A Sound of Sheer Silence

Previous Posts in the Series Introduction Introductory Chapter Chapters 1 and 2 Chapters 3 and 4   (Especially good!) Interlude Chapter 5 and 6 Chapter 7 Chapters 8 and 9 Rev. Bromleigh McCleneghan's Good Christian Sex  is great.  I've given it to a couple of people who have told me they have benefited greatly from it.  It is the book I would give to a teenager or young adult trying to work their way through the process of integrating sexuality with spirituality and wholeness. Rather than recap the book again, I figured it might be useful as a post-script to think about "where to go from here"?  McCleneghan sketches out a vision of an authentic progressive Christian sexual ethic, but it is no criticism of the book to say that there are places that would benefit from further reflection and development, as no one book can be a comprehensive account of something like sexuality.  Here are a couple of places that I think she or others might jump off ...

Good Christian Sex  ends with two topics that, often, are taboo when talking about sex in a Christian context--infidelity and ending relationships.  Or, if not actually taboo, then so clear as to not be worth talking about--you shouldn't do either of them, so what is there to talk about?  McCleneghan argues, rightly, that there is quite a bit to talk about on these topics, actually. Before getting into the meat of the matter, there is something that I think is worth highlighting in the way McCleneghan approaches these topics, and it demonstrates how important it is to not limit the voices in these discussions to guys.  There is an idea out there--in more conservative contexts especially but not exclusively--that infidelity and lust and recklessness in breaking off relationships is primarily a guy problem.  Women by contrast, in this narrative, are "naturally" built to be faithful and relationship-focused, and thus have to "civilize" these out-of-control men....

I am not exactly breaking new ground here, but the Beatles have some pretty great songs.  I mean, Bob Dylan just won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and Dylan has some good songs, but (controversial opinion alert) Dylan can't hold Lennon and McCartney's bags as a songwriter.  As music critic Chuck Klosterman said "everyone thinks the Beatles are the greatest band of all time because they have all the best songs, and both of those things are true." Anyway, consider this tune: There are places I'll remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone and some remain All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life, I've loved them all But of all these friends and lovers There is no one compares with you And these memories lose their meaning When I think of love as something new Though I know I'll never lose affection For people and...

After a long break--partially because of work commitments, partially because of the world turning upside down a bit, we are back with Good Christian Sex.   If you want to see the previous posts in the series, here is my introduction to the series ,  the introductory chapter ,  Chapters 1 and 2 , and  Chapters 3 and 4 ( as well as this somewhat on topic post ).  I promise it won't be so long for the rest of the book. Chapters 5 and 6--about nakedness and intimacy, respectively--are in many ways a continuation of what McCleneghan addresses in the the previous two chapters .  An overarching theme to the book thus far it is that all intimate relationships of whatever type are multi-faceted.  There are a number of things that go into a good, happy, fulfilling, just relationship, and none of them can be assumed or come as the result of signing a piece of paper or being a part of a church service. A discussion of nakedness, as McCleneghan points out, is ...

I'm working on some posts reviewing the rest of the chapters of the book, and I will be getting those out in the next week or so, but I wanted to pause for a second and go on a bit of a tangent.  This last week and half or so has been a bit of a perfect storm--I've been reading and thinking about Rev. McCleneghan's book, I have been talking to friends of mine about the book and about their own situations, and of course I have . . . experienced? endured? . . . the latest from Donald Trump and his campaign and the reaction thereof, alongside the rest of the U.S. population. At the intersection of all of this has been a bit of a Eureka moment for me.   As I mentioned in a previous post , I've always known I existed in a bit of the in-between space between the broader, secular culture and the more conservative Christian (in my case Catholic) culture. And, while there is no question that I have been moving in many ways away from that more traditionalist thinking, I still ...

Chapters 3 and 4 of Good Christian Sex  are, at a 10,000 foot level, a critique of the traditional Christian superstructure and presuppositions regarding marriage and sex.  McCleneghan expresses that superstructure accurately, if snarkily, as follows: The Church Universal, as I hope is becoming clear, can be so entirely goofy on the topics of sex, love, and relationships.  Sex is a critical part of identity (but only if you are straight, and fit traditional gender roles, and are married).  Singleness is great and easy to bear and a virtue, and celibacy is expected; but, whoa, man, does God want you to get married and enjoy the marital bed (which is both a joy and an obligation!) and start cranking out those Christian babies who will complete your life and give you purpose.  God will bless you with all of these things (unless He chooses not to, in which case you are to submit to His will, too bad, so sad). Let's talk first about the marriage piece, which hove...

Chapter 1 of Good Christian Sex  is about pleasure and, more specifically, self pleasure (McCleneghan makes the case that "masturbation" is a ugly and negative word, and while I hadn't thought about it before, I think she is right), and Chapter 2 is about desire, especially our first early experiences of desire.  Before I get to the specifics of those chapters, there is something that has come into focus for me--before we talk about the specifics of sexual morality, we first have to figure out what sexual morality is and what it involves, because Christians definitely don't agree on this preliminary point. Here's what I mean.  There are basically two accounts of what is at stake in sexual morality (and all morality, but the book is about sex and sexual morality puts these issues into sharp relief).  The first view, which we can call "Side A," is that there are a set of things that God doesn't want us to do with regard to sex, and, if we do them any...

Bromleigh McCleneghan begins her book Good Christian Sex by describing how she came to understand sexuality.  It is a pretty typical story for folks raised in moderate-to-liberal homes in the 80s and 90s.  She was given open access to as much factual information about sexuality as she wanted, had parents that communicated an amorphous sense that they would not be thrilled with her having lots of sex as a teenager or young adult while being careful not to communicate shame around sex, and otherwise left her alone to figure things out for herself.  By her account, she did not receive or internalize any religiously-oriented messages about sex--no particular moral rules, no spiritual approach to sex.  In fact, McCleneghan locates the origin of the book in a call she received in college from a friend who wanted help in walking through whether to have sex with her boyfriend from a Christian perspective, and realizing that she didn't have any particular Christian perspecti...

A couple of years ago, I did a lengthy, multi-part review of Dr. Greg Popcak's book Holy Sex!   In general, the book was, well, not good.  There were some decent parts, but the good stuff was buried under the overwhelming tide of a stark duality--everything related to sex can be divided into "Holy Sex" (which is good) and "eroticism" (which is bad) .  It was a more sophisticated version of the "two boxes" approach to sex that causes so many problems .  Plus, there is the Popcakian weirdness, like how wearing lingerie is like clergy wearing vestments during services . But the biggest disappointment about the book is that a book like Holy Sex! is good and needed.  A nuanced take on sex and sexuality is desperately needed in Christianity, especially among more progressive visions of Christianity.  It is easy, though problematic, to simply "just say no," but it is hard to come up with a set of tools for navigating the complex and turbulent wat...