The queer life of Christian exceptionalism

This response to Jasbir Puar's monograph, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007. Durham, NC: Duke University Press), brings Puar's analysis to bear on the current attraction to ‘Christian identity’ as a historical analytic in the fields of New Testament and early Christian Studies, and to increasing associations of the ancient emergence of ‘Christian identity’ with transgressive queerness. I argue that this latter trend, especially, abets certain forms of Christian exceptionalism under the guise of resistance against empire, but I also suggest that this scholarship reveals certain affinities between the notion of queerness as pure transgression and contemporary Christianity.     

Talking about Spirituality in the Clinical Setting: Can Being Professional Require Being Personal?

Spirituality or religion often presents as a foreign element to the clinical environment, and its language and reasoning can be a source of conflict there. As a result, the use of spirituality or religion by patients and families seems to be a solicitation that is destined to be unanswered and seems to open a distance between those who speak this language and those who do not. I argue that there are two promising approaches for engaging such language and helping patients and their families to productively engage in the decision-making process. First, patient-centered interviewing techniques can be employed to explore the patient's religious or spiritual beliefs and successfully translate them into choices. Second, and more radically, I suggest that in some more recalcitrant conflicts regarding treatment plans, resolution may require that clinicians become more involved, personally engaging in discussion and disclosure of religious and spiritual worldviews. I believe that both these approaches are supported by rich models of informed consent such as the transparency model and identify considerations and circumstances that can justify such personal disclosures. I conclude by offering some considerations for curbing potential unprofessional excesses or abuses in discussing spirituality and religion with patients.     

Towards a Global Human Embryonic Stem Cell Bank

An increasingly unbridgeable gap exists between the supply and demand of transplantable organs. Human embryonic stem cell technology could solve the organ shortage problem by restoring diseased or damaged tissue across a range of common conditions. However, such technology faces several largely ignored immunological challenges in delivering cell lines to large populations. We address some of these challenges and argue in favor of encouraging contribution or intentional creation of embryos from which widely immunocompatible stem cell lines could be derived. Further, we argue that current immunological constraints in tissue transplantation demand the creation of a global stem cell bank, which may hold particular promise for minority populations and other sub-groups currently marginalized from organ procurement and allocation systems. Finally, we conclude by offering a number of practical and ethically oriented recommendations for constructing a human embryonic stem cell bank that we hope will help solve the ongoing organ shortage problem.     

Accessing Digital Images

SUMMARY

This article discusses sources for and issues related to digital Christian art images available on the Internet. An annotated list of relevant Web sites is listed, along with advice on how to locate specific images. Also included in the article are discussions of vocabulary, fact verification, and copyright issues.     

The Christian Reformed Church Periodical Index

Abstract

This article describes the creation of a web-based database that indexes less well-known periodical titles of importance to scholars in the Christian Reformed Church, and generally not covered by other indexing services. The author explains how the data from the index, originally stored in a card catalog, was moved online to a text-based system, and eventually into its present form in a web-based system. Highlighting some of the challenges that were overcome in creating this resource, brief details are provided on how the data are stored and retrieved in the web environment, on how the data are searched and presented to the researcher, and on the methods used to keep the database current.     

Stone,Ken, Practicing Safer Texts: Food,Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective

Abstract

The past twenty years have witnessed much discussion about the place of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people in the Church, particularly through two sets of debates: on whether and under what circumstances LGBT people should be ordained, and on whether and under what circumstances LGBT people should have their marital unions blessed. The past twenty years have also witnessed the creation of various liturgical materials responsive to the needs of LGBT people, particularly for events that are crucial to an LGBT person's life and faith but for which there were no existing rites in public worship. However, by concentrating only on the occasional and extraordinary events in a person and a community's life as "queer worship" (with its double sense of both "unusual worship" and "worship for LGBT people"), we are neglecting the myriad ways in which day-to-day ordinary worship is, and is not, queer. This article therefore examines the ways in which heteronormativity and the demand for "covering" can create tacit prohibitions around worship for LGBT Christians. Arguing for the inherent queerness of Christian worship, it suggests practical ways in which LGBT people's lives can more fully integrate into a community's liturgical life, and vice versa.     

Spirituality and Sexuality: An Exploration of the Religious Beliefs of Non-Heterosexual Christians in Great Britain

Abstract

This article analyzes the religious beliefs of 565 gay, lesbian and bisexual Christians, focusing on God, Jesus Christ and the Bible. Most respondents saw no conflict between their sexualities and their Christian faith. The examination of these religious beliefs uncovers themes that appear to be influenced by their social circumstances, the core of which being their stigmatized sexualities. Their beliefs of God were consistent with the ‘love and justice’ theme of queer theology. Jesus Christ was perceived as a good role model committed to social justice. Although the divinity of Christ was acknowledged, they did not consider him the exclusive way to salvation. The Bible was considered still relevant to everyday life. It was, however, not regarded as the sole guide for Christian living, and it should be interpreted through the lens of shifting socio-cultural realities and personal experiences. On the whole, the data seem to suggest that the respondents' personal experiences and collective social circumstances have an impact on their religious beliefs.     

Beliefs about the cause,manifestation, and cure of schizophrenia: A cross-cultural comparison

This study set out to compare British and Sri Lankan young people's (students) beliefs concerning the causes, manifestations, and cures of schizophrenia. One hundred and seventy-five British and Sri Lankan participants completed the three-part questionnaire in their mother tongue. It was hypothesized that the Sri Lankans would have more negative and uninformed attitudes and beliefs about schizophrenia than the British. It was also hypothesized that the Sri Lankans would favour superstitious, family, and sociological causes to explain the development of schizophrenia, while the British would favour more biological explanations. These two hypotheses were confirmed after factor-analysing the internal structure of the three sections of the questionnaire. Even well-educated young people remain ignorant about one of the most challenging mental illnesses.     

Christianity and Opposition to the Death Penalty: Late Modern Shifts

This article sketches the shifts in Christian thought and denominations on capital punishment from the early church to today in the United States, and then examines the ethical issues in the administration of capital punishment both before and since the Supreme Count stopped executions in 1972. The conclusion of the article is that overwhelming evidence of the injustice of death sentences could not sway popular support for capital punishment, but evidence that switching to life sentences could save states millions of dollars is swaying many pro‐death penalty voters and legislators.