E-Book Overview
Since the 1980s, religion has been most visible in American public life when issues of sexuality and reproduction are at stake. Paradoxically, however, the voices that speak most loudly in the name of religion are often unschooled in religious history, world religions, theology, or ethics. As a result, religion in America is misrepresented as anxiously and obsessively concerned with sex, and as uniformly supporting the conservative agenda of "family values."This volume corrects that distortion in American public discourse. Its thirteen previously unpublished articles introduce scholarly perspectives on issues including the family, gay rights, abortion, welfare policy, prostitution, and assisted reproduction. They richly display the complexities and conflicts that exist not only between but within America's various religious traditions--for example, the pro-choice strain within Christian history, the support of many religious denominations for gay rights, and the criticism of patriarchal family structures within religious communities past and present. In these essays, contributors put forth views of sexual ethics that are just and compassionate, respectful of cultural pluralism, and attentive to democratic processes.Thorougly researched, lucidly written, and carefully argues, this anthology will debunk the claims of the Religious Right to be the only "religious" word on sexuality in America.
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GOD FORBID Recent titles in RELIGION IN AMERICA SERIES Harry S. Stout, General Editor The Soul of Development Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala Amy L. Sherman The Viper on the Hearth Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy Terryl L. Givens Sacred Companies Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religions Aspects of Organizations Edited by N. J. Demerath III, Peter Dobkin Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys H. Williams Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries Amanda Porterfield Being There Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools Jackson W. Carroll, Barbara G. Wheeler, Daniel O. Aleshire, and Penny Long Marler The Character of God Recovering the Lost Literary Power of American Protestantism Thomas E. Jenkins The Revival of 1857—58 Interpreting an American Religions Awakening Katheryn Teresa Long American Madonna Images of the Divine Woman in Literary Culture John Gatta Our Lady of the Exile Diasporic Religion at a Cuban CatholicShrine in Miami Thomas A. Tweed Taking Heaven by Storm Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America John H. Wigger Encounters With God An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards Michael J. McClymond Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective Edited by David N. Livingstone, D. G. Hart and Mark A. Noll Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770—1810 Cynthia Lynn Lyerly Princeton in the Nation's Service Religious Ideals and Educational Practice, 1868-1928 P. C. Kemeny Church People in the Struggle The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950-1970 James E. Findlay, Jr. Tenacious of Their Liberties The Congregationalists in Colonial Massachusetts James F. Cooper, Jr. Black Zion African American Religious Encounters with Judaism Yvonne Chireau and Nathaniel Dcutseh God Forbid Religion and Sex in American Public Life Kathleen \I. Sands GOD FORBID Religion and Sex in American Public Life Edited by Kathleen M. Sands OXFORD U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS 20OO OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto And associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright (©) 2000 by Oxford University Press Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198