Sexuality

Review: The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have

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Cover image of "The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have" by Regina V. Cates

The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have, Regina V. Cates, foreword by Paula Stone Williams. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884107) 2025.

Summary: A pastor imagines what Jesus would want to talk about with Christians in the present moment.

Regina V. Cates invites us to imagine Jesus in conversation with his followers today. She believes he would talk about the abuses of power toward the marginalized and how the church ought love these “neighbors.” Cates thinks he would have a problem with our dogmatic judgementalism toward the “other.” Divisive and corrupt political leadership would deeply disturb him. Jesus would wade into issues we don’t talk about in polite society: sexuality, racism, abortion, toxic masculinity, and more.

Then Cates proceeds to have that conversation in a hard-hitting series of chapters addressing different topics. She pulls no punches, beginning on LGBTQIA+ issues and the church. Cates gets personal, sharing her own painful journey of realizing she was lesbian from an early age in a fundamentalist church. She was sexually assaulted by a sitter and later by a counselor her parents took her to in an effort to “change” her. She was told all such persons are going to hell. No one saw her as a person to be loved. She recounts her own experience of emotional healing in an Inipi sweat lodge. In subsequent chapters, she challenges what she sees as the dogmatism that undergirds what she understands as ancient and misinterpreted texts. She argues that to be religious and moral are two different things.

She describes her remarkable relationship with Byll, an atheist who is one of the kindest people she has met, and who showed her loving acceptance. Then she challenges the “better than arrogance of Christians, challenging us to get ego out of the way. However, all relationships are not like this. Rather, there are times when we must discern when to turn the other cheek and when to responsibly stand up.

She moves on to address other hot-button issues. For example, she argues that “men of quality respect women’s equality” and bluntly addresses sexism and patriarchy and toxic masculinity in the church. This includes male responsibility in matters of sex. She also challenges the church’s complicity in racism and all the ways we try to deny this is a problem. Nor does she mince words about political corruption and our need for leaders of integrity.

Finally, she explores what it means to be a church that embraces all members of the human family. This includes becoming places that create secure settings for the healing of trauma. Ultimately, this means becoming places where we love as Jesus loved.

While I would respectfully differ with the author in my understanding of some biblical texts concerning human sexuality, it broke my heart to read of her experiences in her fundamentalist church. No interpretation of scripture or dogma requires or justifies how the church treated her or what they taught.

Likewise, it saddens me that so many former fundamentalists and evangelicals are writing books like this. In a way, it makes the author’s point that there is a conversation Jesus wants us to have. For example, I grieve that so many men have treated women so badly. As Cates observes, true partnership in ministry does not diminish men. Rather, such men are the real superheroes.

Finally, is this the book to read about the real conversation the church needs to have? While there is much I would affirm in this book, it felt like I’d read this book before and for me, it did not break new ground. That said, this book certainly could spark needed conversations for those open and honest and secure enough with each other to have them.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Sexuality and Sex Therapy

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Cover image of "Sexuality and Sex Therapy" by Mark A. Yarhouse and Erica S. N. Tan

Sexuality and Sex Therapy, Second Edition, Mark A Yarhouse and Erica S. N. Tan. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514010976) 2025.

Summary: A resource for Christian therapists, counselors, and the church affirming the blessing of our sexuality.

Christians simply must get better at discussions of sexuality that go beyond what not to do and who not to do it with. Far too often our discussions of sexuality have been co-opted by our culture wars or distorted by patriarchy. This includes forms of Purity Culture that wrought harm for many youth. On a quieter, but often deeply painful note, many Christian couples struggle to achieve the intimacy promoted within Christian marriage.

Sexuality and Sex Therapy, quite simply, is a superb resource for the whole church. Written for Christian therapists and counselors, it offers in depth foundational perspectives and factual information reflecting the current standards of care in the field of sex therapy. As is often the case, the subtitle, “A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal” is an important descriptor. First, it is comprehensive, addressing the range of sexual disorders and clinical presentations of various conditions. It is Christian, reflecting historic orthodoxy with an emphasis on affirming our physicality and God’s redemptive purposes for our sexuality. Finally, it is an appraisal, discussing both recent societal trends and identifying questions Christian therapists may want to think through in their practice.

For those concerned, with regard to questions of sexual orientation and gender identity, they commend an APA approach that is client rather than gay or trans-affirming. They do not commend efforts to change orientation. For those with gender dysphoria, they cite standards of care and therapeutic options that involve both medical and non-medical interventions. They lean toward a “least invasive possible” approach within a client affirming stance.

The book is organized in four parts. The first part addresses foundations: theological, sociocultural, biological, and clinical. The theological chapter addresses a Christian framework vis a vis other worldviews. The second chapter addresses the understanding of sexuality in our culture, including how it is reflected in social media. And given the focus of the church, it addresses the responses to purity culture. Chapter three provides accurate biological information, including a discussion of menopause. And chapter four introduces clinical practice, including treatment and ethical standards.

Part two addresses the sexual disorder most often addressed in sex therapy. Chapters are addressed to sexual interest and arousal disorders, female orgasmic disorders, pain during intimacy, erectile disorders, and premature and delayed ejaculation disorders. As relevant, each chapter also addresses care for gay and lesbian couples.

Part three addresses other clinical presentations a therapist may encounter. These include various paraphilic disorders, non-normative and alternate sexualities like BDSM and kink, and non-monogamous sexualities. They address sexual addictions, working with mixed orientation couples and mixed gender identity couples.

Finally, part four is a brief conclusion addressing the challenges and opportunities for Christians in the area of sex therapy. They note various constructs and values that may be at variance with a Christian perspective. At the same time, they recognize the chance to bring healing to individuals and couples and the joy of stewarding one’s sexuality for mutual love and God’s glory.

One of the strengths of the book is the depth of information. Many in ministry may not engage in sex therapy, leaving this for those with the appropriate training. The accurate information can help pastoral and lay counselors to not offer bad, and sometimes hurtful information. Extensive reference lists at the end of each chapter provide current research and other helpful resources.

An approach that refuses to hew to a party line on sexual identity or gender dysphoria will frustrate some. However, not all the therapists can select their clients. Additionally, there are professional standards of care in the field that therapists need to adhere to in terms of licensure. At the same time, a client-affirming approach doesn’t push clients one way or another but allows them to make choices congruent with their values, including Christian values.

In sum, this book serves as a great adjunct resource for Christians trained in non-religious clinical programs. It may serve as an introductory clinical text in Christian counseling programs. In addition, as noted above, it is a valuable source for the broader Christian public, affirming a Christian view of the gift of our sexuality.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Finally, thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: The Marriage You Want

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Cover image of "The Marriage You Want" by Sheila Wray Gregoire and Dr. Keith Gregoire

The Marriage You Want, Sheila Wray Gregoire and Dr. Keith Gregoire. Baker Books (ISBN: 9781540903761) 2025.

Summary: Building a rich marriage partnership marked by balance, affection, responsibility, and emotional connection.

I don’t know anyone who goes into marriage who doesn’t want anything less than a loving partnership. We want a relationship that is durable through the hard stuff but also one of shared laughter and mutually satisfying intimacy. That’s not how it always turns out. And sometimes poor marriage counsel exacerbates the problems.

The Gregoires have a marriage ministry that is different. Both their experience working with couples and extensive survey data ground their counsel. It’s led them to frame the characteristics of healthy, flourishing marriages with the acronym BARE. This stands for Balance, Affection, Responsibility, and Emotional Connection. This book is organized around these four qualities with two chapters devoted to each.

Balance. They begin with a classic diagram of the triangle with God and the two spouses, where, as we grow closer to God, we grow closer to each other. But role stereotypes can stretch these triangles out of shape. One stereotype is that husbands are the tie-breakers in decision-making. Another is stereotypes about love for women, respect for men that turns out not to be true. The Gregoires show survey data that underscores how collaborative relationships of respect and love have the highest marital satisfaction. The best marriages reflect teamwork. Each spouse has tiered physiological, social, and actualization needs. If spouses are at different tiers, one of the spouses may have an entitlement mentality. “Compromise” is not helpful when this is the case. Sharing the load of home care and childcare is critical.

Affection. Affection can die in our busy lives. But talking in the car together, taking a walk together, and especially, having a shared bed time are vital. It can be sitting together in the bleachers during lessons and practices. The authors offer practical suggestions for getting time together without making life harder. And simple times of prayer and conversation about spiritual matters, even for a few minutes a day, help.

Then the Gregoires turn to sex. They believe the use of pornography is an intimacy-killer. At the same time connection in the bedroom relates to the couple’s teamwork in the rest of life. If one spouse is dog-tired from carrying the load of household responsibilities, sex is not going to be great. The mental load is part of this. They sensitively deal with issues of frequency and orgasm for both partners. They conclude: “Investing in your relationship and making sex something that flows naturally from that relationship will allow sex to be what it is meant to be: the physical outflowing of an emotional and even spiritual connection between you and your spouse” (p. 110).

Responsibility. Here, the authors wade more into the shared responsibility necessary for teamwork. They elaborate the idea of “mental load,” the energy involved in making sure everything gets done. The solution isn’t “give me a list” but each spouse owning what needs to be done and doing it. This means taking the initiative to learn the whole task. This includes things like medical appointments and “kinkeeping.” Often, one spouse carries this load.

Emotional Connection. Finally, spouses enjoy emotional connection when each spouse understands what he or she wants, speaks up, and spouses reach mutual understanding. The authors explore the barriers that keep us from opening up, how to become aware of one’s emotions and self-regulate when they threaten to overwhelm. They also address rebuilding broken trust.

The book is very practical. The authors identify the ways we fail to act as a team. They show how entitlement creeps in. They also offer positive steps to build partnerships, deepen affection and foster connection. Instead of prioritizing sex, they help couples build the affectionate, connected partnership where sex flourishes. Instead of offering role stereotypes, they commend mutual serving and collaboration. They allow each partner to bring his or her gifts. Instead of making marriage harder, they make it easier by helping each spouse to share the load. And when this is the case, marriage can even be fun.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Finally, thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Recovering from Purity Culture

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Cover image of "Recovering from purity Culture" by Camden Morgante

Recovering from Purity Culture, Camden Morgante. Baker Books (ISBN: 9781540904263) 2024.

Summary: Exposes the myths and harms of purity culture and how to reclaim both healthy sexuality and faith.

We got married in the 1970’s, long before Purity Culture was a thing. On our own, we chose to abstain from sex before marriage. We did not want to say something with our bodies that we were unwilling to commit to before a community of family, friends, and God.

As a campus minister, I began hearing about things like Worth Waiting For, purity rings, and father-daughter dances. I affirmed the wisdom of refraining from sex before marriage. But it felt kind of cringey and cultish, and I wondered how kids would come out of it. For some, it worked out. These folks seemed to have internalized the positive values of Purity Culture without the harmful side effects. But others struggled mightily with shame, including body shaming. Some had distorted views of sexuality that made sex undesirable, even after marriage. Others failed, and believed they were damaged goods. When virginity is the most important thing, even an idol, and you fail to live up to the ideal, you think you have lost everything.

I later learned how purity culture links with patriarchy. Girls were the keepers of boys’ virtue. Boys couldn’t help themselves. And in marriage, instead of loving mutuality, women were expected to to provide sex as often as their husbands wanted it. It became part of an apparatus to control the lives of girls and women.

Often, purity culture has been one of the factors in the lives of those “deconstructing” their faith. If one’s sexuality is only a source of shame, guilt, and pain, and this arises from Christian teaching, then it makes sense to question the faith.

Camden Morgante is a licensed clinical psychologist who grew up in Purity Culture. Much of her healing came both from her own study of scripture and from her clinical training. Much of her work is treating those who have come out of this culture and experienced its harmful effects. Her book draws from her experience, research and clinical experience to help people deconstruct the myths, recover from the shame and other effects, and move forward to live healthy sexual lives and as it is possible “reconstruct” a healthy faith.

The book begins by describing the toxic character of much of purity Culture, as discussed above. She goes on to deconstruct five myths of purity culture, including the fairy-tale marriage, the flipped switch, and the girls as gatekeepers role.

Then the last part of the book turns to “reconstruction.” She discusses faith and doubt and doing one’s own work in reconstruction. She explores developing one’s own sexual ethics, with one’s own reasons. While preferring a traditional Christian ethic, she does not impose this. She deals with singleness, particularly later in life, sexuality in marriage and the difficulties that can arise, overcoming shame, and parenting after purity culture.

There is so much I appreciate about this book. Morgante offers “tools for the journey” from her clinical practice and encourages people to reach their own conclusions. Meanwhile, she quietly holds out a model of a redeemed sexuality for Christ-followers that offers joy, pleasure, and loving mutuality. She’s candid about problems. She names the falsehoods of Purity Culture in ways that help those who struggle to know that it is not them and they are not alone. Instead of myths of “great sex in marriage” Morgante helps us understand the goodness of our bodies and our sexuality. She moves the conversation about Purity Culture, #MeTwo, and #ChurchToo from grievance and pain to the possibility of healing and wholeness.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

Review: Chastity and the Soul

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Cover of "Chastity and the Soul" by Ronald Rolheiser

Chastity and the Soul: You Are Holy Ground, Ronald Rolheiser. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609471) 2024.

Summary: An exploration of the meaning of chastity which has to do with far more than sex.

“Can purity be a word that is ever used without a cringe?”

Father Ronald Rolheiser quotes Lisbeth During asking this question in her book, The Chastity Plot. Rolheiser, in this book that explores the meaning of chastity in Christian teaching, would most emphatically and joyfully answer “yes!” And that despite all the negative connotations, critiques of “purity culture,” and the connotations of prudishness and repressed sexuality with which the culture greets this word.

First of all, Rolheiser defines chastity, and it is clear from his definition that he is talking about far more than sex:

“In essence, chastity is proper reverence, respect, and patience. And in a culture that is often characterized by irreverence, disrespect, and impatience, it is much needed. To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of life, life’s opportunities, and sex, in a way that does not violate them or us. In brief, I am chaste when I relate to others in a way that does not violate their moral, psychological, emotional, sexual, or aesthetic contours. I am chaste when I do not let irreverence or impatience denigrate what is a gift, and when I let life, others, and sex, unfold according to their proper dictates” (p. 4)

But why chastity? It comes down to our understanding of what we and other people are. Rolheiser, using the language of Moses’ burning bush encounter with God says that both we and every person we encounter is holy ground. Any approach that is irreverent, impatient, or that fails to respect the holy character of every human in the image of God is unchaste. I can see how this relates not only to sex but with how we engage with people in any shared endeavor. To disregard the gift of another, to force our way without accounting for another, is unchaste.

Chastity and sex need each other and are not at war with each other. Chastity protects us from misusing the power of our sexuality so that both people may fully be themselves with each other. Chastity, properly understood, doesn’t shut off sexual longing for the other that springs from the God-given reality that it is not good for us to be alone.

Rolheiser challenges those who would separate sex and the soul or even deny the soul. He sees this as the underlying basis for the explosion of “hookup sex” and the explosion of pornography. Yet we all have a sense that deep down, there is a place precious to us, that carries our deepest longings, our sense of self. and in sexual intimacy, we give another access to that place. It’s a place where we want to be protected, honored, and listened to. “Chastity protects the soul.”

Rolheiser goes on to explore the effects of pornography, addresses how we live in tension with our “inconsummation” and how we may learn from Mary and the virgin daughter of Jephthah. He is honest with us that celibacy has been the hardest part of his vows, “but, at the same time, it has helped create a special kind of entry into the world and into other’s lives that is a precious grace….”

He concludes the book with speaking of our need to recover a sense of wonder about our ordinary lives, which in Chesterton’s words involves learning “to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again.” It is chastity that protects the wonder of the holy ground that is another human being, the wonder of the holy ground that is us, and the wonder when two who have prepared in the patience of chastity and in the integrity of their vows for the divine fire of sexual intimacy.

This is a book that takes the “cringe” out of chastity. It’s not the mawkishness of chastity rings, of rules especially imposed on women in purity culture. Chastity is not about the evilness or dirtiness of sex but about its powerful goodness and about the holiness of every person in God’s image and ensuring that the powerful goodness never violates the holiness of us or others. This is good instruction not only for those awakening to their sexuality but for us at all ages, and not only for our sexuality but for all the ways we engage with people who are “holy ground.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Heavy Burdens

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Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church, Bridget Eileen Rivera. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2021.

Summary: Rather than an argument about what the Bible says about LGBTQ persons, a discussion of the ways LGBTQ Christians, regardless of their beliefs, have suffered under heavy, and the author would argue, needless burdens.

This is not one more book arguing about what the Bible says about LGBTQ issues. Bridget Eileen Rivera, a celibate, lesbian Christian committed to the church’s traditional teaching about sexuality and marriage (often labeled Side B in this discussion) offers a much needed account of how the church often wounds young men and women struggling both with their faith and sexuality, often driving them away from faith, and sometimes to the point of suicide. One of the sobering truths this book talks about is that, unlike any other demographic group, religious involvement of LGBTQ persons actually increases their likelihood to commit suicide. Equally troubling, these burdens have nothing to do with what we believe the Bible says about sexuality.

The first of these is the double standard around celibacy. On the one hand, much of the church glorifies sex within marriage and has little to say about celibacy–except for gay persons–even though the Bible commends both celibacy and marriage.

The second is that no matter what an LGBTQ person does (or doesn’t) do, they are often treated as pathological sinners. Actually, in doing so, the church follows Freud and not scripture, which only speaks about acts rather than orientation. Freud helped construct the idea of “homosexual identity.” Many in the church brand members who simply admit attractions or struggles with gender identification as “perverted,” sometimes banning them from working with children (even though they usually pose no danger to children) or expelling them from families or congregations. We define them as sinners beyond grace.

Third, the church has often branded all LGBTQ people as folk devils and moral enemies when our real enemies are not flesh and blood and we are called always to embody the grace and truth of the gospel. Even more troubling is that many of those so branded and consigned to hell are still teenagers and may not have even acted upon their inclinations. Remember trying to figure out your sexuality in middle and high school? And sometimes we made poor decisions. What if on top of this we were branded enemies of the church and consigned to hell?

Fourth, Rivera shares the complexities in the texts applied to LGBTQ persons that are often described as clear, even while passages referring to adultery, divorce, and the church’s case for or against contraception are often described as complicated. She points to figures like John Piper, who speak of allowing others grace, even though he would disagree with them on matters like divorce. But no grace for LGBTQ persons.

Rather than go into the other burdens in detail, I will note that Rivera discusses issues of how masculinity and femininity are defined, sometimes expressed toward gay men as bullying to get them to “man up,” and the gender essentialism that galvanizes opposition to transexuality, which she argues is rooted in Aristotelianism rather than scripture. Finally, she pleads for as much grace for LGBTQ Christians as is extended to cisgendered straight Christians in all their sexual sins.

I do wonder if there is a tendency toward making the Side A/Side B discussion merely adiaphora–a matter of personal conviction over which Christians disagree and extend grace toward each other. But this does not take away from her powerful witness to the destructive burdens laid upon LGBTQ persons that are not a necessary corollary of the church’s historic beliefs around sexuality and contrary to the gospel.

Rivera and I would agree on our understanding of scripture’s teaching about sexuality, though I suspect her arrival at her convictions was probably harder won than mine. Furthermore, she gives language to my dis-ease about what has seemed an obsession of the church’s focus on the sins of LGBTQ persons, a minority, while blithely ignoring or covering up sexual abuse, pre- and extra-marital sex among Christians, pornography addiction and domestic violence in marriages. She also raises important questions about the extra-biblical material we have imported into Christianity concerning orientation and gender roles. She reminds us that there is much more to the identity and personhood and sexuality of all of us than sex. She touches on something I’ve wondered–what would happen if we began to ask how LGBTQ people may be gifts rather than problems for the church? She leaves me hoping for the day LGBTQ people will not feel they need to leave the church to preserve and find their lives.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Fire Within

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The Fire Within: Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God, Ronald Rohlheiser. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2021.

Summary: A collection of short meditations on human, and particularly sexual desire, contending these come from God and are meant to draw us to God.

With adolescence, we awaken to desire. Much of that is sexual desire and longing for intimacy. About the last thing most of us think of is any connection between our longings and our sexuality and God. Most of us just don’t think of God and sex going together.

Ronald Rohlheiser, speaks candidly of these longings, including his own experience of these as a young man in the novitiate. During a spiritual conference, a speaker spoke of how they must be “jumping out of their skins” and that this was how they should be feeling and it was healthy. As he studied more deeply, he discovered that far from these desires being distant from God, they came from God. He writes in the preface of this work:

“Sexuality is inside us to help lure us back to God, bring us into a community of life with each other, and let us take part in God’s generativity. If that is true, and it is, then given its origin and meaning, its earthiness notwithstanding, sex does not set us against what is holy and pure. It is a Godly energy” (p. xi).

Rohlheiser offers a series of twenty-two reflections expanding on this idea, each about four pages in length. The reflections are divided into two parts. The first focuses on desire and our complex humanity; the second on how we deal humanly and spiritually with desire.

He begins with how longing is at the center of our experience, that this space is a space for God. Instead of using guilt and shame to deal with raw desire, he proposes we help youth see this as God’s creative energy incarnate in our bodies. Our energies are not sinful or evil; only the misuse of them. He compares virgin youth to Jephthah, mourning her virginity. Too often, we demand satisfaction rather than learning to live in the ache of mourning. We are complex in our desires and need to honor and hallow this, learn through it, and live under God’s patience and understanding. Rohlheiser warns of the danger of grandiosity, a type of self-absorption in which desire is turned in on self in pride instead of drawing us to God. Given our complexity and longings never fully to be realized in this life, married or single, we may understand our lives as “unfinished symphonies.’

One of our challenges in dealing with our desires is how easily distracted we are. God’s invitation is to greater mindfulness and attentiveness. Sex is sacramental, filled with spiritual significance. So is everyday life, and we need to have our world re-enchanted. Other essays deal with barrenness, anger, and waiting. Perhaps one of the most illumining are his reflections on re-imagining chastity. He extends this beyond sexuality. The basic idea of chastity is to not force things but to honor their character and rhythms. He uses the example of metamorphosis, which, if rushed, results in a malformed moth or butterfly. Purity is not a matter, first of all of sexual self-control, but of intention, acting in ways that do not manipulate or use others, but align our actions with our commitments. Ultimately, the invitation is into a greatness of soul that can rejoice in the prodigal who returns rather than exacting payback, aware of the mercies we all have received.

It is a good thing these reflections are short because they are filled with insight. These are worth reading one at a time. More important is that they build on a doctrine of our creation as man and woman in the image of God. Our gender and sexuality and desires were created before the fall. Evil doesn’t create anything. It only distorts. Rohlheiser helps us move beyond shame and guilt about our desires to thanksgiving and celebration. From that, it is only a short step from realizing our desires are from God and for God, to wondering how they might be rightly expressed. Chastity and purity are matters of honor and intent rather than restrictive rules or patriarchal control.

One of the challenges facing the church is the articulation of a redemptive vision of sexuality. There is a beautiful story that has been lost in all the rules, the purity culture, the shaming, and the abuses and scandals. Rohlheiser recovers that beauty with both candor and insight. I wish I’d had this book when I was a much younger man, but his insights into our desires and our complexity, and the mystery and wonder of God’s purposes in it all continue to rejoice this heart.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Sex and the City of God

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Sex and the City of God, Carolyn Weber. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020.

Summary: A story of how the decision to choose “the city of God” transformed love, sexuality, and relationships for the author.

At first glance, the title of this book feels like a teaser, playing off the title of another book by Candace Bushnell and the popular television series that followed. But the book really is about one woman’s sexuality and how her choice to live as a citizen of the City of God led to a larger vision of love, healing of her relationship with her father, and a deeper understanding of the meaning of her sexuality. Add to that a heart-warming love story told by a gifted writer, and you have a truly great read.

The story begins with the father, hospitalized and near death. In his last years, he had come to faith, and drawn close to his daughter, the author. Her mind flashes back to the absentee father of her childhood, and her seventh birthday party, a picture of her in a dress he bought her, waiting for him to come home. He didn’t come.

The story moves forward to her graduate studies at Oxford, and the summer at home after she had started following Christ. In the background of that story is TDH (Tall, Dark, and Handsome) who had shared with her about God, one of the Christians she’d met with but a remote hope for anything more than a good friendship. Back home is Ben, an ex who shows up. A drive in his truck ends at a summer cabin, interrupted by a knock at the door, and a box of books. In the months ahead, she begins to live into not merely a single, but singular life belonging to Christ, a life oriented around Augustine’s City of God rather than the human city.

Through Bible studies at St. Ebbe’s and reading Augustine, she finds her understanding of sexuality reframed, oddly enough through biblical genealogies. The begotten are not merely part of a human family but the created and adopted family of God:

Sex as the template for genealogy is important because sexuality is a reflection of God’s relationship with us. Our relationship to sex speaks of our relationship to God. And because our relationship to God must precede our relationship with everything else, including our own selves, working from this first relationship changes everything. As a result, more often than not in a culture that neglects our dignity as spiritual beings, pursuing this foundational relationship can feel countercultural, though it is God’s norm, for in becoming children of God we become who he intended us to be (p. 63).

It was not as straightforward path. Many frustrating dating relationships. A tempting episode in another cabin with the heat out. Meanwhile, the conversations continued with TDH, who always treated her and other women with respect, was candid in discussion about his own temptations, and his commitment to a chaste life as a Christian. And then he moved back to the States…

The rest of the story, as they say, is a lovely courtship, and then an honest account of marriage with its ups, downs and temptations (including a writing retreat that turns out a walk through the forest from Ben’s cabin, complete with his truck parked in the drive!).

The story ends as it began, with her father, his last voice message and a reflection on how the choices we make in love may well shape who is with us in our last moments. Along the way, Carolyn Weber’s writing draws us into her life, her longings, her temptations and her struggle with them, her hopes and growing faith. Her writing draws us by her descriptions of scenes and places in which we enter into disappointment, into turmoil, into the cold of the cabin, the wildness of a windstorm, the insistent knocking upon a door. This skillfully written narrative, punctuated with poetry and Augustine, invites us into the the aching wonder of human love shaped by the growing pursuit of the City of God. We are left wondering if God has something better on offer, even when it comes to human sexuality.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Confronting Old Testament Controversies

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controversies

Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions About Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence, Tremper Longman III. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019.

Summary: With a commitment both to the authority of the Bible, and pastoral concern for readers, the author addresses controversial questions about origins, historicity, violence, and sexuality.

This work took a certain amount of courage to write. I suspect there will be a number who read it who applaud what the author says in some places and vehemently disagree elsewhere. Throughout, the author seeks to offer a reading of scripture, particularly the Old Testament that engages the text as a whole and seeks to listen to its overarching  message, that engages scholarship, including scholars, some friends, with whom the author disagrees, and seeks to exercise pastoral care, even for readers who may disagree.

The four issues the author addresses are the controversy of how we read the creation accounts of scripture in light of evolution; whether we can trust that the exodus and Canaanite conquest are historical events, despite claims that they did not happen; how we should think about the claims of divine violence in scripture; and what the Bible teaches about same-sex relations and the pastoral implications of this teaching. My brief summaries of the author’s responses to these controversy should not substitute for a careful reading of his responses, especially if one thinks one differs with the author.

  • On evolution, he both argues against “wooden reading that would lead us to think that it was the intention of the biblical author to provide us with a straightforward description of the how of creation” and equally against those who would deny “a historic fall and concept of original sin.” He contends that the Bible is interested in the who and why of creation while science addresses the how.
  • On history, he affirms the historical reality as well as the theological import of the exodus and conquest narratives.
  • On violence, he believes that attempts to claim God didn’t hurt anyone or that seek to minimize the harm, do not do justice to the biblical text, which, consistent with the New Testament portrays a God who fights against, and finally defeats evil. He actually suggests that the violence of the Old Testament, first against the nations, and later against Israel herself, stand as forewarnings of God’s final judgment.
  • On sexuality, he affirms the historic view of the church affirming sexual intimacy within the boundaries of a marriage between a man and a woman. He thoughtfully deals with key texts and alternative readings. While he holds to what is now called a “traditional” view, he contends he speaks only to the church here and that there are implications of the Bible’s teaching about sexuality that challenge every believer. He opposes crusades against same-sex marriage or the withholding of business services to LGBT persons offered to others.

What I most admired are the gracious ways in which Longman engages and charitably differs with scholars, including one who was a former student, and another who is a close friend. I affirm the ways he shows pastoral concern without compromising theological integrity, modeling a belief that love and truth, story and principle need not be at odds. Finally, I appreciate the thoughtful, nuanced yet concise, responses to four controversies, each of which have been the subjects of multiple complete books. What each have in common are that they represent shifts from historic understanding, arising both from scholarship and other cultural forces. Longman offers a thoughtful restatement of the biblical teaching that weighs the counter arguments and finds them inadequate to justify abandoning historic understandings shared by most of the church through most of its history.

The work serves as a good starting place for someone who wants to read a well-stated “conservative” view (although some conservatives and some evolutionists alike would be unhappy with Longman on evolution) on the four controversies addressed by this book. The documentation points people to the full range of scholarship on each of the questions. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter may help both with personal reflection and group discussion. Most of all, the work models a spirit in desperate need of recovery, that can both speak unequivocally about one’s convictions yet shows charities toward one’s opponents.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

 

Review: Beauty, Order, and Mystery

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Note: Perhaps I should prepare my readers for the reviews I will be posting today and tomorrow. The writers of the book I am reviewing today endorse what they would describe as the church’s historic consensus about human sexuality while attempting to deal thoughtfully and sensitively with contemporary issues in this contentious space. Tomorrow, I will be reviewing a book on intersectional theology, in which the co-authors support an “open and affirming” stance with regard to LGBTQ persons. I will understand if some of my readers decide to opt out of one or both, perhaps for good reasons because even summaries of the books and discussion of them may not feel “safe” given the reader’s personal experience. There is much I found in each book that I appreciated, and matters about which I had questions, or even disagreements. I suspect you will as well, and we may differ in our appreciations, questions, and disagreements. At least this blog won’t be one more “echo chamber.”

beauty, order, and mystery

Beauty, Order, and Mystery, Gerald Hiestand & Todd Wilson, editors. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Summary: A collection of papers given at the 2016 Center for Pastor Theologians conference exploring various aspects and contemporary issues concerning human sexuality from the perspective of the church’s historic consensus.

The editors of this work begin by advancing the idea of “mere sexuality” which they hold to be the church’s historic consensus on the meaning and appropriate expression of human sexuality. They argue that this has been a time of sweeping change with the upholding of marriage equality and transgender rights, as well as the predominance of sexual intimacy outside of marriage, the ease of divorce, and the separation of sexual intimacy and procreation because of birth control. Some see this as sweeping away that consensus, others as evidence that there never really was one. The attempt of the contributors of this book is to articulate in fresh terms the church’s historic understanding of human sexuality, not only addressing contemporary questions but seeking to articulate a vision of the beauty of human sexuality, how a proper ordering of sexual love leads to human flourishing, and the meaning that underlies it for creatures made in the image of the triune God and the incarnate Son who calls the church his Bride.

There were several essays that I found especially helpful in articulating this vision. Beth Felker Jones writes about the goodness of embodied gender and sexuality, and challenges “cultural assumptions about femininity and masculinity [that] may interfere with Christian discipleship.” Wesley Hill, a celibate, gay, Anglican theologian, sensitively engages the work of Eugene Rogers and Robert Song, who both are “affirming” theologians. He carefully discusses Matthew 19:1-9 arguing that Jesus not only reaffirms the creation order of male and female marriage, but in his teaching about divorce, announces the redemption of this order. At the same time, he challenges readers to consider how LGBTQ persons may be gifts to the church rather than problems to be solved, people to be loved and wanted for who they are.

Joel Willitts offers what I found to be a courageous and vulnerable account of what it was like for him to struggle with a history of sexual abuse, pornography use, struggles with intimacy and the futility of the quick fixes often dispensed in the name of pastoral care. He shares, in an email with a woman struggling with porn, a woman abused from age 6 who became pregnant at age 12:

“…if you ever do come to the point that you can give up porn, it will not be because of contempt or fear or guilt or shame or self-discipline. If you ever give up porn it will be because you have come to know God’s kindness at the deepest level of your heart. Start being kind to yourself now because that is exactly how God will treat you through eternity. No sense waiting until then:)!”

Matthew Mason draws upon 1 Corinthians 15 and the work of Oliver O’Donovan to address the resurrection hope as it applies to those dealing with transgender identity and gender dysphoria. Amy Peeler explores the revelation of God’s glory in male and female worshiping and prophesying together as God intends in 1 Corinthians 11. Matthew Levering, a Catholic scholar, introduces us to Thomas Aquinas and the ordering of our sexuality that allows for human flourishing. Daniel J. Brendsel, drawing on the work of Charles Taylor, explores “selfie” culture and its implications for the culture’s understanding of sexuality. All these essays, I found quite helpful and reflected theological engagement and imagination.

The one essay I struggled most with was Denny Burk’s on “The Transgender Test.” After invoking “biblical inspiration and authority” I felt he, without exegesis or an engagement with what is known about gender dysphoria, equates “biological sex and gender identity.” My assumption is that he defines biological sex in terms of genitalia. He does not acknowledge the cases where this is ambiguous, and dismisses neurobiology and gender identity (what he calls “brain-sex theory”). While neural pathways are less visible than genitalia, they are no less biological. Instead, we are told that the Bible gives us all we need for life and godliness, that we need to accept that we were made male or female, and that is that. I thought this essay was not up to the level of the others, and question how helpful the “pastoral theology” found here will be to transgendered individuals.

On the other hand, I found Richard Mouw’s closing reflections on the conference filled with wise counsel for the church, from how he counselled a lesbian student as a seminary president, to our needs to think with the global church on these issues. This raises a criticism I would have of this collection of essays. As far as I can tell, these are all by white, North Americans (twelve men, one of who identifies as gay, and two women,). There are no voices of people of color, or theologians from outside North America. I hope that the Center for Pastor Theologians will heed Mouw in composing future conference speaker slates (an issue at many Christian conferences).

Nevertheless, I found much fresh and careful thinking in this work. Nowhere was this more typified that the closing essay on “What Makes Sex Beautiful?” Matt O’Reilly explores the beautiful bookends of the Bible in Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 21-22 and how both occur in a garden, have imagery of a temple where God dwells and involve a wedding. He writes:

“My argument is that sex derives its beauty from the marriage relationship, which is designed by God to uniquely embody and magnify his creative and redemptive love. When sex is celebrated in the context of that relationship and as its consummative act, it magnifies the beauty of the triune God.”

It seems to me that this touches on the heart of the discussion. All of our sexual ethics flow from the meaning of our sexuality, and here, as elsewhere, Christians cannot answer this apart from the loving triune God and the incarnate Christ, the Bridegroom who will come for his spotless bride.