Constructive theology and gender variance : transformative creatures / Susannah Cornwall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cornwall, Susannah, author.

Series:

Current issues in theology.

Current issues in theology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gender nonconformity--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Gender nonconformity.

Christian trans people.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 419 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

Some Christians are anxious and uncomfortable about gender diversity and transition. Sometimes, they understand these issues as a rejection of God's intention for creation. Gender diversity has also been assumed to entail self-deception, mental ill-health, and dysphoria. Yet, humans are inherently transformative creatures with a vocation to shape their own worlds and traditions. Transformative creaturely theology recognizes the capacity of gender to shape humans even as we also question it. In this book, Susannah Cornwall reframes the issues of gender diversity and transition in constructive Christian theological terms. Resisting deficit-based discourses, she presents gender diversity in a way that is positive and non-oppositional. Her volume explores questions of the licit limits of technological interventions for human bodies, how gender diversity maps onto understandings of health, and the ethics of disclosure of gender diversity. It also brings these topics into critical conversation with constructive Christian theologies of creation, theological anthropology, Christology, and eschatology.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Series information

Title page

Copyright information

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgements

Part I Setting the Scene

1 Introduction: Transformative Creatures

Introduction

Social Changes

The Emergence and Development of 'Trans' in Academia and Critical Theory

Conclusion: A Health Warning

2 Detransition, Impermanence, and the Innocence of Changing One's Mind

How Many People Detransition? Why Do People Detransition?

Detransition and Young People

Discussion: The Innocence of Changing One's Mind

Conclusion

3 Existing Christian Theological Responses to Transition: Being Transformed/Being, Transformed

Conservative Pastoral Accounts

Trans-Affirming Pastoral Accounts

Constructive Theological Accounts

Recent Discussions on Transition in the Church of England

Recent Discussions of Gender and Transition in the Roman Catholic Church

Transformative Being/Being Transformed

Conclusion: Being Transformed/Being, Transformed

Part II Telling Truths

4 Autonomy and Trans People: Authenticity, Responsibility, Recognition

Autonomy and Givenness

Autonomy and Individualism

Autonomy and First-Person Authority

Autonomy and Responsibility

Responsibility and Recognition

5 Gender Transition, Truth-Telling, and Artifice

Appeals to Truth and Givenness in Recent Theologies

Objections from Artifice

6 Self-Protection or 'Gender Fraud'?: Ethics and the Burden of Disclosure

'Surreptitious Imposition Precludes Consent' (O'Neill 1985, p. 259)

The Burden of Disclosure

Time Before/Time Between

Part III Limits, Technology, and Health

7 Technological Interventions and Licit Limits: On the Alteration and Augmentation of Bodies.

Introduction

Materiality and the Sufficiency of Divine Creation: McKenny, Brock, and Deane-Drummond

Rehabilitations of Technology and Artifice

Theology of Transformation

8 Trans People, Health, and Diversities of Order

Competition for Resources in Healthcare

Trans People and Mental Health

Trans People's Identity and Neurodiversity

Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria

9 Fertility, Generativity, and Gender Theology in the Optative Mood

Loss of Fertility

If Your Right Hand Offend You, Cut It Off (Matthew 5:30)

Diverse Order: Givenness and Generativity

Part IV Transformative Creatures

10 Transforming Humanity: Gender, Race, and Animality

Power, Gender, Race, and Animality

Destabilizing Christology, Destabilizing Race and Gender

Sex, Race, and Animality

11 In Christ, Everything Has Changed: Christology and Creation

Christology and Creaturely Particularity

Unfolding Creaturely Identity

Creaturely Agency and the Multiple Meanings of Gender

Divine Creation and Creaturely Participation

'In Light of the Present Crisis' (1 Corinthians 7:25)

12 Transformative Creatures Reprised: Theological Anthropology and Eschatology

Theological Anthropology

Non-competitive Gender

Living with the Common Adversary

Eschatological Gender

References

Author Index

Subject Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 14 Dec 2022).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Cornwall, Susannah Constructive Theology and Gender Variance

ISBN:

1-108-85365-X

1-108-86682-4

1-108-85742-6