Sexuality Bibliography

Two professors at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Steven C. Roy and Robert J. Priest, are offering a course on "Contemporary Sexualities: Theological and Missiological Perspectives." Their syllabus introduces the course:

Profound cultural shifts in understandings, identities, moral sensibilities, and practices related to human sexuality are occurring in America and around the world, and at a breathtaking speed. These shifts are fundamentally altering people’s moral perceptions of homosexuality and of LGBTQ identities, desires, and behaviors. But these shifts are also shaping people’s moral perceptions of evangelical Christianity, almost certainly contributing to the rise of “religious nones” in America today. Legal and media changes endorsing such new viewpoints contribute to the stigmatization of historic Christian understandings on sexuality and marriage as hateful and homophobic, and pose new challenges for “religious freedoms” that Americans have long taken for granted. This new cultural climate also impacts efforts at gospel witness – not least to those with same-sex desires, identities, and/or behaviors. And new cultural understandings about the etiology and fixity vs. fluidity of same-sex desires invite reconsideration of what conversion and sanctification realistically ought to entail for such individuals. Perceived failures of ex-gay ministries erode confidence that change is possible. Heightened awareness that defenders of “heterosexual normativity” themselves sometimes act harmfully and aggressively (sinfully) towards others, invites reconsideration of the ways Christians have treated others. Young people coming from evangelical homes and attending evangelical schools (e.g. Wheaton, Biola, Trinity) and who report that they love Jesus, themselves increasingly acknowledge their own same-sex desires and sometimes advocate for new understandings of what the faithful Christian life ought to entail for them. Gay marriages themselves bring new social formations into existence, formations that churches inevitably must engage. Just as missionaries of an earlier era had to recognize that polygamy posed not only theological questions, but a wide range of practical questions related to the prior (legal) commitments of married couples and to the care of their dependent children, so churches today must consider a wide range of pastoral and missiological as well as theological considerations. The changing legal environment also poses pressing questions for how Christian institutions (World Vision, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Trinity International University) and Christian individuals (such as wedding photographers) position themselves in the wider society.

The professors have graciously provided their bibliography, which is lengthy and represents diverse perspectives; download the Sexualities bibliography for your own use.