Spiritual Direction & The Gay Person PDF Download

Author: James Empereur
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0225668319
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Intended for counsellors and spiritual directors, this text aims to assist gay men and lesbian women in relationships, prayer, liturgy, and in the problems produced by their commitment to, or rejection of, institutional religion.

Author: James Empereur
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9780826411075
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Original and much needed, and neither prescriptive nor advocating any particular position on civil rights or a particular denomination or faith group, 'Spiritual Direction and the Gay Person' will assist homosexuals in relationships, prayer, liturgy, and in the problems produced by their commitment to or rejection of institutional religion.

Author: Christopher Felix Bezzina
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666763543
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Reclaiming Men’s Spirituality is a study that investigates men’s spirituality by exploring three research questions: Can a form of spirituality about men be identified and described, how can this spirituality be examined, and what is it that needs to be reclaimed? To answer these questions and at the same time remain committed to the importance of lived experience, this study opted to investigate the lives of men by attending to ten spiritual histories. The study is situated in Malta, and the ten spiritual histories provide access to various features, expressions, and contours that relate closely to men’s being. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with ten spiritual directors who have men as spiritual directees. Their contribution clarifies the structure of men’s spirituality, the effort required when directing male spiritual directees and the impact generated in the lives of men thanks to spiritual direction. To provide a frame of reference for the examination of all the gathered data, John of the Cross’s spiritual framework has been chosen as the mystical instrument against which men’s spiritualities are studied, leading to richer insights into the operations, motives, goals, and problems of such spiritualities.

Author: Nick Wagner
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0819222097
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
"God created us to be lovers," writes Nick Wagner in his introduction to Spiritual Direction in Context. "When we love, we are in right relationship. We are acting for justice. The ministry of every spiritual director, in any context, is to serve as a guide into the depths of that love relationship." Here, in this provocative collection of essays, respected leaders in the field of spiritual direction explore the myriad of contexts in which this relationship takes place and offers practical ways to respond to them. As the popularity of spiritual direction grows, directors are facing situations that monks and nuns - for centuries the exclusive practitioners of this profession - never had to face. The essays in this book, drawn from Presence, the journal of Spiritual Directors International, look deeply at spiritual direction in a number of contexts, including the workplace, with the aging, in hospitals, with women's groups, with youth, with the homeless, and with those in mourning. Spiritual Direction in Context is the third in the SDI series.

Author: Duane R. Bidwell
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451407327
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
This book represents a significant departure from most contemporary writing about spiritual direction. While most writers focus on long-term relationships of guidance, specifically envisioning long listening sessions, Bidwell changes focus. Spiritual direction, he insists, typically requires intervention in a specific crisis or situation or question, is not formal, lasts fewer than five sessions, and must be actively and intentionally focused on the person's growth. Bidwell's work shows what spiritual directors can learn from the short-term therapy model, especially about enabling people briefly but effectively to ''learn to listen on their own and with others for God's presence.'' Focusing on how God is already active in the directee's life allows the participants to identify God's action and respond in ways that collaborate with that identified movement of the Spirit.

Author: Jackie Hill Perry
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 1462751237
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
“I used to be a lesbian.” In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could? At age nineteen, Jackie came face-to-face with what it meant to be made new. And not in a church, or through contact with Christians. God broke in and turned her heart toward Him right in her own bedroom in light of His gospel. Read in order to understand. Read in order to hope. Or read in order, like Jackie, to be made new.

Author: Wendy VanderWal-Gritter
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1441245855
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Committed Christians may respond differently to gay and lesbian Christians. How can we engage those with whom we might disagree and navigate our journey together in a way that nurtures unity, hospitality, humility, and justice? Through her extensive experience in ministering to gay and lesbian Christians, Wendy VanderWal-Gritter has come to believe we need a new paradigm for how the church engages those in the sexual minority. She encourages generous spaciousness, a hope-filled, relational way forward for those in turmoil regarding a response to gay and lesbian Christians. This book offers a framework for discussing diversity in a gracious way, showing that the church can be a place that welcomes a variety of perspectives on the complex matter of human sexuality. It also offers practical advice for implementing generous spaciousness in churches and organizations.

Author: Eve Tushnet
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 1594715432
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Winner of a 2015 Catholic Press Award: Gender Issues Category (First Place). In this first book from an openly lesbian and celibate Catholic, widely published writer and blogger Eve Tushnet recounts her spiritual and intellectual journey from liberal atheism to faithful Catholicism and shows how gay Catholics can love and be loved while adhering to Church teaching. Eve Tushnet was among the unlikeliest of converts. The only child of two atheist academics, Tushnet was a typical Yale undergraduate until the day she went out to poke fun at a gathering of philosophical debaters, who happened also to be Catholic. Instead of enjoying mocking what she termed the “zoo animals,” she found herself engaged in intellectual conversation with them and, in a move that surprised even her, she soon converted to Catholicism. Already self-identifying as a lesbian, Tushnet searched for a third way in the seeming two-option system available to gay Catholics: reject Church teaching on homosexuality or reject the truth of your sexuality. Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith is the fruit of Tushnet’s searching: what she learned in studying Christian history and theology and her articulation of how gay Catholics can pour their love and need for connection into friendships, community, service, and artistic creation.

Author: Joseph Gentilini
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 1457519615
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Hounded by God, the author writes about his struggle to integrate his homosexuality with his personality and his Catholic-Christian spirituality. Born in 1948, he grew up in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s when homosexuality was considered either a mental illness or a major sin. In 1968, he had his first homosexual experience. Feeling shame and trying to repress his feelings, he spent over six years in therapy. Raised a strict Roman Catholic, Joseph confessed his many “sins” to a priest and attended Mass daily. He felt hopeless in accepting his homosexuality and living happily as a gay man, repeating nightly, “If it gets too bad, I can always kill myself.” By 1974, he knew that therapy was not changing his sexual orientation and felt desperate. Joseph experienced God as hounding him to accept his gay identity and to believe that God loves him as he is. His autobiographical journal reveals his gradual awakening to live his vocation, not only as a gay man in relationship with his partner and with God, but also as someone willing to share his journey with those who struggle with their homosexuality and their faith.

Author: Karen R. Keen
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467451339
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
WHEN IT COMES TO SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS, this book by Karen Keen contains the most thoughtful, balanced, biblically grounded discussion you’re likely to encounter anywhere. With pastoral sensitivity and respect for biblical authority, Keen breaks through current stalemates in the debate surrounding faith and sexual identity. The fresh, evenhanded reevaluation of Scripture, Christian tradition, theology, and science in Keen’s Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships will appeal to both traditionalist and progressive church leaders and parishioners, students of ethics and biblical studies, and gay and lesbian people who often feel painfully torn between faith and sexuality.