Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1062: A Raw Conversation about Sex and Theology with Josh Ryan Butler, Dr. Sandy Richter, and Brenna Blain

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Today's episode is a very raw conversation about Sex and Theology with Josh Ryan Butler, Dr. Sandy Richter, and Brenna Blain. Josh Ryan Butler is pastor of Redemption Tempe in Arizona, the author of Beautiful Union (and a few other books). Dr. Sandy Richter is currently the The Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies at Westmont college and the author of many books including one of my favorite books on the Old Testament, The Epic of Eden. Sandy has an MDiv from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and a PhD from Harvard University.  When looking at Brenna Blain you might not guess that she works in ministry, with a body adorned in tattoos and piercings she doesnt fit the evangelical look many have grown up with, but that's just Brenna. Her ministry focus is on providing resources for churches, ministries and individuals who are seeking to find God in the midst of difficult topics and hard conversations. Whether she's teaching at conferences, producing podcasts or writing, you will find Brenna inviting you to pursue Biblical truth with compassion and conviction. Brenna obtained her BA in Theology and Biblical Studies from Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon and has lived in the PNW her entire life. Her greatest joys are her two sons and her husband Austin. While she speaks on many topics, Brenna is especially passionate about God’s involvement in our pain and personal struggles including mental illness, same sex attraction and abuse. In this podcast conversation, Brenna shares her story about her journey with abuse, mental health challenges, questions around her sexuality, and how her hope in Christ has remained constant in the midst of many challenges. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel!  Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, have you been blessed or encouraged or challenged by Theology in the Raw? If so, would you consider joining Theology in the Raw's Patreon community? For as little as five bucks a month, you can gain access to a diverse group of Jesus followers who are committed to thinking deeply, loving widely, and having curious conversations with thoughtful people. We have several membership tiers where you can receive premium content. For instance, Silver Level supporters get to ask and vote on the questions for our monthly Patreon-only podcast. They also get to see written drafts of various projects and books I'm working on, and there's other perks for that tier.

Gold Level supporters get all of this and access to monthly Zoom chats where we basically blow the doors open on any topic they want to discuss. My patrons play a vital role in nurturing the mission of Theology in the Raw. And for me, just personally, interacting with my Patreon supporters has become one of the hidden blessings in this podcast ministry. So you can check out all of the info at patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My three guests today are Josh Ryan Butler, who's an author, a speaker, and a pastor, Dr. Sandy Richter, who is a professor of theology and Bible at Westmont College and an author of many books,

including The Epic of Eden, which is a fan favorite among Theology in the Raw listeners, and also Brenna Blaine, who was recently on the podcast just a couple months ago. Brenna has a bachelor's degree in theological studies from Multnomah University, is a future author and a speaker, a sexual abuse survivor, and is just an all-around awesome person. So this conversation, obviously, for those of you who I guess are on social media, are aware of some of the controversy that surrounded an excerpt of a book that Josh Butler wrote, and it's going to be published next month, called A Beautiful Union. It's basically a theology of sex and marriage. And an excerpt of that book was posted on the Gospel Coalition website. And yeah, we're going to talk about all that stuff.

So if you're not aware, the excerpt that was posted raised, I mean, to say it raised a lot of controversy and blowback would be an understatement. It caused a pretty significant wake in evangelical conversations around sex, abuse, women, and other conversations related to that. So I wanted to have Josh on the podcast to have an in-depth, thoughtful conversation, but not just with me. I wanted to have two women on the podcast to dialogue with Josh. I wanted a female scholar and also somebody who is an abuse survivor. So that's why I reached out to Sandy and Brenna who were happy to dialogue with Josh. So let's go ahead and jump in. I'm going to explain a little more details with the context of the article and where we're going to go in this conversation. I will say this, we spent a lot of time up front digging into, in particular, Josh and Sandy were really wrestling,

you know, going back and forth with some exegesis, exegetical differences in how to interpret the phrase one flesh, how to understand Ephesians 5, Genesis 2. Sandy brought in a lot of stuff with ancient Near East background material. Okay. So we dive deep into some theological and exegetical aspects of this conversation. And then the last half of this podcast, we'd get into some of the more concerns around the language that Josh is using, some of the way he portrays his theology in the book, especially the excerpt. And so the first half is deeply exegetical, theological. The second half of this conversation is much more practical and dives into kind of our cultural moment in evangelicalism and how Josh's excerpt and book is participating in

that cultural moment. So without further ado, let's dive into this conversation with Brenna Blain, Josh Ryan Butler, and Dr. Sandy Richter. Thank you all for being part of this important conversation, I guess is one of the words we can use here. important conversation, I guess is one of the words we can use here. Let me just briefly, for those of you who aren't aware of kind of why we're doing this, let me just briefly sum it up. And then, you know, we're trying to figure out how to even go about this conversation in a way that it's helpful and humanizing. And so what I want to do, I'll just briefly sum up kind of the article that was posted a month ago by Josh and kind of, um, just what happened and then, uh, how this podcast came about and then I'll toss it back to Josh and have him kind

of unpack a little more of what he was trying to do in that article. And then we will have a fun and engaging conversation. So yeah, it was, uh, I think about a month ago, Josh was a month ago, six weeks ago, maybe about three weeks at the time of recording. Okay. Yeah. Where Josh is coming out with a book called Beautiful Union. It's a book on sex and marriage and how sex and marriage is interwoven into the theological storyline of scripture. And it's a book I had early access to. I read it. I thought it was a extremely good book engaging. And so I was like, man, that this is an incredible book. Not that every single word I agreed with, or would say it that way, you know, I endorse if I, you know, I endorse books, even if I don't agree with

every little thing. And I could sense, you know, this is my area dealing with, you know, theology of sex and everything I could, I could see in the book that I'm like, man, yeah, you're, you're definitely drawing on a lot of Catholic thinkers, um, in your theology of sex, which I I've been, I've really benefited from Catholic thinkers, not in other areas of theology as much, but in, in, you know, especially John Pope, John Paul, his theology of the body, uh, Chris West, um, Chris West, and others who have taken more of a Catholic view. I'm like, no, this is really, I'm not sure if I'm quite where these guys are, but I think they're asking good questions or wrestling with the text in really interesting ways. So that's where I'm going to read in the book thinking, man, this is, I haven't seen a Protestant take

a Protestant theology and yet draw on a more Catholic approach to these questions. So the Gospel Coalition released an excerpt of the book, which in my opinion, okay, this is Theology Under Outs, I'll be raw. I think it's probably the worst excerpt of the book to release in isolation because you, one thing I know about you, Josh, is you are a, you do like to provoke thinking. You do like to push boundaries. I think you like to make people a little uncomfortable. And you did that right out of the gate.

And if I can say you did that very successfully in this excerpt. But I had access to the rest of the book. I know where you're going with this. To me, I remember reading the excerpt feeling like, man know where you're going with this. So to me, I remember reading the excerpt feeling like, man, I don't remember reading this. I'm like, oh, no, I did read it, but I would write it in the context of the book as a whole. Anyway, to say you had a negative backlash against that excerpt would be an understatement. I mean, for those who aren't on Twitter, I mean, it was one of the most passionate responses from a wide variety of people, all the way from very conservative people to more progressive people and everybody in between.

And, you know, I remember reading about the controversy and going back and kind of, again, rereading again and again, the article, the excerpt. And every time I reread it, I'm like, oh, yeah, I can definitely see where people would be taken back by this, to say the least, you know. I can definitely see where people would be taken back by this, to say the least. So that has affected you and your life pretty significantly. And in my opinion, I think we are living in extremely sensitive times when it comes to questions around women in the church, in particular, abuse in the church. We have, you know, we're living right on the heels of the me too movement, the church to movement, uh, sexual abuse stuff in the Southern Baptist church. I mean, and, and, and celebrity pastors seem like they're dropping like, so, so we're living in

extremely sensitive times. And when I, when I step back and consider our cultural moment, then I go back and re re re reread your excerpt. And I'm like, okay, I, I understand where some of the very negative responses are coming from. Anyway, that's my read on the situation. We're going to dive. Oh, so, so my motivation for this podcast is, you know, so just, I mean, Josh and I has been really good friends for a long time. So we've been talking and I said, Josh, I think, um, I think it would be helpful for you to engage in some, uh, women thinkers that I respect, um, who are, um, going to be both critical of your excerpt and maybe the book as a whole, I don't know. So you guys have had access to the manuscript, but we'll also engage you in a, what I think is a more Christian way of going about these sensitive, very important conversations. So that's why I reached out to Sandy Richter and

Brenna Blaine, two people I have mad respect for that, um, I think are both thoughtful and careful and, um, would be good, a good conversationalist. So that's where we are. Josh, I'm going to kick it back to you just briefly. Can you, I would love for you to, and again, just for my audience, I'm not like, I don't want to look like, you know, you're defending yourself or whatever, but I want you to explain in just your words, like what is some of the theological points that you're trying to convey? And we'd love to hear maybe even your initial thoughts on how that landed with the internet a few weeks ago. Yeah, man. Well, if I can first just say, Dr. Sandy Richter, you are a hero of mine. So this is the first time we've met, but I'm so stoked getting to actually have this conversation together with you. I was just saying beforehand,

now I'm not just saying that, I actually told everyone last year after the Theology in the Rock conference, you were my favorite speaker. My wife and I are both big fans of Echoes of Eden, your book. And I'm sure my wife, Holly, is in seminary right now. And she says it's because of a talk she heard you give on Preston's podcast here a couple years ago. That was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I got to jump in. So anyways, if I've got to get publicly destroyed by anyone, there's nobody I'd rather get publicly destroyed by than Sandy Rick. Well, hopefully that won't be the goal of the podcast. But no, a few thoughts, you know, first pressing to your point, you know, kind of the question, who am I influenced by? I've seen myself kind of writing in the stream of Pope John Paul II and

Christopher West, kind of that theology of the body stream. There's like Teresa of Avila, Bernard of Clairvaux, the mystical union tradition, St. Augustine and John Chrysostom, just going as a wide historic stream here. And I've often said behind the scenes, like the book is really, I've joked, it's kind of like I'm attempting to do a dumbed down Protestant version of theology of the body, right? Like dumbed down, just being popularly accessible. So for those who are unfamiliar, John Paul II, his Theology of the Body, is widely considered the most significant work on the body and sexuality in the 20th century, if not history.

And so George Weigel, his biographer, he said, Theology of the Body is a, quote, like a theological time bomb set to go off sometime in the 20th century and last 21st century. The last few weeks I've been kind of like, welcome to the explosion. You know, this feels what's yeah. And some, you know, there's actually a few folks I've heard say, hey, he's not represented accurately. But Christopher West, who's recognized widely recognized the leading voice globally in the

Catholic spirit, but on the theology of body tradition. I launched a 45-minute video last week sort of defending the book and the approach I'm taking and stuff there. So that's some of the backdrop context. The article, as you mentioned, you know, I've had to go, man, is there anything I'd change? And I would say, yeah, I think two big mistakes that I made. One is I was unwise to allow that excerpt to be used in a short article, 800 word format, whatever it was, right? Like I think in the surrounding context of, of in the book, you know, I've directly addressed sexual abuse shortly before and shortly after some of the loaded language, like the temple imagery and notes that kind of pointed haters will deal with that later

in the book. And there's a whole backstory behind an excerpt getting, you know, like 100 emails that week and me not paying close to the attention that I should have, but I need to own at the end of the day. I made a mistake in judgment in allowing that excerpt to be used. I think the second mistake I made is in revisions. I mean, you're revising a book and the original was around 100,000 words. We had to cut it down to around 70,000. And so you're down to like 25% of the book or whatever. And realizing I lost some important pastoral nuance in a few places in that excerpt where, man, kind of funny, man, my language was interpreted in a few places, actually the opposite of what I meant, you know, and I could have been clear. I thought, man, they'll never think I'm saying that, you know, I don't know it's necessary. And I was

wrong. So big picture, man, my, you asked my, my response, but my heart has been extremely heavy the last few weeks, particularly where my lack of nuance evoked pain in some people's stories. And for those listening, if that's you, I can only ask for your understanding and grace. And I'm working with a publisher right now on some clarifications that I can make for the next printing and that can make public before the release, just to be a little clearer in some areas that, that yeah, it would be helpful. You know, we, the publisher and I, I, we have valued sensitivity in this process.

We ran the content through a wide variety of perspectives, single people, divorced people, women, people of color, same-sex attracted people, people with backgrounds of sexual abuse all gave really valuable input on the manuscript. And when all that was done, the publisher actually, we hired an outside professional female editor

who specialized with sensitivity reviews, and she had a personal story uniquely suited to give sensitive input on the book. And she loved the book, big picture, and we took all her recommendations and tweaks. So just to say, man, this is something that we valued from the beginning and want to continue to press into in light of kind of the controversy and all. But in short, you know, so the controversy, the excerpt was based on Ephesians 5, kind of Paul's statement in verse 31-32, where he quotes Genesis saying, you know, about the two becoming one flesh, a husband and wife becoming one flesh. And he says it's a great mystery, but this is talking about Christ and

the church. And so the argument of the section in question is basically saying it's not just the emotions of marriage or the actions of marriage, but includes even the bodily union of marriage is designed to point to the gospel and trying to give some language or lenses into how. Yeah, how how we can see the beauty of the gospel and light of the bodily union of a husband and wife. Sandy, I would love to hear your, you've been listening and you've read the excerpt and even chunks of the book. Love to hear your thoughts. Yeah. Well, first of all, it's really fun to be here. And Preston, you're one of my current day heroes. And Josh, it's so much fun to meet you. And Bryna, the same. current day heroes. And Josh, it's so much fun to meet you and Brenna the same. Yeah, I'm listening to this conversation. I read through the chapter and I've got specific stuff I'd like to ask. And I think that Brenna is probably going to have specifics as well. But Josh, I'm particularly

interested in how many vettings this manuscript went through because moving to the big picture there just seemed to be oh and let me pause and say as well I so know what it feels like to wind up in the public eye and get hit by a train that you didn't even see coming so I just want to express my compassion over what the last couple of weeks must have looked like for you. So let me say that right up front. But big picture issues here. And one of my biggest questions is this business about trying to sacramentalize the sex act. I totally agree with you that the Protestant church desperately needs a healthy theology of sex. Definitely agree with you there. And I think there's a lot of good

work that maybe hasn't hit the mainstream, certainly that I've been reading because I'm an undergraduate prof and it's all they think about. So obviously, you know, I'm engaged. But for Protestants to be attempting to turn the Marriage Sex Act into a sacrament, I mean, that's part of what the Reformation was about. And our response to the Catholic Church, our response, obviously, I wasn't there, involved issues that included the fact that not all humanity will have the opportunity to be a part of the sex act. And a sacrament should be available to every believer. A sacrament should be an expression of what I would call some sort of pervenient grace, some sort of opportunity for sanctification. And this, of course, is why the Protestant Church dialed back the Catholic

Church to only baptism and communion. So that's going to be a big question of mine, this sacramentalization. But then the other perspective that I want to introduce into this conversation is that of a scholar of the ancient Near East. And I don't think Genesis 2 is talking about the sex act. It's talking about fictive kinship. And it's talking about the incarnation. It's not talking about a penis and a vagina. And in its expression of the fictive kinship, to quote the master of these things, Frank Moore Cross, flesh refers not to carnal union, but to identity of flesh kinship, bone of my union will be of one flesh. But what is asserted is that the covenant of marriage establishes kinship bonds of the first rank between spouses. So when Jesus talks about marriage with the church, he's talking about joining our flesh, bone of our bones, which is huge, obviously.

And the idea that he is entered into the human experience. So that's going to be one of my ancient Near Eastern perspectives. And the other one is that the idea of sacred marriage is as old as the hills. And it goes back to the Akitu festival in ancient Mesopotamia, when the king would, in the public eye, go into the tent of the high priestess, have sex with her in public, to reinvigorate the land. Baal is all about. And in many ways, it's what Yahweh is attempting to deliver the people of God from, not introduce them to. And last point in there, that's why I think that all the bodily functions of nocturnal emissions and stration and post-delivery fluids don't belong in the temple because all of those fluids and activities were a part of the magic of the Egyptian cult, the Canaanite cult, the Mesopotamian cult. And I think the message of Leviticus is clearly communicating that stuff is all great and it all belongs outside the sacred precinct

because it's what regular folk do as a regular expression of their lives. It has nothing to do with worshiping me. So those are the views that I'm wondering why they didn't get into all of those critiques. I just want to say, I picked such a great dialogue partner for this conversation. Thank you, Sandy. Todd is like, oh crap, I don't know what he's getting into. Those are great questions. So maybe I'll address in a little bit of a different order. So I think I'll start with the one question. Is it referring to conjugal union or kinship? And I think that's a great question. So a couple observations there. First would just be that historically, the main understanding has been conjugal union. It's still today in the Catholic Orthodox, others would see one flesh as conjugal union language. And what I argue in chapter three is that some of the modern... Sorry, Josh, can I just ask a

clarifying, when you say historically, obviously the Catholic church kind of had, you know, Historically, obviously, the Catholic Church kind of had, you know, a monopoly on theology for, I don't know, 1600 years. So when you say historically, do you mean this is a Catholic Orthodox position? Yes, at least my understanding today is that this is a this is not a fringe perspective that I hold, but it's actually a broad global Christian perspective. It's not the only perspective, but it's not a fringe perspective to see one flesh as referring to conjugal union. So in chapter three, what I attempt to show there is I think one of the mistakes that's been made is that often one flesh and bone and flesh are being conflated, that they're actually two distinct terms. And so for those who would see one flesh as just more fictive kinship language, like James Brownson, I know,

has been influential in a lot of circles of this argument in his work and other. But I agree, I think that that's actually conflating two distinct terms, that one flesh as a term is never used for kinship. It's a different phrase, bone and flesh and kinship. The broader kinship ties are always the term flesh and bone or bone and flesh. So I think of like when Uncle Laban sees his nephew Jacob and is like, you're my own bone

and flesh. And Abimelech, he asked his relatives at one point to make him king. And he's like, remember, you're my bone and flesh. Or David tells his tribesmen of Judah, you know, like the elders of Judah, like, you're my bone and flesh. He doesn't say, let's become one flesh. He says, you're my bone and flesh. And he's referring to their kind of family ties of kinship. And kind of like some of the way we would refer to kids today as our flesh and bone, you know, they bear some of our nature and substance they've originated from us. But I would say that, you know, my concern would be that the actual term one flesh is only and ever used for conjugal union. And it seems as well like Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 refers to, you know, sex, someone having sex with a prostitute as

one flesh. And he quotes just the part about the two becoming one flesh from Genesis. And he doesn't have in mind there, I think, ties of kinship and all. And so obviously, I think there's a strong argument and a broad tradition that would see one flesh as conjugal union rather than kinship. And the way that I try and put it in the book is that the two terms are related. One flesh generates flesh and bone. the two terms are related. One flesh generates flesh and bone, you know, so the reason that Uncle Laban and his nephew Jacob are, you know, share flesh and bone is because their grandparents got it off, my dad's sex, like, you know, their ancestors, David's ancestors had one flesh and had sex, and that's why they share uh you know flesh and bone as it's a tribe so to speak so that's yeah that we understand there i think on the second one with the temple

part of the burden of the third section of the book is to show how interwoven temple symbolism is with uh sexual symbolism and so in the old testament, there's a lot here, you know, but the temple had a lot of associations with the female body, like a new Eve, as a corporate representative for Israel as the bride of Yahweh, and the most holy place having associations with the womb and Yahweh's union with his bride, you know, with his bridal temple, his indwelling presence led to rootfulness in the land, kind of an abundant fertility, the streams of living water going forward. And so I think this becomes clearest in Song of Solomon, where I essentially try to argue in the book that there are three almost like Russian nesting dolls.

You can go to those dolls where there's like the little one and then the bigger version and the bigger version. And so I argue that those three Russian nesting dolls, like can go to those dolls where there's like the little one and then the bigger version and the bigger version. And so I argue that those three Russian nesting dolls, like the little version is marriage, the bigger version is the temple, and the bigger version is God and his people. And that all three of those are kind of mutually illuminating. And so a lot of the marriage and sexual symbolism that work in the temple, it's drawing on language and imagery and stuff from marriage in the Bible bible and all of it's being used to point to the bigger picture of god's relationship with his people uh so that'd be my thoughts on the the temple symbolism is like it seems to me very biblical and that's part of the burden of the book is to show that that temple symbolism um works in that way. The third and final,

I really want to jump in real quick and yeah, I'm just pressed. I'm basically wondering how you want to do this. Like, do we, do we want to take each one of those points and, and respond and critique or, or do we want to do the, the, the blanket thing? Cause I started with a blanket thing. Well, that's okay. That's yeah.'s you got a third point josh let's maybe have you finish that and then sandy whatever if you want to take a couple individual ones and respond i think that'd be that'd be great i i can i i do want to point out i don't i don't think that

the these are two these are related the theological point josh was making but also the language he was using to present that and i do want to at least acknowledge for people listening that I think if we're dealing with the finer points of kind of a more Catholic view of sex and marriage versus a more Protestant view, I don't think that would have produced the outrage. I think it was more the appearance of male domination and then sex act. And so some of the, you know, so I just want to at least acknowledge we will get to that in a little bit, but I think it is important to at least expose some of the theological intricacies where is so intriguing to me. Why in the world would they be championing Catholic theology? But what I'm more interested in is, in my opinion, the errors that have produced these viewpoints.

For any of us to argue against Frank Moore Cross when it comes to fictive kinship is, we're way out of our league. He, you know, this is his lifetime career. And it's not flesh and bone. I think the phrase you're after, Josh, is flesh and blood. So the idea of being one flesh is a standard expression of tribal traditional societies. And the idea is that one flesh is reproduced throughout the tribe and one blood flows in the veins of all the tribe. And that's why there's blood vengeance.

And that's why we care for each other. And that's why all of these laws of defending our own flesh. I totally agree with you. There are a lot of people out there that would say they'll become one flesh is simply the sex act, but that one flesh shows up and that phrase flesh and blood shows up all over the Old Testament as not only an expression of blood kinship, but a fictive kinship. And of course, marriage is fictive kinship and adoption is fictive kinship. Can you, can you explain what you mean by fictive kinship?

Yeah. So a traditional society is a tribal society. And for most of your listeners, Preston, they really have no idea what a tribal society is a tribal society. And for most of your listeners, Preston, they really have no idea what a tribal society is, right? So I will often say to my students, you know, think about the Indigenous Americans. Think about the Sioux, the Cherokee, the Chumash. Think about what you see on the news in the Middle East and how folks seem to be outrageously loyal simply based on relationship. That's tribalism. And it's the idea that I have responsibility to all of my ancestors before me and all of the ancestors that I will produce based simply on the fact that we share the same genetic code. So now we step into

a space where as a society, we need to give responsibilities and privileges to people who aren't part of our genetic code. So you look at a Ruth and Boaz, you look at Shechem and Jacob and his sons. What are we going to do about this? Well, we're going to create fictive kinship. So we're going to name each other relatives so that the responsibilities and privileges of being relatives will move into our world. And we do that primarily through covenant. For those who've read my work, you can covenant at every strata of society to extend those privileges and responsibility to someone who actually isn't your flesh and blood. That's fictive kinship. And in our world, the most

visible forms of fictive kinship, even in our bureaucratic society, is marriage. Because once I marry, in the eyes of the state, we are a unit, right? And adoption is another perfect example because if i adopt a child i have the exact same responsibilities to that child as if i had birthed that child i have to feed it protect it educate it etc but those are fictional kinship bonds and genesis 2 i mean obviously it is man and woman there is going to be a conjugal act, but I think fictive, and I only think it because I was taught it by the folks who are the experts in the field, that this is an expression of fictive kinship. So that's one issue. And then Josh, you were just getting into the temple issue. So maybe let you go back to that. Sure. No, that's great. Okay. Thank you, Sandy.

Yeah. So on the fictive kinship, the concern I would have is, well, you mentioned, you know, part of my backdrop back in the day was living with and working among Indigenous peoples globally. College and post-college was a focus of my thesis and master, you know, my focus, my work was on the impact of globalization on indigenous peoples. And so living internationally, one of the things that really struck me was how tighter the sense of family bond, like family, even over friendships, even over things. And I think the very natural ingrained sense that I, you know, I always picked up on was we share flesh and bone, you know,

like we are flesh and blood, you know, like we are flesh and blood. You know, I think Hebrew uses the bone and flesh phrase, and we often use the blood and flesh phrase, but flesh and blood. But there's something that's pointing to going, we actually share a family substance, so to speak, that's come about through these family bonds. But I also think that it was very clear,

like that's because we share a common ancestral lineage rooted in sexual union like our ancestors had sexual union that's how we came into the world it was kind of the underlying uh idea or backdrop and the question i would have is you know you mentioned that all over the place one flesh is used to describe um fictive kinship rather than some wife and well it describes is it the phrase is it the phrase one because i i my my sense unless i've just been missing it like the phrase one flesh is never used to describe something other than the male female pair mom but um the are you saying the concept is there if it's read through the the of sharing flesh. And I didn't have, and I apologize for this, I haven't read the whole manuscript. So I didn't come prepared with the word study. I'm actually doing it real quick while you're talking. So I can, I've done this search. So

echad baser, is that the phrase? One flesh is only used, I think, five or six times in scripture it's always either in well genesis 2 24 but then also when genesis 2 24 is quoted it's never used outside of describing the male female marriage bond of course is that what you're got i'm sorry i don't want to jump in but is that no no that's no that's really helpful so So the phrase flesh, flesh, like, yeah. And flesh and blood. Flesh and blood, yeah, is used. Is used repeatedly. And I don't want to undermine the fact that marriage as alliance is a critical part of any traditional society. Absolutely.

In fact, you know, when you get to the judgment phrases in the book of Judges, what did they do wrong? They gave their daughters in marriage and they received the Canaanites' daughters in marriage because what they're doing is they're expanding the people of God through that very standard means by which a tribe is formed. They're offering marriage to people who are outside the covenant. And of course, that always gets moved forward into the New Testament wrong. And maybe, honestly, I don't think this is the core of our conversation. And I also don't think we're going to agree. So maybe we should move on to the temple thing. I'm going to stick with cross and anyone out there of the Harvard school is going to say down with Josh. I'll stick with John Ball for a second.

Does it have to be an either or? I'm just thinking if, if it's true that one flesh is describing specifically the male female um bond in marriage we i think we would all agree that only p only sexual different pairings can form an actual one flesh union because this is james brownson's argument he takes uh frank moore cross i think in a direction that frank moore cross wouldn't actually have agreed with but he he says, yeah, this is a new kinship bond and sex difference is not required to form a one flesh union. And that's where I'm like, well, no, scripturally, whenever we see one flesh, it does specify a sex difference coming together in a new kinship bond, sure. So I do think sex difference is necessary for the one flesh union. Now where Josh, where I

might disagree with Josh, I think maybe he pushes the particulars of those sexual differences, maybe a bit too far, or at least are exploring, you know, theological themes mapped on specific sex differences as in our anatomy, you know, and I know other scholars have done that. So I don't, as I'm hearing you speak, I'm thinking I kind of lean more towards Sandy and not making it so particular. And yeah, I still want to preserve sex difference as part of the one flesh union. But then if we say, well, what constitutes sex difference? Most of our sexual differences between male and female have to do with how God designed

us for reproduction, right? So to me, it's not unheard of that Josh would kind of go down that lane and explore some of the more particulars of that. I just think I'm a little more cautious with when I read Ephesians 5, like thinking that Paul is getting into those real particular aspects of sex differences coming together in a conjugal union. Is that making sense? And again, I'm trying hard to, I want you guys to work out some of the. No, no, that makes sense. And again, this is not, I believe this and I think it's correct, but it's not a hill

I'm going to die on. But the hill I do want to at least battle for is this business about trying to move sex into the temple, trying to move sex into the sacrament. Because as I spend my life in the ancient Near East, the Egyptians would walk around with talismans around their necks that were little gold and bronze penises. We have so much representation in the pagan world as the sex act being the act that awakens the gods, that re-fertilizes the land, that is magical. And of course, what rated is this podcast? It's R-rated. It's R-rated. Okay.

I mean, obviously, the way a penis behaves looks a little magical, just saying that. So I certainly understand where this is coming from, because it's visible and the way it shows up on the scene, that this is, it's magical. It is a way to tap into the primordial stuff that arises, that causes the earth to arise. These are not new ideas. These are ancient ideas. And I'm really troubled by them. And I know they're all over so much of what's going on with Canterbury Trail evangelicalism, if you know what I mean. But yeah, I have a real problem with that. So go ahead, Josh.

Great. No, thank you. Yeah. So excellent. So maybe the easiest place to start for me on that would be Song of Solomon. So the whole third section of the book, chapters 11 to 15 are really impacting a lot of temple symbolism, river of life, imagery, image of God type stuff related to all this. But on the temple, for example, you know, Song of Solomon, there's kind of this, I don't know if you guys have seen seen there's one artist who tried to make a literal depiction of the bride you know she's got like the flock of goats in her hair and the crazy tower for her nose and all

the different stuff it just looks ridiculous but uh the argument you know that i i make i'm drawing on a lot of scholarship here obviously but uh is dude solomon is depicting his bride with temple imagery imagery of the temple and the land the flock of goats what's that well that's the land that that was the land but uh you know the the whole chapter explores like those the temple illusions and imagery of the surrounding land and all that's connected and so to take as the way that i would understand what's happening there you know you have kind of this question or debate sometimes. Is it talking about just celebrating a sexual relationship or is it talking about God's relationship with his people? And I actually want to go. It's actually three things.

There's a third in-between layer, which is it's using a lot of temple imagery to describe Solomon's relationship with his bride and allegorically. I don't like allegorically, but describing as well or celebrating like God's relationship with his people. And the three are kind of interwoven in how they're working together. And really, I think a lot of the burden of that section of the book, the third one is to go like that language and imagery is all over scripture everywhere. Once you kind of have, once you kind of associate it, it's everywhere that the associations of the temple with the female body is a new Eve representative for corporate Israel is the bride of Yahweh, the most holy place with associations to the womb where Yahweh's indwelling presence gives birth to life. abundance and fertility, like fruitful abundance that comes up in the land, both literal abundance, you know, babies and crops and whatnot, and metaphorical abundance of peace in the land,

something here like the Deuteronomy, you know, blessings and curses in Deuteronomy, Solomon's dedication of the temple, what will happen when God comes to take presence as well. And so I see the New Testament as well, drawing all these themes for the church as the bridal temple of Yahweh. Now, that doesn't mean like ancient Near East sex cults or whatever, you know, that sex acts are taking place within the temple, like human sex acts. What it does mean is that there's sexual symbolism. There's symbolism involved, like for God to describe, again, like the kind of Russian nesting dolls of going, God has designed bodily union, sexual union of husband and wife. It's not yucky. It's not gross. It's not weird.

It's actually beautiful. Something God has designed to point to and bear witness to the gospel. I think that's what Paul's saying in Ephesians 5. Like this whole thing, when it comes to marriage and sex, it is commitment and faithfulness. It is sacrificial service and love for one another it is all these things but it's also the bodily union would be my claim kind of theology of the body traditions claim of going the bodily unit itself is designed to point to these greater realities and and i think temple symbolism is one area where we

where we see scripture kind of using such language and imagery to point to our relationship with God. And I think that kind of gets at even the first point you raised earlier going the sacramentalization of marriage. And, you know, the way I've kind of the language I use in the book is iconic. You know, the point of icons is not so much to look at them as to look through them. They're kind of windows into a greater reality and i just think it's all over scripture genesis revelation that husband and wife their marriage their union their um the fullness of their union but including and not not only sex but including their sexual union like it's actually designed to point to the union that we were made for with god as his people. And I don't think that that limits,

like some of the, you raised a great question of like, well, does that mean that if you can't have, if you're single or whatever, then you don't have access to that. I go, no, like that's part of the beauty of, and this is going, like you can have the movie without the sneak preview.

You can have the meal without that, but you can have union with Christ that God has designed sex to point to without having the sign or the eye you know the iconic window that foreshadows it and i like the way that um sam albury went off the puts it he goes you know single marriage shows us the shape of the gospel singleness shows us the sufficiency of the gospel that marriage kind of points to this greater reality that we were all made for single married divorced whatever wherever we're reality that we were all made for, single, married, divorced, whatever, wherever we're coming from, we were all made for that greater reality. And singleness shows us the sufficiency of the gospel that you don't need to have the sign to have that greater reality of union with God as his people that we were made for. And so I just, I find that really beautiful.

So I just, I find that really beautiful. This episode is sponsored by Biola University. Biola is consistently ranked as one of the nation's leading Christian universities. It has over 300 academic programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, which are available both in Southern California and online. With leading academic programs like business, film, science, and more, Biola's biblically integrated curriculum and spiritual formation also helps students grow closer to God and gain a deeper understanding of Scripture. In fact, I was just on the campus of Biola touring the campus and talking to several deans and professors,

and every single person I talked to was so utterly passionate about making Christ first in all things and instilling Christ-like virtues in the hearts and minds of their students. I mean, honestly, I was so impressed with how Christ-centered the entire school is. So at Biola, students become equipped for living a thriving life and career. They'll also learn how to articulate their Christian beliefs. And most of all, they'll be prepared to serve as God's instrument in their communities and around the world. Now, as God's instrument in their communities and around the world.

Now, through May 1st, 2023, if you use the promo code Preston, okay, my name, Preston, that will waive the application fee for any Biola program. Okay, so promo code Preston, waive the fee. Some restrictions might apply. Just visit biola.edu for more information. I think the overarching concept that humanity has been made in the image of God and our marriages, our family structures, our society is to reflect the image of God. I'm totally with you. That is beautiful.

In our redeemed state, it is an expression of the character of God. And so I'm very pro. But let's circle back to the Song of Songs for a moment, and let's talk genre. The Song of Songs is based on Egyptian love poetry, which is very graphic and is used for entertainment. So both in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, there are these love songs where Inanna will invite Dumuzi to plow her vulva the way a horse and iron-tipped plow will plow a field. And there's all sorts of celebration

of the details of the sexual act, that genre is used for entertainment and for titillation at feasts and the like, just like a movie, you know, a rom-com is going to bring the audience to the edge of their seat. So too love poetry. And, you know, I know throughout the centuries, folks have worked to bring the Song of Songs into a theological statement. And I'm not opposed to that. But if I'm looking for a theology of how Yahweh feels about the sex act and about semen and all the stuff that is so graphic in that one chapter of yours, the deposit of the gift of life in the inner sanctum. I'm not going to go to the Song of Songs for that. I'm going to go to the Book of the Covenant.

I'm going to go to Leviticus for that. And I'm going to go to Ephesians 5 for that. And I'm not seeing that there. Rather, what I'm seeing in those documents is sex is great, sex is fun, all that good stuff. Keep it outside the sacred precinct because it's not magical. It's not magical. And that's what I hear in this text. And I know I can hear in what you're saying, Josh, that what you're after is this greater overarching theology of the union of humanity with God, the union of human with human and human with

human with God. I can hear that in what you're saying. But when I read this chapter, I'm hearing the particulars of magical stuff and magical acts that mimic the magical acts of the gods and that somehow regenerate. And I feel like I'm reading Inanna de Muzi. I feel like I'm reading, and this, you know, of course, is my particular perspective. Most of your audience doesn't even know who Nana is. And I fear that what your book is doing is pulling back in a lot of those ancient practices that, and I would say Catholicism does this as well. Again, there are reasons I'm not a Catholic, where transubstantiation becomes magic. The actual host has power. It has been transformed into some sort of primordial sacred stuff that if you put it on your, if you allow a priest to place it on your tongue,

it will somehow magically transform you. That's pagan. Yeah. So I'll defer to you theologians. Thank you. Well, yeah, just a couple of quick thoughts. First on the Song of Solomon piece, I have an extended quote by John Levinson and the renowned Jewish scholar who. He was on my dissertation committee. Oh, amazing. Yeah, he's phenomenal. I have an extended quote on there on him. And he loves sex, too. He talks about it all the time. sex too he talks about it all the time yes totally yes uh but just confronting the idea from his vantage point that um song of songs is only about sex you know and saying it's actually interwoven that the the human horizontal relationship husband wife is interwoven with

this greater vertical relationship and neither minimizes the other they actually both enhance one another you know the the horizontal uh displays like the intimacy and union transcend we were made for with god and the god piece um doesn't like it's not pretty just like oh don't talk about sex it's just about god it's like no it's actually elevating the significance of what human sexuality is designed to point to and i said not to say that you know your vantage point isn't legitimate as well it's simply to say um there good scholarly debate around, you know, song, song, song, song. As we understand it. Well, and I do totally agree. It elevates the sex act and the very fact that it's in the canon elevates the sex act.

And the very fact that the folks who put the canon together said this romp in the vineyard belongs in the canon. together, said this romp in the vineyard belongs in the canon. I'm thinking back to our conference last year, Preston, where folk were asking me about purity culture. And by the way, one of the reasons I didn't have answers is I didn't live through the purity culture. I was like, what? Yeah, I can't get rice later in life and miss that boat. Yeah, I kind of missed that boat and I'm kind of glad. So I think the inclusion of the Song of Songs is a wonderful critique of purity culture. But is it where we're supposed to be drawing our theology of sex, but our theology of our union with God? I just, it's the wrong genre is where I would land on that. And Preston, I'm looking at you looking at the sky.

I'm wondering what you're thinking. Well, here's what I'm thinking is I, as a fellow theologian, this is, I can keep going for hours on this. I do wonder if we should not leave theology aside, but maybe just put it on the, just set it to the side for a second because i do think the main cultural disruption that this article created was not so much disagreements between catholics and protestants over some of these things but the language that was it was presented in and the potential implications either implications meaning josh you worded it poorly or the inferences meaning people read it

wrongly and that's that's kind of where i want to go right now is that okay and brenda you've been sitting there listening i'm so um you've been so patient and what if i did this i have a section can i read just a paragraph from the article that i think i think was probably if someone could single out the paragraph that people lost their minds over can i read that and then i would love to hear brenna your reaction to to this okay because you read their article you actually read the whole book too so you're you're coming out that's very very informed so this is page six of your book josh you say um on that this is an r-rated podcast okay not not that it's distasteful shouldn't be distasteful but we're talking about explicit things so just trigger warnings and stuff.

On that honeymoon in Cabo, the groom goes into his bride. He is not only with his beloved, but within his beloved. He enters a sanctuary of his spouse where he pours out his deepest presence and bestows an offering, a gift, a sign of his pilgrimage that has potential to grow within her into new life. This is a picture of the gospel. Christ arrives in salvation to be not only with his church, but within his church. Christ gives himself to his beloved

with extravagant generosity, showering his love upon us and imparting his very presence within us. Christ penetrates his church with the generative seed of his word and the life-giving presence of his spirit, which takes root within her and grows

to bring new life into the world. Brenna, would love your, I don't know, response to that, or maybe even more broadly, like when you first read the article, you said you read it, you know, when it came out and then you did read the book as a whole more recently. So I would just love to hear from Brenna Blaine on all this stuff. Yeah. So I think it's probably important for me to address first the lens in which I'm reading all of this information because of course I'm not a scholar. And so I can't really offer critiques in that way, but I, I, I read it and read the book through primarily two different lens. Um, The first is I've been sexually abused and I came out on the tail end of, I think, the generation that was largely most

negatively affected by purity culture. And then my other lens is that I'm a person who is kind of tired of the outrage that is fueled by a lack of nuance in Christian community. So when I read the article, I think Josh used the right words. It evoked a lot of fear for people. For me, it was like, oh, I'm having some anxiety because when you walk this out in the most extreme cases, it could permit for abuse because it doesn't talk about the female pleasure aspect. And that was it was shocking to read. But then it was also kind of like for me. Who has a little bit of a cheeky attitude towards the Gospel Coalition, it was like, oh, of course, like, of course they would love this book. And so there's like, there's a lot of anger and fear. And I understood why a lot of other women were reacting the way they were.

But the interesting thing is I went because I heard Rich Valotas endorse the book. And I thought, what the heck is this guy doing? If he's like, if he read it and then now he's unendorsing it. So I went and looked and I read his post and I, he said he was taking a stance for women who had been abused, but that he didn't read the book. And so that introduced like a new kind of frustration for me going, hey, you endorsed the book. So that's to me, and I think to everyone else, saying that you read it. And now you're taking this opportunity with this excerpt to teach without actually going through the content. And I wish he would have said, hey, this is my opinion, but I also need to do my due diligence and go back and read the book.

So I was really, really angry. And then all of a sudden, Josh, you sent the book. And so I had to sit there and go, oh crap, now I have the opportunity to read the book. And I really don't want to, but I'm really angry at all these people who are using the opportunity to make teaching statements without working through the content, because that's not critical thinking. And so I think it took like two days. I was like, you got to read it. And I don't want to read it. And I have to read it. And I don't want to read it. And I went and I was going to just read the chapters that were addressing abuse and divorce. And I opened it up and I thought, oh no, I have to read the first chapter in its entirety. Like I just have to do it. And I read it and I went, what the heck? And so then I

read it again and I went, there's something's wrong. I'm not reading this right because this doesn't sit in the same way that it sat when it was published with the gospel coalition so I ended up reading the the the first chapter three times and then it was like something happened and it was a Tuesday and I didn't my gosh. And so like, as someone, I have to say this, and again, I'm not a scholar, so I can't speak to the exegesis of particular scripture well. Like, that's not where I'm going to sit. But I was sitting there as someone who had been sexually abused and felt like I was so angry at Joshua Ryan Butler. And I feel seen by him reading the entirety of this book. And then going as someone who is same-sex attracted, going, I feel seen and I feel heard and understood in this book. And then honestly, I spent, I went

to Mars Hill for five years. So being affected by real marriage, I'm like, by the end of this book, I was going, this is what real marriage should have been. But also it's, I thought that the book spoke, it's so much more than what real marriage is because it speaks to single people so well. And it speaks to this greater picture of union, which I have so many questions about. And so when I got to this book, got to the end of it, it was just like, I think I leave reading it with two main thoughts or charges towards people. And the first is, if you were someone who made a statement on the excerpt, whether you are a famous pastor or you're just someone who tweeted about it, that you would do your due diligence to read the entire book.

I'm not saying it's going to change your mind, you're going to agree with it, but as someone who cares about critical thinking and this like massive outrage that is in the Christian community, so many people are willing to tell Josh he's wrong, but very little people are willing to teach why he's wrong. And that takes going through the entire work of the context of which the excerpt was written. And then my last thing was just going, what the heck, Gospel Coalition? Like, truly, because I look at Gospel Coalition and I go, why did they cut out such a specific excerpt that would evoke a certain theology that is, in my opinion, inherently harmful, but that is not inherently found throughout the book. I think when you read the book, it gives you a different tone, a different picture, a different heart, but that excerpt. And then when they pulled it, I felt like they were jumping ship instead of saying, oh, wait, look at the entirety of the book. I was like, this is a really weird reaction in my opinion. And so I think that the,

the lack of wisdom that went into, this is the excerpt we should cut out and use, is the same lack of wisdom that is missed in going, I'm just going to pull assumptions from what I know of the excerpt and not choose to critically engage the entire text. Can someone clarify? I didn't realize. So Gospel Coalition pulled the book after putting up the, yeah? Yeah, the excerpt was pulled, and I'm no longer with the Keller Center as part of TGC. Yeah, I love and respect those guys. I don't necessarily want to go into all that. center as part of TGC. And yeah, I love and respect those guys. I don't necessarily want to go into all that, but. Well, they, they, so the original excerpt was part of chapter one,

they pulled back and then reposted the introduction and all of chapter one, right, Josh. And that's, is that still, I think that's still up there to try to give more context, right? I believe the whole thing is like, it's a, it's an apology. That's up there now that that was within the, within a week, I think within a few days where that was within the within a week i think within a few days i was within a couple days that it was an apology yeah i i didn't i didn't realize that yeah brenna thank you for bringing that up yeah so brenna thank you so much there's so much uh

just amazing yeah really great things you shared there um maybe a couple thoughts you know that come to mind one is the concern you kind of raised when your first response to going does this justify sexual abuse you know or could it permit those things and at least to hear a bit of my heart of where i'm coming from that would be i think the opposite i actually want to argue in the book that an iconic vision is one of our greatest resources for confronting abuse assault and rape uh because what i believe the iconic vision the kind theology of the body stuff says is like, dude, abuse and assault, they're not just like a little bit off.

They are tragic inversions, like radical inversions and distortions of the divine design. Like abuse is turning like giving into taking. It's turning generosity into theft. Like it's turning a picture of representation, a kind of picture of Christ in that analogical sense into into a picture of satan you know of the enemy and so i put this one of the ways i put in the book is like a husband who just uses his wife for selfish pleasure or

release like he's not just bad at sex like he's failing to image christ accurately in the analogy like he's distorting the divine design and so i believe this iconic vision and my mind is kind of implied but i do think maybe i need to be more I believe this iconic vision, and I'm not going to imply, but I do think maybe I need to be more explicit, like this iconic vision confronts abuse as a horror and an evil that stands under the judgment of God, not just because it breaks a rule, but because it hurts an image bearer and because it distorts the character of the God that you were meant to display, we were meant to display in marriage. And the iconic vision, this is really important, it's marked by mutuality and freedom, joy and consent, and it confronts any abuse or misuse of those things.

So that's one thought. You know, another thought is, you mentioned, it's funny, the fact that it was on TGC or whatever, just one of the things that's been kind of humorous to me is how much it's been read, I hate to be humorous, it wasn't so tragic, but how much it's been read through kind of the complementarian and egalitarian grid, you know, like, and for those who know me, like, my wife's egalitarian, most of my best friends in ministry nationally are egalitarian, like, I'm soft

complementarian, I work at a church that's hard complementarian, like, I get the complexity of and I was not writing the book in that grid. the scenes it's been funny like because I think I think yeah behind the scenes some of the strongest advocates for this manuscript were egalitarians you know actually in the initial conversation with the publisher one of the strongest advocates was a strongly egalitarian and very theologically attuned who made the comment going I feel like this has iconic this kind of iconic vision has potential to bring together and bridge some of the divide between the complementarian and egalitarian circles. So I think a lot of that, how it's been read, as you said,

had to do with probably the website that it was posted on. But it has been interesting to me, like some theologians, who I won't name and who I respect generally, but in this whole thing, it feels like they've kind of taken off their theologian hat and put on their activist hat and like reading this as some complementarian diatribe and at least from where i said it's going that's misreading that's i think when i think when people read the book as you mentioned brenda they'll see that's not really the grid you know that it's that it's written from um i will say josh the the language and at least i've got the man you you know, page six, five, six, seven, the language does reflect, especially people who are well-versed in purity, culture, rhetoric, the language itself.

If you detach it from what you're trying to do theologically, the language does reflect kind of that the man's sexual needs, you know, and the woman is just kind of a passive recipient of her, you know, and she needs to make sure he's satisfied. That's not, I don't, I know you, so I know that's not what you're trying to say at all. And I didn't even know the context. That's not what you actually are saying, but some of the individual language does reflect some of that purity culture language. Have you thought about that or what are your thoughts on that? Did you, I mean, cause you said you weren't even raised. So, I mean, you're kind of unaware of purity culture language. I I'm, I'm vague. I, I, I, I missed a lot of that, but I'm, I've gone back and read some stuff and like, you know, I deal with a lot of kind of

post-traumatic responses to people raising purity culture in unhealthy ways. You know, women just thinking the sex is all about pleasing the man and stuff. And so I am aware of people who have been kind of very much, very, I mean, damaged faith, really wrecked marriages, warped view of self. I mean, just a lot of the kind of byproduct of that. I think, Brenna, you know, you have friends that have kind of been really burned by the church because of some of that. So do you have any thoughts on that?

I mean, again. Yeah, that's great. I mean, one of the questions is like, is this a male centered vision? Yeah. And I would actually argue the opposite, you know? And yeah, I didn't grow up in pre-ritic culture. I've read commentary on it and tried to understand from that grid, but there is a contextual factor that maybe I needed more nuance to clarify, but I don't think the opposite, you know, one critic had said, well, hey, we're all female in relation to God, like in terms of what we're being the bride. And I was like, exactly. That's kind of where I go in the book is actually like, you know, some men get uncomfortable with the bridal imagery in scripture, but I'd say that's

part of the point. Like I have so much to learn from my sisters in Christ. And even in this kind of iconic design from female sexuality, it is like how I, as a man, like relate to God as a part of his corporate bride, like the bride of Christ. And so when I use the language of hospitality, I realized, man, I think this was some of the past Roman scholars. I think some read it, read that as like Martha Stewart, 1950s domesticity,

you know? And I was seeing more like a rich theological term that speaks even like the hospitality of God welcoming us in. And that implies agency. Like you don't let someone to your home that you don't want them coming in. You know, like, like it's so it's not saying, Hey, wives, you seem to show more hospitality or you need to give him sex whenever you want. Like, no, like you don't want to know. Like your consent is vital within marriage. If a husband is again, just using you for selfish release. No, you know? And so I think even in the iconic vision,

like the gospel is motivated by desire. Like we want to be with Christ because he's put our needs as his bride above his own, like his faithful commitment, his sacrificial generosity. He's warmed our affections toward him. And so in the iconic vision, I think there's no pressure or coercion. It should be marked by mutuality and consent and freedom and joy.

Yeah, but I do think that if I were to try and drill down to like, what's maybe the heart issue where there maybe is a parting of the ways, you know, for some, you know, at the core here is this question of do our bodies point to the gospel but like even the sexual symbol is there a sexual symbolism has god inscribed in our bodies sexual symbolism that points to the gospel now i and the theology of the body tradition would say yes i know many of the critics every day would say no and that I feel like that feels like maybe where

a heart of discussion is and so one of the biggest critiques I feel like that came out um I've seen too is just kind of like essentially like ew gross you know like because of the graphic language of it's used and um I don't know I've been don't want to ask folks like dude let me see your Spotify playlist you know like I want to see like what you're actually listening to the Netflix comedy specials you're watching. Yes. But really, I would say none of the imagery or things I use was nothing that my high school sex ed teacher didn't say, you know, like, and I think of Holly and I, my wife, our philosophy of talking with our kids about sex has been to speak directly. about sex has been to speak directly. So we talk about the penis and the vagina, not the tinkle on the woohoo or anything like we just use direct language to talk about sexual imagery. But I feel like theologically, the question that I want to ask is like, who told you your body was gross? It's not gross, it's sacred. And I believe God has inscribed sexual symbolism in our bodies that points to him. And if I were to summarize, summarize you know guess where i think the ew gross comes from i think part of it is our pornified culture you know which has reduced it to

kind of the selfish self-centered self-seeking act and also probably in christian circles like purity culture where i think purity culture and porn culture actually are more like mirror images of each other like they both sort of share the same foundation like sex is dirty and selfish and so one says save it for the one you love. And the other one says, just go use people or images, whatever for release. But what if the gospel actually has a different vision that's holy and sacred that God has inscribed this kind of symbolism in our bodies that God created us male and female, like page one of the Bible, right? God created us male and female with an ability to become one flesh and fruitfully multiply in life-giving union.

And this is all in the context of image bearing, like the image of God context. And we're not saying you have to do this to bear the image of God, but that part of God's creation to reflect his character and his love includes the male and female one flesh union and fruitful union that can come through that in generating humanity. And the idea is God is an eternal communion of love and we're made to belong. And that reality, I think that sacred symbolism is designed to point to that greater reality of God as an eternal communion of love and the love and belonging that he's made us for with him. communion of love and the love and belonging that he's made us for with him. So Josh, can I jump in with a couple of quotes from someone who has leveled that exact criticism, the egalitarian complimentary thing. And before I go there, I just want to reaffirm that our physicality as an expression of the image of God, I think it's holy. And I'm all over that. I just know that hamsters reproduce as well. So, you know, the sex act is not unique to humanity. I think that needs, whatever. Let me go with these quotes. All right. This is coming from

a colleague of mine, Beth Felker-J Jones. Her expertise is the theology of sexuality. And she makes this statement that the chapter that was lifted for the Gospel Coalition, and I'm grateful for the clarification that it was probably a very bad choice, has not come to us out of nowhere. has not come to us out of nowhere. Too many Christians are getting similar stuff from church leaders they trust. The article is a loud canary in the mineshaft, but there are a lot of quieter canaries down there too. And while we may be tempted to write this off as an over-the-top aberration, it isn't. It fits all too well with teaching I hear from complementarian niches of the church all the time. One friend tells me the rhetoric of the article is downright tame, and then she characterizes the excerpt as a euphoric ode to the glories of ejaculation, which the article characterizes as gift and sacrificial offering. And I gotta say, in reading that article as a woman, I didn't have any trouble with that characterization of an ode to the glories of ejaculation.

So go ahead, respond. Oh, great. That's good. Yeah. So, again, I do think it was a mistake plucking that, allowing that to be used as the excerpt out of context. But a few thoughts there. One would be, you mentioned the ejaculation, so I'll just kind of go there. I think of 1 John 3, 9, where we know that we're born of God because God's sperma remains in us. We know that we're children of God, and the language used is sperm. And the analogy there is, you know, that word can be either agricultural seed or human seed, but the context within first John three is human seed. It's actually procreative. And so I actually

believe that like, we tend to think of our culture of say semen or the womb, the seed and womb kind of imagery is like, ew, that's kind of gross or yucky or weird where I go, well, biblically, it feels like it's more sacred. It's actually actually this is a vehicle through which life is generated the fruitfulness like you and i all four of us are sitting here today because of seed and womb you know like we're that's how we come into existence and so i think the biblical image is much more elevated as something holy and i think the the kind of distancing and i you know i have another chapter chapter five looks at a lot of female imagery for in kind of reproduction for places at all the holiness and that kind of so i think within the context of the book as a whole there's more of a balance in seeing um and seeing how scripture uses uh feminine imagery and masculine imagery to point to these kind of

greater sacred realities um yeah but again i think i would just kind of come back to the whole who told your body was gross i actually think that like there's a sense of uh that the emphasis is more on like the god of life and that these are actually vehicles for us participating in his life-giving you know uh yeah well and i would say gnosticism is one of the things that told us our bodies are gross but i think what that one of the things that quote champions is that the aspect of your book that was um posted on gospel coalition and i assume is still in the book fits in with certain niches of the church that are extremely dismissive and demeaning of women. And that

the only thing that, that there's an elevation of maleness and an exclusion of femaleness. And that's, I think that's what Jones was after, that this fits in to too many niches that are out and about. This is not a niche for me. So when I bump into this stuff, I'm like, really? You know, what's going on here? You obviously have spent a lot of time in these arenas. Maybe that's the question I'm after. How would you say your work differs from the sort of work you're being associated with? Yeah, great. Well, you know, one thought would be just that, you know, I think the abuse, like not not sexual, but abuse of a concept, you know, kind of a story. Abuse doesn't nullify proper use. And so sometimes I think we run into that pendulum swing reactions where something gets distorted. And so we run away from it where I think the healthy piece can be reclaiming like the bigger vision.

And again, I want to I think that excerpt out of context of the book as a whole is poor taste. But I would say I think the book as a whole elevates female and male sexuality in kind of equal measure. And, um, and again, I find myself learning a ton as a man from the female elements and imagery throughout scripture and how I relate to God as a part of his bride, how I relate to Christ as part of his bride. So, um, and I, and I think I just say, again, I think part of the problem is not just certain subcultures where stuff has been twisted. But I also think part of the problem is in the broader culture, like the porn, the pornified culture that we live in. And some of the ways that has shaped how we think of our immediate associations with some sexual imagery can feel kind of dirty and crude versus sacred and holy. dirty and crude versus sacred and holy you know brenda do you want to speak into this because you again you you have an interesting journey being a part of mars hill which had you live you have

lived in context that have the very culture that sandy and and beth falco jones are kind of concerned deeply concerned about and yet you've read the book as a whole so you know the whole you have an interesting angle here as a female reader and everything. Do you want to speak into out, in my opinion, is inherently not good. It leads to damage. It leads to this male glorification. But reading the chapter in its entirety and then the book, I'm going, no, I don't think that's where Josh was headed. But I'm wondering, why was the gospel coalition okay with making it look like it was headed in that direction? And I'd say one of the most jarring parts of the book for me, or most like something that I was like, oh, we have to reckon with this, was that, Josh, you talk the pornification of our culture today. And I

think when I look at my own reaction to the excerpt and then my friend's reactions, and then more women voices on the, on the excerpt, I'm going, yeah, we don't like, it's hard to open up the Bible, especially, and I think you tie it in a really beautiful way because you talk a little bit about God as mother and those mother images in the book. And I thought, for me, I'm going, I never hear this from a stage. I never hear this from a male pastor. a stage. I never hear this from a male pastor. And so to hear that, like I, I, again, I know people are going to go like, I can't believe you, like whatever. I just thought you really, the, the, the dangerous part of the book was so neatly cut out and presented. And when you read the book as a whole, it doesn't go in that direction. And

I wanted to be mad and I wanted to be angry. And when I read the book as a whole, I can't, I can't sit there as a woman who's been abused as a woman who cares about these issues. I felt seen, I felt cared for, I felt understood. I, I really think Josh did a really good job of touching on those really difficult issues that have affected not just like emotionally, but like women, like me having sex with my husband, like things that are like, this is my everyday life, that things that I grapple with that are struggles. I felt the excerpt and the book are just completely different things. And that's really weird to me. is that the Gospel Coalition tried to present this book as something you don't feel it actually is.

Yeah. And like I sit there and I go, I don't like we don't know what the Gospel Coalition's what what their heart was behind what they're doing. But from the outside looking in, that's what it looks like. Especially when I go, however many days afterwards, trying to find the gospel collusions post of the entire chapter so I can read through the entire chapter and it's not there. And I'm going, why aren't you willing to put this there? Well, yeah, I mean, I love a lot of people over there. I don't want to stick into the DGC part personally, but I do just want to own again. I do think that like it was a major mistake in judgment on my part. And even maybe if I were to, you know, confess, I don't know if this is pride or what, you know, but like you kind of go through again. We had so many sensitivity reviews and everything's coming back so positive and you make all the tweaks and you kind of think like, oh, this feels invincible.

Or at least, you know, it's good good ready for public consumption or discussion you know and uh and did not have the grid on that i should have had the pastoral sensitivity to go plucked out of context this could really get misread you know it could get read in some ways that i'm not intending where i'm approaching it very much from a theology of the body frame and then finding like okay this is getting plucked into the evangelical gender wars of a complementarian frame and that's not the frame i had in mind for the book but yeah yeah thanks for that hey i want to be sensitive to your times i know we um we got a hard stop coming up so So yeah, let's I just, I just so much more to talk about.

I hope that this conversation is helpful for people again, whether they're still very critical of the article or even the theory of the book critical, or maybe they'll read the book and say, wow, this is maybe different than what I was expecting. Whatever the case, I just, I, I, my motivation and even having this conversation is I desperately think that the evangelical church needs better curious, good faith conversations that are critical, that are thoughtful,

that aren't afraid to push back, but are also wanting, I just want to avoid the kind of quick in the moment reaction, you know, just blasting. And, and while I understand, I understand, because given the deep pain that some of the, some branches of the church has caused, especially on women, so I understand where it's coming from. I just want to try to foster a better way of going about these kinds of conversations. And I think Josh, Brenna, Sandy, you guys, thank you so much. I think you modeled that perfectly. So thanks so much for coming on

Theology in a Row. Hey, and I want to say thanks for being invited in. And Preston, I love the way you do these conversations because you do just that. And Josh, honestly, it's pretty darn brave for you to show up on this as well. So thank you for inviting me. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, love the conversation. And so great to meet you, Sandy and Brenna. All right, friends. Man, that was a... Man, I'm still kind of reeling from that conversation. I think personally, I think that was kind of exactly what I was hoping for,

to get a lot of kind of honest and thoughtful reactions to Josh's book and the article and engage in what I would say, yeah, as some of you may know, I am one of the endorsers of the book. And I even, I think I tweeted, right when the book was kind of being advertised on Twitter, I retweeted something that said, you know, killer book, you know, which I'm going to stand by. I think it is a killer book. That does not mean that I, again, agree with everything Josh says in the book or the way in which he says it. In fact, I probably have the majority of my maybe disagreements or at least things that I would do differently are in that excerpt that was posted online. Like I am very sympathetic with how the language he uses in that excerpt could be taken to support a kind of a view of women, a view of sex, a view of the church, you know, that I think are unhelpful, if not just flat out wrong. Now, having read the book as a whole, having known Josh, having had extensive conversations with him, having read even early manuscripts of the

book to where I was able to get feedback and give some critical comments and stuff. I mean, I know what he's trying to do in the book as a whole. And so again, when I read that first chapter in context of the book as a whole, it did feel very different than when I went back and when that excerpt was posted and I went and read the 800 word snippet that they decided to post. I'm like, oh yeah, that doesn't read the way that I read it when I read it in the context of the book as a whole. And I hope even in this conversation that that, you know, I think will be made more clear. My reaction was kind of similar to kind of Brenna Blaine's, except that mine was the other direction,

that I read the book as a whole and then went and read the excerpt, whereas Brenna read the excerpt and then went and read the book as a whole. Well, let me say a few things. So first of all, people have asked me, are you going to pull your endorsement? And 100%, no, I'm not pulling my endorsement because, again, I 100% agree with what I said in my endorsement. In fact, let me read my endorsement. I say, beautiful union is one of the best, most accessible theologies of marriage I have ever read. That's just a true statement. You can disagree with that.

But, I mean, from my vantage point, I read a ton of books on theologies of marriage. Some of them are good but kind of boring. Others are just terrible theology. Others feel just more secular, like it's all about romance and falling in love and all this stuff that's just like, that's part of it. But I mean, what about the rich theological narrative of scripture that marriage and sex is participating in on some level? And Josh just does an incredible job at exploring how marriage and sex interacts with some rich, robust scriptural themes. Again, I'm referring to the book as a whole. And I go on to say, you know, with the mind of a scholar and the heart of a it. But the overarching picture Josh paints is rooted in thoughtful interaction with scripture and serious engagement with some of Christianity's best thinkers on the subject.

So there's a few different lenses through which I see the whole Josh Butler, the article, the book, the excerpt kind of participating in. The one lens is why did the higher ups, whoever was in charge of this, post that excerpt? I mean, and Josh gave an explanation. I think he gave the okay on that. And now regrets giving the okay on posting that excerpt. The Gospel Coalition made a decision to post that excerpt and Brenna got into it a little bit. So yeah, part of this conversation is why that part of the book? What was the motivation behind that? I think that was very, very poor judgment.

Even more than that, and everything I'm going to say here is I've talked to Joss personally extensively about this. Even in the context of the book, if it were me, I wouldn't have, if I wrote this book, the chapter, it would have been chapter one where he kind of dives straight into some of the theological imagery that he explores much more thoroughly later about the sex act in a male and female marriage. Okay. Like I think, again, well, I think what he's doing theologically, when I read the book, I'm like, this is kind of what Josh said. I mean, I read it as this is kind of basic Catholic Orthodox view of sex and marriage. It's not particularly Protestant, but I personally have benefited a ton from JP2, John Paul II's Theology of the Body, Christopher West's work, which kind of is popularized Theology of the Body. Most Protestants I know that do have done research and work on theologies of sex and sexuality most protestants i know are very appreciative of jp2's work so when i read it like theologically i was like oh yeah this is you know

i'm not sure i'm right where josh is at on this i'm not sure that i would agree with kind of the whole catholic vision of the iconic view of sex i think me, it gets a little bit too particular, too precise. I do, I kind of sit somewhere in between like where Sandy was talking about the one flesh union being fictive kinship. And yet, and I described this, I guess a little bit, I tried to stay out of the conversation as much as I could. But I do think sex difference is a necessary part of the one flesh union. And what constitutes sex difference? Well, our different procreative structures stamped on our human bodies. And so to me, I think it's worth exploring whether that one flesh union is including some more specifics about sexual conjugation within marriage. I just think that, in my opinion, I think Josh, he's teasing out some more particularities there that I think the text doesn't explicitly say. And so on a theological level, I'm like, this is an interesting exploration.

I'm not sure I would go as far as he does on some of these things. Again, strictly on the theological level. So yeah, going back to my three lenses. So I think there's the first lens is kind of just the presentation of this part of the book, the Gospel Coalition, and our current cultural moment, I think was a bad move. The excerpt as a whole, I probably have more disagreements with those 800 words than I do with any other part of the book. Like if somebody just sent me the article, just the article and said, Hey, would you endorse this article? I'd say, I don't know. I can't endorse this. Um, the book as a whole, again, helps make so much more sense of what he's trying to do there. And, um, and does, I would say some of the concerns over patriarchy, male dominance, erasing female agency, making the gospel all about sex.

A lot of the concerns I've read about online will be, I think should be diminished or at least alleviated largely, if not wholly, if somebody actually takes time to read the book as a whole. But I can definitely see where those concerns would be raised if they just read that excerpt that was posted online. So, and again, I've talked to Josh extensively about this. If it were me writing, if I was going to write what Josh is trying to do in the book, which again, I think is a very worthy explanation, I would have put the stuff in chapter one, maybe further back in the book when people have more of a theological context to not misunderstand what he's trying to say there. And I think, you know, did people misunderstand what he's trying to say or did Josh say things in a way that was not worded well? And I think it's probably about a bit of both. I think,

and this is where I would have worded things differently, even if I was trying to communicate the specific kind of things that Josh is theologically trying to communicate. Okay. So those are, so the first two lenses are, you know, the,

the, the wisdom or lack thereof, a post in this part of the book on the gospel religion website, problems with that. Then you have the theological lens of like he is as a protestant exploring some more catholic ways of viewing sex and marriage um i know sandy was really critical of that it has some pretty thoughtful things to say i said it always does never an unthoughtful word has came it spilled out of that woman's mouth. So she's absolutely brilliant and intelligent and has given us all much to think about. Maybe I'm less nervous about, as a Protestant, exploring

some of these Catholic themes. Again, I've benefited greatly from some Catholic approaches to sex and marriage. So the fact that Josh, whatever theological, maybe call him disagreement, but I don't know if I would say I disagree. I'm just like, I'm not quite there yet. I think you're exploring some themes that are interesting and I need to kind of go back and keep wrestling with. For me, going back to my endorsement, I love that in books. I love that books are challenging me to think and say, oh, wow, I haven't thought about it like that. I like the gospel picture you're painting here. I love any attempt to try to weave sex and marriage into the fabric of this theological storyline of scripture. I think that's 100%. We should all be doing that. And I'm really disappointed in so many Protestant views of marriage and sex that don't do that.

They're just, again, all about, they're just so secular in their feel of like just making marriage and sex all about romance and consensuality. And that's kind of it, you know? So I applaud Josh for doing that, even if I'm still not quite on board with maybe some of the specific conclusions he's making in the book. I don't need to be on board for me to be able to say this book is worthy to read. And again, I'm kind of focusing on maybe some potential disagreements that I have. The book as a whole, I mean, again, I would say 80, 90% of the book, I would say, no, I think this is spot on. So the third lens though is where I was most concerned is how the language itself in that excerpt reflects some, I would say, very, reflects abusive, well, maybe not, not abusive, but like language that I think is, is very male dominant, is kind of born

out of certain branches of purity culture, is, can be, as Brenna even said, you know, somewhat triggering to people who have been victims of male dominance and abuse. Again, I thought it was fascinating that when Brenna read the book as a whole, then went back and read the excerpt again, she's like, she felt like she was reading it for the first time. She's like, no, when I just read the excerpt, it just felt so different than when I read the book as a whole.

That's 100, my experience. Um, so again, I, I would, you know, we live, I think we live in a post me too moment where sexual abuse in the church is a huge problem and, and coverup of abuse is a huge problem. And misogyny is still rampant in the church. And there's many unhealthy forms of complementarianism. I don't, I don't think commentary. I think there are healthy forms of complementarianism. Some of you might disagree with that. But I also know there are. Even if a complementarian view of women in church leadership or whatever is true, I think we can all admit that there are abuses to that theology and there are problems in the church with that. And that's where when I just

read the excerpt, I was like, oh yeah, I can see where the language could be taken in that direction. I know Josh. I know he's not that. People have kind of quoted Driscoll and MacArthur and like, see, this is just the same stuff. I don't think he's ever read Driscoll and MacArthur. he's again whatever brand of complementarianism that is in josh's theology it's it's a catholic or eastern orthodox kind of commentarianism not conservative evangelical fundamentalism like that's not where josh is coming from at all like i i know that but i can i'm like i can see where somebody would would read that into josh intentions here. So that third lens, like how the language can reflect very unhealthy forms of theology, knowing that that's not what Josh is trying to say, I can see where somebody would be turned off by that, again, when they read just the excerpt,

not the book as a whole. I'm also concerned with the manner in which evangelicalism handled this article. The manner, the tone of the sort of outrage that lived largely on Twitter, but spilled over into articles and blogs and podcasts. There were some good ones. I thought there were some healthy, um, responses. Um, I know, um, Mike Bird has written some stuff. He's always a thoughtful guy. Uh, Beth Felker Jones is very thoughtful. Um, I know Scott McKnight, Lynn Kohik and Jones did a, did a podcast on this. Christopher West did a whole hour long, 45 minute long response. So, I mean, there, there's been some more long form responses, some more supportive and some more critical. So I mean, there's been some more long form responses, some more supportive and some more critical. And I think that that's a better way to have

this conversation. But the kind of conversation that lived on social media, I would say I am just I am, well, I was disgusted at quite honestly. And, you know, people have reached out to me and said, you know, how come you're silent? How come you're not saying anything? I'm like, what do you mean? I'm in silence. I'm talking to tons of people. Face-to-face, long-form conversations.

I've had hours of conversations with Josh in the wake of the article. I've talked to lots of people, some critical, some less critical, some just trying to sort things out. So the fact that somebody doesn't like post something on Twitter is taken as like, you're being silent. That's just such a weird, warped, unhealthy view of how evangelicals should interact with controversial thing. The kind of knee-jerk, quick reaction, you know, respond in the moment, like rather than taking some patient reflection, taking a few weeks to collect your thoughts, talk to some people, talk to, um, have long conversations with people face-to-face in an embodied context where, where, where we can wrestle with this, um, this, this controversial piece. That's, we need more of that, not less of that. And that's why I said, you know what, I want to have a long conversation with some people who are critical of the article,

but are also very thoughtful. And I don't want to do it right away. Let's be patient. Let's think through this. Let's read. Let's listen to some of the critiques. And so, I think the response, the social media response to Josh was largely a failure and embarrassment on evangelicalism. In as much as I have some concerns with Josh's article, I have equal, if not more concerns with the myriad of responses that have, I would say, eviscerated Josh and have not reflected thoughtfulness, but were very much reactionary. Evangelicals are so good, so good at reacting, outbursts, slamming on people. And it's just, you know, the world's looking on. And we're just, I think we are given the impression that we really aren't thoughtful, that we don't take time to patiently respond, to think through things, to humanize others in disagreement.

So I mean, part of me gets it in the sense that I think people are responding from a place of pain. And I think that pain is legitimate. I do. Even though I haven't felt the damage of place of pain, and I think that pain is legitimate. I do. Even though I haven't felt the damage of purity culture, I these extremely very emotional reactions are coming from. I just think that this is still not the way to go about controversy in the church. This is not a way to respond to something that, yeah, again, I don't think the excerpt was a good thing to post, but at least say, okay, I want to hear what this person is trying to say in the book.

Maybe I'll wait until I read the book as a whole. Obviously, there's, you know, people are just outraged over some of the endorsements, you know, including myself that endorsed it. But how could you endorse the book? Well, it's a good question, but maybe you should ask it like, how dare how could you endorse the book well it's a good question but maybe you should ask it like well how could you endorse like what that's interesting that i read the excerpt didn't like it thought it was pretty bad but you you know you you don't seem like a thoughtless person like you maybe there's something in the book as a whole that i'm not aware of and so maybe before i respond to this article in a really emotional way, maybe I can have some patience and take some time to think through this in a more thoughtful way.

So those are my two cents on the evangelical reaction to the whole controversy. And I really hope that this, this podcast episode will foster maybe a better way to go about being forthright and critical and thoughtful when you read or come across something that we disagree with. But to also do so in a way that is done in good faith, is curious about what the person is trying to say, and is humanizing to the person that you disagree with. So I really hope that this podcast modeled those values. So thank you so much for listening to Theology in a Raw. We'll see you next time on the show. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.