What might happen, asks Charlie Bell if what we know about queer lives, loves and relationships was taken as read, rather than treated as a matter of debate? Queer Redemption looks to a future when the margins truly define the centre, where queerness is truly liberative for the whole church.
Now widely recognised within palliative care, the concept of ‘total pain’ is an intensely theological one at heart. In Light to those in Darkness clinician and theologian Dr Charlie Bell holds up the concept to theological scrutiny. Bell reflects on the ways that the doctrine of ‘the communion of saints’, might be used to help the church understand how it can address “total pain” within individuals, and collective trauma within the wider community. As such the book offers both an important theological reflection for those in pastoral care roles and a broader challenge to the church to become a place of solidarity and accompaniment.
LGBTQI people in the church have spent a long time being told what God expects of them and how they should behave. In Queer Holiness Charlie Bell argues that to push such a theology is not only deficient, but fundamentally untheological, and challenges Christians to seriously grapple with the consequences of doing so.