The Work of a Gay College Chaplain: Becoming Ourselves in the Company of Others

Teach multicultural awareness from preschool to graduate school! Blending personal experience, theoretical discussions, in-depth research, and practical exercises, The Work of a Gay College Chaplain traces one man's odyssey from effeminate boy to openly gay college chaplain, a journey that led him from a loving childhood through repressed sexuality, gay bars, Union Theological Seminary, and positions teaching preschool children, prisoners, and college students. In all these situations, he discovered that the key to nurturing individuals is discovering and supplying what they need, not imposing on them conventional ideas of what they should do. The practical application of that philosophy is the heart of this book. It crosses conventional and academic boundaries in its courageous exploration of what it means to be a gay man, a Christian, a teacher, a parent, a minister. Instead of focusing on the problems and victimization of gay and lesbian people, The Work of a Gay College Chaplain celebrates the unique perspectives that gay people can offer to straight people. This genuinely multicultural book shares specific ideas, exercises, and techniques for crossing boundaries and understanding widely divergent points of view, including: parenting techniques for rearing children whose tastes and needs are very different from those of their immediate families designing a preschool curriculum that avoids imposing inappropriate cultural expectations of gender and orientation writing methods that help clarify issues of identity and self-expression developing a theoretical and practical model for relating to people whose experience is different from our own creating worship services that work for people of many faiths People of any age, culture, religion, ethnicity, or orientation can benefit from the process of learning from differences taught in The Work of a Gay College Chaplain.… (more)