UPDATE: Gospel Coalition has pulled their article down. This is the note that replaced the story “We recognize that the adapted excerpt from Josh Butler’s forthcoming book Beautiful Union lacked sufficient context to be helpful in this format. The excerpt was taken from the first chapter of Beautiful Union, and you can download and read the entire introduction and first chapter here.” It is a non-apology that avoids saying the book should not have been published.
Gospel Coalition has begun a promising apologetics venture called the Keller Centre, named after Tim Keller who has proven that you can grow an evangelical church in the centre of Manhattan, by publishing what seems to be a strange article about sex,
On a G-rated site like The Other Cheek, this piece of news presents real difficulties, but we’ll try not to be too coy.
Josh Butler has written a piece that describes how having sex models the relationship between Christ and the church.
He takes the idea of “one flesh” in Ephesians 5, which describes the physical union of a man and wife as a license to apply the mechanics of sex to Christ and the Church.
“Generosity and hospitality are both embodied in the sexual act. Think about it. Generosity involves giving extravagantly to someone. You give the best you’ve got to give, lavishly pouring out your time, energy, or money. At a deeper level, generosity is giving not just your resources but your very self. And what deeper form of self-giving is there than sexual union where the husband pours out his very presence not only upon but within his wife?
Of marriage bed, he says: “Hospitality, on the other hand, involves receiving the life of the other. You prepare a space for the guest to enter your home, welcoming him warmly into your circle of intimacy, to share your dwelling place with you. Here again, what deeper form of hospitality is there than sexual union where the wife welcomes her husband into the sanctuary of her very self?”
He goes on to say of Christ and the Church: “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.”
Heres’ how Michael Bird of Ridley Melbourne summarises Butler. “Butler’s piece gets cringy and manufactures conditions for misogyny when he equates, literarily, Christ’s saving word with a man’s semen! He uses the language of penetration a lot, refers to semen as a sacrificial offering and a holy seed, and describes a woman’s uterus as hospitable and rejoicing.”
As Bird points out, the Puritans defied the stereotype of them as joyless in celebrating sex as a metaphor of union in marriage.
But Butler goes a lot further than that. Surely both partners share in joy, in hospitality, in meeting the needs of each other. And why is the male orgasm a sacrifice? Or self-giving (another Butler claim)?
But arguing penetration as a metaphor for Christ and the church goes beyond what the Bible says. It crudely makes men the initiator and women the receiver of relationship and love and sets out a path to stereotypical roles in relationship.
Here’s how biblical studies academic Christy Hemphill respnded.
Objections to Butler should not be equated to disputes with complemnetrianism. The claims for restricting some roles in the church to men, is based on reading the Bible straightforwardly, although that reading in contested.
Butler interprets the Bible analogically: sex is a symbol of how the relationship of man and wife relationships and Christ and the church. The Bible links the two relationships, but does not invoke penetration.
Bulter offers a reductionistic version of sex, and builds a reductionistic version of relationship.
His views invite a culture of male dominance or male entitlement
There is a real need to explore non-toxic masculinity and feminity in the modern world. But to base that on the mechanics of sex is decidedly odd.
Image: Josh Ryan Butler from his website Joshryanbutler.com
I don’t think it’s true to say complementarianism is based on reading the bible straightforwardly. Very few complementarians think women must be silent in church or cannot contradict their husbands publicly. Certainly many complementarians do not just accept that the reason for women’s restricted teaching roles is some sort of additional burden of sin due to Eve’s role in the garden. Complementarianism would be even worse if it was just a straightforward reading without any interpretation. It is certainly not universally a plain reading of Paul.
There are likewise parts of complementarianism for which what Josh Butler does is iconic. Paul’s metaphors about marriage and the church are intended to make a limited point about Christ’s election of the church but many complementarians (Piper, and Wilson and the disgraced Driscoll come to mind) have read the metaphor backwards to determine how family life is supposed to be organised and see in the trinity something about the essential natures of men and women. You might be straying into that territory when you say “Butler interprets the Bible analogically: sex is a symbol of how the relationship of man and wife relationships and Christ and the church. The Bible links the two relationships, but does not invoke penetration.” The bible links the relationship between men and women only to make a limited point about God from the way marriage worked in Pauls time. The metaphor is not prescriptive in the other direction anymore than Paul referring to grafting in intended to tell us how to prune and graft fruit trees.
Some have even gone further and despite its unbiblical and heretical nature promoted the idea of a hierarchy with God then Jesus then Fathers then Mothers then children. That we are now talking about patriarchy instead of complementarianism is a distinction made by some but for others no distinction exists.
Complementarianism is a broad movement and some wont feel represented by Josh Butler, but he is squarely in the middle of it – history could not call Tim Keller or the T.G.C. fringe elements of the movement.
I aimed to say that complementarianism is based on the idea that it is a result of reading the Bible straightforwardly. Some egalitarians also proceed from the same notion that the Bible can be read straight forwardly. Then there’s a myriad of other approaches, including ones that adopt a progressive revelation thesis.
I believe you are correct in putting TGC in the centre of the complementarian movement at least in English-speaking countries. I think we need to be cautious though about privileging English-speaking or western Christianity
Hi John,
I don’t feel anywhere near as strongly about this as you do, judging by your two follow-up pieces.
Apart from “going beyond what is written”, cf Mikey Lynch, your two accusations are these:
“Bulter offers a reductionistic version of sex, and builds a reductionistic version of relationship.
His views invite a culture of male dominance or male entitlement”
From what you’ve quoted I don’t understand the charge of reductionism. It seems rather that Butler has commented on the central act of sex without excluding other aspects.
Secondly, on the culture of male dominance: why should a spiritual analogy for coitus do that? Happy to grant that it’s cringeworthy. But I think that attaching spiritual significance to coitus only promotes male dominance if you view coitus as inherently an act of male dominance. What have I missed?
Best regards, and I do enjoy your writing,
James
James, the best suggestion I can make is for you to read what Butler wrote and determine whether you agree he has read into sexual intercourse a particular view of male-female relationships in general. Its about placing the male as essentially the initiator and women as “hospitable” in particular. The longer version of his piece was linked from the TGC site, but it has now vanished. The book is on Amazon and Koorong. It’s called Beautiful Union. Or I can send you the excerpt if you like.