Eucontamination: Disgust Theology and the Christian Life - Hardcover

by Paul Hoard (Author), Billie Hoard (Author)

For too long, Christianity has been distorted by an overapplied purity-disgust metaphor: fueling exclusion, reinforcing fear, and enabling Christian Nationalism. Eucontamination challenges this toxic framework, arguing that Jesus did not retreat from impurity but transformed it. This interdisciplinary work weaves together psychology, psychoanalysis, theology, and sociology to expose how disgust has shaped Christian witness--from theological education to church exclusion and social scapegoating. But there is a better way. The authors propose that Christ is not fragile in the face of sin but a "good infection," a force that spreads healing and redemption. Instead of protecting a brittle purity, true faith embraces eucontamination--a sanctifying engagement with the world, not a retreat from it. For Christians seeking a faith that resists exclusion and embraces radical love, Eucontamination offers a vision of transformation--one where Truth, Life, and the Way are not delicate things to be defended but powerful forces moving through and within us all.

Author Biography

Paul Hoard, PhD, is a licensed counselor, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and associate professor of counseling psychology at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. His scholarship focuses on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, sexuality, white-body supremacy, perpetration-induced traumatic stress, and the theological logic of disgust. He has spoken and published internationally on topics including purity culture, trauma, eucontamination, and the intersections of theology and psychoanalysis. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Hoard maintains a private counseling practice and provides clinical supervision and consultation. He is the co-author, with his sister Billie Hoard, of the book Eucontamination: Disgust Theology and the Christian Life.



Billie Hoard is a trans woman, a high school history teacher, and something of an Anabaptist radical.