4th May 2013, 10am-3.30pm, Lang Cafe, 65 West 11th Street, New York, NY. Queering Christianities Conference, New School, New York City: "Queering Susanna: Art, Liturgy and Queer 'Emptiness'"

19th May 2013, 1pm, Captain's Cabin, 4 Norris Street, London SW1Y 4RJ. Vagabonds group, St James' Piccadilly, London: "Intersex"

"1 in 2,500 people has an intersex condition, meaning that their body cannot be unproblematically categorized as male or female. Theological accounts of sex, gender and sexuality often assume sex is binary and stable, but what if this is not the case? In this session, we'll discuss some of the specificities of intersex conditions, learn what intersex Christians have said about the interactions between their intersex identity and their Christians identity, and explore what the implications might be for people of faith."  

1st June 2013, Hidden Perspectives / LaDIYfest Sheffield festival: "Hidden in Plain Sight: Intersex, the Bible, and Social Assent"

"Hidden Perspectives is a large-scale pioneering public engagement project that aims to open up interpretations of biblical narratives to underrepresented groups. The project is a jointly organised by Dr. Katie Edwards at The University of Sheffield and LaDIYfest Sheffield.

Hidden Perspectives encourages inclusive discussion on dominant interpretations of biblical texts and narratives found in scholarship and mainstream culture. Working with groups and individuals from range of faith and non-faith backgrounds, this ambitious project aims to foster an atmosphere of inclusivity and diversity in which biblical texts can be interpreted."

26th July 2013, The Bible and the Social Sciences conference, University of Manchester: “Reading Bodies: Intersex, Homelessness, and ‘Marginal’ Interpretation”

Above: Some of the speakers at Chancellors Hotel in Manchester.

Right: Delegates enjoy lunch and conversation at the Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester.

Delegates attended from Britain, the USA and Norway, and included academics from a variety of fields (including theology, biblical studies, Jewish studies, law, sociology, and anthropology) as well as doctors, clergy, healthcare chaplains, representatives from intersex support groups, and other interested parties. We enjoyed a stimulating day including live Skype presentations from speakers in Darwin, Australia and Cape Town, South Africa. Full details of the speakers and the abstracts of their lectures are available here. Expanded versions of the papers presented, plus an additional chapter by Susannah Cornwall, will be published in due course as Intersex, Theology and the Bible: Troubling Bodies in Church, Text and Society (with Palgrave Macmillan US).

Part 1

Part 2 (including questions and discussion)

From SCM's web page for the book:

The SCM Core Text Theology and Sexuality provides a clear overview of the theological debate surrounding sexuality as broadly understood. It gives an outline of the major themes surrounding sexuality in theological perspective, focusing on key thinkers, concepts, and areas of discussion. This student-friendly textbook is aimed at theology students and ordinands studying at undergraduate level 3 and MA level who are undertaking modules on theology and sexuality, gender, sex and the human body. It is also accessible to Christian clergy and laypeople who wish to engage with issues of sexuality in congregations. The use of extensive glossaries, breakout definitions and examples makes the book accessible to those with little existing knowledge of contemporary debates on theology and sexuality. The book includes chapters on definitions of sexuality, sexuality in the Christian tradition, Christian approaches to marriage, celibacy and virginity and same-sex relationships.

Confirmed speakers:

Patricia Beattie Jung, “Intersex on Earth as It Is in Heaven?”

Christian convictions about life in the world to come impact Christian approaches to the transformation of life on earth. This presentation will trace carefully the connections between Christian eschatological convictions about the body, in particular sexuality and gender, and normative Christian thinking about intersex here and now.

Dr Patricia Beattie Jung is Professor of Christian Ethics and the Oubri A. Poppele Professor of Health and Welfare Ministries at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. She is a Roman Catholic lay woman who has written extensively in Christian sexual ethics. She is the co-editor, with Shannon Jung, of Moral Issues and Christian Responses (Fortress, 2012), and, with Aana Maria Vigen, of God, Science, Sex and Gender: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Sexual Ethics (University of Illinois, 2010). She and Darryl Stephens are currently working on a volume on Professional Sexual Ethics in the Practices of Ministry (Fortress, 2013). She is nearing the completion of a monograph entitled Sex on Earth as It Is in Heaven.

Nathan Carlin, “Middlesex: A Pastoral Theological Reading”

This paper focuses on Middlesex, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, published in 2002. The novel, set in twentieth-century America and written as a fictional memoir, is a coming of age story of Cal/Calliope, a man with an intersex condition caused by 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. Much scholarly criticism of the novel has focused on literary concerns (e.g. style and genre considerations) as well as the themes of the American Dream, race relations, ethnic identity, sexual identity, gender identify, and the nature versus nurture debate. This paper addresses religious themes in the novel and offers, specifically, a pastoral theological reading of the text.   

Dr Nathan Carlin is Assistant Professor in the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). He is Director of the Medical Humanities and Ethics Certificate Program for medical students. He is the co-author of two books: Living in Limbo: Life in the Midst of Uncertainty (Cascade, 2010) and 100 Years of Happiness: Insights and Findings from the Experts (Praeger, 2012). He is currently co-authoring Introduction to Medical Humanities. He also has published over 100 essays, articles, and book reviews. Dr Carlin earned a BA in History from Westminster College, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary (with a focus on Pastoral Theology), and an MA and PhD in Religious Studies from Rice University.

Megan K. DeFranza, “Addressing Intersex in Conservative Christian Contexts: The Use and Limitation of Eunuchs”

While many intersex persons and advocates emphasize points of contact between intersex and LGBTQ experiences / activism / theories / theologies, such connections may also undermine efforts for education, inclusion, and medical care for intersex persons and families within conservative religious traditions. Christians who hold to heteronormative sexual ethics are often wary of intersex on account of its perceived connection to queer sexualities. DeFranza demonstrates how the Biblical language of the eunuch provides a useful starting point to begin education about intersex, recovering and expanding space that once existed even within traditions holding to strong notions of sex/gender complementarity. Theological reflection on intersex must acknowledge not only what can be learned from eunuchs and LGBTQ experiences but also the limitations of these lenses.

Dr Megan K. DeFranza received her PhD from Marquette University in 2011 and is now Adjunct Professor of Theology at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts. Her doctoral dissertation, “Intersex and Imago: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Postmodern Theological Anthropology,” brought intersex into conversation with Roman Catholic and Evangelical theological anthropologies. Beginning with the Biblical language of the eunuch, she showed how even conservative religious traditions have resources for the inclusion and care of intersex persons even while they learn from intersex to construct more nuanced visions of human persons made in the image of God. She is revising her dissertation for publication, teaching theology, and lecturing on sexuality, while raising two young girls with her husband in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Stephen Craig Kerry, “Revisiting ‘Intersex Individuals’ Religiosity and their Journey to Wellbeing’” (via Skype)

In 2009 Stephen Craig Kerry published a paper in the Journal of Gender Studies on how intersex individuals have turned to religion and religiosity as a means of helping them back on a path of well-being following the psycho-social trauma they have experienced as a result of medical intervention. He argued that as intersex individuals found strength in numbers some were turning elsewhere for guidance and means of ‘coping’. This presentation will revisit some of the main points in that paper and open up a conversation to further articulate the need for established counselling and peer support services to incorporate the finding that it is in spiritual and/or religious life that intersex individuals are finding answers, health, and wellbeing.

Dr Stephen Craig Kerry is a recently appointed lecturer at Charles Darwin University, Australia. Over the past decade Dr Kerry has researched the social lives, identities, and relationships of intersex Australians with the aim of increasing broader societal awareness of the issues pertaining to the psycho-social trauma experienced by intersex individuals and their various paths to health and well-being. Most notably this includes an examination of the role of religion and religiosity as a means of support and understanding. Additionally, in recent years Dr Kerry’s research has extended to attempts by mainstream news media to represent intersex to a broader audience. In particular this research consists of content analyses of the news media representation of two intersex women: Australian Kathleen Worrall and South African Caster Semenya. He currently lives in Darwin, Australia.

Joseph A. Marchal, “What Can Lavender Do When the Baby’s Not (Exactly) Pink or Blue?: Contributions from Feminist and Queer Biblical Studies for Intersex Advocacy”

Issues of authority are central in the interpretation of bodies, both biblical and biological. Intersex advocates and scholars know this well, which is why many have turned to feminist and queer ideas and practices. Are there ways then that biblical scholars, particularly those with feminist and queer commitments, can be useful in intersex advocacy? The answer lies in not speaking for intersex people, but speaking to the conditions that generate the dehumanizing treatment of intersex people. Intersex bodies aren’t ambiguous; what is far more ambiguous is whether authorities and those who rely upon authoritative arguments do more damage than good. Biblical scholars are practiced in issues of authority and the uses of such arguments. Feminist and queer biblical scholars recognize that to counter shame and stigma and the cultures – medical, religious, and even biblical – that maintain them, efforts must aim not toward apology or reformation, but toward resistance and transformation. Critical negotiations of figures found in a range of New Testament texts, from eunuchs to circumcised members, from friends to enemies, provide generative examples for why we should care about complicated communities and complex bodies (likely because they always are), both then and now.

Dr Joseph A. Marchal is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Women's and Gender Studies, at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. His research and teaching focuses upon biblical studies and critical theories of interpretation, especially feminist, postcolonial, and queer perspectives and practices. Most recently, he is the author of The Politics of Heaven: Women, Gender, and Empire in the Study of Paul (Fortress, 2008), and editor of Studying Paul's Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods (Fortress, 2012). While he is currently preparing a guidebook on Philippians and a second edited collection, he is most particularly focused upon finishing a larger study implementing newer queer approaches to the places Pauline epistles and interpretations deploy a series of perversely feminized figures.  Marchal serves on several editorial boards, and as the Chair of the Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible Section (of the Society of Biblical Literature).

Sally Gross, "Not in God's Image: Intersex, Social Death and Infanticide"

This paper will draw upon the personal experience of the author, who discovered that she was in fact intersex at the age of forty and was pushed out of her former religious order and, in effect, out of the Church in which she had served as a priest. This was a direct consequence of seeking to act with honesty and integrity. The ostracism which followed involved an implicit denial that she (and by implication, other intersex people) is human. The paper will argue that the model which makes the most sense of the way in which her situation was handled is the “social death” model associated with Orlando Patterson’s work on slavery, and used controversially by Daniel Goldhagen in connection with the Nazi attempt as a “final solution” to the “Jewish problem”. The paper will also look at evidence of infanticide involving babies born with ambiguous genitalia in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa, and will argue that a “social death” model is relevant to the explanation of this phenomenon as well. It will link this with the spurious religious perception that to be intersex is not to be in God’s image and not to conform to God’s putative model of what it is to be human.

Sally Gross is founder and director of Intersex South Africa, a not-for-profit organisation which engages in education and advocacy on behalf of people, particularly in South Africa, who are intersex. Born in South Africa in 1953, it was decided to classify and rear Sally – named "Selwyn" in the vernacular and "Shlomo" in Hebrew – as male. Happily, Sally was spared genital surgery. She benefitted from a thorough Jewish education including an intensive year in an ultra-Orthodox Rabbinical College in the United Kingdom. From her late teens, she involved herself in clandestine anti-Apartheid activity, and had to flee South Africa in 1977, becoming a refugee, to avoid detention and a long prison sentence. She was baptised into the Catholic Church in 1976, although she never surrendered Jewish identity as such, and joined the English Province of the Order of Preachers at the end of 1981, becoming a priest in the Order and earning an MA in philosophy and theology through Blackfriars, Oxford. In 1991, she moved to the Dominican Priory in Cambridge, becoming sub-prior in 1992. At the end of 1992, she sought professional advice about her body, and learned, slowly and by dint of considerable struggle, that she is in fact intersex. Advised professionally to present as female, she is classified as born female by reason of her natal genital phenotype. Disclosure of her discovery that she is intersex to her major religious superior forced her to leave community in 1993, and led to a Papal Rescript in 1994 annulling her religious vows and to her exclusion from the Church in effect, though no formal censure was involved. This also had the effect of making completion of a nearly complete Oxford DPhil thesis on philosophical theology impossible. In 1999, after winning a fifteen month battle to establish that she was a human being in South African law, she was able to return to South Africa, and worked in public service until the end of 2010, also engaging in intersex activism. She has drafted and lobbied two judicial amendments bearing on intersex into South African law. Since January 2011, she has been full-time director of Intersex South Africa.

John Hare, respondent

Revd Dr John Hare (MA, MD, FRCOG) is Quondam Fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge. He qualified in medicine in 1964. After preliminary resident posts he spent four years working in the field of sexually transmitted
infection, during which time he wrote his MD thesis. He then resumed training in obstetrics and gynaecology, reaching consultant level in 1976. After holding teaching posts for ten years in London and Cambridge Universities he moved to set up the Obstetric Unit at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon. He retired from the NHS in 1998 and was ordained priest in the Church of England in 2003. He has recently retired from his position as an assistant priest in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. His writing on intersex and theology includes "'Neither Male Nor Female': The Case of Intersexuality", in Duncan Dormor and Jeremy Morris (eds.) (2007), An Acceptable Sacrifice? Homosexuality and the Church, London: SPCK. He is also the author of over 100 scientific papers.

Susannah Cornwall, conference chair

Dr Susannah Cornwall is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Lincoln Theological Institute, Department of Religions and Theology, University of Manchester, where she leads the Intersex, Identity, Disability: Issues for Public Policy, Healthcare and the Church project. She is the author of Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ: Intersex Conditions and Christian Theology (Equinox, 2010), Controversies in Queer Theology (SCM Press, 2011), and SCM Core Text: Theology and Sexuality (SCM Press, forthcoming 2013). She is editing a special issue of Crucible: The Christian Journal of Social Ethics (July 2013) on sexuality.

For more information about this aspect of the project, or to join the mailing list for news and updates, please e-mail Susannah.cornwall@manchester.ac.uk

Other speakers include Professor Graham Ward, formerly also part of the CRPC at the University of Manchester, and now Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.

More information about the symposium is available at 

http://www.newcastle.edu.au/institute/humanities-research/programmes-of-research/ripl/symposiums.html

For more information, see http://irnrdelhi2012.blogspot.be/

Qi Zheng's essay is entitled "Carl Schmitt in China".

Abstract:

This essay explores the justification for studying Schmitt's theory in China. It reveals the reasons why political philosophers who are interested in philosophical contributions to practical life should consider Schmitt's theory as relevant for China. The first and second sections separately explore the two different schools of the critique of Schmitt in China. One school criticizes Schmitt either as a fascist theorist or a political philosopher whose theory is uncomfortably similar to the theory of Mao's that directly produced the Great Cultural Revolution. I define this school as advancing a strong critique of Schmitt. The other school advances a weak critique of Schmitt. The weak critics aim to demonstrate a complicated relationship between Schmitt's theory, liberalism and Chinese liberalism. On the one hand, they usually acknowledge the significance of Schmitt's theory for showing the importance of the role of a strong state that is greatly ignored by Chinese liberalism. On the other hand, they criticize Schmitt for underestimating the ability of liberalism to build a strong state. In contrast to these two schools of Chinese criticism of Schmitt, the third and fourth sections of this essay provide a justification for studying Schmitt's political theory in the current Chinese context by analyzing the inability of Chinese liberalism to provide the theoretical resources to deal with real political problems faced by China today.

Kyle Gingerich Hiebert's essay is entitled "The Architectonics of Hope: Apocalyptic Convergences and Constellations of Violence in Carl Schmitt and Johann Baptist Metz".

Abstract:

This essay traces the apocalyptic re-emergence of political theology in late modernity in the work of the jurist Carl Schmitt and the theologian Johann Baptist Metz. Broadly speaking, the intellectual fault line between these two German Catholics can be provisionally drawn with reference to Hegel. On the one hand, Schmitt's lineage can be traced back through the conservative Catholic political philosophers of the counterrevolution (Bonald, de Maistre, and Cortés) to what amounts to, in very broad strokes, a political theology of the Hegelian Right. On the other hand, Metz¹s sympathies in his development of the new political theology clearly lie with the revisionary Marxists of the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Benjamin, and Bloch), which binds his intellectual heritage, again in very broad strokes, to the Hegelian Left. This way of putting the matter quite easily lends itself to interpretations that argue the relationship between Schmitt and Metz is straightforwardly oppositional. While perhaps conceptually useful, I argue that any easy conservative/critical dichotomy here obscures as much as it illuminates because it proffers too undifferentiated an account of the interrelationship between Schmitt and Metz. Alternatively, I suggest that the apocalyptic tone that infuses their respective accounts of political theology is the most adequate key for understanding how they function as different expressions of what I call an architectonics of hope; a reconfiguration of political theology that is structural in nature, animated by a thoroughly negative theological anthropology and that tragically acquiesces to the ongoing necessity of violence. In the end, then, Schmitt and Metz stand much closer to each other than currently realized.

This conference, held of 19th May 2012, was entitled "Patriotism?", and examined the themes of loyalty, identity and cohension in a religiously plural and culturally differentiated Britain.

The papers in the special issue are:

Nigel Biggar, "The Value of Limited Loyalty: Christianity, the Nation, and Territorial Boundaries."

Stephen Backhouse, "Patriotism, Nationhood and Neighbourhood."

Anthony G. Reddie, "Being the Enemy Within: Re-Asserting Black 'Otherness' as a Riposte to the Homogeneous Construction of Whiteness."

Doug Gay, "Patriotism Good - Nationalism Bad? The News from Scotland."

The special issue is available for non-subscribers to buy from the Modern Believing website.

LGCM (Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement) Annual Conference, Saturday 27th October 2012, RADA Studios, Chenies Street, London WC1E 7EX (conference booking page). Workshop title: "Intersex Conditions and LGBT Theologies: Exploring some Affinities and Tensions."

Yorkshire Mixtures Youth LGBT Youth Project, 6-8pm, Tuesday 30th October 2012, Young Batley Centre, Thomas Street, Batley WF17 8PR. Title: "LGBT, Intersex and Faith."

Systematic Theology research seminar, KCL (King's College London), 11.15am, Tuesday 27th November 2012. Title: "Intersex and Christology: How and Why Might it Matter Theologically that Jesus was Male?"

First and Third Club, University of Manchester, 1-2pm, Wednesday 5th December 2012. Title: "Questioning the Unquestioned: Researching Intersex and Identity in Religions and Theology".

Theology and Religious Studies research seminar, University of Chester, 2-4pm, Wednesday 30th January 2013, Hollybank, University of Chester. Title: TBC

She will also be chairing a panel at the CSCS (Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality) Annual Conference, 11am-4pm, Saturday 16th February 2013, St Anne's Church, Soho, London.

The itinerary for this visit is as follows:

5th September: Class on intersex and queer liturgies at Harvard Divinity School.

6th September, 7pm: Event at Harvard Divinity School: "Considering Intersex and Identity in Community Life: Opportunities and Challenges for Faith Communities". This will be followed by a discussion moderated by Sharon Fennema and Cameron Partridge.

7th September, 3-5pm: Panel on intersex and transgender theologies at Episcopal Divinity School, organized in association with Boston Theological Institute and the Lincoln Theological Institute. Co-panellists: Megan DeFranza, Cameron Partridge and Iain Stanford. Chair: Patrick S. Cheng.

10th September: Class on interpreting the body at Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

11th September, 6.30pm: Third annual Georgia Harkness Lecture at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, at the Pacific School of Religion: "Asking About What is Better: Intersex, Disability and Inaugurated Eschatology".

12th September: Lunchtime discussion with Women's Studies in Religion group at Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

13th September, 5pm: Thursday Forum at Church Divinity School of the Pacific: "Considering Intersex and Identity in Church Life: Opportunities and Challenges for Congregations and Clergy".

Volume contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction to Postcolonialism and Religions Series; J.F.Duggan
Introduction; C.I.D.Joy
Preface; D.Forrester
PART I: DECOLONIZING THE SOURCES
Decolonizing the Bible, Church, and Jesus: a Search for an Alternate Reading Space for the Postcolonial Context; C.I.D.Joy
Decolonizing Marital Gender Norms in Eph. 5:21-33; J.Lalitha
'Pierced by the curved end of a rainbow': Decolonizing the Body of the Martyr; J.J.Sebastian
Decolonizing the Formulation of Scripture: A Postcolonial Reading of Genesis 12, 20, and 26; N.Rao
PART II: DECOLONIZING RELATES BETWEEN THEOLOGY AND THEORY
Postmodernity, Postcoloniality, and Religious Cultures; S.Malhotra
Theologies of, for, and by Asians: Reformulating Dialogue; S.A.Bong
Allama Muhammad Iqbal: Poet Philosopher and the Dangers of Appropriation; M.A.Raja
PART III: DECOLONIZING CONTEXTS
Diaspora and Kenosis as Postcolonial Themes; M.G.Brett
Discourses of Learning and Love: Sufi Paths in Pakistan; M.Shoaib
PART IV: RESPONDENT CHAPTERS
Postcolonial Theory and Theology: On Educating Ourselves to be Planetary Subjects; M.Sebastian
Decolonizing the Body of Christ: An Initial Response; A.Reddie
Notes on the Contributors

A further fourteen manuscripts for books in the Postcolonialism and Religions series are currently in preparation. The series editors aim to prioritize indigenous, multi-religious and transnational scholarship in the area of postcolonial studies.

It forms part of a series of resources on intersex conditions and Christian theology produced by Dr Susannah Cornwall at the Lincoln Theological Institute. It is designed particularly for people concerned with the pastoral and spiritual care of people with intersex conditions/DSDs and the families of intersex children - for example, Christian ministers, and those who work in healthcare chaplaincy.

Two leaflets intended for chaplains to use with the parents of children born with intersex conditions/DSDs form appendices to the paper, and are also available to download separately from the project's Resources page. One of these, "You Knit Me Together In My Mother's Womb", is for use with Christian families. The other, "A Precious Creation", is for use with families of other faiths.

These resources are freely available to download as PDF files. You may also download, print and distribute the leaflets, but if you do so you are asked to e-mail susannah.cornwall@manchester.ac.uk to help us keep track of where the leaflets are being used. You are also asked to check for updates to the leaflets during the active life of the project (2011-14) and to ensure you are using the most recent versions available.