Traditions

Diane Dreher, Ph.D., is a bestselling author, researcher, and positive psychology coach. This conversation focuses on her latest book, The Tao of Inner Peace.

Gavin Flood is the Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and author of the recent books Religion and the Philosophy of Life; Hindu Monotheism; and The Truth Within, a History of Inwardness in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Theologian and activist, Matthew Fox, is reviving Creation Spirituality which blends teachings from the Christian mystics with science, the arts, social justice, environmentalism, and ideas from other spiritual traditions worldwide.

Jacoby Ballard’s book, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation, offers a distinctly queer lens on yoga and meditation.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Voss Roberts teaching and research invite others to imagine themselves in relation to diverse religious worlds, in which particularities of embodiment—such as gender, gender identity, and sexuality, racialization, dis/ability, and culture—matter.

John J. Thatamanil is the author of The Immanent Divine: God, Creation, the Human Predicament and, most recently, Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity.

That trans individuals have discovered Kuan Yin’s gender transition has been evident for a number of years, for example, from references like this one from blogger Stacie Ku: “Even if I didn’t grow up worshiping her, once I found out she was transgendered, she would have made my list of favorite deities anyway.” A blogger who was writing a novel whose main character is trans said she designated Kuan Yin as one of the character’s ‘‘role models.’’

These traditions, which seem to indicate a fluid and mutable approach to gender identities—often rooted in the idea that gender can be exchanged or, ultimately, transcended, are of increasing interest to queer practitioners seeking to examine religious traditions that embody the performative nature of gender.