Midterm sex - Notes for the take-home exam PDF

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Notes for the take-home exam...

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use, and demonstrate understanding of, information from the required readings, videos and class discussions. Each answer should show an understanding of the main theoretical issue or issues involved, combined with appropriate detailed evidence (e.g. specifics, quotes) to back up any points you make. Sources (authors and films) bolded in the question must be discussed in your answer. * *Su c c e s st i p :Th eb e s ta n s we rwi l ldr a wf r o m av a r i e t yo fr e a di n g sa n do t h e rs ou r c e s ( v i d e o s , l e c t u r e s ) , s h o wi n gab r o a dg r a s poft h ec o u r s ema t e r i a l s . As u c c e s s f u la n s we rc a n c e r t a i n l yb ea c h i e v e db yd i s c u s s i n go n l yt h er e q u i r e ds o u r c e si nd e p t h .Ho we v e r , a n o u t s t a n d i n ga n s we rwi l lg obe y o ndt h emi n i mu mr e q u i r e ds o u r c e s . Full footnotes/citations are not required when referring to course materials; last names or film titles are enough but page numbers are required (e.g., “Eisler, pg. 27” or “Love and Sex in the Hebrew Bible”).

3. He y wa r dargues that “Christians are heirs to a body-despising, women-fearing, sexually repressive religious tradition” and she calls for a “revolutionary transformation” (13). I s he r wo o dand St ua r tdraw attention to special negativity towards “imperfect” bodies. Isherwood examines Christian “Slim for Him” (and similar) programs which seek to convince people (and especially women) that they must be perfectly thin to be like Jesus and that God demands that Christians be thin (20, 28). Similarly, Stuart argues that the picture of disabled people being healed by Jesus in the Bible can give “the impression that physical and mental ‘wholeness’ are pre-requisites for entrance into the Kingdom of God” (324). Isherwood also notes the “devastating [Christian] error” of the “conflation of sin and disability” (28). Each issues a call for transformative rethinking of body theology. Isherwood calls for a “counter rhetoric of a corpulent Christ, a fat Jesus” (31). Stuart calls for “centralizing the disabled body in the body of Christ” (335) and a focus on the “disabled God” (327) as key elements of theologizing the body and sexuality. How are these ideas transformative? Do they have the potential to heal a “body-despising” heritage? Sexually repressive Negativity toward imperfect bodies: Slim for Him (especially for women) Disabled people less likely to get in to the kingdom of God

Disability = sin

Fat Jesus - the diet people are taking advantage of people - it’s taking advantage of oppressed people: women are told from so many facets that they are not good enough, too fat, taking up too much space, etc. The reasons those things exist, is that for all of history, people have exploited peoples’ vulnerabilities for money. It is interesting: the way we think about our bodies is going to matter. - the article looks at bodies metaphorically. The image of the skinny Christ, which is necessarily hard and angular, becomes the metaphorical model for how to behave: harshly, firmly, without giving in at all, which is led to the way that the Fundamentalist Protestant Church treats people: judgmentally, without a trace of softness. (basically they’re saying that if Jesus were soft and feminine with big breasts, big hips with a bit of cushion, it would be a reflection of how the Church was acting. Softly, considerately, a place of rest and comfort and abundance… instead, the Church wants us to have control…) - is Jesus portrayed as skinny because that’s the way the Church is? Or is the Church portrayed that way because Jesus is skinny.

Disability Article  being disabled is to experience a double oppression  one cannot be liberated from one’s own body  if your body is a site of pain, a liberation theology will not be enough  disability = desexing of society  men/women/disabled. This desexing is worked out in various processes of  disabled men may experience their masculinity in a different way than other disabled men  a whole cluster of uncomfortable ethical issues present themselves: o the use of sexual surrogates who are paid to have sex with disabled people o the use of prostitutes and pornography o the part played in care workers to provide sexual pleasure  disability prevents people from presenting their sexual agency: this goes against the feminist theory  good health is never a permanent state. The chance of experiencing permanent or temporary unhealthy times …  the human body is only ever TEMPORARILY-abled  unlike other temporary theologies of disability..  I am becoming increasingly convinced that theological reflection is empowering in providing those previously excluded of the theological arena

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RECONSTRUCTION IS TO ENGAGE AND ENRICH THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST In a real sense the tradition all Christians have in common Only by starting with the tradition, will the disabled body ever enter in the body This tradition is far richer than contemporary Protestantism The THEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF PARTICIPATION: allows for no place where God is not  When talking about bodies, sexuality and so on, one is appealing to a particular source for these things.. beyond this density resides an even greater density  Disabled people are everywhere and nowhere at the same time DISABLED PEOPLE DISAPPEAR AGAIN when Jesus heals them  physical and mental wholeness are prerequisites into the Kingdom of God  any way of achieving this is dependant on the FAITH of the person concerned o the connection between PHYSICAL STATE and PURITY o BUT, decisions about purity and impurity (324) may be signs of God’s displeasure o Physical imperfection can form some type of exclusion Leviticus: people made disabled to highlight the purity of the ABLE body Gender, height weight age… the overriding concensus is that the resurrection represents a triumph over the body’s imperfection, ultimately death. IN THE RESURRECITON, bodies are perfected. The blind person  extraordinary insight (JOHN 9) the only reasonably well-rounded story of a disabled person in the whole body Jesus’ practice of healing on the Sabbath is a sign that CREATION IS COMPLETE The man comes to understand WHO Jesus is God has not the slightest difficulty,…. The problem is that people think that they are complete The Righteous members of the group think they can see, they become blind.

The blind man comes to see in BOTH senses of the word, others do not. It deconstructs the stubborn construction of SIN as EXCLUSION established between the maintenance of the systems of exclusion (326) Throughout the Gospels, disabled are constantly seeking the healer. The people who are impaired see not only that they are impaired, but that they need spiritual healing as well. THE ELDERLY and DISABLED are therefore DESEXUALIZED. The sexual disabled body raises uncomfortable issues (330)  sexuality is an important part of personhood

 recentering the body and sexual relationships  THE CHURCHES must place its belief that the church finds itself on the one hand promoting sexual relationship as a human good.. but on the other hand finds itself regarding those who, for whatever reason, can only enter into a no man’s land… The Church is saying the only sex you can have is as a HETEROSEXUAL marriage. But, these people are not equipped to get there. That’s true of lots of people: gay people as well. But, this is focusing on the disabled portion of it. It’s harder for those people to get married for one because they are less independent, they live in assisted living homes, etc. IN THE BODY OF CHRIST, nobody is single !!!!!!!!!! All members of the body belong to one another. Reflection upon the disabled body is important because a disabled body reminds us that embodiment is always an ambiguous experience. All bodies are in need of redemption in the ongoing project of creation. The FULL HUMANITY of disabled people, and their place at the heart of the ;body of Christ.

When Jesus says, your faith has healed you, you can read it metaphorically, that they used to be broken (spiritually), but the thing that you see is the blind person seeing, or a crippled person getting up to walk. So people actually are more likely to hold on to the image. The image has been wrapped up in the metaphor. If you read the story metaphorically, the meaning makes sense.. But how you choose to get a point across makes a difference. What really matters is the fact that they are saved… saved from damnationand all that stuff, as any temporarily abled person needs saving from… but the point of this story, especially when told to children is the actual physical change.

How will changing the way we construct our image of Christ Just that the default thinking in Christianity is that we are all sinful, the default thinking should be that we are all disabled. Practically, the Church should be welcoming and encouraging the creation of erotic texts. s...