LGBTQ+ Spirituality & Religion Books

NAMED IN THE GUARDIAN AND GQ MAGAZINE'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020

'This is the story of a family's love, a battle with shame and a long journey to acceptance. It is deeply moving and profoundly important and it made me cry,' Elizabeth Day, author of How to Fail

Discover a powerful coming of age memoir about growing up queer in a strict Muslim household.

Mohsin grew up in a poor pocket of east London, in a devout shia Muslim community. His family were close-knit and religiously conservative. From a young age, Mohsin felt different but in a home where being gay was inconceivable he also felt very alone.

Outside of home Mohsin went to a failing inner city school where gang violence was a fact of life. As he grew up life didn't seem to offer teenage Mohsin any choices: he was disenfranchised from opportunity and isolated from his family as a closet gay Muslim.

But Mohsin had incredible drive and became the first person from his school to go to Oxford University. At university came the newfound freedom to become the man his parents never wanted him to be. But when he was confronted by his father and a witch doctor invited to 'cure' him Mohsin had to make a difficult choice.

Mohsin's story takes harrowing turns but it is full of life and humour, and, ultimately, it is an inspiring story about breaking through life's barriers.

'This is a fiercely important book with a big beating heart-Mohsin Zaidi has delivered to us a deeply personal story that is an urgent manual for our times.' Tope Folarin, Author of A Particular Kind of Black Man

'A Dutiful Boy delivers an intimate account of the anguish of one man's gay, Muslim, coming-of-age story, and reveals something important about us all in the process,' Afua Hirsch

'I can't recommend A Dutiful Boy enough, I couldn't put it down. A journey of self-discovery, longing, triumph and hope. I fell in love with Mohsin, I imagine you will too,' Suzi Ruffell

Abby Chava Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, profoundly isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of an eighteenth-century Eastern European enclave, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life.

Stein was born as the first son in a rabbinical dynastic family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Stein felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. Without access to TV or the internet and never taught English, she suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith.

Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood into mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family and her way of life.

The powerful, dramatic story of how a successful Hollywood set designer whose identity was deeply rooted in his homosexuality came to be suddenly and utterly transformed by the power of the gospel.

When Becket Cook moved from Dallas to Los Angeles after college, he discovered a socially progressive, liberal town that embraced not only his creative side but also his homosexuality. He devoted his time to growing his career as a successful set designer and to finding "the one" man who would fill his heart. His life centred around celebrity-filled Hollywood parties and he traveled to society hot-spots around the world--until a chance encounter with a pastor at an LA coffee shop one morning changed everything.        

In A Change of Affection, Becket Cook shares his testimony as someone who was transformed by the power of the gospel. His dramatic conversion to Christianity and subsequent seminary training inform his views on homosexuality--personally, biblically, theologically, and culturally--and his compelling book guides readers through this complex and controversial issue while revealing how to lovingly engage with those who disagree.

 Provocative, genuine, and deeply faithful, A Change of Affection is a timely and indispensable resource for anyone who desires to understand more fully one of the most common and difficult stumbling blocks to faithfully following Christ today.

Though we often hear about the "gay problem" today, there is an even deeper problem in the church today--one that we often overlook. The call to follow Christ is a call to costly obedience for all, not just for gay Christians. Far too often, the church has elevated homosexuality above other sins and required a costly obedience from gays that it is unwilling to demand of others. And yet, the answer is not to weaken the demands of obedience. Instead, gay Christians who make the difficult choice to align their lives with the biblical view of sexuality are a gift to the church, reminding all of us that spiritual growth and maturity is costly. There is a price to pay in following Christ and devoting our lives to the call of the gospel, and it is one that we all must pay--gay and straight Christians alike.

Through the stories and struggles of gay Christians who are reorienting their lives around the costly obedience required to follow Christ, Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets call the church to reorient as well, leaving behind the casual morality that is widespread today to pursue the path of radical discipleship. Unlike any other book on homosexuality and the church, this is a call to examine your life and consider what God is asking you to lay down to take up your cross and follow him.

Hugo Marcus (1880–1966) was a man of many names and many identities. Born a German Jew, he converted to Islam and took the name Hamid, becoming one of the most prominent Muslims in Germany prior to World War II. He was renamed Israel by the Nazis and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp before escaping to Switzerland. He was a gay man who never called himself gay but fought for homosexual rights and wrote queer fiction under the pen name Hans Alienus during his decades of exile.

In German, Jew, Muslim, Gay, Marc David Baer uses Marcus’s life and work to shed new light on a striking range of subjects, including German Jewish history and anti-Semitism, Islam in Europe, Muslim-Jewish relations, and the history of the gay rights struggle. Baer explores how Marcus created a unique synthesis of German, gay, and Muslim identity that positioned Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as an intellectual and spiritual model.

Marcus’s life offers a new perspective on sexuality and on competing conceptions of gay identity in the multilayered world of interwar and postwar Europe. His unconventional story reveals new aspects of the interconnected histories of Jewish and Muslim individuals and communities, including Muslim responses to Nazism and Muslim experiences of the Holocaust.

An intellectual biography of an exceptional yet little-known figure, German, Jew, Muslim, Gay illuminates the complexities of twentieth-century Europe’s religious, sexual, and cultural politics.

The New York Times Bestseller Revised and Expanded

"[An] earth-shaking exposé of clerical corruption" National Catholic Reporter

The arrival of Frédéric Martel's In the Closet of the Vatican, published worldwide in eight languages, sent shockwaves through the religious and secular world. The book's revelations of clericalism, hypocrisy, cover-ups and widespread homosexuality in the highest echelons of the Vatican provoked questions that the most senior Vatican officials--and the Pope himself--were forced to act upon; it would go on to become a New York Times bestseller. Now, almost a year after the book's first publication, Frédéric Martel reflects in a new foreword on the effect the book has had and the events that have come to light since it was first released.

In the Closet of the Vatican describes the double lives of priests--including the cardinals living with their young "assistants" in luxurious apartments whilst professing humility and chastity--the cover-up of numerous cases of sexual abuse; sinister scheming in the Vatican; political conspiracy overseas in Argentina and Chile, and the resignation of Benedict XVI. From his unique position as a respected journalist with uninhibited access to some of the Vatican's most influential people and private spaces, Martel presents a shattering account of a system rotten to its very core.

Queer. Muslim. Arab American. A proudly Fat woman.

Randa Jarrar is all these things

In this provocative memoir of a cross-country road trip, she explores how to claim joy in an unravelling and hostile world. Told as a road trip across the United States of America, this is Randa's bold and frank personal story: a Palestinian daughter shamed about her weight, her background, and her decision to become a teenage mother as she rebels against her abusive family and the expectations others have of her.

Author: Randa Jarrar
Format: Hardbook
Pages: 292
ISBN: 9781913207427

Star-studded and beautifully written, this collection of twelve diverse stories tackles love and desire by South Asian-heritage British Muslim women authors, including Ayisha Malik and Shelina Janmohamed.

Although outsiders often expect Muslim women to be timid, conservative, or submissive, the reality is different. While some of these authors express a quiet piety and explore poignant situations, others use black humour and biting satire, or play with possibilities.

These authors write on social issues such as women's and LGBTQI+ rights within diverse and multicultural societies and, more specifically, speaking to issues such as marriage, spousal migration and sex education.

'I have met thousands of LGBT+ Christians around the world, and have witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit moving through them in the most profound ways.

I have been blown away by how many Christian leaders have reached out to tell me that they too have felt the Spirit of God nudging them to step forward and embrace LGBT+ people as faithful members of Christ's Church.

I have watched as societies around the world have stepped closer and closer to affirming and embracing LGBT+ people as equal and essential parts of their communities.

And I have seen true revival breaking forth in the midst of LGBT+ Christian communities.'

In Our Witness, Brandan Robertson has collected the powerful testimonies and experiences of LGBT+ Christians living in active and influential faith today. Some have faced rejection and marginalisation from parts of the Church; some have found fulfilment and blessing through reconciliation of their faith and their sexuality within the Church; and some bear witness to the great and fruitful revival that the Holy Spirit is bringing about through the lives of the LGBT+ Christian community.

These are stories of faith, hope, love and life, and testimony to a wonderful new work of God in our world today. This unique DLT edition includes a number of stories of LGBT+ Christians from the UK and Ireland.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 WAINWRIGHT BOOK PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 POLARI FIRST BOOK AWARD

'This is a book to get lost in . . . A disturbing trauma narrative, it's also a work of delightfully low, pants-dropping comedy, and a learned meditation' Guardian

'A brave and beautiful book, electrifying on sex and nature, religion and love. No one is writing quite like this' Olivia Laing

'Turns the nature memoir genre upon its head . . . is a book full of poetry and pathos. More than anything it is a bold and beautiful study of how to be a true modern man' Ben Myers, Spectator

At a crossroads in his life, the demons Luke Turner has been battling since childhood are quick to return - depression and guilt surrounding his identity as a bisexual man, experiences of sexual abuse, and the religious upbringing that was the cause of so much confusion. It is among the trees of London's Epping Forest where he seeks refuge. Away from a society that struggles to cope with the complexities of masculinity and sexuality, Luke begins to accept the duality that has provoked so much unrest in his life - and reconcile the expectations of others with his own way of being.

Queer Magic provides nourishment for LGBT+ souls and their allies. Explore fascinating insights into queer relationships and spiritual practices from different historical eras and regions of the world.

Discover inspiring contributions from contemporary LGBT+ Pagans, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, and others as they share personal stories of their experiences and queer-focused spells, prayers, and meditations. Learn about deities, heroes, and historical figures who embody the power of the queer spirit.

With practical techniques and enlightening perspectives, Queer Magic is a unique resource for LGBT+ spiritual seekers who want to experience the sustaining energy and strength of the worldwide queer community.

This debut cements Mendez as a stunning new voice in fiction. Semi-autobiographical, this gripping coming-of-age story set in the Black Country in the 1950s follows 19-year-old Jesse as he comes to terms with his racial and sexual identity against the backdrop of his repressive religious upbringing . . . An original addition to the queer fiction canon - Cosmopolitan

Exquisite descriptions of the body, of longing and lust, set against the recent history of the nation. Proof once more there can be no discussion of English history that isn't also a discussion of blackness, queerness and class - Andrew McMillan

Sensuous and thrillingly well written - Observer

Eye-poppingly frank, urgent and fresh - Suzi Feay, Financial Times

Moving and memorable, Rainbow Milk heralds Mendez as an original new voice in queer fiction - AnOther Magazine

This book is marvellous. It is beautifully written, balancing fine observation and pathos, sexuality and high culture, struggle with triumph. It's pacy, witty and gentle. I loved every minute of reading this, and I am excited for its future readers - Okechukwu Nzelu, author of The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney

Mendez's powerful coming-of-age story tackles subjects from immigration and religion to sex and race as nineteen-year-old Jesse struggles to make sense of the world - The i

When did you last read a novel about a young, black, gay, Jehovah Witness man from Wolverhampton who flees his community to make his way in London as a prostitute? This might be a debut, but Mendez is an exciting, accomplished and daring storyteller with a great ear for dialogue. Graphic Erotica Alert! Don't read this book if you like your fiction cosy and middle-of-the-road - Bernardine Evaristo

Rainbow Milk is a rich, beautifully-crafted story, uncompromising in its exploration of identity and privilege. The characters are portrayed with such tenderness and honesty - I know that I'll be thinking about them for years to come - Angela Chadwick

The kind of novel you never knew you were waiting for. An explosive work that reels from sex, to sin, to salvation all the while grappling with what it means to black, gay, British, a son, a father, a lover, even a man. A remarkable debut - Marlon James

Vivid, moving and packs a visceral punch - Lisa Appignanesi

Mendez's remarkable debut is a fervent, hope-filled and ultimately uplifting coming-of-age story - The i

This is a debut novel but it reads like a pro . . . His prose is cool, slippery and cuts clean to the quick. He takes you places unfamiliar and confusing and with a sentence connects you to the core of the character's mind. It's a fast ride in an astonishingly cool car . . . His sensual explorations of desire are mixed together with withering condemnations of British imperialist ideology, folded in with tender reflections on parenting, and what it means to be young, queer and black in the UK today - GScene

One of the most widely anticipated books of 2020 (The Observer named Mendez as one to watch), Rainbow Milk is a coming-of-age story that touches on racism, the Windrush generation, sexual identity and love. Beautifully written, this is a must for your reading list this month - Stylist

[Rainbow Milk] is more real and generous than most contemporary novels.Ultimately, this is a searing account of the human need for physical connection. Mendez never shies away from the melodrama of sex, the cymbal-crashing opera of desire. He is a unique new voice in the British novel - Johanna Thomas-Corr, Sunday Times

A novel that does what great debuts do - bringing an originality of voice and vision to the form, refreshing our ideas of what is possible in fiction . . . a novel of huge power and emotional impact, written in language that is sharp, distinctive and often beautiful. 2020 has been a year of superb debuts and Rainbow Milk is among the best - Alex Preston, Observer

Urgent, original and heartbreaking - Irish Times

A debut novel set to make a name for its author, Rainbow Milk is a tightly-written but wide-ranging exploration of race, sexuality, class and religion - New European

Daring, dexterous, exciting and accomplished, Mendez is a writer with plenty to say - Attitude

The prose is muscular, the sex graphic, the dialogue sharp . . . Rainbow Milk is a complex and intersectional treatment of race, class, sexuality and sex work and a powerful, thrilling and accomplished debut novel - The Skinny

A fearlessly groundbreaking debut - Colin Grant, Guardian

A state of the nation novel . . . extraordinary . . . the voice of the character is so strong . . . Paul Mendez is now a significant new figure in the literary world . . . James Baldwin would be very proud of this book - BBC Radio 4 Front Row

This groundbreaking book explores women's resistance against the harsh policing of sexuality in Muslim societies. Many Muslim majority countries still use religious discourse to enforce stigmatisation and repression of those, especially women, who do not conform to sexual norms promoted by the state.

In this context, Islam is often stigmatised in Western discourse for being intrinsically restrictive with respect to women's rights and sexuality.

This insightful collection shows that conservative Muslim discourse does not necessarily match practices of believers or citizens and that women's empowerment is facilitated where indigenous and culturally appropriate strategies are developed.

Using case studies from Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, China, Bangladesh, Israel and India, the volume persuasively argues that Muslim religious traditions do not necessarily lead to conservative agendas but can promote emancipatory standpoints.

A timely intervention to the construction of 'Muslim women' as uniformly subordinate, this book spearheads an unprecedented wake of organising around Muslim sexuality issues.

Reading level - 12 to 17 years.

Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today’s leading activists and artists.

In this instalment, The New Queer Conscience, Voices4 Founder and LGBTQIA activist Adam Eli offers a candid and compassionate introduction to queer responsibility.

Eli calls on his Jewish faith to underline how kindness and support within the queer community can lead to a stronger global consciousness.

More importantly, he reassures us that we’re not alone.

In fact, we never were. Because if you mess with one queer, you mess with us all.

The Pope is Not Gay is an irreverent history of homophobic and sexist obscurantism in the Holy Roman Church and an endoscopic examination of its greatest contemporary advocate, Pope Benedict XVI.

In his inimitable style, Angelo Quattrocchi traces the evolution of Joseph Ratzinger's life, beginning with the pope s childhood in Nazi Germany, his membership of the Hitler Youth in Bavaria and his conscription into the German anti-aircraft corps.

His has been a startling career, a story that helps explain his development as a reactionary theologian and culminates in his carefully planned election to the papacy in 2005.

Quattrocchi contrasts the Pope's doctrinal rigidity on issues such as birth control, abortion, and homosexuality to his extravagant attire and his controversial relationship with his private secretary, Cardinal Georg Gänswein.

Rigidity on all fronts.

This inspiring story of the fight for sexual liberation travels across continents and centuries, uncovering a radical struggle including the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the mass movement against Apartheid South Africa that achieved the first inclusion of LGBT rights in a constitution.

This is a remarkably hopeful account of the way women and men have made history even in the most difficult circumstances. It should be read by every activist who aspires to win a world free from oppression and to realise the unfinished dream of liberation that so many have fought for.

Author: Hannah Dee
Format: Paperback
Pages: 186
ISBN: 9781905192700

Homosexuality is one of the most hotly debated topics in the evangelical church today. In Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church four contributors, two defending a traditional view and two defending an affirming view, address not only biblical and theological questions, but also the pressing pastoral questions for the church.

Homosexuality is a taboo subject in the Arab world. While clerics denounce it as a heinous sin, newspapers write cryptically of 'shameful acts' and 'deviant behaviour'.

Amid the calls for reform in the Middle East, homosexuality is one issue that almost everyone in the region would prefer to ignore. In this absorbing account, Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker calls attention to the voices of men and women who are struggling with gay identities in societies where they are marginalised and persecuted by the authorities. He paints a disturbing picture of people who live secretive, fearful lives and who are often jailed, beaten, and ostracised by their families, or sent to be 'cured' by psychiatrists.

Deeply informed and engagingly written, Unspeakable Love reveals that - while deeply repressive prejudices and stereotypes still govern much thinking about homosexuality - there are pockets of change and tolerance. This updated edition includes new material covering developments since the book's first publication.

"Gay," "Christian," and celibate don't often appear in the same sentence. 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 favour 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."

This updated and expanded edition of the original book includes an additional chapter that continues Wesley s story and further reflections on spiritual friendships and how the church can be a more welcoming place for those who choose to embrace a celibate calling."

*Winner of the HWA Debut Crown Award 2020*

Some secrets are unspoken. Others are unspeakable . . .

August 1939.

Thirty-year-old Hetty Cartwright is tasked with the evacuation and safekeeping of the natural history museum’s collection of mammals. Once she and her exhibits arrive at Lockwood Manor, however, where they are to stay for the duration of the war, Hetty soon realises that she’s taken on more than she’d bargained for.

Protecting her charges from the irascible Lord Lockwood and resentful servants is work enough, but when some of the animals go missing, and worse, Hetty begins to suspect someone – or something – is stalking her through the darkened corridors of the house.

As the disasters mount, Hetty finds herself falling under the spell of Lucy, Lord Lockwood’s beautiful but clearly haunted daughter. But why is Lucy so traumatised? Does she know something she’s not telling? And is there any truth to local rumours of ghosts and curses?

Part love story, part mystery, The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey is a gripping and atmospheric tale of family madness, long-buried secrets and hidden desires.