms, gay communities, and religious congregations. Twenty-five years later, the aftershocks still reverberate. The Boswell Thesis brings together fifteen leading scholars at the intersection of religious and sexuality studies to comment on this book’s immense impact, the endless debates it generated, and the many contributions it has made to our culture.


The essays in this magnificent volume examine a variety of aspects of Boswell's interpretation of events in the development of sexuality from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages, including a Roman emperor’s love letters to another man; suspicions of sodomy among medieval monks, knights, and crusaders; and the gender-bending visions of Christian saints and mystics. Also included are discussions of Boswell’s career, including his influence among gay and lesbian Christians and his role in academic debates between essentialists and social constructionists.

Elegant and thought-provoking, this collection provides a fitting twenty-fifth anniversary tribute to the incalculable influence of Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality and its author.

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Re:  Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe: Not since Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1981) have Christians of all creeds confronted a work that makes them look so closely at their notions of the relationship between the church and its gay and lesbian believers. Diligently researched and documented, this immensely scholarly work covers everything from the "paired" saints of Perpetua and Felicitas and Serge and Bacchus to lesbian transvestites in Albania. Examining evidence that the early church celebrated a same-sex nuptial liturgy, Boswell compares both Christian same-sex unions to Christian heterosexual unions and non-Christian same-sex unions to non-Christian heterosexual unions. Appendixes contain, among other things, translations and transcriptions of cited documents. Whether or not minds are changed on the matter will probably fall along sectarian lines, according to current attitudes on homosexuality. However, the work will provoke dialog. A groundbreaking book for academic, public, and theological libraries.

--Lee Arnold, Historical Society of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia

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Re:  Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: "Truly groundbreaking work. Boswell reveals unexplored phenomena with an unfailing erudition."—Michel Foucault
John Boswell's National Book Award-winning study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the early Christian West was a groundbreaking work that challenged preconceptions about the Church's past relationship to its gay members—among them priests, bishops, and even saints—when it was first published twenty-five years ago. The historical breadth of Boswell's research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consulted make this one of the most extensive treatments of any single aspect of Western social history. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, still fiercely relevant today, helped form the disciplines of gay and gender studies, and it continues to illuminate the origins and operations of intolerance as a social force. 

"What makes this work so exciting is not simply its content—fascinating though that is—but its revolutionary challenge to some of Western culture's most familiar moral assumptions."—Jean Strouse, Newsweek   

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posted by Tom Jackson @ Thursday, June 12, 2008

1 Comments:

At 2:47 PM, June 12, 2008 , Anonymous Bobla said...

Both books are very valuable, but Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe and Christianity is particularly dense and scholarly written, i.e., very difficult reading for the average reader! I would recommend "The Boswell Thesis" by Mathew Kuefler as a useful introduction.

 

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