Josh Butler thinks he has conceptualised an awesome theology of how sex relates to God and salvation.
Most Christians think Butler’s concept is yech. I think Butler has hauled up from the deep and put on display the fishy monster that has been at the core of warped evangelical teaching about sex and gender.
This is the first post in a series that aims to scale, skin and dissect the fishy monster.
Butler’s article Sex Won’t Save You. (But It Points to the One who Will) was published by The Gospel Coalition. Very soon after, TGC scrubbed the article. A few weeks later, Butler’s book came out with the rather grandiose title Beautiful Union: How God’s Vision for Sex Points us to the Good, Unlocks the True, and (sort of) Explains Everything.
Trigger warning — this post contains material that may trigger survivors of abuse.
In early March I read Josh Butler’s article Sex Won’t Save You. Reading it triggered my PTSD so badly that it threw me into ten days of trauma. I felt like I was nearly drowning — struggling to get my head above water to take a breath in a turbid, chaotic, malevolent, spiritual and emotional ocean. The ten days ended when I came to the insight that Josh Butler’s thesis was like the worship of Priapus. In Greek mythology, Priapus was a minor Greek god who had an oversized penis.
Why write about such a dark topic? Maybe by exposing the underbelly of the serpent, I can help the abused process their pain and fear. I hope my work will also be helpful to the wider church. If we don’t discern the ways of the enemy, Satan is likely to get the advantage of us.
My poem has a few rarely-used words. A glossary is at the end.
An abuse survivor’s poetic critique of Josh Butler’s “Beautiful Union” (and a reflection on the general state of the church)
Joshie Butler sold some butter.
People said, “This butter’s bitter:
sacralising penile semen!
worship of Priapus even!”
Butler says, “I’ll clarify,
next edition will be better!”
This despite much thoughtful, careful,
critical feedback from his readers —
scholars, pastors, Hebrew experts,
women, men and abuse survivors.
Josh seems grateful for the feedback,
yet denies he must retract.
“More sensitivity reviews will fix it,”
says Butler, anxious to distract.
Some people bash “the feminist mob”
for fomenting a twitter storm,
they claim the mob caused Josh to be
cancelled by the TGC.
They say the mob are starchy prudes,
yet they themselves are downright rude.
Josh seems to imagine he’s justified
in shutting his ears to victims’ voices,
many of whom are far too hurt
to eyeball any twitter chorus.
Sure that his vision is God’s vision,
he won’t accept there is any collision.
“Press into this vision!” — that’s his dictum
to all the sexual abuse victims.
“It will heal your trauma anguish,
in fear and pain you will no longer languish!”
He thinks his vision will heal your sore.
Doesn’t he know the body keeps the score?
He thinks he knows about sexual trauma
… but he has an empathy coma.
He waltzes to the money song.
He’s sure he’s right, and we’re all wrong.
Josh is not wholly to blame for the mess,
many people did acquiesce.
His blunders are misplaced altruism —
baseborn offspring from the caress
of malformed evangelicalism.
Like Victoria’s Secret
was invented by a dude,
male-focused interpretation
titillates men’s imagination.
And Josh can nimbly speak it:
he plys the handy platitude
with facile certitude.
Josh is entranced by flights of fancy,
sacred temple conjugal blooms—
“the generous sacrifice” by men
whose orgasms seed hospitable wombs.
The snake winds sinuously up the pole,
Josh’s heated imagination,
unconstrained — a foetid hole
of emblems, symbols, in free association —
dreams up a bronze caduceus
that is anything but beauteous.
At this inglorious desecration,
this allegoric concatenation
… man’s eyes transfix … his staff gets thick.
A woman’s joy is “to be hospitable”.
Yes; she needs romance and foreplay
(“Go slow” is Josh’s pro-tip to men)
but whether she orgasms plays little part
in the magical vision Josh imparts.
Her authority over her husband’s body
is touched on — with a dose of shame
that blames the woman for churlish refusal
of sacred sharing when man is aflame.
The adage said to Victorian women:
“Just lie there and think of England,”
has, smooth as butter, now transformed:
“Mounting the Cross as a marriage bed
Christ consummates! Don’t be forlorn!”
And if that doesn’t do the trick
of giving churlishness the flick,
then “sacred sperm and temple womb”
may wave the wand to make you swoon.
My blood runs cold
seeing leprous mould —
The brazen serpent that Hezekiah spurned
when cleansing idols from the land
has revived again — and here we stand
incense is burned
to iconise the snake,
misusing the symbol
to sell a swindle.
Josh trawls deep with a long-line hook,
hauls the fishy monster from the deep sea trenches,
grapples it with his pastoral crook,
… the body of Christ shivers and blenches.
The fisherman brags that he’s caught a whopper.
He won’t admit that he’s come a cropper.
Josh has written a mess of pottage.
What shall we do with the putrid clottage?
There’s no clot-breaking enzyme to fix it.
Only outright veto will nix it.
Continually some new nexus
pulls eyeballs to a fresher skirmish.
Theobros, slithering like Houdini,
rub the bottle for a different genie.
Last week, yoga pants sprang forth
to dance in the spotlight of our discourse.
Competing with that for centre stage,
evoking in folks a different rage —
a case of abuse in the advocate community,
one more advocate unmasked as a bully.
Wolves can often skate with immunity.
Can we ever build safe spaces fully?
How can safe spaces be built in the church
when abusers never feel the birch,
when leaders do not expel from their perches
the vulturous lechers in the churches?
By failing to hand them over to Satan,
the mess in the church will never straighten.
Leaders who never cast out the leaven
— who skip 1 Corinthians 5:11 —
foster and breed an amoral community
where abusers feast with dazzling impunity.
Male privilege, a veritable phoenix,
rises again, like eugenics.
The presumption of male entitlement hinders,
incinerating our dreams to cinders.
Always new Medusa heads
with horns shape-shift, inspiring dread.
Ten heads? Seven? … keep us guessing!
Who can learn the Lord’s own blessing?
Beast from sea and beast from land,
Lucifer does both command.
REPARATION
The Lord has sworn. He will not relent.
The only way out is to repent.
Forsake your engorged imagination,
or go the fiery destination.
Reparation must entail
full repentance: turning from
all the penile iconisation:
the insult to Christ’s sacrifice
that connects a man’s ejaculation
to Christ’s generous libation,
and panders to men with deluding device
(the spotted vesture can entice)
but shames women for “in-hospitality”
while omitting anatomical reality.
This twisted doctrine of atonement
that christens semen with enthronement
must be renounced, must be forsworn.
It does not cleanse the mind of porn.
It leaves us women all awry,
it makes us groan and squirm and cry,
it churns our guts, it twists our brains,
our viscera it deeply stains,
it makes the marriage-bed feel impure,
it makes us scream
it is not clean!
It violates the third commandment,
It reeks of male-focused enchantment.
LESSONS and REFLECTIONS
Now I’ve recovered from nearly going under,
(the article caused me ten days of trauma)
I’m actually grateful for Josh’s book,
for it puts on display
in the light of day
the distorted beliefs which eviscerate women,
the marriage-bed-Cross that sells women a lemon.
I’ll now switch key to verse that is free
for lament and prophecy.
… ’cause to weep and foretell
in rhythm and rhyme
does not comport so easily.
What have we learned from this whole saga?
Each one thinks what each one wants.
Few heed views remote from their own.
Many are mired in limitations,
inexperience, fractious fighting,
can’t or won’t see the bigger picture
— and as the waves break up the ship,
they glibly toss victims over the side.
The false-church ship will, must, go down.
It can’t be saved; should not be “fixed”.
Only Christ can fix this mess
by coming again and rescuing his own,
who cling to the broken wreckage … praying in the crashing waves.
***
To prove I’m not making this stuff up, my future posts in this series will give notes and sources for what I’m saying poetically here. I’ll be quoting verbatim from Beautiful Union to show the flaws in its thesis, its disingenuous use of other theologians’ works, and why it is so damaging to abuse survivors. I’ll also be quoting gems from others who have pushed back against Butler’s work.
Glossary
Amoral – lacking moral sensibility, not caring about right or wrong.
Caduceus – The staff carried by Mercury as messenger of the gods. A representation of this staff is used as an emblem of the medical profession. The image I used in this poem is a single snake caduceus, more correctly called the Rod of Asclepius.
Concatenation – the act of linking together in a chain, a series of interconnected or interdependent things or events.
Fomenting – To foment: to instigate or foster (discord, rebellion, etc.); promote the growth or development of: to foment trouble; to foment discontent.
Leprous – Having leprosy. Of, relating to, or resembling leprosy. Biology: Having or consisting of loose, scurfy scales.
Medusa – in Greek mythology, Medusa was said to be the daughter of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto. She was the most feared of the Gorgons. It was said that anyone who looked directly at her was immediately turned to stone. Medusa was often depicted as a terrifying winged female with snakes instead of hair.
Theobros – short for “theological brothers”. The word was coined in the survivor / advocacy community as a catch-all for the boys’ club of men who subscribe to complementarianism and who reinforce and validate each other while trying to de-voice women and egalitarians. Theobros claim to be caring for women and the abused, but in practice they often do the opposite. There are a few prominent women in the theobros’ camp, who echo and elevate the theobros.
Vesture – clothing, garment.
Viscera – intestines, bowels.
A Cry For Justice 
Barb,
From your post:
I’m so sorry this happened to you. 😢
And your poem is excellent. 😊 Far better than I could’ve ever written.
From your post:
I added air quotes around the book’s title to emphasize the mockery in (and my mockery of) the book’s title.
From your post:
(Bold done by me.)
That.
From your post:
That.
In reality, Josh Butler deserved to be cancelled by The Gospel Coalition….too bad his book couldn’t be cancelled for good (unintentional pun intended).
From your post:
That.
From your post:
That.
From your post:
That.
From your post:
That.
From your post:
(The phrase “his book is” in brackets was added by me.)
That.
From your post:
(The phrase “the company” in brackets was added by me.)
That.
From your post:
That.
(The name “Hezekiah” in brackets was added by me.)
From your post:
(The phrase “The book” in brackets was added by me.)
That.
From your post:
That.
From your post:
(The word “and” in brackets was added by me.)
That. And the abusers might also be leaders, who also need to be expelled (ex-communicated) from the church.
From your post:
That.
From your post:
That.
From your post:
That.
Adding on to my own comment….
I was re-reading the Glossary in Barb’s post….
From Barb’s post:
For whatever reason, the word “scurfy” stood out — it just “sounded” neat (but not in the sense of tidy, etc.). So I looked it up.
From The Free Dictionary (scurfy [Internet Archive link]):
Parts of each of these definitions could be applied to Josh Butler, his book, and the theobros. I’ll leave it to the reader to choose which one (if any) fits their own ideas(s) of Josh Butler, his book, and / or the theobros.
When selecting the word “scurfy” I did look it up in some dictionaries, but not The Free Dictionary. Definitions 2 and 3 from The Free Dictionary are new to me. Scaly crusty coating on a plant, fungal diseases of plants causing scaly lesions especially on underground parts — how interesting! Underground parts … the biblical association that comes to mind is 1 Samuel 5 where the Lord inflicted the Philistine inhabitants of Ashdod with tumors (the Septuagint says “tumors of the groin”).
Snakes also have scales, but not scurfy scales like dandruff. A snake sheds its scaly skin all in one go.
Barb,
You wrote (23rd May 2023):
And some diseases of plants cause a growth on the root of the plant that looks like a tumour.
You also wrote:
I was curious, so I looked up 1 Samuel 5:6 in multiple translations of the Bible. I read other words as well as “tumours” or “tumors of the groin”….some translations had the word “hemorrhoids”, some had the word “emerods” (which is an archaic term for haemorrhoids), some had the phrase “growths on their skin”, one had the words “bubonic plague”, one had the word “sores”, one had the phrase “growths on their bodies”, and one had the phrase “pain and sores”.
This is haunting and deep. I feel like I could read and re-read this over and over and still have more to ingest. I am thankful you are reviewing Josh Butler’s dreadful book.
I am frustrated by the fact that the Twitter storm you describe — which continued this past week after Josh Butler was interviewed on the Truth Before Tribe podcast with Patrick Miller and critiqued Sheila Wray Gregoire’s statistics — does not seem to me to be grounded in truth either. On the one side you have Sheila and company and on the other side you have Patrick and Josh and company, and truth doesn’t seem to actually matter. What matters is the theobros shutting down women and Sheila defending her statistics rather than the truth, and that leaves me very much in the position of thinking no one has this right.
For example, Dr. Beth Allison Barr in last week’s Twitter storm stated that Sheila’s statistics are peer-reviewed, and Sheila corroborated that. Only her statistics are not peer-reviewed. I am not sure why these details do not seem [to] matter to most people, and I don’t understand how dishonesty is going to get Christian women anywhere in this fight. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and it cuts me deeply that some of the biggest voices speaking out against Josh’s book seem to also be behaving dishonestly themselves. Add onto that that Sheila sent out an email three days ago where she stated that it is normal for teens and children as young as ten to have “extremely explicit” sexual fantasies and referred to them as “horny little minds.” To me, that’s wicked too.
[Paragraph breaks added to enhance readability. Editors.]
Andrea Aleksandrova,
You wrote (22nd May 2023):
No offence intended, Andrea Aleksandrova, when I hijack and re-write your statement. I’d re-write your statement to say:
To quote only part of many Bible verses (and the quote appears in many different Bible translations):
Thanks for your comment, Andrea Aleksandrova.
I have always had a spidey sense about Sheila Gregoire. This is not the first time I’ve said that publicly: I said it a day or so ago on Twitter, in reply to another person’s tweet.
I have never wanted to subscribe to Sheila’s emails or her Twitter account. Since Butler’s article came out, I have been following the discussion on Twitter closely. As a result, I have seen many of Sheila’s tweets because other people on Twitter I follow have shared Sheila’s tweets. I have listened to one of the podcasts from Bare Marriage (Sheila’s website) and I read one or maybe a few of her articles at Bare Marriage.
Recently I have asked myself whether my spidey sense about Sheila could be related to my having unhealed trauma from being sexually abused. That could be possible, but I don’t think it is the main cause. My gut feeling is that my spidey sense about her is more likely to be prompted by the Holy Spirit. Time will tell.
I do know that years ago, when I first became aware of her website, the title “Bare Marriage” with her photo and the bright coloured background put me off looking further.
I am dismayed that in a recent email to her subscribers she stated that it is normal for teens and children as young as ten to have “extremely explicit” sexual fantasies and referred to them as “horny little minds.”
Even if that statement were true (which I don’t believe it is) the phrase “horny little minds” is uncalled for, indecorous, smutty, and highly inflammatory. In my view, there can be no conceivable good reason why a Christian would use that phrase about children and teens. It is offensive.
If you want to say more here, I would be very interested in your reasons for saying that Sheila’s statistics are not peer-reviewed. I don’t have any expertise in statistics, but I’m interested in why you say that.
Thanks once again for your input into this discussion.
Barb,
You wrote (23rd May 2023):
That. Unless — perhaps — they’ve (not Sheila Gregoire’s subscribers) been exposed to porn and / or have been sexually abused as children? Or — perhaps — they (not Sheila Gregoire’s subscribers) have some form of mental illness?
And how many of Sheila Gregoire’s subscribers might she have unintentionally triggered with her email?
You also wrote:
That.
Andrea Aleksandrova challenges the claim that Sheila Gregoire’s research is peer reviewed.
For ease of reading, I’ve included the quote from Andrea’s Facebook post —
The comments at Andrea’s FB post are also illuminating. Several women are testifying that Sheila treated them meanly when they asked her questions. Kate Palmer Bowles gives detailed evidence that Sheila is being deceitful and misleading by saying that her research is peer reviewed.
Barb,
You quoted (24th May 2023):
I was curious so I looked up “ARDA”….
From Wikipedia [Internet Archive link]:
I haven’t followed the discussions on whether or not Sheila Gregoire’s The Great Sex Rescue research was peer reviewed, but the brief quote I’ve excerpted from Wikipedia would suggest The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) is only a data archive.
As I read this beautifully written poem, with incredible insight and understanding, I copied and pasted the words that stood out to me the most to include in the comment.
Well, there were too many, but I tried to pick the major ones.
(Before I forget to say this, Barb, I am so sorry for the 10 day trauma you described!)
Probably the BEST line:
I could reread this poem many times and keep finding more and more “kernels” to chew on. Even the ones that I copied and pasted require more studying to really grasp its deeper meanings.
I’m not sure if this fully connects to this post. I took Greek Mythology in college (a long time ago; hopefully my memory is accurate). There are many stories of male gods having sexual relations with human women; described in words as “rape,” but in illustrations, however — it was portrayed as the women being “carried off”. It was not graphic, nor (visually) seemingly traumatic.
I do not recall this being explained or expressed as consensual, but it seemed moot to even have the discussion. The enormous power imbalance (god versus human) made escape impossible for the women. It seemed “understood” that the women had no choice; it was something that just “happened” in the world they lived in.
Sometimes the women would end up bearing children that were half god / half human, but on the whole, they seemed to just go back to their lives. I now wonder why so much storytelling acknowledges the existence of trauma, but omits emotional trauma. How do you endure something that is anything but normal, and then try to go back and live a normal life?
However, Medusa is an exception. She was actually quite a beautiful woman before she was sexually assaulted by a male god. It is how she became what she became: a grotesque monster-like creature that had to live in total isolation. If you looked directly at her, you turned to stone. And she had no way to choose to harm or NOT harm others. Her life is a story of something done to her that was against her will, and she ended up doing something to others against her will.
If anyone tried to visit her, it was not to hear her story of how she got that way, and what it was like to live that way. Or, what her life was like before her transformation. It was to try to kill her, as some sort of quest or act of heroism. She was dangerous, to be sure, but she was not born that way. She became that way.
In America, on a day called Halloween, kids especially try to dress up as the scariest thing they can think of. It might be obvious to choose a “Medusa” costume, with the hair made out of snakes and whatever gruesome makeup to add to the cosplay [Internet Archive link]1.
But what about Medusa BEFORE she was assaulted? That male god was drawn to her beauty, but only sought to destroy it. And by the way, it had nothing to do with her actual looks. Whether she had dark hair or dark eyes, blonde hair or blue eyes is completely immaterial. Point is, would you want to dress up as what you imagined Medusa looked like at first, because the idea of being targeted by hate, is just as scary as what that hate transforms you into.
Also, think of victims post-abuse / assault. While our bodies may be traumatized, it may or may not show on the outside. We may or may not look pretty much the same, but on the inside we may feel as “grotesque” as Medusa. And certainly as isolated as her.
People may be afraid to look directly into our faces. Maybe they won’t literally turn to stone, but they might see our stone-like faces, causing them to impulsively look away from us. Maybe if we even try to tell our stories, they turn to stone on the inside — becoming cold and lifeless. And blame us for our beauty for “attracting” a hateful brute. Or they might treat US as if we’ve turned to stone. Or perhaps they tell us to continue to endure the abuse or process the assault as if we are made out of stone, so that it won’t hurt so much.
So, enduring what humanity took away from us, requires taking away as much of our humanity as possible?
Does it ever occur to them someone that already was a “Medusa-like” monster (doesn’t matter that he was a god) is what transformed her into something she was never was to begin with?
Medusa isn’t real, obviously, but I’m sure many of us can relate to the story. So in real life, it may be hard to look at those that feel like her, but we should never look completely away from her.
1[May 28, 2023: We added the link to Wikipedia’s page about the term “cosplay” (a term for the blended words “costume” and “play”. The Internet Archive link is a copy of that page. Editors.]
Helovesme,
I really liked your comment. 😊
You wrote (28th May 2023):
That.
You also wrote:
(The phrase “and shown” and the word “as” in brackets added by me. Editors.)
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
(The words “does”, ignore”, and “including” added by me.)
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
FWIW (For What It’s Worth), the winner of this last season’s United States “version” of The Masked Singer [Internet Archive link] (Internet Archive link added by me) was Bishop Briggs dressed as Medusa. Her singing was beautiful, and her costume was definitely not ugly. 😊
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
That.
You also wrote:
That.
Bless you, Finding Answers! You often help us by writing comments that highlight key points in what someone else has written. You also help us by adding links, so we can dig deeper into the meaning and significance of what is being said. 🙂
Hi, Barb, and yes absolutely you are free to use my comment! I honestly did not think that much of it, but it’s extremely flattering that you liked it so much.
I’m glad to have a chance to reply to you so I can make sure to reread your poem when I can. It was wonderfully written and must have been quite the “brain drain” (in a good way) to produce something so poignant.
I’m still struggling with consistent nightmares but some of the other stresses have eased up slightly which has helped me have a little “room” to read and reply to your fab [fabulous] posts when I can. It is good to connect and reconnect, on even a small or limited level, with the fab people on this page. It is truly one of the safer places for victims.
Oops forgot to second what Barb said to Finding Answers, and for her kind and generous reply!
Helovesme, your comment bowled me over (in a good way). Thank you for taking the time to compose it. 🙂
When I’ve finished publishing my series on Josh Butler, may I publish your comment as a stand-alone post?