Not gonna lie... the first thing I did with the virtual copy of the galley was CTRL-F and searched for "clitoris" and I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE STILL WRITING SEX BOOKS WITHOUT A SINGLE MENTION OF THE CLITORIS.
Great work here. “ Let’s be honest here: reproduction is not work that men and women share evenly. Pregnancy, birth, and nursing are done by women. Most early parenting is done by women. Why is this massive component of reproduction treated so lightly?”
For anyone interested, there is some good work being done on the theological significance of women’s work in childbearing. I’ve personally enjoyed and benefited from the books Showing (Agnes R. Howard) and Maternal Body (Carrie Frederick Frost).
Laura, this review so far is a banger and I can't wait to read part 6. Bravo.
I keep asking myself: How did a bunch of men who consider themselves well informed on theology, biblical exegesis, and pastoral ministry read this manuscript and say "heck yeah"? Followed by the decision to (a) publicly praise it to the heavens and (b) double down when challenged?
Here's my theory: Of course there's just the massive refusal to listen to women, critics, and especially critics who are women. There's willful ignorance about what it actually means to be well-informed. And there's obviously a lot of ignorance about the female body and how sex actually works, ignorance that's increasingly willful as time goes on and more info becomes available. AND: For the last 40 years, the evangelical conversation about sex has been a wasteland. It's been constrictive, oppressive, rules-focused, shame-wallowing. (For instance, Jon Ward's book "Testimony" gives a devastating and accurate account of mid-1990s "accountability groups" for men). I'd argue this environment was far more oppressive to women than men, but there was some oppression in there for men too.
Now along comes "Beautiful Union" with a tone that's flowery, effusive, expansive ... if you're a man.
I mean, if you're educated in any way about sex you recognize all the euphemistic free-association as just plain awful. But if you've spent your life in a shame-based rules culture and have chosen not to learn facts about how women's bodies work, maybe this sounds like a breath of fresh air.
Fresh, poisonous, deadly air. It's just a different flavor of the same selfish poison. And that's the willful tragedy of it all.
I'm definitely not giving the group who produced this book a pass. They are all adults who had every opportunity to educate themselves before publishing a book on a topic with real-world, high-stakes implications, and chose not to. Now they've published and advocated for something that's actively harmful to literally half the population of their churches. And it's a tragedy if part of the reason was the perception of a door opening out of a shame prison ... that actually led to a darker, deadlier room.
I can't get over how this book's ideas are so Ancient Greek/Roman, y'know, back when they thought women were just the soil for a man's seed to grow in and that's how kids happened.
The other thing that I keep thinking about is how men like to think they're involved in making a baby but literally, biologically all they do is fertilise an egg. A fertilised egg can't even make a baby until the egg implants. Women do ALL the work of baby making.
So either Josh never got a sex education class of any type or that's yet another place where his editors failed him? Is that where we are? I've lost count of the score now.
I really wonder what Mrs. Butler thinks of all this, or how many other people were damaged by this kind of hubris BEFORE we were all cursed with the worst book on Evangelical sex in the last five years or so.
This -- “It is a book that asks that this tiny slice of the human experience be treated as representative of sexuality and reproduction” and representative of the totality of theology and creation!
I’ve suspected this from the first, and I’m grateful to you for saying it -- esp since I’m nowhere near the read-it-for-yourself pre-release-copy group and haven’t been sure how worthwhile it is to find a way to read it for myself without sending sales signals!
This just pisses me off. It reminds me of when my first child was born. My (then) husband and I stared lovingly at our new baby, marveling at how a child didn't exist, and now does. And then he said, "I can't believe a child from MY LOINS is in the world!" And I responded, "YOUR loins??" To which he replied, "Well....... yours too...." and I said "Mostly mine!" And he never said that again.
Not gonna lie... the first thing I did with the virtual copy of the galley was CTRL-F and searched for "clitoris" and I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE STILL WRITING SEX BOOKS WITHOUT A SINGLE MENTION OF THE CLITORIS.
Great work here. “ Let’s be honest here: reproduction is not work that men and women share evenly. Pregnancy, birth, and nursing are done by women. Most early parenting is done by women. Why is this massive component of reproduction treated so lightly?”
For anyone interested, there is some good work being done on the theological significance of women’s work in childbearing. I’ve personally enjoyed and benefited from the books Showing (Agnes R. Howard) and Maternal Body (Carrie Frederick Frost).
Laura, this review so far is a banger and I can't wait to read part 6. Bravo.
I keep asking myself: How did a bunch of men who consider themselves well informed on theology, biblical exegesis, and pastoral ministry read this manuscript and say "heck yeah"? Followed by the decision to (a) publicly praise it to the heavens and (b) double down when challenged?
Here's my theory: Of course there's just the massive refusal to listen to women, critics, and especially critics who are women. There's willful ignorance about what it actually means to be well-informed. And there's obviously a lot of ignorance about the female body and how sex actually works, ignorance that's increasingly willful as time goes on and more info becomes available. AND: For the last 40 years, the evangelical conversation about sex has been a wasteland. It's been constrictive, oppressive, rules-focused, shame-wallowing. (For instance, Jon Ward's book "Testimony" gives a devastating and accurate account of mid-1990s "accountability groups" for men). I'd argue this environment was far more oppressive to women than men, but there was some oppression in there for men too.
Now along comes "Beautiful Union" with a tone that's flowery, effusive, expansive ... if you're a man.
I mean, if you're educated in any way about sex you recognize all the euphemistic free-association as just plain awful. But if you've spent your life in a shame-based rules culture and have chosen not to learn facts about how women's bodies work, maybe this sounds like a breath of fresh air.
Fresh, poisonous, deadly air. It's just a different flavor of the same selfish poison. And that's the willful tragedy of it all.
I'm definitely not giving the group who produced this book a pass. They are all adults who had every opportunity to educate themselves before publishing a book on a topic with real-world, high-stakes implications, and chose not to. Now they've published and advocated for something that's actively harmful to literally half the population of their churches. And it's a tragedy if part of the reason was the perception of a door opening out of a shame prison ... that actually led to a darker, deadlier room.
👏👏👏
I can't get over how this book's ideas are so Ancient Greek/Roman, y'know, back when they thought women were just the soil for a man's seed to grow in and that's how kids happened.
The other thing that I keep thinking about is how men like to think they're involved in making a baby but literally, biologically all they do is fertilise an egg. A fertilised egg can't even make a baby until the egg implants. Women do ALL the work of baby making.
So either Josh never got a sex education class of any type or that's yet another place where his editors failed him? Is that where we are? I've lost count of the score now.
I really wonder what Mrs. Butler thinks of all this, or how many other people were damaged by this kind of hubris BEFORE we were all cursed with the worst book on Evangelical sex in the last five years or so.
This -- “It is a book that asks that this tiny slice of the human experience be treated as representative of sexuality and reproduction” and representative of the totality of theology and creation!
I’ve suspected this from the first, and I’m grateful to you for saying it -- esp since I’m nowhere near the read-it-for-yourself pre-release-copy group and haven’t been sure how worthwhile it is to find a way to read it for myself without sending sales signals!
This just pisses me off. It reminds me of when my first child was born. My (then) husband and I stared lovingly at our new baby, marveling at how a child didn't exist, and now does. And then he said, "I can't believe a child from MY LOINS is in the world!" And I responded, "YOUR loins??" To which he replied, "Well....... yours too...." and I said "Mostly mine!" And he never said that again.
Good job Laura.
I didn’t understand the phrase “shell game” and was considering googling it, but you made it clear in the end.
Maybe “shell game” is a phrase that’s new to me because I eschew most of popular culture and have never played video games. (?)