LITERATURE + LECTURES

The Jung Center of Houston presents Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter.  Rice University religious scholar April DeConick returns to The Jung Center for this lecture and booksigning.

Why is God male? Why are women associated with sin? Why can't women be priests? Drawing on early Christian literature, we will explore key conflicts over sex and gender in the early church—what they were and what was at stake. These ancient conflicts have shaped contemporary Christianity and its promotion of male exclusivity and superiority in terms of God, church leadership, and the bed.

We will uncover old aspects of Christianity before later doctrines and dogmas were imposed upon the churches and the earlier teachings about the female were distorted. The female was systematically erased from the Christian tradition. The distortion and erasure of the female is the result of ancient misogyny made divine writ, a holy misogyny that remains with us today.

April D. DeConick, PhD, is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University. She is the author of numerous articles in professional journals and several books, including The Thirteenth Gospel: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says, Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and its Growth, and Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourses in the Gospels of John and Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature.