Asbury Honors Guest Dr. Abigail Favale Discusses Gender Theory from a Christian Perspective

January 31, 2025

The Asbury Honors Program hosted Dr. Abigail Favale to discuss cultural and Christian gender paradigms, as outlined in her book, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory.

Favale, who was raised Evangelical and attended a Christian university, described herself as “always a gender nerd.” During her studies, she grappled with questions many young women instinctively ask, such as, “What does it mean to be a woman?” “What is my dignity in the eyes of God?” and “What roles or callings are open to me?” Wrestling with these questions led her to deeply explore feminist theory.

“Questions related to women’s dignity and sexual difference in the body are perennial interests to me,” Favale said.

In her two-part lecture, Favale examined the landscape of gender theory in contemporary culture, highlighting two dominant secular theories of gender, and contrasted them with the Christian perspective.

“The shared lie that secular theory holds is that sexual difference doesn’t matter, so there’s a denial or downplaying of the importance of sexual difference,” Favale explained. “Therefore, the meaning of gender has either shifted to society, where it’s viewed as a construct, or to subjective experience. Both of those theories have displaced what it means to be a man or a woman.”

For much of her 20s, while studying gender and feminism during graduate school, Favale held secular views of gender influenced by cultural trends.

“About 10 years ago, I had an intense re-conversion back to Christianity,” she said. “Having that worldview shift, I started viewing gender from Christian premises, and it radically changed my perspective.”

After analyzing postmodern secular views, Favale presented a Christian understanding of gender. She emphasized a holistic paradigm that affirms the dignity of the body, the sacramental meaning of sexual difference, and the interconnectedness of all creation.

“The body matters, and it is a gift,” Favale concluded. “The body is part of how God reveals himself to us.”

Favale is a writer and professor at the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life. Her work intersects Catholic theology, literature, and women’s studies, with a focus on the meaning and dignity of women. Her scholarship explores sexual difference and embodiment within the Catholic imagination.

The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory was published in 2022 by Ignatius Press and has been translated into multiple languages. Favale’s essays have appeared in Church Life Journal, The Atlantic, First Things, Public Discourse, Comment, and other publications. She is also a fiction writer and won the J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction in 2017.