Sex God
From Neoredemptive
| Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality | |
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Rob Bell
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| Book Review Policy |
A Christian sex book of another color. "Salmon", I think.
Doc's Take
For the record, I do like Rob Bell. He's clearly very well read, he has a winsome style, and he looks to me like he's trying to do for early-21st-century Americans what C. S. Lewis did for mid-20th Century Britons -- translate the themes and concepts of Christianity into recognizable language and metaphor. In saying this, I should hasten to point out that while I have an immense respect for Lewis, I do not agree with him on every point, and the same is true of Bell. The main difference, to my mind anyway, is that Lewis seemed to me far more willing to weave a tale that would ultimately restate some of the finer points of orthodoxy with greater clarity, whereas with Bell it is less clear to me whether he is trying to restate orthodoxy or to reformulate something that seems outwardly compatible with it but is more deeply ambiguous or even incompatible under the covers.
To state this another way, my response to "Sex God" can (with a few particularly forceful exceptions) be summed up as "yes, and". Bell is portraying humanity, sexuality, sin, and redemption through lenses that are not frequently used within the evangelical community, and for this he is to be applauded. However, in doing this he seems to consistently and conspicuously leave many important things unsaid: That when we sin, something awful happens not only to the sinner and to the person sinned against, but also between the sinner and God. That "sex" needs to be understood first and foremost in terms of the Hebrew story of Eden and God's creation order, not simply in terms of the Latin etymology of the English word "sex". That Jesus' work on the cross not only showed up the world's power systems for the sham that they are, but also purchased for us the righteousness which we could not attain by satisfying the justice of a perfect and holy judge and law-giver.
Also, sorry to spoil the surprise for anyone who hasn't cracked the book yet, but -- it's not about sex. Bell is using the word "sex" as a proxy for talking about our "disconnection" and our attempts to "reconnect" -- from each other, from ourselves, from the earth, from God, etc.[1] So the book seems (to me, at least) to have a lot more to do with shaping a moral imagination than it does with any issues that are intrinsically sexual. Sex comes up in illustrations and stories and particular applications, but by saying "this is really about that" a titular sex book proves to really be about spiritual formation and to have virtually no pastoral counsel or wisdom concerning sexual matters. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you; I vote yes for getting more, better materials for spiritual formation into as many Christians' hands and heads as possible. But I did have the distinct feeling of a bait-and-switch as the nominally sexual premise of the book ("the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality") promptly disposed of its titular focus and spun off in a very different direction.
For more detailed notes from my reading of this book, see Sex God/Doc's Notes.
Reviews
- http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/03/rob-bells-sexgod-book-first-rate-read.html
- http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2126
- http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2146
- http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/reviews/books/b/sex_god_by_rob_bell_10607.php
- http://www.somareview.com/hippuritansex.cfm
- http://www.ymexchange.com/Resource-Reviews/Sex-God-Exploring-the-Endless-Connections-Between-Sexuality-and-Spirituality.html
- http://seeingclearly.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/on-sex-god/ (chapter one only)
- Amazon.com Customer Reviews (70 and counting...)
