ABSTRACT

Gay theology, eminently hybrid, arose out of the apologias and pleas of gays and gay sympathizers for their social and religious toleration in the light of changing laws, scientific knowledge and the events of 1969. Clearing the way for a Catholic gay apologetics is the kind of tentative essay that Jesuit Charles Curran was permitted in The Thomist' as early as 1971. Tendencies influenced by process theology were evident early on, so that after John Boswell and from around 1980 theological revision increasingly developed into something more complex, gay-specific, celebratory and less concerned with tradition and compromise. Robin Scroggs' position could be considered representative of both the strength and weakness, or at least difficulty, of any revisionist position as a basis for authority. Though distinctly gay revisionist, the book belongs with a line in Christian thinking, both Catholic and Protestant Liberal, in which the Jewish heritage can get so transcended or ignored it is all but abolished by Christian synthesis.