Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
A former soldier-turned-pacifist offers a penetrating analysis of the links between war, masculinity and misogyny and Christian complicity in promoting them.
In his sharp, observant book, Stan Goff grapples with a problem crucial to modern Christian values. The sanctification of war and contempt for women are both grounded in a fear that breeds hostility, a hostility that valorises conquest and murder. In 'Borderline', Goff dissects the driving force behind the darkest impulses of the human heart. The un-Christian history of loving war and hating women are not merely similar but two sides of the same coin, he argues, in an 'autobiography' that spans two millennia of war and misogyny. 'Borderline' is the personal and conceptual history of an American career army veteran transformed by Jesus into a passionate advocate for nonviolence, written by a man who narrates his conversion to Christianity through feminism.
In his sharp, observant book, Stan Goff grapples with a problem crucial to modern Christian values. The sanctification of war and contempt for women are both grounded in a fear that breeds hostility, a hostility that valorises conquest and murder. In 'Borderline', Goff dissects the driving force behind the darkest impulses of the human heart. The un-Christian history of loving war and hating women are not merely similar but two sides of the same coin, he argues, in an 'autobiography' that spans two millennia of war and misogyny. 'Borderline' is the personal and conceptual history of an American career army veteran transformed by Jesus into a passionate advocate for nonviolence, written by a man who narrates his conversion to Christianity through feminism.
Price: $54.95
Pages: 470
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: Lutterworth Press
Publication Date:
30 July 2015
Trim Size: 9.02 X 5.98 in
ISBN: 9780718894078
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
RELIGION / History, History of religion
Goff's unique experiences enable him to narrate this story (often with lurid details and 'salty' language that may make some readers uncomfortable) from a rare perspective that few civilians could access on their own. It cannot be easily dismissed as a flaccid, pacifist indulgence in an over-realised eschatology. Rather than relegate justice to the 'sweet by and by', Goff's account gives Christians sufficient cause (and the tools with which) to interrogate contemporary accounts of gender and warfare.
— Shawn Aghajan
Stan Goff's striking book - part memoir, part theological investigation of masculinity, part psychodynamic analysis of sex and war - .... is a relentless take-down of belief in redemptive violence, and war's ennobling character. .... [It] deserves a place on Christian Ethics, Feminist Studies, and War Studies courses.
— The Revd Rachel Mann
— Shawn Aghajan
Stan Goff's striking book - part memoir, part theological investigation of masculinity, part psychodynamic analysis of sex and war - .... is a relentless take-down of belief in redemptive violence, and war's ennobling character. .... [It] deserves a place on Christian Ethics, Feminist Studies, and War Studies courses.
— The Revd Rachel Mann
Foreword by Amy Laura Hall
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 - Introduction
2 - My Acquaintance with a Christian Soldier and Serial Rapist
3 - Forest Troop
4 - Body Counts
5 - Ontology of the Witch Hunt
6 - Ecologies of Power
7 - The Rise of the Lawyers
8 - Misbegotten Man
9 - Eros and War
10 - Practice Makes Perfect
11 - The Masculine Fortress
12 - Torture and Redemption
13 - The Pope's Army
14 - Sleepwalking
15 - Genealogy
16 - Bodies and Objects
17 - Contagious Prefix
18 - Just, Civil, and Total War - Sanctification of State
19 - A Bodyguard of Lies: Girl Story and Boy Story
20 - Origin Myths
21 - Paradox of Domination
22 - Disgust, Transgression, and Sex
23 - Respectability
24 - Progress and Fear of the Feminine
25 - Shell Shock
26 - Nation, Race, and Hygiene
27 - The Art of Depression
28 - Homos and Harlots
29 - Second World War
30 - Bombs, Babies, and 'Burbs
31 - The Herd
32 - Taboo
33 - Consent
34 - Clarifications
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Biblical References
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 - Introduction
2 - My Acquaintance with a Christian Soldier and Serial Rapist
3 - Forest Troop
4 - Body Counts
5 - Ontology of the Witch Hunt
6 - Ecologies of Power
7 - The Rise of the Lawyers
8 - Misbegotten Man
9 - Eros and War
10 - Practice Makes Perfect
11 - The Masculine Fortress
12 - Torture and Redemption
13 - The Pope's Army
14 - Sleepwalking
15 - Genealogy
16 - Bodies and Objects
17 - Contagious Prefix
18 - Just, Civil, and Total War - Sanctification of State
19 - A Bodyguard of Lies: Girl Story and Boy Story
20 - Origin Myths
21 - Paradox of Domination
22 - Disgust, Transgression, and Sex
23 - Respectability
24 - Progress and Fear of the Feminine
25 - Shell Shock
26 - Nation, Race, and Hygiene
27 - The Art of Depression
28 - Homos and Harlots
29 - Second World War
30 - Bombs, Babies, and 'Burbs
31 - The Herd
32 - Taboo
33 - Consent
34 - Clarifications
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Biblical References