Book Review: Unprotected Texts, The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire
Jennifer Wright Knust is bound to be stoned in the courtyard of conservative Christian public opinion this year, thanks, at least in part, to the bang-up job someone is doing on her PR team.
I mean that with all sincerity and admiration.
Newsweek’s Religion Editor, Lisa Miller, picked up on Jennifer’s recent book, Unprotected Texts, The Bible’ Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire and parlayed it into an article, titled, “What the Bible Really Says About Sex.”
Sensing God needed someone to defend the bearded old man’s sexual honor, Al Mohler drew his pistol with “What the Bible Really Says About Sex…Really?” Sadly, yet predictably, Mohler’s argument can be boiled down to “Librals are stoopid.”
Though clearly biased, Jennifer Wright Knust is anything but stupid. More importantly, she never condescends to the personal attacks so prevalent among theological populists like Mohler. In Unprotected Texts she provides an accessible survey of the complexities of sexuality, family, gender roles, and the sexually charged political power struggles found in Jewish and Christian scriptures. Her writing is crisp and energetic, instructional and engaging, and even, at times, personally touching in a way that scholars often attempt, yet rarely accomplish.
It’s a good thing too, because if you lean towards a conservative hermeneutic, Knust is likely to ruffle your feathers. She attempts to dismantle virtually every pillar of conservative family-values, including the ideal of the nuclear family (a modern myth), the exclusivity of male-female marital sex (the exception, not the rule), the high value for marriage (Jesus and Paul barely tolerate marriage), male and female roles (the bible contradicts itself depending on the cultural milieu), and the sinfulness of homosexuality (it’s complicated).
In fact, that pretty much sums up Knust’s arguments about the Bible and sexuality: it’s complicated:
The Bible does not offer a systematic set of teachings or a single sexual code, but it does reveal sometimes conflicting attempts on the part of people and groups to define sexual morality, and to do so in the name of God (p17).
Mohler is right about one thing: these arguments are nothing new, and proclaiming so is where Lisa Miller, in particular, stumbles in her Newsweek article. Still, while this perspective of scripture as a complicated and conflicted dialectic may be old news to scholars, it is still frighteningly rare among everyday folks.
Frightening, I say, because a divergent hermeneutic – where the bible is acknowledged to be a variety of irresolvable divergences – is almost certainly correct. One simply cannot take scripture seriously (as Knust puts it) and fail to notice that it often argues vigorously with itself. Historically, it’s the attempt to force scripture into a seamless and systematic convergence of unquestionable control that leads people to malign and maim others in the name of God.
As I’ve argued before, being intellectually honest enough to live in the tension of irresolvable divergence is an important means of reflecting genuine Christian humility, or, what Leslie Newbigin called a “proper confidence.”
That doesn’t mean I’m with Knust on everything in this book. Her bias leaves little room for a nuanced interaction with opposing views and the overall effect is that certain speculations appear to be well-grounded facts when, in fact, they’re little more than modern academic fancy (i.e. the assertion David and Jonathan’s relationship was sexual).
Moreover, internal conflict in scripture doesn’t necessarily preclude congruence. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine having a proper confidence in Christ, much less Christianity, without a sense of congruence within certain themes. Yet, Knust offers almost nothing to identify the internal congruences of scripture (except the congruence of conflict). She seems content to commend the golden rule as the highest expression of scripture without explaining exactly why this ethic warrants preservation in the midst of so much textual excising.
Still, Knust’s book represents an important perspective in a world that seems to be increasingly prone to religious extremism in the form of sexism, misogyny, and violence. There are practical, real-life implications at stake: people still get literally and figuratively stoned in this world for speaking or acting in ways contrary to entrenched social and religious mores.
As Knust herself says in the introduction: “sluts should live” (p17).
(I received a galley copy of Unprotected Texts free of charge by the publisher in return for agreeing to review the book. I was not asked to offer either a positive or negative review.)
