Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition
Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition is a 1955 book about the history of Christianity and homosexuality by the theologian Derrick Sherwin Bailey.
 Cover | |
| Author | Derrick Sherwin Bailey |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | History of Christianity and homosexuality |
| Publisher | Longmans, Green and Co |
Publication date | 1955 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 181 (1986 Shoe String edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0208014924 |
Reception
The medieval historian John Boswell described Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition as a "pioneering study". He wrote that almost all "modern historical research on gay people in the Christian West" has depended upon it and that it was still the best work on its subject in print. However, he wrote that it, "suffers from an emphasis on negative sanctions which gives a wholly misleading picture of medieval practice, is limited primarily to data regarding France and Britain, and has been superseded even in its major focus, biblical analysis."[1]
The gay scholar John Lauritsen described Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition as the work of a Christian apologist who pleads for greater tolerance while "striving to exonerate the Church from her historic culpability in fostering intolerance".[2]
References
- Boswell 1980, p. 4.
- Lauritsen 1998, p. 91.
Bibliography
- Books
- Boswell, John (1980). Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-06711-4.
- Lauritsen, John (1998). A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love. Provincetown: Pagan Press. ISBN 0-943742-11-0.