Original Sin and the Evolution of Sexual Difference: (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs)

Original Sin and the Evolution of Sexual Difference develops an interdisciplinary conversation between evolutionary biology, feminist philosophy, and theology in order to illuminate the entanglement of Christian thinking about original sin with theologies of sexual difference. It then assesses the opportunities for rethinking original sin and its implications for theologies of sexual difference in light of developments in evolutionary biology and feminist theology and philosophy. Despite some resistances in the present age to conceptions of both original sin and meaningful sexual differences, this study argues that both can provide essential insights that help to make sense of some of the features of human life in the twenty-first century, especially the stubborn persistence of inequality, poverty, environmental degradation, and the pernicious patterns of sexual violence and abuse that have been uncovered by the #MeToo movement. To this end, Megan Loumagne Ulishney marshals resources from a variety of places-Augustine of Hippo, feminist theology, the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, John Paul II, and a new group of feminist philosophers known as the New Feminist Materialists-to develop an analysis of original sin and sexual difference that is grounded in both scientific and theological insights about creaturely life. The project cultivates a sense of wonder at the diversity and unpredictability of human biology, a value for the role of creativity in the human participation that partially shapes our ongoing evolution, and humility about the extent to which we can predict and control the future of the evolution of our species. It illuminates the interdependencies that define creaturely life, the persistent entanglement of nature and culture, the centrality of desire to human identity and behaviour, and the role played by biology in the transmission of sin. It develops a vision of material life as evolving, generative, and imbued with activity, but also as simultaneously infected with sin and saturated with the divine.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Historical Developments in Theologies of Sin and Sexual Difference 1: Evolution of a Doctrine 2: Augustine on Original Sin and Sexual Difference 3: The Human Situation: Sex and Sin in 1960 Part 2: Contemporary Resources for Rethinking the Doctrine of Original Sin and Sexual Difference 4: The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and the New Science of Sexual Difference Interlude 5: John Paul II, New Catholic Feminists, and the Vatican response to 'Gender Ideology' 6: New Feminist Materialism and a Theology of Sex and Sin After #MeToo Conclusion: Toward A Christian Feminist Materialism

About the Author :
Megan Loumagne Ulishney is Assistant Professor of Theology at Gannon University. She completed her DPhil in Theology at the University of Oxford (Christ Church) in 2019 as a Clarendon Scholar. Before moving to Oxford, Megan completed her Masters of Divinity at Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry as a Baker-Arrupe Fellow.

Review :
I always like a book that wakes me up, makes my brain move in new directions, and offers new paradigms for thinking theologically. This book, while incredibly dense and filled to its electronic gills with footnotes, does this. In the book the author uses selected advances in the natural and social sciences for "rethinking" [indistinguishable from reinterpreting] the Adam and Eve story in Genesis as it applies to Original Sin and sexual difference...There are different constraints put on interpretations in theology and the hard sciences. Understanding the differences, which will follow, helps to place the author's contemporary interpretations of the Adam and Eve story into a broader epistemic context. This monograph is an excellent start.