Gender

Two new books help us talk about what it means to be transgender in a changing world.

Sometimes we need a place where we are told, “You did nothing wrong.” Can our communities provide that space?

The first black female Episcopal priest was also an early proponent of ideas that would develop into black feminism, intersectionality, and more.

Resistance might not achieve its outer aims. Nevertheless, its inner life persists.

In Mark 5, a hemorrhaging woman meets a permeable savior.

As CC books editor, I get to peruse a lot of books. Too bad I can’t review them all.

Coakley's kind of theology requires more than claims. It needs prayer.

I was born in California. One side of my family immigrated to the United States in the early 17th century. The other side of my family arrived on tightly packed ships filled with misery and tears. We have been American for a long time.

Yet, it wasn’t until a cool night in November 2008 that I felt a sense of belonging.

We call God "Father" and "Mother" because children don't say "Parent, Parent." But what will my children call me?

Bathroom bills. The phrase’s bouncy, alliterative nature, plus just the word bathroom, makes it somehow seem light, frivolous . . .  oh, it’s just about the bathroom.

It’s not.

Flesh is indeterminate. It flows, changes over time, and is consumed and transformed. It becomes the reality of rich spiritual encounter.

The Danish Girl celebrates a young artist's gender transition. But the Oscar-nominated film goes farther than this—and not everywhere it goes is comfortable.

“Do we lean in, or blame society?” We don’t need a solution that addresses either/or. With many structural inequities, injustices, and cruelty, the answer is both/and. Do we feed the homeless, or advocate for a society that no longer produces so many homeless people? Do we protest the death of one young black man, or do we work to change the brutal policing system? Do we send the people in Flint bottled water, or do we fix the pipes? The answer to all of these is yes and yes.

Nevertheless, I think that John’s prologue has much more to say. In speaking about this Word become flesh, it also speaks powerfully to us about what it means to be human. Over the years, I kept returning to a few verses that changed the way that I saw the entire prologue and which consequently changed my entire theology.

The setup sounds like a medieval soap opera. But Robyn Cadwallader knows far too much about the 13th century to write an anachronistic romance.

Pop culture often reduces men to testosterone, with little room to acknowledge themselves as God’s image bearers. But there are glimmers of hope.

The shooting that rocked California last week raised questions about treating the mentally ill and why there are so many semi-automatic weapons on our streets. But what caught the nation's eye this time around was that the shooter made clear his motives: Twenty-two-year-old Elliot Rodger hated women. He wrote a manifesto announcing his intention to reap vengeance on women for denying him the sexual attention he believed was his entitlement.

Wanting to avoid tokenism is important. But it's a terrible excuse for our indolent inability to see beyond our own thought bubbles. 

There is a particular authority that comes from privilege. When a white man steps into the place where he belongs, he has an internal power with which he was born. He is entitled. Like royalty, he sits on the throne naturally, because that place is caught in his blood. But an entirely different power emerges from women who have been told that they are not allowed to speak in church—and suddenly rise behind the pulpit. Something flares up from deep inside of them, and when they have a safe space, the words can come out of them with force and fury.