Sex and Jesus: Notes from a Pastor's Daughter
Date
2021Metadata
[+] Show full item recordAbstract
This thesis is a collection of nonfiction and poetic works that represent the author’s output as a candidate for Master of Fine Arts. These personal essays and poems are interested in intersections and unlikely combinations: sex positivity and feminism through a progressive Christian lens; the complicated relationship between body, health, and body image. The goal in many of these pieces is to challenge the American conception of both Christianity and Jesus—who we think he is, or was, and what he is about—and to hold the American church as institution to account.
Young adults of my generation who were raised Christian are stepping away from church and/or undergoing a radical transformation of their faith en masse. While my experience of growing up a pastor’s daughter was generally positive, my adult life has been a process of questioning what I know and opening up to the reality that I do not have all the answers. I believe my thesis, in both form and content, reflects this uncertainty and the reality of “living in the tension,” a concept coined by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a tenet of how I aim to live my life and to write my truth.
Table of Contents
Critical introduction -- The five deadly sins -- One body, many parts -- The family tree -- land of the living -- The Implanon diaries -- Dick sorceress -- As we forgive our trespassers -- Jesus stand with the vulnerable: a Gospel-based ethic of sex -- The waterfall and the well -- Poems -- Diablo An incomplete timeline of the Trump presidency -- Index of sex and love -- Index of desire
Degree
M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts)