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Intimate Jesus: the sexuality of God incarnate
Jesus' experience of human sexuality and his attitude towards it in himself and others
160 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 2017
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 4, 2018
This book explores the sub-theme of Jesus' sexuality in the gospel of John.
It's hard to put into words what I made of this book. In some respects it's brilliant and much needed to have a conservative christian who believes the Bible is the infallible, to be talking openly on this topic. Indeed a lot of this book is a critique of liberal theologians using scant evidence to claim Jesus was married/ had an affair/ was actively homosexual, by looking in detail at the original Greek of the passages in question and the contemporary culture.
I also think this is a topic we too willingly shy away from since we're so used to Dan Brown like theories rearing their head in popular culture. Yet it's clear that Jesus was made fully man and that included sexuality, so we're only missing out if we don't appreciate this side of him. It is also very depressing to think that sexuality is a purely bad thing in a single male. Surely there are so many lessons we can learn from somebody who completely obeyed God, even in his sexuality, when he wasn't married.
However I found this book often left me with just more questions, often the 'so what?' for me today.
The main thing I liked about this book was how beautifully the author captivated the love the trinity has for each other and how, through Jesus, we have been invited to experience this incredible intimacy with Jesus. Our current culture thinks intimacy = sex, but actually the book argues very well that normal friendships can also be wonderfully intimate, and our relationship with God, the most intimate of all.
What I disliked the most was how much he seems to go off on tangents quoting from contemporary Greek and Roman texts about the current sexualised culture. In moderation they could have been helpful, but they were often explicit, graphic and over labouring a point. I don't think they helped his argument and felt more like information dumping. I just didn't need to read quotes about Socrates' love for young men and his views that this type of love was the most pure again and again, I got it the first time! Or for that matter how exciting it is to watch naked men wrestle each other in the gym. Many of these things could have just been stated clearly and more succinctly. This would have made his arguments cleaner and prevented any unhelpful triggering effects some of the descriptions may have caused.
I felt like this book was the start of a good conversation and I look forward to seeing where conservative Christians go with it in the future.
It's hard to put into words what I made of this book. In some respects it's brilliant and much needed to have a conservative christian who believes the Bible is the infallible, to be talking openly on this topic. Indeed a lot of this book is a critique of liberal theologians using scant evidence to claim Jesus was married/ had an affair/ was actively homosexual, by looking in detail at the original Greek of the passages in question and the contemporary culture.
I also think this is a topic we too willingly shy away from since we're so used to Dan Brown like theories rearing their head in popular culture. Yet it's clear that Jesus was made fully man and that included sexuality, so we're only missing out if we don't appreciate this side of him. It is also very depressing to think that sexuality is a purely bad thing in a single male. Surely there are so many lessons we can learn from somebody who completely obeyed God, even in his sexuality, when he wasn't married.
However I found this book often left me with just more questions, often the 'so what?' for me today.
The main thing I liked about this book was how beautifully the author captivated the love the trinity has for each other and how, through Jesus, we have been invited to experience this incredible intimacy with Jesus. Our current culture thinks intimacy = sex, but actually the book argues very well that normal friendships can also be wonderfully intimate, and our relationship with God, the most intimate of all.
What I disliked the most was how much he seems to go off on tangents quoting from contemporary Greek and Roman texts about the current sexualised culture. In moderation they could have been helpful, but they were often explicit, graphic and over labouring a point. I don't think they helped his argument and felt more like information dumping. I just didn't need to read quotes about Socrates' love for young men and his views that this type of love was the most pure again and again, I got it the first time! Or for that matter how exciting it is to watch naked men wrestle each other in the gym. Many of these things could have just been stated clearly and more succinctly. This would have made his arguments cleaner and prevented any unhelpful triggering effects some of the descriptions may have caused.
I felt like this book was the start of a good conversation and I look forward to seeing where conservative Christians go with it in the future.
Displaying 1 of 1 review