Embracing the dance: Integrating spirituality and sexuality in single young adult women
Abstract
This is a humanistic study into philosophy of religious education that explores the integration of the sexual and the spiritual in the lives of single young Roman Catholic women. The central thesis of this study argues: that the integration of the spiritual and sexual in young adult women's lives is indispensable for living a meaningful and wholistic life. The work employs a critical feminist hermeneutic of both official Roman Catholic teachings and documents, as well as contemporary popular media culture. The study proposes a refashioned Roman Catholic ethic of sexuality more attuned to the contemporary experiences of women and more explicitly aware of the wider related social justice issues. The research takes seriously the Christian doctrines of Incarnation, Trinity, and Creation in fashioning an authentic Christian spirituality that honors the bodily, sexual experiences of single young adult women today. This integration is exemplified by the study's root metaphor of dance. The three hermeneutical lenses of body, pleasure, and control of birth provide the overall framework of the study. These themes run throughout the work and highlight deep and persistent wounds, both spiritual and sexual, promoted both by official Church teachings and popular media culture. The study's theory of religious education is grounded in the work of Gabriel Moran and Maria Harris. Moran's three teaching language forms of homiletic, therapeutic, and academic provide a framework that articulates a theory of religious education, authentically Incarnational and Trinitarian and open to the everyday renewed experiences of single young adult Roman Catholic woman.
Subject Area
Religion|Womens studies|Spirituality
Recommended Citation
Bulbika-King, Ilze, "Embracing the dance: Integrating spirituality and sexuality in single young adult women" (2010). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3411519.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3411519
