Boswell quick cards

Question 1

What was the context of Boswell’s writing?

Answer 1

The 1980s- onset of aids scare,
1979 Harvey Milk had just been assassinated.
Ronald Reagan president of USA
Work that had come before- John addington Symons- A problem of Greek Ethics 1973
Derrick Sherman Bailey- Homosexuality and Western christian tradition (1955)- looking at church scriptures- didn’t find the ancient Greek narrative important.
John McNeil The Church and the Homosexual (1976)- wrote a trilogy of books overturning church/ biblical ideas which go against the homosexuality.

Question 2

Who was John Boswell?

Answer 2

(1947- 1994)
Yale historian
Converted to Catholicism at the age of 16 and remained loyal!
Mark D. Jordan remarks, ‘Boswell as a figure- if not quite as an author- has offered consolation to many thousands tormented by conflicts between faith and desire’

Question 3

What was the main argument to CSTH 1980?

Answer 3

Can be identified from Matthew Kuefler’s 2006 book- The Boswell Thesis
1. Christianity came into existence in a period of same sex toleration for homosexuality.
2. Nothing in the early scriptures was hostile to homosexuality.
3. Early medieval Christians showed no hostility towards homosexual.s
4. Only in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that Christian writers formulated a hostility back into their sources.
Other smaller points that urban, rather than rural settings fostered toleration for same sex relations.

Question 4

What was the response to CSTH?

Answer 4

Kuefler ‘immediate and dramatic’/
Paul Robinson, 1980 calls his book revolutionary.
Carolyn Dinshaw- hardcover copy- five printings in less than a year
National Book Award 1981
Stonewall Book Award 1981.
1990s- 2000 copies a year still selling
Bernard Schlager- cult of personality emerges around Boswell: 1983 speech to West Hollywood presbyterian church.
CSTH still ranked top of the 100 best and most influential non-fiction books about gay men and lesbians 2004.

Question 5

What are the praises of CSTH?

Answer 5

1. Establishes a play for gay Christians- giving them a history.
2. Giving homosexuals roots- Steven Saylor 1980s
3. Mainstreaming homosexuality- Wayne Johansson ‘courage of the author’
4. Extensive use of primary material! Richlin, Towler and Lauritsen.

Question 6

What are the criticisms of Boswell?

Answer 6

1. Sources- makes them translate to what he wants them to say! Lauritsen, Brundage and Sheehan.
2. Essentialist- David Halperin- anachronistic, Robert Padgug, Mary Douglas etc.
3. Doesn’t talk about lesbians- Jane Vanderbosch 1982.
4. Trying to reconcile the church too much- Louis Crompton, Wayne Dynes and Warren Johansson.
5. Has an agenda- Boswell a gay historian himself: Bernard Schlager, John Lauritsen and Wayne Dynes.