A. Tripp, a highly regarded sex researcher and colleague of Alfred Kinsey, and author of the runaway bestseller "The Homosexual Matrix," devoted the last ten years of his life to an exhaustive study of Abraham Lincoln's writings and of scholarship about Lincoln, in search of hidden keys to his character. In "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," completed just weeks before he died, Tripp offers a full examination of Lincoln's inner life and relationships that, as Dr. Jean Baker argues in the Introduction, "will define the issue for years to come." Throughout this riveting work, new details are revealed about Lincoln's relations with a number of men. Long-standing myths are debunked convincingly -- in particular, the myth that Lincoln's one true love was Ann Rutledge, who died tragically young. Ultimately, Tripp argues that Lincoln's unorthodox loves and friendships were tied to his maverick beliefs about religion, slavery, and even ethics and morals. As Tripp argues, Lincoln was an "invert": a man who consistently turned convention on its head, who drew his values not from the dominant conventions of society, but from within.For years, a whisper campaign has mounted about Abraham Lincoln, focusing on his intimate relationships. He was famously awkward around single women. He was engaged once before Mary Todd, but his fiance e called off the marriage on the grounds that he was "lacking in smaller attentions." His marriage to Mary was troubled. Meanwhile, throughout his adult life, he enjoyed close relationships with a number of men. He shared a bed with oshua Speed for four years as a young man, and -- as Tripp details here -- he shared a bed with an army captainwhile serving in the White House, when Mrs. Lincoln was away. As one Washington socialite commented in her diary, "What stuff!"This study reaches far beyond a brief about Lincoln's sexuality: it is an attempt to make sense of the whole man, as never before. It includes an Introduction by Jean Baker, biographer of Mary Todd Lincoln, and an Afterword containing reactions by two Lincoln scholars and one clinical psychologist and longtime acquaintance of C.A. Tripp. As Michael Chesson explains in one of the Afterword essays, "Lincoln was different from other men, and he knew it. More telling, virtually every man who knew him at all well, long before he rose to prominence, recognized it. In fact, the men who claimed to know him best, if honest, usually admitted that they did not understand him." Perhaps only now, when conventions of intimacy are so different, so open, and so much less rigid than in Lincoln's day, can Lincoln be fully understood.

     She's the ultimate career girl. Devoted to work, with no time for anything more than casual steamy encounters. But all that changes when the missing persons story leads her to the enigmatic Callie. Callie is a family friend of the missing girl and an invaluable lead. The attraction between the two women is immediate, all consuming. Does Callie hold the answers to the mysterious disappearance? And beyond that, is she the one woman who can hold Astrid's attention beyond a sensational story?

    There is no she.Two cells make up one cell. This is the mathematics behind creation. One plus one makes one. Life begets life. We are the period to a sentence, the effect to a cause, always belonging to someone. We are never our own.This is why we are so lonely.She of the Mountains is a beautifully rendered illustrated novel by Vivek Shraya, the author of the Lambda Literary Award finalist God Loves Hair. Shraya weaves a passionate, contemporary love story between a man and his body, with a re-imagining of Hindu mythology. Both narratives explore the complexities of embodiment and the damaging effects that policing gender and sexuality can have on the human heart.Illustrations are by Raymond Biesinger, whose work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and the New York Times.Vivek Shraya is a multimedia artist, working in the mediums of music, performance, literature, and film. Her most recent film, What I LOVE about Being QUEER, has been expanded to include an online project and book with contributions from around the world. She is also author of God Loves Hairand Even This Page Is White.

    Leon McBeth's 'The Baptist heritage' is a definitive, fresh interpretation of Baptist history. Based on primary source research, the book combines the best features of chronological and topical history to bring alive the story of Baptists around the world.

    A terrific read by a top scholar.” —Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus Boston University’s cutting-edge religion scholar Jennifer Wright Knust reveals the Bible’s contradictory messages about sex in this thoughtful, riveting, and timely reexploration of the letter of the gospels. In the tradition of Bart Erhman’s Jesus Interrupted and John Shelby Spong’s Sins of Scripture, Knust’s Unprotected Texts liberates us from the pervasive moralizing—the fickle dos and don’ts—so often dictated by religious demagogues. Knust’s powerful reading offers a return to the scripture, away from the mere slogans to which it is so often reduced.

    Gushee, the prolific Christian author and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. In describing this book, Gushee continues: “It is unlike other books that demand revision of traditional Christian sexual ethics but do so primarily by rejecting the authority of the Bible. That is not how evangelicals think, and it is not what Ken Wilson does here. Instead Wilson shows how God has led him on a journey toward a rethinking of what the fully authoritative and inspired Bible ought to be taken to mean in the life of the church today.” “This is a remarkable and timely book,” writes Tanya Luhrmann, an author about contemporary religious life and the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. “It is clear to an observer like me that evangelical Christianity is at a crossroad. ... That problem is the broad and widening gap between evangelical Christianity and its young. … The book you hold is a passionate and courageous argument. Many people will not like it. But they should read it and weigh whether it is true, because more hangs on the argument than the fate of gay marriage within evangelical Christianity. At its heart, this book asks Christians to rethink what God and scripture may be saying about what it means to be a good and decent person. The answer to that question will shape what the church becomes in twenty years.” Best-selling author and journalist Phyllis Tickle, an expert on religion widely quoted in news media, says of this book: “We Christians …rarely think of our clergy as men and women who routinely spend agonizing hours and days and weeks pouring studiously over sacred texts in relentless, on-going attempts to penetrate the mysteries contained there, to discover their wisdom, their instruction, their relevance, and to consider the means and repercussions of their implementation within our here and now. … This is midrash. … And in the pages that follow, we have before us one of the most exquisite, painful, candid, brilliant pieces of contemporary Christian midrash that I have ever seen.”

    Armed with only six passages in the Bible often known as the clobber passages the conservative Christian position has been one that stands against the full inclusion of our LGBT brothers and sisters. Unclobber reexamines each of those frequently quoted passages of Scripture, alternating with author Colby Martin's own story of being fired from an evangelical megachurch when they discovered his stance on sexuality.UnClobber reexamines what the Bible says (and does not say) about homosexuality in such a way that breathes fresh life into outdated and inaccurate assumptions and interpretations.

    The media focused attention at once on the unexpected phenomenon of darkness in the life of the saint, the astonishing revelation that, for decades, Mother Teresa had struggled mightily with belief in God. To some, this seemed to lend support to the arguments of the “new atheists.” But what we are offered in this beautiful book is, at last, a serious grappling with the deeper meaning of her darkness, a work of sharp and unusual insight, written by someone who knew her.In this intimate look at her “private writings,” Paul Murray illumines the meaning of a life which is only now beginning to be understood.I Loved Jesus in the Night is one priest’s compelling account of meeting with the saint of Calcutta. Sharing anecdotes and first-hand experiences, Paul Murray offers a glimpse into why Mother Teresa could declare, in one of her letters, that if ever she were to “become a saint,” she would surely be one of “darkness.”This very personal yet powerful book is an attempt to come to terms with the dark night experiences endured by Mother Teresa in the light of the Gospel and the mystical teachings of St John of the Cross. And something else as well...revelations of Mother Teresa’s sense of humor!

    The bestselling author of And the Band Played On follows with a book of even greater power and sweep as he investigates the situation of gays in the military over the past three decades, revealing for the first time that some of the most celebrated soldiers in American history were homosexual (including the Father of the United States Army).

    In compensating for her father's brusqueness, Noelle idolized her nurturing tomboy mother and her conservative grandma who tried to turn her into "a little lady." At age fourteen, Noelle's mom told her the family secret: "Dad likes to wear women's clothes." As Noelle copes with a turbulent adolescence, her father begins to metamorphose into the loving parent she had always longed for—only now outfitted in pedal pushers and pink lipstick.

    Writing to each other with compassion, grit, and humor, Brad and Drew take us on their journey as parent and child from the churches of Middle America to the penthouses of New York's party scenes, through a pastor's-kid childhood and painful conversion therapy to the hard-won victories of their adult relationship.But Space at the Table is more than just a memoir. It is a guide, showing us a way through the roadblocks that threaten to devastate both families and the broader evangelical and LBGTQ communities. Speaking from their own experience, Brad and Drew offer an invitation to join them at a place where love is stronger than the beliefs that divide us.

    Yet many who sit next to us in the pew at church fit that description, says author Wesley Hill. As a celibate gay Christian, Hill gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to wrestle firsthand with God's "No" to same-sex relationships. What does it mean for gay Christians to live faithful to God while struggling with the challenge of their homosexuality? What is God's will for believers who experience same-sex desires? Those who choose celibacy are often left to deal with loneliness and the hunger for relationships. How can gay Christians experience God's favor and blessing in the midst of a struggle that for many brings a crippling sense of shame and guilt? Weaving together reflections from his own life and the lives of other Christians, such as Henri Nouwen and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hill offers a fresh perspective on these questions. He advocates neither unqualified "healing" for those who struggle, nor their accommodation to temptation, but rather faithfulness in the midst of brokenness. "I hope this book may encourage other homosexual Christians to take the risky step of opening up their lives to others in the body of Christ," Hill writes. "In so doing, they may find, as I have, by grace, that being known is spiritually healthier than remaining behind closed doors, that the light is better than the darkness."

    Femme In Public (2017) is a collection of poetry by nonbinary artist Alok Vaid-Menon. In the author's words it "is a dream of what it could look like to celebrate transfemininity in public – both in ourselves and for the people who desire us (by which I mean: everyone, across time, always)."

    Thirty years ago, his parents welcomed him into the world as what they thought was their daughter. As a child, he preferred the toys and games our society views as masculine. He kept his hair short and wore boys’ clothing. They called him a tomboy. That’s what he called himself.By high school, when he showed no interest in flirting, his parents thought he might be lesbian. At twenty, he wondered if he was asexual. At twenty-three, he surgically removed his breasts. A year later, he began taking the hormones that would lower his voice and give him a beard—and he announced his new name and pronouns.Once a Girl, Always a Boy is Jeremy’s journey from childhood through coming out as transgender and eventually emerging as an advocate for the transgender community. This is not only Jeremy’s story but also that of his family, told from multiple perspectives—those of the siblings who struggled to understand the brother they once saw as a sister, and of the parents who ultimately joined him in the battle against discrimination. This is a story of acceptance in a world not quite ready to accept.

    So should our love for each other.Mihee Kim-Kort is a wife, a mom, and a Presbyterian minister. And she's queer. As she became aware of her queer sexuality, Mihee wondered what that meant for her spirituality. But instead of pushing her away from God, her queerness has brought her closer to Jesus and taught her how to love better.In Outside the Lines, Mihee shows us how God, in Jesus, is oriented toward us in a queer and radical way. Through the life, work, and witness of Jesus, we see a God who loves us with a queer love. And our faith in that God becomes a queer spirituality--a spirituality that crashes through definitions and moves us outside of the categories of our making. Whenever we love ourselves and our neighbors with the boundary-breaking love of God, we live out this queer spirituality in the world.With a captivating mix of personal story and biblical analysis, Outside the Lines shows us how each of our bodies fits into the body of Christ. Outside the lines and without exceptions.