A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse: Creation, Evil, and the Relational Ecosystem, Part 1

Editorial Introduction

Please join us for a short series reprinting chapters from The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused.

Beginning a conversation about sexual abuse is uncomfortable, but we feel strongly that this topic is something the church needs to address. We believe the testimonies of authentic recovery can help us embrace the pain of the hurting and make openings for God to bring healing.

Several terms, prompted by an asterisk (*), have been defined by pastors, therapists, and theologians that contributed to the book and are included in a select glossary. Please also continue the conversation with Andrew Schmutzer as he answers questions throughout this series.

An excerpt from The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, edited by Andrew J. Schmutzer.

There is a mystery to sexuality that demands respect. The most treasured relationships in Scripture—personal, national, and divine—draw deeply on sexual imagery: “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you” (Isah 62:5b, cf. Rev 21:2, 9).1 Paul’s language to the Corinthians also employs sacred motifs of sexuality: “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” (2 Cor 11:2b). Appropriately, Brueggemann states:

[F]aith that must resort to the most erotic imagery to speak about a covenantal relationship that operates at the deepest levels of trust and intimacy is useful indeed … the outcome of such usage is a relationship glorious in its intimacy and costly in its brokenness. The Bible understands that sexuality is the ultimate arena of cost and joy.²

So how does a sexually abused child carry both cost and joy into their adult life? How does a young woman anticipate her marriage—“glorious in its intimacy”—when her own father has sexually betrayed her during her years of nurture, leaving his child with a defining experience “costly in its brokenness?” Sexuality may be “personal,” but it is never private.³ Whether in brokenness or gloriousness, sexuality functions within a grand web of embodied relationships that are fragile, connected, and enduring.

Sexual Abuse, Scripture and Theology: A Messy Obligation

In this chapter we focus on a *biblical theology of sexuality primarily through the texts of creation (Genesis 1–3). Secondarily, we will observe how sexuality and its desecration reverberates through Scripture: in narratives of sexual violation (e.g., 2 Samuel 13), in Jesus’ prescriptive model for human sexual behavior (Mark 10:6–9), and in Paul’s letter of moral exhortation (1 Thess 4:1–8). Throughout, however, our chief interest is in the significance of the relational dynamics that surround sexuality and its violation, including agency, consequences, *intergenerational transmission, and the way sin, evil, and community are portrayed in violence that is sexual in nature.

Using a biblical theological approach enables us to highlight literary, historical, and thematic trajectories in these texts. Further, a combination of these elements, within the context of Christian faith, forms a “plausibility structure”⁴ of Scriptural reading that is sensitive to the on-going truths of these biblical stories—both the horizontal and vertical realities of human sexuality.⁵ After all, the “horizontal dimensions of biblical theology cannot be separated from the vertical ones: love of neighbor is practiced within the claim divine love makes upon humankind.”⁶ Note this relational dynamic that James K. Mead highlights in his useful definition:

Biblical theology seeks to identify and understand the Bible’s theological message and themes, as well as how the Bible witnesses to those themes and to whom and by whom it declares that message. The outcome of such investigation will lead us to hear what the Bible says about God’s being, words, and actions; about God’s relationship to all creation, especially humankind; and about the implications this divine-human encounter has for relationships between human beings.⁷

The literature on gender, sexuality, and *sexual ethics is a veritable explosion⁸ as there are diverse groups, approaches, and issues at stake.⁹ Adequately addressing people who have a history of *sexual abuse (SA) is a complex undertaking. It requires a multiplex approach: an interplay of social-sciences, pastoral *empathy, and relational categories capable of addressing the “attack-factor” of physical violation, *intrafamilial betrayal, biblical *anthropology, and the *disorganized relational associations that can be both cause and effect. Along with the victim’s psychological damage are also composite issues of *spiritual incest and theological trauma—healing for victims often requires “chasing down” the God who never showed up or worse, sat passively by!¹⁰ In fact, the complexity of issues surrounding SA—chaos at numerous levels—is part of the reason our understanding of SA needs a more holistic articulation and implementation, making trans-disciplinary studies like this necessary.

For many reasons, studying the brokenness of SA alongside Scripture—of an already mysterious sexuality—creates a “messy obligation.” Understanding and responding to the sexually abused means we are committed to the revealed truth of Scripture as well as the observed truth of empirical studies,¹¹ which help illuminate the victim’s lived-experience.¹² When revealed truth and observed truth merge, then the complexity of the human condition is in fullest view—the “treasure in jars of clay” (2 Cor 4:7).

Creation Theology: The Backdrop of Sexuality

In Genesis we find “a theological understanding of the Old Testament on its own ground.”¹³ Here is the canonical “downbeat” of sexuality, a sexuality rooted in *creation theology. Paradoxically, the Creator’s intention for human sexuality can appear all the more vibrant when we consider the demise of Eden. While it may seem counter-intuitive, we are aided in a theology of sexuality by acknowledging the state of the broken world as we know it—the world that victims of abuse know in uniquely painful ways.

Eden Is Long Gone: Facing a Collective Reality

Creation’s portrait of human sexuality is deeply fractured. This rupture of biblical sexuality exists in every class, country, culture, and religious expression. When, for example: pornography remains so well funded, affecting children, women, and men; when women are victimized through *corrective rape in war-torn countries like Africa; when a 170-page manual on child *molestation circulates that details step-by-step, how to find, *groom, and molest children;¹⁴ when human *sex trafficking exploits children and young women like *“chattel” on a global market; when young girls must endure *female circumcision; when boys are sexually abused throughout the world but shame, *cultural mores,¹⁵ and male *stereotypes keep them quiet; when women are maimed or burned in *“honor killing” for breaking sectarian relational *taboos; when protestant churches sensitively pray about infertility on Mother’s Day but won’t acknowledge the sexually abused sitting in the same room;¹⁶ when the Catholic Church remains so dogmatic about adult contraception but criminally silent about child sexual abuse of epidemic proportion—the portrait of biblical sexuality is indeed fractured!

In his book Sex in the Bible, J. Harold Ellens captures the moral gravity of our time when he laments that, “we increasingly witness the progressive unfolding of the horror of sexual abuse and other forms of sexual aberration in all societies on this planet, particularly in religious communities.”¹⁷ Singling out the religious communities and the leaders of our faith traditions is a haunting but necessary remark. Any shepherd who preys on their sheep by sexually abusing them is a profound illustration of corrosive hypocrisy—to faith, body, and community (Ezekiel 34).

It has been estimated that in a fifty-two-year period (1950–2002), at least fifty thousand young people were abused by priests.¹⁸ What major Western country has not had the sexual abuse crisis hit their community of faith? Through symbolism or other means, there is now a need for collective *restitution and healing on an international and inter-faith scale (Psalm 32). On the model of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission,¹⁹ the international faith community needs to demonstrate a renewed welcome to their sexually violated, standing in solidarity with the betrayed in the name of our Wounded Lamb who stands “as slain” (Rev 5:6a).²⁰ The eternal scarring of the Savior is extremely meaningful to the sexually violated. This biblical text holds out a precious truth and a healing paradox for abused people still struggling with the effects of their *trauma: at the center of the throne John no longer sees the Lion (5:5), but now a Lamb (5:6). John’s theology of Christ’s victory through sacrifice “emphasizes the lasting benefits of his sacrificial death and resurrection.”²¹ Christ did not die to save humans from their humanity, but to authenticate and redeem it.²² Through the scarred Christ, a holistic redemption is provided.

Various cultural forces have exacerbated this fracturing of sexuality, including: “The modern ‘turn to the subject,’ the inordinate preoccupation with ‘I,’”²³ the ever-destructive religious hypocrisies, and various social movements defined by *power structures have, for example, called into question the foundational claims of biblical sexuality.²⁴ In many ways, the church has blunted its own authority on sexual ethics. Too much preaching on “little sins” has shrunk our hearts. What imagination do people have left for epic waves of human violation sweeping our globe?²⁵ Abuse victims are further diminished when fellow humans repackage others’ pain, rather than sitting with the broken. Unfortunately, as Walter Brueggemann has observed:

The practical outcome of this compartmentalization in the contemporary church is that so-called conservatives tend to take careful account of the most rigorous claims of the Bible concerning sexuality, and are indifferent to what the Bible says about economics. Mutatis mutandis, so-called liberals relish what the Bible says in demanding ways about economics, but tread lightly around what the Bible says about sexuality.²⁶

Clearly, a representative policy on sexual abuse is desperately needed, one that can transcend our differences, and I believe a collective voice may yet be found to address this issue.

Serious fracture is also evident when entire populations use stock phrases like: “my sex life”—an ethical *oxymoron—they betray a lack of interpersonal understanding, steeped instead in ideologies of autonomy and hyperindividualism. Rather, as Christian Gostecnik reminds us, “[S]exuality is and remains the arena where the most important relational configurations play out, and with all their power point to a transcendence and sacredness of interpersonal and *family system relationships.”²⁷ Yet without an adequate perspective of the relational web comes a tragic minimizing of a deeply relational form of trauma. What has withered outside Eden is the very foundation for an interconnectedness that is also accountable.

Learning from Eden’s Loss: Reclaiming a Collective Conscience

Persons are parts of relationships. Addressing SA requires a more theologically integrative anthropology—including the contextualizing nature of lived-experience. Also needed is a more respectful appraisal of cultural assumptions that define personhood, assumptions operating in and outside the church.²⁸ Historically, theology has assumed a rather Western and “fixed” anthropology: essentially *dualistic, excessively individualized, culturally “flat,” and an experientially minimalist view of personhood.²⁹ However, through creation, Scripture offers a vision of moral community that also defines personal morality.³⁰ Creation theology mediates the two extremes of collective *fatalism and hyperindividualism.³¹ In creation theology, both individual and collective realities are anchored and affirmed.

Understandably, personal violence and relational loss can foster a sharp distaste for the finitude and contingency of creation as part of its goodness.³² “In creation is a recognition of the worth of limitation … that which is limited and finite constitutes the very place in which God’s being is exhibited.”³³ But such creaturely (inter-)dependence can appear like reckless vulnerability. Sexually violated people naturally tend to “wall-up” and “close in”; post-violation, relational vulnerability can simply seem too costly. Yet there is hope. Creation teaches an exalted anthropology; humankind is dignified through the *image of God (discussed below). Outside Eden, people still retain their ability to choose and the dignity of agency, enabling a journey of healing within community. Collective conscience—whether celebrating or restoring it—means that personal morality is operating within moral community.

Buried in the profound damage of sexual abuse lay the vestiges of a Creator’s intended design for sexual personhood. John MacMurray rightly claims that “personal existence is constituted by the relation of persons”—the personal self has “its being in relationships.”³⁴ This reality of “situatedness” in biblical anthropology highlights ethical elements functioning within the “I–Thou” and “We” of personhood. It is this relational dynamic that highlights the devastation factor of human-induced trauma and the enduring consequences of sexual violation.³⁵ Neither sexuality nor its abuse can be adequately grasped outside of Creation’s view of being-in-relation. These implications run deep, both for violation and healing. For example, “All memories are communal,” argues theologian Miroslav Volf. “Individuals do not remember alone but as members of a group.”³⁶ Acknowledging these realities of personhood, we turn to Genesis 1.

Sexuality Rooted in Doxology

Genesis 1:1–2:3 functions as the first exposition.³⁷ The poetic cadence of this initial unit is theo-centric *doxology, “a world-making *liturgy that invites the congregation to respond in regular *litany, ‘it is good … very good.’”³⁸ As theologized history,³⁹ creation theology has also spawned numerous creation-psalms. In fact, so central was creation to Israel’s faith and hope that “Israel spoke about Yahweh’s creation activity above all in hymnic praise” (e.g., Psalms 8, 18, 65, 104, 148).⁴⁰ Creation is worded-forth, according to the “moral imagination”⁴¹ of the Creator. Divine speech is effective, for the Creator to speak is to manifest (Gen 1:3, 6, 9, 11, etc.).⁴² What God makes is more than “good” (vv. 10, 12, 18, 25); the concluding evaluation is “very good” (1:31)—only after the creation of humankind. Elohim is the transcendent, wholly-other, universal King (cf. 1 Sam 12:12; Ps 95:3–7).43 But God is not sexed, he is supra-sexual. The God of biblical creation is unique. “Outside Israel all gods or goddesses are sexed … goddesses all over the world are directly and inescapably linked to sexuality.”⁴⁴ In contrast to the ancient Near Eastern cultures,⁴⁵ as John N. Oswalt explains:

[H]uman sexual behavior is specifically desacralized. Nothing happens to God or to nature when a man and a woman have sex together … Sex is a divinely willed characteristic of creation, but it is not a characteristic of ultimate reality. As a result, the Bible builds specific boundaries around the practice of sex … God is beyond the limits of our sexuality. So, these prohibitions on sex outside of heterosexual marriage are not the work of prudes. They are a revelation of the boundaries inside of which the Creator intended us to find blessing and not curse.⁴⁶

Nevertheless, as John Goldingay explains: “God can be bodily enough to be seen (e.g., Exod 24:9–11) and specifically has, for example, eyes, a nose, a face, arms, hands and a womb—everything but genitals.”⁴⁷ Since God is neither male nor female, human sexuality is a result of creation, not a quality of a sexual Creator.⁴⁸

Sexuality Deliberately Connecting Genesis 1 and 2

The doxology of creation moves from earth (1:2) to “earthling” (1:26), inanimate to the animate, chaos to rest. “All of creation—the natural world and humans together—stands in relationship to God and is a suitable vehicle of God’s presence.”49 Yet, rising in complexity and agency, the creation of humankind on Day 6 is twice the length (149 words [vv. 26–31]) of its corresponding Day 3 (69 words [vv. 9–13]). The doxology culminates with humankind (1:26–28), the pinnacle of God’s eight creative acts.50

The 2nd exposition (2:4–4:26) amplifies the origin (2:7, 21–22) and sexuality of humankind (2:18, 23–25). The viewpoint shifts from a cosmic panorama (Genesis 1) to the “ground-level” particulars of the human pair (Genesis 2). Tying these two expositions together are foundational theological themes with sexuality framing them all. Observe the following diagram.

Sexuality Among the Themes of Genesis 1 & 2

Using *chiastic structure, sexuality is the framing theme, highlighting theological focus. Law not only establishes boundaries in the best interests of human life, but law is also God’s gracious gift and pre-dates rebellion.⁵¹ “The law is given because God is concerned about the best possible life for all of God’s creatures.”⁵² Whether as boundary or blessing, God’s directives foster life: for procreation (1:28) and relational protection (2:16–17). God’s provision of food moves from the introduction of image bearers—sexuality in the *Creation Mandate (1:26–27, discussed below)—to sexuality in vulnerability (2:21–25). The two sexes who have “dominion” over the animals (1:28; cf. Ps 8:6–8[7–9]) in turn define their sexual uniqueness in contrast to the animals (2:20, 24). “Procreation is shared by humankind with the animal world (Gen 1:22, 28); sexuality is not.”⁵³ Animals multiply “according to their kinds” (1:25), but humans, “according to our likeness” (1:26; 5:3).⁵⁴ The gravity of sexual abuse is better understood next to a deeper understanding of the grandeur of humankind made in God’s image.

The Image of God: Under-kings in Stewardship

The study of the image of God is essentially the study of Western understanding of humanity.55 In Gen 1:26–28 we find core theological values. Here, sexuality participates in a holistic anthropology. Unfortunately, texts like Gen 1:26 and 27 are typically read in isolation from their larger context, and even God’s dignifying speech. A *close reading reveals the literary contour of 1:26–28. God’s speech—both creative and appointing—actually encircles v. 27; the Creator’s “Let us” (v. 26, 1st person address) culminates with his priest-like blessing: “Be fruitful” (v. 28, 2nd person blessing). My following translation and semantic layout contextualizes the vital subjects of “humankind,” “image of God,” “rule,” and “male and female” in an interplay of divine speech (vv. 26, 28) and a narrator’s report (v. 27). Significantly, human sexuality is defined within community, granted a royal context, and tasked with an ethical mission.

Image of God (Gen 1:26–28):

Resemblance and Relationship in Literary Structure

Announcement:   “Let us make humankind (’ādām) in our image … our likeness” (26a)

Purpose:                “so that THEY may rule over (rādâ): fish, birds, creepers” (26b)

A                                    So created (wybārā’) God the human being (hā’ādām) in his image (27a)

Report:                          B in the image of God he created him (27b)

B’                                   male (zākār) and female (nĕqēbâ) he created THEM (27c)

A’                                   Then blessed (wybārek) God THEM and God said to THEM (28aα)

Blessing¹ (= endowment): “Be fruitful … multiply … fill … subdue it” (28aβ)

Blessing² (= commission): “rule over (rādâ): fish, birds, creepers” (28b)

From the outset, the syntax underscores relationships in purpose. In *performative utterance, the more intimate “Let us make” now replaces the impersonal “Let there be” (cf. v. 14). The ruling community is specifically tasked—“so that they may rule over … fish, birds, creepers” (vv. 26b, 28b).⁵⁶ “They” who are anticipated to “rule” (v. 26b, rādâ) are the same community (v. 28a, “them”) blessed with “rule” in the Creation Mandate (v. 28b, rādâ).⁵⁷ The Mandate blessing ignites life, giving it direction, purpose, and ethical mission (Gen 2:15; Psalm 8).⁵⁸ Human sexuality is presupposed within the relational and ethical dynamic of the Mandate.⁵⁹

Notice that humankind was made in “dialogue” for dialogue—the man will only be heard when there is woman, a corresponding being to speak to (2:23).⁶⁰ *Rhetorically, the “divine plural” (= “us”) from the heavenly stage initiates a mission that the “human plural” (= “them”) enacts on the earthly stage. Bracketing the entire unit, God’s speech is both informative (1:26) and empowering (1:28).

Highlighting the historical and cultural context, biblical theology sees God’s angelic court in the plural “us” (cf. 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Isah 6:8).⁶¹ Humankind is cast as the terrestrial counterpart to God’s heavenly entourage.⁶² God’s experience of community now spills over into a new arena, “deepening and broadening the community of relationships that already exists in the divine realm.”⁶³

As the image of God, humankind both represents and resembles God.⁶⁴ Rooted in the “stuff of earth” (2:7), humankind as the “image of God” has “a physical nature shared with the rest of the world and a unique form of liveliness that came from God.”⁶⁵ In the theology of creation, the stone statues used by ancient Near Eastern kings are replaced by God’s living emblems. So Goldingay perceptively notes, if the “we” includes God’s heavenly entourage, it “would fit with the fact that God and God’s aids all have human form when they appear on earth” (e.g., Genesis 18–19).⁶⁶ Further, the fact that: “You have crowned him with glory and honor” (Ps 8:5[6]) coronates human under-kings (Pss 21:5[6]; 45:3–4[4–5]) with the dignity of their Cosmic King (Pss 29:1–4; 96:6–7; 145:5). “Glory and honor” are distinguishing characteristics shared by God and his vice-regents,⁶⁷ but a royalty that is now democratized to all of humankind, not one gender, one class of people, or ancient kings who thought they were demigods. “The first human beings are themselves royal figures, living in a royal garden and exercising royal authority there.”⁶⁸

Following the above diagram, Gen 1:26–28 shows that ’ādām refers to the category of “human being” to which the individual belongs; that is, collective humankind as “male” and “female” (v. 27c). The Old Testament does not use ’ādām to distinguish one individual from another.⁶⁹ The terms and literary structure of this passage shows that neither gender nor *hierarchy is at issue here; at focus is the image-bearer as God’s agent in earthly stewardship.⁷⁰

As image-bearers, their difference lies in sexual structure. Significantly, the terms “male” (zākār) and “female” (nĕqēbâ, v. 27c) refer to their capacity as sexual beings, thus making sexual potency—alongside the royal status of image-bearing—the gravitational center of this passage. As the above diagram shows, sexuality is an assumption celebrated in the blessing that immediately follows (v. 28). Not until we come to Gen 2:23 do we find the terms “man” (’iš) and “woman” (’iššâ) used by God’s agents. Only in Gen 2:23 are social relationships evident—gender, as we tend to think of it.⁷¹ But our diagram illustrates more.

The *chiasm in the center report communicates some unique emphases.⁷² Together, (A, A’) “so created” and “then blessed”⁷³ underscores the fact that human creation is beyond a neutral event—“Let us” was salvific and doxological.⁷⁴ Used three times in v. 27, “create” (bārā’ ) communicates product rather than process (cf. “make,” v. 26), further highlighting the special nature of “the human being” (hā’ādām, v. 27a). Further, the core subunits (B, B’): “in the image of God” and “male and female” are topically stressed. The structure of subunits “B” are explicative verbless phrases, not the “normal” Hebrew word order. In other words, moving from the articular form (“the human being,” v. 27a) to the collective singular (B: “him/it,” v. 27b)⁷⁵ presents “male” (zākār) and “female” (B’: nĕqēbâ, v. 27c) as two types of the same generic human being, agents of the same mission. We now consider how sexuality and mission merge.

Royal Custodians in Ethical Mission

Sexuality operates in the context of a divinely delegated and other-oriented mission. God’s vice-regents are custodians in an ethical trust. The mission in Gen 1:28 is a theological *hendiadys, or pairing of two interrelated parts: (1) endowment for reproduction, (2) and commission for governance (see above diagram). Aberrant notions of sexuality tend to divide: a severance of reproduction from governance, a dismissal of society from self, or an elevation of personal choice over social obligation. But moored to the image of God, the context of human sexuality is ethical mission—from God and for others. Sexuality has a “nested existence”⁷⁶ in a web of relationships that originates with the Creator who considerately observed, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). God “allows himself to be affected, to be touched by each of his creatures. He adopts the community of creation as his own milieu.”⁷⁷

While endowment addresses sexual reproduction, it is never separated from the commission of ruling (cf. 1:26, 28)—the stewardship of governance. Sexuality has an orienting vision in which God has interjected moral order and ethical coherence.⁷⁸ To produce and care is to mimic the Creator (cf. 2:5, 15). Humankind is intended to co-create with God (Gen 4:1; 5:3). The same ethical mission means that “subduing” (v. 28a) in creation theology is the task of earthly development, whereas “ruling” (v. 28b) grants humankind the necessary position to achieve this harnessing of earthly life.⁷⁹ But abuse defies both dignity and vision. Theologically, sexual abuse is: ethical mission in reverse, custodians in sabotage of their royal family, a distortion of delegated authority, a plundering of fellow-image bearers, a degrading of the redemptive horizon, and a marring of connecting metaphors for God. The grand web of relationships is broken.⁸⁰

Doxology gives dominion legitimacy.⁸¹ Theirs is not a dominion of power, but power for dominion. Thus, both doxology and dominion must be held together, for worship without human authority is *abdication and human power without the context of praise becomes self-serving human regency.⁸² God blessed the sexual human being for ethical mission. Sexual intimacy is unique, a merging of blessed man and woman (1:28), of a “male” and “female” who are structurally compatible with each other, possessing “the right degree of likeness and unlikeness to make the merger truly complimentary” (2:23–24).⁸³

The theological force of God’s blessing reissued to Noah portrays the Creator in some degree of accommodation to sustain his redemptive program, recalibrating the original Mandate for a new era—involved, but never calling it “good” again (Gen 9:1–7). Significant to the renewal of the Mandate mission with Noah is the reality that the image of God remains intact (Gen 9:1, 6, 7; Jam 3:9).⁸⁴ Renewed law assures that moral order reflects the created order, thereby sustaining and extending God’s creative work. Several implications for ministering to the sexually abused can be noted from our discussion.

Image of God: Implications for Personhood and Abuse

First, regarding gender. Notice that the two pronouns (“our” [2x], v. 26a) underscore a theomorphic perspective (i.e., having the form of God), as “our image” and “our likeness” fix their point of reference in God, not in “him” or “herself.”⁸⁵ God models a common humanity, not our gender specificity.⁸⁶ Moreover, the structure of the passage shows that the narrator’s report culminates with a depiction of genders in unity (“them,” v. 27c). Throughout Genesis 1–2, God addresses them as persons, not genders—persons in a “community of need.”⁸⁷ Theologically, healing a victim implies restoring a community. While the Mandate is given to rule the earth, there is no Mandate for humans to rule each other.⁸⁸ As Patrick D. Miller notes, “Once the declaration is made that it is as man and as woman that God has created human beings, then the story speaks of them only in the plural.”⁸⁹

Sexual abuse only compounds the survivor’s struggle to define their gendered identity, a point addressed in other chapters. Our analysis shows that the difference in sexed bodies of men and women actually grounds their intricate interdependence.⁹⁰ What has exhausted itself is the contemporary insistence, notes Allison Weir, especially among some *feminists, that identity is necessarily based on subject-object opposition, requiring the exclusion of the other.⁹¹ In other words, a theology of sexuality is not found in neutralizing gender differences (i.e., “neither-one-nor-the-other”), nor synthesizing gender (i.e., “not-the-one-and-the-other”), but as Miroslav Volf explains, “affirming gender differences while at the same time positing one gender identity as always internal to the other” (i.e., “not-without-the-other”; cf. Gen 2:18, 23–24).⁹² What will help victims of abuse are models of identity that consciously include difference and identity—rather than excluding difference and identity through theories of opposition, class, or sanctioned stereotypes.⁹³

Second, regarding embodied personhood. As a survivor myself, I understand how “oppositional logic” has rightly attempted to empower the oppressed voice by securing dignity and personal autonomy, but secondary problems have also resulted. Politics no longer recognizes any roots or accountability to theology; rather, it is quite the opposite. And this has raised another problem—the disembodied victim. Here’s the issue: if image is cognitive capacity, the *imago Dei is reason; if worship is central, the image is spiritual; if the aesthetic is primary, then image is creativity; if image is Trinitarian, emotion-filled relationship, then image is relational.⁹⁴ Notice that the net result of all these emphases is locating God’s image in the interior of the person.⁹⁵ This, however, is a serious misstep for a theology of sexuality, much less addressing physical violence that is sexual in nature. A holistic biblical anthropology, what Patrick Miller calls a “Christian anthropology” of differentiation and interdependencies,⁹⁶ requires a greater balance of internal and external realities of personhood. Living and wounding is spatio-temporal; so is healing.

The push to define “image-through-equality” (true as that may be), especially in recent Trinitarian theologies has, unfortunately and unnecessarily, resulted in minimizing *corporality or ignoring the embodied realities of personhood altogether.⁹⁷ While gender identity is more fluid, it nonetheless “stands in marked contrast to the stable difference of sexed bodies.”⁹⁸ Both representing (via relationship) and resembling (via corporality) are vital to a theology of image. Those who would minister to the sexually traumatized must include the somatic referent in their definition of imaged personhood, corporality with equality.⁹⁹ It is the body, not the soul, that is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19–20). But re-dignifying the body can be difficult for survivors whose personal bodies can feel like “crime scenes,” bodies prone to *dissociation. The somatic referent is the warrant, both for the victim’s *complex PTSD (*post-traumatic stress disorder) as well as the sophisticated care of the trauma counselor, a child’s *play therapist, and the victim’s healing journey through constructive means of *self-soothing (e.g., a craft, gardening, dance).

Finally, regarding personhood and *eschatology. A strong argument can be made that heaven for the believer will still be realized as a gendered reality, since gender is part of personhood. The role of sexuality may be different (cf. Matt 22:30), but as Volf explains:

Paul’s claim that in Christ there is “no longer male and female” entails no eschatological denial of gender dimorphism. What has been erased in Christ is not the sexed body, but some important culturally coded norms attached to sexed bodies … The oneness in Christ is a community of people with sexed bodies and distinct gender identities, not some abstract unity of pure spirits or de-gendered persons.¹⁰⁰

Similarly, Joel B. Green refers to life-after-death as “re-embodiment … provid[ing] the basis for relational and narrative continuity of the self.”¹⁰¹ Paul’s descriptions of being “with Christ” and “in Christ” (Phil 1:23; 1 Thess 4:16) elevates simple prepositions to profound relational realities.¹⁰² But this continuity of personhood may be both frightening and liberating for abuse survivors. Competent spiritual guidance is needed as survivors work through these eschatological implications of personhood. In this life and the next, our relationship with God is realized through gendered expression, even if it is a heavenly version. Thus, heaven as The Great Healing is not a release from the material body into “nakedness”—just the opposite!—it is into the “clothing” of a new soma, an unmolested body (2 Cor 5:1–3, 8).¹⁰³ In light of this eschatological reality, a reminder of what nakedness can mean is helpful. So we briefly return to the Eden narrative of Genesis 2.

Nudity and Innocence vs. Nakedness and Exploitation

When we contemplate the relational innocence and safety of Eden, the narrator has succeeded in the use of implied contrasts—nudity and safety don’t compute this side of Eden!104 The beauty and fertility of the garden sanctuary (2:10–14) matches the innocence and fecundity of the garden’s keepers (2:15). Nudity is a powerful concept biblically (2:25); it speaks of vulnerability (cf. Gen 9:22; Isah 47:1–3). Some of humankind’s deepest relational dignities and social boundaries are at stake, so stripping someone was intentionally degrading and profoundly humiliating (2 Sam 10:4–5; Isah 20:4).

Clothing is also such a boundary for the physical body, which is a microcosm of the social system. Nudity means the complete absence of boundaries; the body is accessible to any and everyone, thus destroying its exclusivity as something “set apart.” [In the Old Testament] nudity erases social clues and so is unclean.¹⁰⁵

To aggressively expose someone is to shame them (cf. Matt 27:28, 31). “Shame” implies physical exploitation and humiliation—“to be ashamed before one another,”¹⁰⁶ so the absence of shame for the garden couple is simply unimaginable for all who have grown up outside Eden (cf. Deut 28:48; Isah 58:7).¹⁰⁷ For the sexually abused and raped, however, shame, exploitation, and humiliation are not some sectarian custom or ancient Bible story—it is their story! It is the couple’s rebellion that will dismantle their naked vulnerability (3:7, 10). First, we hear a significant celebration.

Sexuality in Celebration: Genesis 2:23

Heralding a perfect complement, speech and celebration precede sex and preclude self-absorption: “This one finally, is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”—“They are one! That is, in covenant (2:24). The garden exists as a context for the human community.”¹⁰⁸ Using “bone and flesh” means that the other person “is as close as one’s own body.”¹⁰⁹ This bonding, including sexually, means that what affects one, affects the other. Hurting one will hurt both (Eph 5:28–29).110 Through the instrument and affirmation of speech, the image of God (1:26) is, to some degree, now illustrated in the man’s poetic celebration (2:23).¹¹¹

“This one [zō’t] is finally bone of [min] my bone, and flesh of [min] my flesh; this one [zō’t] shall be called ‘woman’ [’iššâ], for from man [min ’iš] was taken this one [zō’t].” (AT)

The man’s words function as a testimony, an exuberant announcement in the very presence of his attending Creator. With punning poetry, the man’s declaration sets human sexuality apart. The first time we hear the man speak is when he meets the woman who is truly another “suitable for him.”¹¹² Sharing and receiving someone’s voice forms a special connection (Song 2:14; John 10:27). The man “is saying yes to God in recognition of his own sexual nature and welcoming woman as the equal counterpart to his sexuality.”¹¹³ In short, the man illustrates how “words are rooted in reality because speech arises out of experience.”¹¹⁴ What the reader hears is the sacrament of surprise, “this one”—definiteness so vital to healthy sexuality in marriage. Genesis 2:23 is a benchmark of relational celebration—the “man” (’iš) for the visible presence of the “woman” (’iššâ).¹¹⁵

In the Old Testament, the face (pānim) could be the most important part of a person’s body, face being a relational concept referring to the entire person.¹¹⁶ So one hears the “lover” declare in the Song of Songs, “Show me your face, let me hear your voice” (2:14). Intimacy has been stirred in these gardens (cf. 4:14; 6:2). Here is the “I–Thou–We” dynamic, initiated in divine declaration (1:26) and now matched in human celebration (2:23). Uniqueness of personhood (from the narrator, 1:27) has flowered in unity of relationship (from the man, 2:23). This unity was creation’s design, the paring of one “male and female” that Jesus refers to as the original plan (Mark 10:6–9). We now take a closer look at sin and its consequences.

PR

In Part 2 of “A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse”

The Relational Ecosystem: Sexuality Amid Consequences

The New Order for the Redeemed

See Also in this Issue: Andrew Schmutzer answers questions about resistance to healing, relational ecosystems, and preparing church leaders to deal with effects of sexual abuse in their congregations.

Interview 1 Interview 2 Interview 3

Footnotes and select glossary appear in the full digital issue of Pneuma Review Summer 2013 and in the book from which this excerpt is derived.

This chapter is from Andrew J. Schmutzer, ed., The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2011). Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. www.wipfandstock.com

Some Scripture quotations are direct translations by the authors and contributors. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.