Holy Body : Gender and Sexual Difference in Theological Anthropology and Ecclesiology

This book presents a Roman Catholic theology arguing God’s grace abounds beyond the gender binary. In response to the sex abuse crisis, clericalism, and rigid gender complementarity, the author offers a vision of theological anthropology and ecclesiology that affirms the holiness and fecundity of all bodies across sexual difference.

Holy Body: Gender and Sexual Difference in Theological Anthropology and Ecclesiology argues that all bodies across sexual difference are procreative. The author lays the ground for her argument with chapters that summarize the current debate over the gender binary in theology, modern scientific evidence about sexual difference, philosophical arguments about gender as a social construction, the development of the gender binary in Christian history, and the effects of the gender binary today. With this foundation laid, Brianne Bell Jacobs argues for a theological anthropology in which all bodies, by performatively expanding who is loved, are generative. Then, in the context of Roman Catholic ecclesiology, Jacobs argues again that all bodies are generative. She calls for an ordained priesthood in mutual relationship with the priesthood of the baptized, in which both are given meaning beyond the gender binary, and in which both are able together to generate the Body of Christ in the church and the Eucharist. In response to the harms of patriarchy, sexualized racism, homophobia, and sexual abuse, this book presents a Roman Catholic theology that affirms we are each of us, and together, a life-giving and holy body.