SEXUAL DIVERSITY AND DIVINE CREATION: A TIGHTROPE WALK BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE

Abstract Although modern societies have come to recognize diversity in human sexuality as simply part of nature, many Christian communities and thinkers still have considerable difficulties with related developments in politics, legislation, and science. In fact, homosexuality is a recurrent topic in the transdisciplinary encounter between Christianity and the sciences, an encounter that is otherwise rather “asexual.” I propose that the recent emergence of “Christianity and Science” as an academic field in its own right is an important part of the larger context of the difficulties related to attempts to reconcile Christianity and a recognition of diversity in human sexuality as a norm. Through a critical discussion of arguments which are upheld most disturbingly on a global scale by the Roman Catholic Church and supported with much sophistry by important stakeholders of an influential stream in analytic philosophy of religion, this paper aims to contextualize and defend the legitimacy of the question why God would create homosexuals as such if it is true that every homosexual act is prohibited by God. While recently advanced nonheterosexist scientific models of sexuality in nature inform the discussion, I reject the simplistic view that religions suppress and the sciences liberate in matters sexual.     

SACRIFICIAL AGAPE AND GROUP SELECTION IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY

Human altruistic behavior has received a great deal of scientific attention over the past forty years. Altruistic‐like behaviors found among insects and animals have illumined certain human behaviors, and the revival of interest in group selection has focused attention on how sacrificial altruism, although not adaptive for individuals, can be adaptive for groups. Curiously, at the same time that sociobiology has placed greater emphasis on the value of sacrificial altruism, Protestant ethics in America has moved away from it. While Roman Catholic ethics has a longstanding tradition emphasizing an ordering of love, placing love of self second only to love for God, Protestant ethics in America has adopted a similar stance only recently, replacing a strong sacrificial ethic with one focusing on mutual regard for self and others. If sociobiology is correct about the significance of sacrificial altruistic behaviors for the survival of communities, this shift away from sacrificial agape by American Christianity may cut the community off from important resources for the development of a global ethic crucial for the survival of that faith community and humankind itself.     

FEMINISM AND DIVERSITY IN PSYCHOLOGY

The contributions of feminist psychology to diversity are highlighted, focusing on the example of women of color. A historical overview of the confluence of feminism and ethnicism is provided, stressing the dynamic interplay between these two movements. The relevance of feminist psychology to women of color is assessed in addition to women of color's contributions to feminism. The role of women of color in the transformation and reformulation of an integrative feminist psychology is examined.     

有关西方心理学分裂与整合问题的再思考

在心理学的分裂与整合问题上 ,西方心理学家一直争论不休。该文认为 ,心理学的确存在着分裂的危机 ,因为心理学至今没有一个共同的基础和出发点 ,且心理学的分化导致了心理学机构解体的危机。但是心理学内部各种矛盾冲突的观点是可比的 ,可公约的 ,因此整合是有希望的。在迈向整合的过程中 ,主要存在着两个障碍 ,其一是客观主义 ,客观主义力主以自然科学为楷模 ,通过严格客观方法的应用 ,实现心理学的大一统。客观主义由于压抑了不同的声音 ,阻碍了对话 ,给心理学的整合造成障碍。其二是相对主义 ,相对主义在“怎么都行”原则的指导下 ,认为任何一种理论观点和思想方法相对于它所产生的背景都是正确的、合理的 ,没有任何外在于话语群体的标准作为最终的尺度。相对主义的观点导致了理论观点和思想方法的无原则多元化 ,使得西方心理学分裂危机进一步加深。该文主张心理学的整合应该是在一个共同基础上的多元化的整合 ,即允许多元化和多样性成分的存在 ,但不同成分之间是互补的 ,而不是冲突的     

DARWIN AND CHRISTIANITY: TRUTH AND MYTH

In recent years many historical myths about the relations between science and religion have been corrected but not always with sensitivity to different types and functions of “myth.” Correcting caricatures of Darwin's religious views and of the religious reaction to his theory have featured prominently in this myth‐busting. With the appearance in 2017 of A. N. Wilson's depiction of Darwin himself as a “mythmaker,” it is appropriate to reconsider where the myths lie in discourse concerning Darwin and Christianity. Problems with Wilson's account are identified and his provocative demeaning of Darwin is contrasted with an image gleaned from Darwin's friend and colleague George Romanes. The article concludes with a brief reference to the problem of suffering and to the work of Christopher Southgate.     

MOTHERHOOD IN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM: Critiques,Realities, and Possibilities

Common experiences of mothering offer profound critiques of maternal ethical norms found in both Christianity and Islam. The familiar responsibilities of caring for children, assumed by the majority of Christian and Muslim women, provide the basis for reassessing sacrificial and selfless love, protesting unjust religious and political systems, and dismantling romanticized notions of childcare. As a distinctive category of women's experience, motherhood may offer valuable perspectives necessary for remedying injustices that afflict mothers and children in particular, as well as for developing cross‐cultural understandings of justice in general.     

REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THEOLOGICAL RESPONSES IN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

Reproductive medical technology has revolutionized the natural order of human procreation. Accordingly, some have celebrated its advent as a new and liberating determinant of kinship at the global level and advocate it as a right to reproductive health while others have frowned upon it as a vehicle for “guiltless exchange of sexual fluid” and commodification of human gametes. Religious voices from both Christianity and Islam range from unthinking adoption to restrictive use. While utilizing this technology to enable the married couple to have children through the use of their own sexual material is welcome, the use of third party, surrogacy, and reproductive cloning are not in keeping with the sacrosanct principles of kinship, procreation through licit sexual intercourse, and social cohesiveness for building a cohesive family as uphold by both Christianity and Islam. To examine such larger issues emanating from these new ways of human procreation, beyond the question of legality, is a point which legal scholars in both Christianity and Islam, when issuing religious decrees, have not anticipated sufficiently. The article proposes to be an attempt to that end through a qualitative critical content analysis of selected literature written on the subject.