Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible
About the Book Series
Every day, global news feeds and social media engagements testify to the endemic presence of gendered violence and rape cultures. This has been demonstrated most strikingly by the rapid and global spread of the #MeToo campaign. But less explored has been the significant part that religions play both in confronting and in perpetuating myths and misperceptions that lie at the heart of rape cultures – that is, cultures that conceptualise gendered violence as an ‘inevitable’ or even profitable outcome of normative social gender roles. Religious texts, traditions, receptions, and beliefs can exert powerful influences on people’s understanding of gender relationships, shaping their responses to gendered violence and rape culture within their own socio-cultural contexts. This series delves into some of these complexities.
Focusing particularly (but not exclusively) on the important role of the Bible, a text that more than any other has exerted both tremendous cultural influence and doctrinal authority in Western democracies and beyond, this series fosters research into the phenomenon of rape culture, throughout history but particularly within contemporary societies. It investigates the complex and at times contentious relationships that exist between rape culture and the Bible (both the text itself and its afterlives in, for instance, popular culture), considering the various ways Bible-based religions both participate in and contest rape culture discourses and practices. In the course of this, the multiple social identities that invariably intersect with rape culture, including gender, sexuality, race and class, are explored.
The series is aimed primarily at researchers, postgraduates, church and other representatives of religious institutions, and upper-level undergraduates. It offers a diversity of approaches to the study of religion, the Bible and gender-based violence. Volumes are likely to appeal to a wide variety of audiences and will make a contribution not only to the study of religion and sacred texts but also gender studies and the study of popular culture and the media.
Rape Culture and the Bible: Scholars Reflect
1st Edition
By Barbara Thiede
October 29, 2025
Rape Culture and the Bible: Scholars Reflect offers readers the opportunity to hear from prominent and influential biblical scholars and scholar activists as they reflect on their work on sexual violence vis-a-vis the Bible. The book covers major points of inquiry in the field, focusing primarily ...
Abuse in World Religions: Towards Solutions
1st Edition
Edited
By Johanna Stiebert
July 31, 2025
This book draws attention to the texts, mechanisms, strategies, and initiatives that address and combat sexual(ised) spiritual abuse in five world religions. It goes beyond identifying, describing or characterising spiritual abuse in multiple religious traditions and rape culture settings, instead ...
The Bible and Gender-based Violence in Botswana
1st Edition
By Mmapula Diana Kebaneilwe
June 27, 2025
The Bible and Gender-based Violence in Botswana foregrounds the rampancy of gender-based violence against women and girls in biblical texts and how it resonates with gender-based violence (GBV) in the author’s contemporary context of Botswana. The volume reads selected texts from the Bible ...
Abuse in World Religions: Articulating the Problem
1st Edition
Edited
By Johanna Stiebert
June 13, 2025
This book opens out religious studies discussion on spiritual abuse to extend beyond the primary focus on Christian settings and situations. Emphasising the diversity and reach of manifestations of spiritual abuse, it offers snapshots and examples from five major religious traditions. Following a ...
Gender, Genocide, Gaza and the Book of Esther: Engaging Texts of Terror(ism)
1st Edition
By Sarojini Nadar
May 21, 2025
Gender, Genocide, Gaza and the Book of Esther bridges the gap between gendered and geopolitical analyses by interrogating both the sexual and ethnic violence embedded in the Book of Esther. While much scholarship has examined the potential genocide of the Jews in the narrative, far less attention ...
Marriage, Bible, Violence: Intersections and Impacts
1st Edition
By Saima Afzal, Johanna Stiebert
December 19, 2024
Drawing on both biblical studies scholarship and practitioner experience, this book explores the disjuncture between complementarian accounts of biblical marriage and intersections of marriage and violence in texts from Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This volume challenges authoritative ...
The Crucifixion of Jesus: Torture, Sexual Abuse, and the Scandal of the Cross
1st Edition
By David Tombs
October 07, 2024
Roman crucifixions sought to degrade and dehumanise their victims in ways that destroyed their dignity and stigmatised their memory. Paul speaks of the cross as a ‘scandal’ or ‘stumbling block’, but the significance of this language has never been explored in terms of sexual violence. The ...
Zeus Syndrome: A Very Short History of Religion-Based Masculine Domination
1st Edition
By Joachim Kügler
May 27, 2024
Zeus Syndrome: A Very Short History of Religion-Based Masculine Domination is a critical assessment of the biblical concepts of gender hierarchy and the intersection of sex/gender, power, and religion. Starting with #MeToo and the abuse of religious power in the Catholic Church, it also presents a ...
Rape Culture in the House of David: A Company of Men
1st Edition
By Barbara Thiede
January 29, 2024
Rape Culture in the House of David: A Company of Men describes a biblical rape culture sustained and maintained by Yhwh and a host of men—from royal kings and princes to their relatives, counselors, generals, and servants. This volume reveals that sexual violence in the house of David is not simply...
Trafficking Hadassah: Collective Trauma, Cultural Memory, and Identity in the Book of Esther and in the African Diaspora
1st Edition
By Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar
January 29, 2024
The representation of sexual trafficking in the book of Esther has parallels with the cultural memories, histories, and materialized pain of African(a) girls and women across time and space, from the Persian Empire, to subsequent slave trade routes and beyond. Trafficking Hadassah illuminates ...
Vocation and Violence: The Church and #MeToo
1st Edition
By Miryam Clough
January 29, 2024
As #MeToo and its sister movement #ChurchToo demonstrated, sexual violence is systemic in many and varied workplace settings, including Christian churches, and can destroy women’s careers and vocational aspirations. The study draws on empirical evidence – personal stories from survivors and the ...
Rape Culture, Purity Culture, and Coercive Control in Teen Girl Bibles
1st Edition
By Caroline Blyth
August 29, 2022
In this fascinating book, Caroline Blyth takes a close look at Bibles marketed to teen girls and asks how these might perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes that lie at the heart of rape culture. The author considers the devotionals, commentaries, and advice sections placed throughout these Bibles...