Joshua Butler’s Gospel Coalition Piece: The Missing Questions

It’s a little late to comment on Joshua Butler’s piece entitled “Sex Won’t Save You (But it Points to the One Who Will) published by The Gospel Coalition Mar 1, 2023. Shoot, it’s even been taken down by TGC and replaced with a reference to Butler’s forthcoming book. In the book/article Butler seems to be providing a protestant update to Christopher West’s theology. I’ve been a critic of the problematics of Christopher West’s Theology of the Body for various reasons. I reject the male being put into the role of Jesus over the female as receiver of God. I reject this for Biblical and theological reasons. This plays into patriarchy. Marriage is decidedly mutual in Ephesians chapter 5 in ways counter to Paul’s present day culture. West seems to ignore the way mutuality between male and female should model the perichoresis/the non-hierarchal mutual inter-personal relationship within the Triune God. I’d recommend reading theologian Beth Felker Jones of Northern Seminary on Butler’s piece. I have nothing to add to what she said. She said it better than I ever could. Come to Northern Seminary and learn with her how to think theologically. Learn to uncover the assumptions that drive the way we think, behave and live our discipleship in Christ.

The reaction to Butler however interests me. It was swift, wide-reaching, and massive. And it wasn’t just progressives. The reaction crossed all lines. I can’t remember this massive a blowback to Christopher West.  And yet West, claiming to popularize John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, has a significant following among Anglicans in the States, and of course many conservative Catholics who are friends of evangelicals. This group of Christians extends way beyond the TGC crowd. West’s theology, its inherent patriarchy, exclusion of women from the clergy/priesthood, influences much of the way conservatives in these ranks think about sex, gender. So it’s about time we had some serious writing examining the assumptions, narratives, metaphors, understandings of the body we assume to be natural and the romanticism that drives it all. There are so many damaging assumptions that drive the way we live our heterosexual sexualities that never get talked about in the church. We need to open space for these kind of conversations.

Which leads me to a secondary but important point. Do we shy away equally from the same conversations when it comes to other construals of sexuality/gender in the church? I applaud the examining of the assumptions about patriarchy, misogyny, sexualization of bodies, romanticism that shape the experience of heterosexual sex for the church in Butler’s piece. Do we need similar conversations when it comes to the other sexualities that are among us in the culture and in our churches? Can we also take the time, to unravel the assumptions, narratives, metaphors, understandings of the body we assume to be natural and the romanticism that drives LGBTQIA sexualities and gender relations?

These kind of conversations have been few and far between. They are fraught with hurt and pain. There’s been so much hurling of hate, marginalizing of LGBTQ people, in the church. When we have had conversations, if we can call them that, we Bible bash one side or the other, never dealing with the complex hurt, formation issues, that drive the heterosexuality that serves as normative in the church. The fact that there have to be sides reveals we are not having the kind of conversation we need. No wonder there is so much fragility with all persons when it comes to having these conversations.

I take my cues from queer and/or feminist theorists on this. Judith Butler, for instance, recognizes that within the culture there is a regulatory regime deeply woven into heterosexual normativity. She asks that the gay and lesbian communities examine how their gay or lesbian identities extend or are built on this regulatory regime thereby perpetuating the ills of the heterosexuality. In Butler’s terms, if the lesbian or gay person’s identity is defined off the existing heterosexuality, either adopting the same categories or reacting to them, they in essence normalize the oppressive structure (she did this most famously in Gender Trouble 1990). Another example is Luce Irigarey when she argues women must break free from the male-centric discourse of normative heterosexuality in order to have an identity as woman. Until then women are shaped to act and feel within the misogynous world of normative heterosexuality. (See her essay “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine,”in This Sex Which is Not One 1985).

I could go on. But the basic idea I’m trying to get to is that heterosexuality is immensely flawed as given and toxified in this culture. It is, in my opinion, often wholly adopted within evangelical churches. It is seen in glaring fashion when it manifests itself in toxic masculinity (when Mark Driscoll cheers on his “hot wife”). But if our LGBTQ sexualities are constructed within this same frame, adopting either the same performances of attraction, gender roles, or formed in reaction against them, should we not take the time to examine these sexualities in the same way we have with Josh Butler? I AM NOT ASSUMING ALL LGBTQ sexuality is flawed, just like I am not assuming all heterosexuality is flawed. I shy away from such universal statements. I am just saying we need the same conversation.

This is my long-standing beef with the “Not Affirming” or “Affirming” policy statements towards LGBTQ sexualities and gender constructs in our churches. These policies may seem to alleviate the damage done to those who were marginalized and dismissed by the heterosexual matrix of the church, but they don’t deal with the toxic heterosexuality matrix itself in the church. The policy statements are like a band aide. Furthermore, when denominations or top-down power structures of mega churches adopt such policy statements and enforce them they in essence shut down the conversations. They in essence put a band aide over the simmering mess that we should be inviting the Holy Spirit into with Scripture with real lives to discern what God is working among us to do.

In lieu of such policy statements on sexuality and gender in our cultures, I believe the church needs to offer a path of discipleship in regards to sexuality that includes us all. Heterosexuals should get in line first.  

Oh, I know this takes imagination. But folks, we’re a church in mission. We don’t get to tell people what to do who are not yet followers. Instead all we do is offer a way. I know it’s fraught with potential landmines. But has anybody talked to our teenagers lately? Your affirming/not affirming statements are not doing them much good.

There is much more to talk about. I know I am going to get tons of push back on this piece, accusations, misunderstanding and caricatures that paint me as an evil person. Ouch. But this is the cost of starting conversations. Let’s have a conversation? For now I rest my case.

I have a forthcoming book Reckoning with Power: Why the Church Fails When It’s on the Wrong Side of Power by David E Fitch

Look for it in early 2024