Dr. Elizabeth Stuart

 Dr. Elizabeth Stuart, was the first theologian in the United Kingdom specialising in lesbian/gay/queer theology to be appointed to a professorial chair when she was appointed Professor of Christian Theology at King Alfred’s College, Winchester (now the University of Winchester) in 1998, a post she held until 2008 when she moved into senior academic administration. 

She is a long-standing and life member of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and in 2008 Stuart received the LGCM Award for 'energetic and prophetic advocacy on behalf of LGBT people, numerous pioneering theological books, and for remaining a loyal member of LGCM'.

She was founding chair of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality. She was one of the founding editors of  the academic journal Theology and Sexuality. She has written a number of books on theology and sexuality including Daring to Speak Love’s Name (Hamish Hamilton, 1992), Chosen: Gay Catholic Priests Tell Their Stories (Geoffrey Chapman, 1993), Just Good Friends: Towards a Theology of Lesbian and Gay Relationships (Mowbray, 1995), People of Passion (co-authored with Adrian Thatcher, Mowbray, 1996), Religion is a Queer Thing (Continuum, 1998) and Lesbian and Gay Theologies: Repetitions with Critical Difference (Ashgate, 2003). She now argues that gender and sexuality are not matters of ultimate theological concerns and that the Christian duty is to refuse to work theologically with such categories.

Stephane Lavignotte published a book about Stuart's theology: Au-delà du lesbien et du mâle : la subversion des identités dans la théologie 'queer' d'Elizabeth Stuart (Van Dieren, 2008).

(This biographical statement provided by Elizabeth Stuart.)

Biography Date: February 2003; rev. November 2022

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