Women’s Ministry
Conference on Biblical Sexuality
with Rosaria Butterfield
June 9 and 10, 2017
Friday Evening, June 9 — In the sanctuary at 7:00 p.m.
Sexual Identity and Union with Christ
Question and answer opportunity to follow. This meeting is open to the men and women of
the church, along with other area churches and the public. Anyone high school age and older
is encouraged to attend.
Saturday Morning, June 10 — In the sanctuary at 9:00 a.m.
Hospitality is Spiritual Warfare
Question and answer opportunity to follow. This meeting is for the women of the church and
other area churches (from high school age). There will be a luncheon following the meeting
for a charge of $15.
Rosaria’s Story
R
osaria Champagne Butterfield, a former
tenured Professor of English and Women’s
Studies at Syracuse University, converted to Christ
in 1999 in what she describes as a train wreck.
Her memoir, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely
Convert chronicles that difficult journey. Rosaria is
married to Kent, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor
in North Carolina, and is a homeschool mother,
author, and speaker.
Raised and educated in a liberal Catholic setting,
Rosaria fell in love with the world of words. In her late twenties,
allured by feminist philosophy and LGBT advocacy, she adopted
a lesbian lifestyle. Rosaria earned her Ph.D. from Ohio State
University, then served in the English Department and Women
Studies program at Syracuse University from 1992 to 2002. Her
primary academic field was Critical Theory, specializing in queer
theory. Her historical focus was 19 th century literature informed
by Freud, Marx, and Darwin. She advised the LGBT student
group, wrote Syracuse University’s policy for same-sex couples,
and actively lobbied for LGBT aims alongside her lesbian partner.
In 1997, while Rosaria was researching the
religious right “and their politics of hatred against
people like me”, she wrote an article against the
Promise Keepers. A response to that article triggered
a meeting with Ken Smith, who became a resource on
the religious right and their Bible, a confidant, and a
friend. In 1999 after repeatedly reading the Bible in
large chunks for her research, Rosaria converted to
Christianity. Her first book, The Secret Thoughts of
an Unlikely Convert, details her conversion and the
cataclysmic fallout—in which she lost “everything
but the dog,” yet gained eternal life in Christ.
Rosaria’s second book, Openne