Through Eros to Agape: The Radical Embodiment of Faith [Paperback]

This book begins with Eros, in particular with Audre Lorde's definition of the erotic as "those physical, emotional, and psychic expressions of what is deepest and strongest and richest within each of us, being shared: the passions of love, in its deepest meanings" and sharing her conviction that "when we beginallowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense." This work posits personal erotic knowing as the necessary and essential basis for any truly loving activity in the world, including Agape/compassion. The approach in this book is to bring erotic knowing into dialogue with Christian deposits of faith (scripture, hymns, sacraments, doctrines, polities) for the purpose of constructing meaning and evoking critical, imaginative participation in the Loving Community, with this approach being modeled by the author: a contemporary gay American pastor/academic living with Aids. This work makes erotic knowing a constitutive and embraced element in the construction of (divine) meaning, and in the application of this meaning in daily life. What is more, the failure to name and embrace the erotic is put forward as a major cause both of the perversion of religious "love" and also of the thwarting of insight, creativity, and community. This book argues that Agape-mediated by flesh-and-blood human beings-is not sustainable without being rooted in and guided by personal erotic knowing.