Chapter 1: Introduction – Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards
Chapter 2: Let Him Romance You: Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Evangelical Christian Self-Help Literature – Emily Colgan
Chapter 3: Men’s Ministries and Patriarchy: From Sites of Perpetuation to Sites of Resistance – Robert Berra
Chapter 4: The Royal Commission Investigates Child Sexual Abuse: Uncovering Cultures of Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church – Kathleen McPhillips
Chapter 5: The Church’s Contribution to Domestic Violence: Submission, Headship, and Patriarchy – Daphne Marsden
Chapter 6: Queer(y)ing the Violence of Christian Gender Discourses – Jo Henderson-Merrygold
Chapter 7: Women’s Bodies and War: Bonhoeffer on Self-Assertion – Dianne Rayson
Chapter 8: Domestic Violence in Oceania: The Sin of Disobedience and the Violence of Obedience – Richard A. Davis
Chapter 9: Witnessing Trauma: A Counsellor’s Reflections on the Effects of Working with Survivors of Sexual Violence – Lisa Spriggens
Chapter 10: There Are No Winners Here: A Pastor’s Response to Date Rape in the Church – Philip Halstead
Chapter 11: Imago Dei and Fantasy Religions: Defeating Violence against Women throughout the Realms – Jordan Haynie Ware
Chapter 12: Responding to Stories of Trauma – Lisa Spriggens
Caroline Blyth is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Emily Colgan is Lecturer in Theology at Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, New Zealand.
Katie B. Edwards is Director of the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies and Senior Lecturer in the School of English, University of Sheffield, UK.
This volume considers the complex relationships that exist between Christianity, rape culture, and gender violence. Each chapter explores the various roles that Christian theologies, teachings, and practices have played in shaping contemporary understandings of gender violence and in sanctioning rape-supportive cultural belief systems and practices. Our contributors explore this topic from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including theology, gender and queer studies, cultural studies, pastoral care, and counseling. Together, the chapters in this volume testify to the considerable influence that Christianity has had, and continues to have, in directing conversations within the Christian tradition around gender violence and rape culture. They therefore invite readers to engage fruitfully in these conversations, fostering transformative dialogues with the Christian community about our shared responsibility to tackle the current global crisis of gender violence.