Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition
 | |
| Author | Derrick Sherwin Bailey |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Homosexuality |
| Published | 1955 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 181 (1986 Shoe String edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0208014924 |
Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition is a 1955 book about homosexuality by Derrick Sherwin Bailey. It is a pioneering study that almost all modern historical research on gay people in the Christian west has depended upon.[1]
Scholarly reception
Medieval historian John Boswell writes that Bailey's book, "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wholly misleading picture of medieval practice, is limited primarily to data regarding France and Britain, and has been superseded even in its major focus, biblical analysis." Boswell also states, however, that it remained the best work on its subject in print.[1]
Gay scholar John Lauritsen describes 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
Footnotes
- 1 2 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: The 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.