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Armour to speak on role of lesbians and gays in the Christian church

Posted 9/24/2007

The installation of Ellen Armour as the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Feminist Theology will be celebrated with a lecture by Armour on the role of lesbians and gays in the Christian church.

Armour, who directs Vanderbilt’s Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality, will speak at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in Benton Chapel on “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve?: Theology, Theory and the Debate over Homosexuality.”

The lecture is free and open to all.

“No issue has proven more divisive in the Christian community in recent years than the controversy over the status of gays and lesbians within its bounds,” Armour said. “Should churches ordain openly gay men and lesbian women? Should they sanction committed gay and lesbian relationships?”

Armour will propose a theological position that rejects the notion that heterosexuality is grounded in divinely ordained nature and homosexuality violates the natural order, and will suggest a theological position that can support progressive Christian politics.

Armour returned to Vanderbilt, where she earned her Ph.D., in 2006.

If you can’t make it to the event, it will be recorded and podcast on VUCast, the Web site of Vanderbilt News Service, at www.vanderbilt.edu/news/.

Contact: Jim Patterson, (615)343-1271   
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu   

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