Megan K. Defranza - Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God

Megan DeFranza has done the church a tremendous service in producing this fine contribution on an important but neglected aspect of theological anthropology.

Roy E. Ciampa
Nida Institute for
Biblical Scholarship

This book will take your breath away. Some will find it jarring, but good theological reflection ought to make us feel uncomfortable. Megan DeFranza takes us on a journey into the complex and sometimes harrowing domain of sexuality and anthropology and how Christians engage sex difference.... Reading DeFranzas book, I was entranced, intrigued, delighted, forced out of my comfort zone, and above all humbled.

Frank A. James III
Biblical Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

DeFranza claims it is time for Christians, particularly those from more conservative traditions, to reflect on their theologies and communal practices from the perspective of intersex people, and she is right. The National Institutes of Health and the American Psychological Association have recently modified their treatment protocols in response to the testimony of intersex clients and what we are learning about sex and gender development from neurobiology. Here DeFranza lays the groundwork for similarly transforming our ecclesial institutions, but in a manner that holds fast to Scripture and the good contained in the traditions of the church.

Teri Merrick
Azusa Pacific University

Sex Difference in Christian Theology

Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God

Megan K. DeFranza

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

2015 Megan K. DeFranza
All rights reserved
Published 2015 by
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /
P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DeFranza, Megan K., 1975
Sex difference in Christian theology: male, female, and intersex in the image of God /
Megan K. DeFranza.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8028-6982-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
eISBN 978-1-4674-4295-4 (ePub)
eISBN 978-1-4674-4255-8 (Kindle)
1. Sex differences Religious aspects Christianity. I. Title.
BT708.D457 2015
233.5 dc23
2014045539

www.eerdmans.com

To Lianne Simon and all our intersex siblings,
for your generosity, wisdom, and faith
despite exclusion and distrust
in the hope of welcome
and embrace

Contents

Part I: More Than Two:
Challenges to the Binary Sex Model

1. Intersex: Medical and Sociological Challenges
to the Two-Sex Model

What Is in a Name? From Hermaphrodite to Intersex
to Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs)

From Medical Management to Social Change:
Questioning the Binary Sex Model

2. Biblical Resources beyond Adam and Eve:
The Case of Eunuchs

The Transformation of Eunuchs in the History of Interpretation:
West and East

3. How We Got Here:
Historical Shifts in Theological Anthropology

4. Sex, Gender, and the Image of God:
From Other to Others

The Common Witness of Roman Catholic
and Evangelical Theologies of the Body

Sex Difference in Roman Catholic
and Evangelical Theological Anthropologies

A Theology of Intersex Bodies:
Ontological Sameness and Real Difference

From Other to Others:
Properly Extending the Evangelical and Roman Catholic Traditions

The Image of God and Spousal Sexuality
in Stanley J. Grenz and John Paul II

Jesus as the True Image:
Christological and Eschatological Tensions

Acknowledgments

It takes a village to raise a theologian... and help her write a book. This book, and my life, testify to the power of communities formed in the image of God.

To my beloved husband, Andrew, for two decades of faithful love, patience, perseverance, help, wisdom, and laughter, without whom I would be a lesser person and none of this would have been possible; to my daughters, Lrien and Eden, for loving me, teaching me, and keeping my feet firmly planted in the real world; to my parents, Jack and Pat Shannon, for giving me life, introducing me to Jesus, and supporting me even when you wondered where these ideas came from and where they were going; to my brother, Mark Shannon, friend and editor extraordinaire; to Rebecca Cheney, my recreational therapist; to Angela McManus, for loving me and my children; to Barbara DeFranza, for moving away from husband and home to care for grandchildren and daughter-in-law, and to Angelo for letting her go; to Edie and Dave, Greg and Christine, Abi and John, Cheryl, Jennifer, Erika, Anita, Kellie and Jeff, and all of 3A I am who I am because of you; to all who have believed in me, counseled me, cheered me on, prayed for me, been patient with me, forgiven me, and journeyed with me...

... words cannot express my gratitude and love.

This book began as a dissertation in the Department of Theology at Marquette University and would not have gotten off the ground without the support of that department especially D. Lyle Dabney, Wanda Zemler-Cizewski, M. Therese Lysaught, Joseph Mueller, Gale Prusinski as well as mentors from other institutions: Hessell Bouma, Alice Mathews, Roy Ciampa, Mimi Haddad, Beth Maynard, William and Ada Besanon Spencer. Special thanks (and possible complaints for not redirecting me toward an easier career path) go to Doug Matthews and Tim and Julie Tennent, the first to suggest that graduate school might be in my future.

Theologians never work alone. I am especially grateful to Susannah Cornwall for her generous collaboration, careful scholarship, and editorial genius, as well as for her work with the Lincoln Theological Institute in organizing the first global conference on intersex, theology, and the Bible at Manchester University. A number of my thoughtful colleagues and I were invited to come together there to learn from one another. I am also grateful to Patrick S. Cheng, whose gracious generosity and critically constructive feedback made this a better book and me a better scholar.

Thanks to Wesley Wildman and the Boston University School of Theology and the Institute for the Bio-Cultural Study of Religion for welcoming me as a colleague.

I am particularly indebted to John Franke, friend and mentor. Thank you for believing in me and my work, for opening doors, leading with courage, and living out the postcolonial values you preach... and for introducing me to Michael Thomson at Eerdmans.

Thank you, Michael Thomson, for believing in this project. Thank you, Tom Raabe, for making me sound more eloquent than I am. And thanks to Linda Bieze, Mary Hietbrink, Ahna Ziegler, Rachel Bomberger, and others working tirelessly behind the scenes. I am honored to join the Eerdmans community.

Lastly, I would be remiss not to thank those theologians whose work made possible the pages that follow. Charles Colton wisely quipped that imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery, but so is critique. For a theological system to warrant careful review and criticism, it must be worthy of the attention. Thank you, Stan Grenz, for lighting my early theological path, modeling a humble and irenic spirit, and showing me how to be a critically loyal evangelical. Thanks also, John Paul II, for bringing Roman Catholics and evangelicals closer together and for allowing me to stand on your shoulders (and pick a little lint out of your mitre).

To the God who made even me in the image of the loving and holy Trinity, who redeemed me from my sin and continues to forgive me for my failings, who perseveres in remaking me in imago Dei, conforming me to Christ, reconciling me in the community, and renewing me by the Spirit... to this God be glory now and forever, amen.