Is Christianity what it claims to be the truth of God for all humanity? When individuals experience rejection at the hands of the Church, such a claim is radically called in question. This is precisely the challenge posed by the feminist critique of Christianity, But, as Paul Avis shows, this challenge cannot be met without reconstructing our understanding of the whole erotic realm in a non-sexist, therapeutic way.

The dominant image of women in the Bible and the Christian tradition is the product of male-dominated social systems where the highest earthly and heavenly values are identified with male attributes. Through the projection of male fears and drives, women have been made the receptacles of the impulses and images that men have been conditioned by patriarchy to find unacceptable in themselves. Under patriarchy, women represent nature rather than culture, instinct rather than reason, body rather than spirit, pleasure rather than purpose, a source of sexual temptation rather than the embodiment of true personhood. The alienation of modern women from Christianity is the nemesis of Christianity's alienation of women from the sacred, symbolized by their exclusion from the sanctuary.

"As a man, a theologian and a priest of the Church of England, I want the Church to wake up to reality. The reality is that it is not a matter of the Church reluctantly agreeing to make a limited accommodation to women's demands. It is a theological question of seeing that only when Christian women come into their own, into their rightful inheritance, that the integrity of the Christian faith can be assured. For only then will Christian men discover their own true humanity before God."

From the Preface, Eros and the Sacred

Paul Avis is vicar of five country parishes near Exeter. His previous publications include The Methods of Modern Theology (1986), Foundations of Modern Historical Thought (1986), Gore: Construction and Conflict (1988) and Anglicanism and the Christian Church (1989). He is a member of the Church of England's Doctrine Commission