“In the Bible, the theological metaphor for the Gospel is marriage NOT sex,” Bradley continued. “The sexual act itself is a part of marriage & procreation. Butler seems to get the subordination backwards. We’ll see what the book does.”
“I really think @TGC should do some self-reflection about why they thought that article was ok to publish,” tweeted Beth Alison Barr, author of “The Making of Biblical Womanhood” and professor of history. “It reveals so much that is deeply wrong with complementarian ideas about women—that they perceive women as passive sex objects and men as sexual overlords.”
“It’s very okay to not over-spiritualize the mechanics of sexual intercourse, actually,” tweeted Zachary Wagner, author of “Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality” and director of the Center for Pastor Theologians. “It’s okay to let sex be sex. Yes, God created it. It’s part of our humanity. And because of that sex is not shameful or dirty…even if you’re not thinking about Jesus when you’re doing it.”
Wagner later wrote in an article length response to Butler, “If we aren’t careful when using this metaphor, we may find that our way of speaking about sex and God become, like our vision of sex in general, male-centered and dehumanizing.”
“For instance, too many Christian theologies of sex fixate on the significance of male orgasm and the life-giving power of the man’s seed. Too many Christian theologies of sex reduce women to their potential to receive the man’s seed and create a child,” Wagner argued, also pointing out “the prevalence of sexual violence in Christian communities.”
“[I]t’s not out of bounds per se to connect sex to the Christ-church relationship. But we should remember that sex doesn’t need to be over-spiritualized for it to be a created good,” Wagner went on to write. “Sometimes, we can just let sex be sex. Because, sometimes, the way we connect sex to salvation may reveal, more than anything else, the church’s unhealthy preoccupation with sex.”
While TGC posted a link to Butler’s article on Twitter, that tweet has been deleted following backlash.
In addition to his forthcoming book, Butler is also leading a learning cohort through the Keller Center, which will last seven weeks and center on the topic of “The Beauty of the Christian Sexual Ethic.”
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That cohort, which will be open to 200 participants, is set to begin in May.
