Religion and sex have never coexisted easily. When religious leaders aren’t celebrating the beauty of (proper) sexual relations as God’s gift to humans, they are condemning the power sex has to ensnare and destroy. Must religion and sex always make strange bedfellows? Or can a connection between the two be freshly understood in a culture drenched in sexual imagery and messages? A number of new and forthcoming books tackle the issues from different angles.
Oxford University Press has several current and upcoming titles on the topic. Theo Calderara, editor-in-chief for history and religion, tells PW, “This is a very rich area for us because it brings together two subjects that are incredibly important in people’s lives and are often seen to be in conflict, which means that there’s a high level of interest. It is also a topic that is much more complex than is generally believed, and the books we publish in this area aim to bring a nuanced perspective to the conversation.”
Brazos Press also has two books coming, and Jim Kinney, editorial director of Baker Academic and Brazos, notes, “The topic of human sexuality is currently parked right in the middle of the intersection of Christianity and culture. We feel it is both our responsibility and our privilege to contribute creative, respectful, and constructive voices to conversations taking place in churches, living rooms, and classrooms.”
Donna Freitas, a research associate at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society, carried out extensive interviews over the course of five years with college students across the country, asking about their sexual practices and ethics. Oxford published her findings in 2008 in Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses. Their stories revealed that these young men and women often saw little connection between sex and religion, though they might seek one between sex and spirituality. In an updated edition of Sex and the Soul (Oxford, Feb.), Freitas writes about the hundreds of conversations she has had with students since the book was first published, offering parents, pastors, and the students themselves “a practical guide to sex and the soul: three musts for [the] college to-do list.”
Freitas’s book reveals the consequences of a hook-up culture among young people; some of the same issues are addressed in Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age (Brazos, July). Author Jonathan Grant, leader of St. Paul's Symonds Street, one of the largest Anglican congregations in Australasia, observes that young adults today treat sex and romantic relationships as “happiness technologies,” rather than as what he calls “melodies of heaven.” Drawing on his pastoral experience, Grant offers a vision of sex for Christians that is a way of “seeing the good life and becoming what we see, getting to the heart of things, and living the Gospel story,” he writes.
Sara Moslener writes about one religious reaction to contemporary sexual license in Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (Oxford, July). Moslener, an assistant professor of religion at Central Michigan University, examines the history of the sexual purity movement of contemporary evangelicalism, focusing on two campaigns, True Love Waits and Silver Ring Thing. These movements claim a causal relationship between sexual immorality and cultural and religious decline, she writes, and evangelical leaders have fashioned a rhetoric of sexual purity that positions them as saviors of American civilization.
Many religious leaders still struggle to address same-sex relationships. Some Christian groups in the 1980s laid the blame for the AIDS pandemic solely on homosexuals. In After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion (Oxford, July), Anthony Petro chronicles the history of AIDS in America, showing how Christians across denominations helped shape the public conversation about sexuality, particularly homosexuality, and promoted an agenda of abstinence and monogamy.
Such a view holds that while homosexual desire might not be sinful, acting on it is. In Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Brazos Apr.), Wesley Hill, assistant professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry, claims that friendship is a spiritual vocation and that the church can foster nonsexual relationships for abstinent homosexuals as a component of Christian discipleship.
Finally, award-winning Egyptian-American journalist and media commentator Mona Eltahawy moves the discussion of religion and sexuality out of the realm of personal morality and into public discourse in Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (FSG/Faber & Faber, Apr.). Faber & Faber publisher Mitzi Angel tells PW, "I discovered Mona through an article she wrote for Foreign Policy magazine—“Why Do They Hate Us?”--and was struck by how forcefully and unapologetically she made her very important points. I liked the idea of a short, passionate book." Building on that controversial article, Eltahawy writes candidly about the appalling record on women’s rights in the Middle East, confronting the “toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend.”
