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303 IntroduCtIon 1. Ramon Llull, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, trans. Eve Bonner, in Doctor Illuminatus : A Ramon Llull Reader, ed. and trans. Anthony Bonner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 194 (versicle 36). 2. The conference was sponsored by the Workgroup on Constructive Theology, a loosely affiliated group that was originally convened under the auspices of Vanderbilt Divinity School in 1975. See Peter Hodgson and Robert King, “The Workgroup on Constructive Theology: A Brief History,” unpublished paper. 3. Tertullian, On Monogamy Bk. I.1 and To His Wife Bk. II.1 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, vol. 3, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and Philip Schaff (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 59, 44. 4. Jerome, Against Jovinianus, I.20, I.7, available at http://www.newadvent.org/ fathers/3009.htm, accessed Apr. 24, 2009. 5. Martin Luther, quoted in Scott Hendrix, “Luther on Marriage,” Lutheran Quarterly 14, no. 3 (2000): 342. 6. See Richard Kearney, “The Shulammite’s Song: Divine Eros, Ascending and Descending,” in Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller, eds., Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006). 7. See Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, trans. Kilian Walsh (Kalamazoo , Mich.: Cistercian, 1976–81). Some contemporary scholars highlight the forbidden yet unavoidable gender-bending homoeroticism in the monks’ allegorical interpretations of the Song. See Stephen D. Moore, “The Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality,” Church History 69, no. 2 (2000): 328–49. 8. See Merry E. Wiesner, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice (London: Routledge, 2000); Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1999). 9. Exodus International, “Who We Are,” http://exodus.to/content/category/6/24/57/; accessed March 2, 2009. 10. Exodus International, “What can I do to make a gay person change?” http:// exodus.to/content/view/49/25/; accessed March 2, 2009. notes 304 Notes 11. See “Relationships and Marriage,” Focus on the Family Community, http://www. focusonlinecommunities.com/community/marriage; accessed Apr. 25, 2009. 12. Joseph Knable, Sex and the Single Guy: Winning Your Battle for Purity (Chicago: Moody, 2005); Louis McBurney and Melissa McBurney, Real Questions, Real Answers about Sex: The Complete Guide to Intimacy as God Intended (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004); Emily Parke Chase, Why Say No When My Hormones Say Go? (Camp Hill, Pa.: WingSpread, 2003). 13. See Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women Religious and All the Faithful on Christian Love (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2005), #7; available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/ encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html; accessed April 14, 2009. 14. For an overview of eros and agape in twentieth-century theological writings, see Anne Bathurst Gilson, Eros Breaking Free: Interpreting Sexual Theo-Ethics (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1995), esp. chap. 1. 15. Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic and Power,” in Sister/Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, 1984), 55, 56. 16. Ibid., 54. 17. See Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power (New York: Crossroad, 1988); Carter Heyward, Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989); Daniel T. Spencer, Gay and Gaia: Ethics, Ecology, and the Erotic (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1996). 18. See Lisa Isherwood, The Power of Erotic Celibacy: Queering Heteropatriarchy (London: T & T Clark, 2006); Diana L. Hayes, “A Sexual Ethic—Built upon the Foundation of Celibacy,” The Witness (April 2000), http://www.thewitness.org/archive/april2000/hayessexualethic. html, accessed April 13, 2009; Michael J. McClymond, “The Last Sexual Perversion: An Argument in Defense of Celibacy, Theology Today 57, no. 2 (2006): 217–31; Kathleen Norris, “Celibate Passion,” The Christian Century 113, no. 10 (March 20–27, 1996): 331–34. 19. One need only look to the current dissention within the worldwide Anglican Church provoked by the election of openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. See John F. Burns, “Cast Out but at the Center of the Storm, New York Times, August 3, 2008, Section WK, Week in Review Desk, 3. 20. Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1986), 5.10, 105. 21. Ibid., 11.4, 256. 22. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford...

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