Erotic Faith

The thought of contemporary North American theologian and ethicist Wendy Farley is an unflinching clarion call to justice and compassion. Farley invites us to discover ways of embodying the deep compassion capable of resisting pernicious distortions and traumatizing injustices that harm and dehumanize us all. This volume of essays embodies her invitation to awaken as beloved community. And when we are overwhelmed by the magnitude of struggle and despair, Farley reminds us that the powerful longing of hope, at times against all evidence, refuses to give up on seeking justice and wholeness. Compassionate justice, radical hospitality, creative liberation, and deep listening emerge as more than ethical values for Farley; they are expressions of erotic faith, a praxis of faithfulness born of divine desire. These writings explore transformative perspectives and practices that have the capacity to help us recover and author our identity as the "god-bearers" we are. Erotic faith embodies the love-seeking persistence of divine faithfulness necessary to transform us from within; it meets the truth of human harm, vulnerability, and suffering by offering a complex, struggling, unscripted creativity capable of remaking us, and our world, until the beloved community is whole.

Mari Kim teaches Social Ethics and Philosophy for the Division of Communications and Social Sciences at Everett Community College. Kim resides in Seattle, Washington, and her constructive theological exploration of experiences of desire, ambiguity, and ambivalence in cultural identity formation, Eros in Eden: A Praxis of Beauty in Genesis 3, is forthcoming.

The Rev. Marcia W. Mount Shoop, PhD, is the author of Let the Bones Dance: Embodiment and the Body of Christ (2010) and a blogger on faith, family, and football at www.marciamountshoop.com. She and her husband, Coach John Shoop, have been in the world of big-time sports for over twenty years.

See Touchdowns for Jesus in the news:
First Things
Radio interview "The Game," Chicago
Englewood Review of Books

The Christian Century
The News and Observer, on UNC scandal
The Thoughtful Christian, on Intimate Partner Violence