Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech

by Mark D. Jordan

Is the reform we have seen in the wake of the pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church meaningful? Have our conversations about the causes of these scandals delved as deeply as they need to? For those questioning the relations between hierarchical power, secrecy, and sexuality in institutional religion, Mark D. Jordan's eloquent meditations on what truths about sexuality need to be told in church-and the difficulty of telling any truths-will be a balm and a revelation.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Mark D. Jordan is the Andrew Mellon Professor of Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His focus is on European philosophy, gender studies, and sexuality. Much of his early work related to Catholic teachings of Thomas Aquinas. In recent years, he has more specifically focused on religious doctrine and its relation to LGBT issues.

In addition to his scholarship and classroom teaching, Jordan has discussed sexual and religious issues to audiences that range from college lectureships to National Public Radio, the New York Times, and CNN.

Jordan won the annual Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction for his 2011 book, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality.

Prior to his return to Harvard in 2014, Jordan had held endowed professorships at Emory, Washington University at St. Louis, Notre Dame and at Harvard. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays grant (Spain), a Luce Fellowship in Theology, and a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Jordan received his BA from St. John’s College and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He grew up in Dallas, where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas.

Reviews

[Zach Waldis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revisiting a required author from seminary, Jordan is pretty much solidly liberal protestant (he would fit in as a liberal Catholic, but let's face it, those are the same thing). I would pigeon-hole him in the area of "queer" theology and he has that interesting mix of hatred and love (eros?) for the church. Most of the book uses the jargon of continental philosophy and the left wing side of the academy ("scripts", "icon loops", etc) to critically address the church's historic position on sexuality with few constructive ways forward. Perhaps the saving grace of the book is his reflection on Jesus' body. While a bit irreverent, there are thoughts there worth pursuing. Jordan seems like a pretty typical academic who likes to critique and yet maintain a healthy distance from the church or organized religion, which makes the work ultimately not compelling. Definitely outside of my normal wheelhouse.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Telling Truths in Church is a compilation of lectures given by the author, a gay Catholic professor, at Boston University about the Catholic priest pedophile scandal, as well as about gay marriage and other issues of the theology of sexuality.

I was originally assigned this text in my seminary course on Sexuality in the Christian Body, which examined (predominantly, but not solely) the issues of homosexuality within the church and the lack of discussion surrounding those issues. I read this book a few years later after it was assigned and found myself mostly disappointed with the author's stance (not because I agreed or disagreed with it, but because I felt that it was lacking in general). My general opinion of this book is that I have read many more valuable and persuasive arguments in favor of a broader look at homosexuality as being understood in a normative and charitable way.

I did feel, at times, that the author was way above my head in terms of conceptual theological language, so perhaps my understanding of the book's content and message is lacking.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have liked more attention to how systems of power in the church can lend themselves towards abuses but still an excellent account how we can learn to identify and then speak in the midst of existing and shifting powers.