ABSTRACT
Love and desire have not always paired well in Christianity. Love has received unqualified good press among Christians, especially in reference to the tight bonds ideally uniting the Christian community and famously signaling Christian identity by including even its enemies. This chapter presents Paul Tillich's positive response to psychoanalysis and his attempt at rehabilitating both eros in general and more specifically libido (sexual desire). Then, it introduces Christian feminist erotic theology, which fought against the silencing of women's (erotic) feelings within the Church and against the conception of love as self-sacrifice, and ended up presenting deep criticisms to the whole edifice of classical theology, based mainly on the sacredness of "erotic power" and the deep connections of love that it engenders. Finally, the chapter discusses some challenges to this line of development, presenting as well some of the current embodiments of a theology engaged in following the "erotic Christ".
