Reforming a Theology of Gender
Constructive Reflections on Judith Butler and Queer Theory
Imprint: Cascade Books
Judith Butler and conservative Christian theology are often perceived to be antithetical on questions of gender. In Reforming a Theology of Gender they are shown to be strange bedfellows. By engaging in dialogue with Butler on her terms--desire, violence, and life--this book absorbs the heart of Butler's critique, revealing a righteous law and a seductive image in conservative theologies of gender. The law of Adam and Eve manifests in the unjust administration of guilt, grief, and death. By confronting this law, which in fact condemns all in their bodies, further reflection on Butler's thought leads to thinking about where one finds life in one's body of death. The seductive image of Adam and Eve is revealed to be a false hope and a site that induces slave morality or body-works-based righteousness. Butler's voice is strangely prophetic because it calls the church to offer hope and life by reorienting its gaze from the beautiful yet lifeless bodies of Adam and Eve to the bloodied and scarred, risen body of Jesus Christ. Gender, in the end, is shown to be a vocation of becoming what one is not.
Daniel R. Patterson is lecturer in theology at St. Trivelius Institute, Sofia, Bulgaria, and adjunct lecturer at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education, Perth, Australia.
“This lucid and timely book is a profound gift for the Christian church. With great wisdom and skill, Patterson guides readers into a genuine encounter with one of the seminal thinkers of our age. . . . This book challenges our fear, disrupts our categories, and jolts our theological imaginations out of tired ruts. Most of all, this book models a posture of humility worthy of the gospel of Christ.”
—Sarah C.Williams, Regent College
“Patterson offers a unique, creative, and boundary-breaking engagement with the avant-garde gender theorist Judith Butler; yet he remains thoroughly biblical and Christocentric. . . . This is a generous book, a boundary breaker and a bridge builder. . . . It is full of wisdom for scholars and advanced students of theology open to new ways of conceptualizing what it is that they believe.”
—Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College
“Judith Butler is far and away the most important queer theorist of the modern world, and her practical influence cannot be underestimated. Most Christians have responded with withering attacks or uncritical embraces. Daniel Patterson offers the first patient, probing, and detailed theological analysis of her work. This biblically and philosophically astute study usefully introduces Butler’s difficult body of work and is critical reading for any church seeking to faithfully engage the turbulence of our newly gender-fluid age.”
—Brian Brock, University of Aberdeen
“If theological accounts of gender will succeed, they must be characterized by at least two traits: first, they must engage a complex set of interlocutors with patience, charity, and nuance; and second, they must be sensitive to the rich ways the Christian story of creation and redemption implicate our understandings of the topic. Patterson’s book exemplifies both of these traits brilliantly in its interpretation of Judith Butler’s work and in its constructive theological proposal.”
—Fellipe do Vale, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“A persistent searching analysis of Judith Butler’s influential queer theory inspires the deepest reflections on subjectivity, desire, violence, law, and embodied life. Patterson articulates here a Christian vocation of gender that is transformed by her critique whilst, in return, witnessing to another transformation made possible in unity with Christ. This is an exemplary study in discipleship in a contemporary context.”
—Susan F Parsons, editor, Studies in Christian Ethics
“Patterson’s meticulous book demonstrates a core Christian virtue in action—how creative listening can be. Having heard Judith Butler with charity, he returns to Christians and poses critical questions that will press our contribution on this contentious cultural issue into useful new spaces. This is the best theological account of these issues I have yet encountered.”
—Kevin Hargaden, Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice
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