Theology & Sexuality
ISSN: 1355-8358 (Print) 1745-5170 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yths20
The scandal of evangelicals and homosexuality:
English evangelical texts, 1960-2010
Christopher Craig Brittain
To cite this article: Christopher Craig Brittain (2017) The scandal of evangelicals and
homosexuality: English evangelical texts, 1960-2010, Theology & Sexuality, 23:3, 257-259, DOI:
10.1080/13558358.2017.1367121
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2017.1367121
Published online: 23 Aug 2017.
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THEOLOGY & SEXUALITY
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chapter structure in the introduction; a number of noticeable inconsistencies in language,
reference style, and chapter structure; and a number of typographical errors.
Tiffany Webster
University of Sheffield/Liverpool John Moores University
twebster1@sheffield.ac.uk
© 2017 Tiffany Webster
https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2017.1343579
The scandal of evangelicals and homosexuality: English evangelical texts, 19602010, by Mark Vasey-Saunders, Farnham, Ashgate, 2015, 256 pp., $109.95 (hbk), ISBN
978-1-4724-5728-8
For many observers, the intense and persistent opposition to homosexuality by many conservative Christian leaders remains baffling. The polemical attacks on the legitimacy of same-sex
relationships by such Christians are sometimes dismissed as the result of narrow fundamentalism, or as driven by latent homophobia. Seldom do such explanations probe very deep under
the surface of the heated rhetoric, in order to analyze why homosexuality causes such furious
disquiet among these religious adherents.
This volume by the British evangelical Mark Vasey-Saunders aims to offer a more probing
account of conservative Christianity’s reaction to the reality of same-sex relationships. He does
so by turning to René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire. This is Girard’s well-known account
of social conflict as resulting out of competition over common objects of desire. In his famous
theory of the scapegoat, when rival mimetic desires escalate to threaten a war of “all against
all”, communities scramble to divert the situation into a “war of all against one”. An innocent
victim is identified – a scapegoat – upon which the community projects all its violence, thus
reuniting the group.
Vasey-Saunders argues that it is precisely such mimetic rivalries among English evangelical
Anglicans that accounts for their scapegoating of homosexuality. He argues that this emerges
because English evangelicalism is locked in a “crisis of differentiation”. In the first instance,
Vasey-Saunders argues that the rival “liberal” and “conservative” parities within the Church
of England are “intimately interconnected” (p. 11). They share much in common, so that
where they do differ is experienced as a painful threat to a coherent identity. More pressing,
however, according to Vasey-Saunders, are the even smaller differences found among evangelical English Anglicans, who he describes as being divided among “exclusivists” (doctrinal conservatives), “progressives” (more liberal on issues like women’s ordination), and “open”
evangelicals (more concerned with activism than doctrine). The book argues that the relations
between these differing groups have devolved into mimetic rivalry, each claiming to be the
model for evangelicalism. As these tensions lead rivals to perceive each other as “monstrous”,
Vasey-Saunders continues, their relations become “scandalised” (p. 12) to the point of arriving
at what Girard describes as a “crisis of differentiation” (p. 14). This is a state in which one
comes to fear that everyone is monstrous, which threatens to dissolve the community entirely.
The volume’s primary argument is that understanding evangelical Anglicans in England in this
manner reveals why homosexuality has come to serve as the “scapegoat” for this deeper crisis
of identity within conservative Christianity in Britain.
258
BOOK REVIEWS
This thesis is presented in the first chapter of the book, through an analysis of the polemical
battle over the appointment of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading in 2003 (a nomination from
which he was forced to withdraw). The rest of the volume is focused on developing the argument that English evangelicalism is in crisis, and it is anxiety over this situation that fuels the
intensity of evangelical attitudes toward homosexuality. Chapter Three draws out differing
basic attitudes toward homosexuality in representative Anglican writings. Chapter Four identifies different spiritual traditions within the evangelical movement that are in tension with
each other, while Chapter Five defends the claim that homophobia and fundamentalism are
inadequate descriptions of the dynamics underlying polemics over same-sex relationships in
the Church of England.
What is impressive about this account is the way in which a self-identified evangelical
brings his insider knowledge and sympathies to the analysis, with a view to defusing what
he considers to be a fearful and violent over-reaction against the issue of same-sex relationships in the church. For, to be sure, Vasey-Saunders is prepared to be critical of his own
tribe. Although he argues that evangelicals are not “obsessed with sex”, but are merely reflecting the wider cultural prominence of sexuality in the Global North (p. 115), he suggests that
they are the inheritors of “the homophobic tradition of England, and have done far too little to
demonstrate their desire to remove the validity their tradition has given to persecution and
violence” (p. 163).
Notably, the book is neither a study of homosexuals in the Church of England, nor of
LGBTQ evangelical Anglicans: their voices are largely absent from the discussion. Rather,
the volume is a call to English evangelical Anglicans to step back from their anxiety and
fear over homosexuality, and to reclaim aspects of their own tradition that advocate peace
and nonviolence. Such is the motivation for Chapter Six, which focuses on defending an evangelical commitment to the doctrine of penal substitution (the notion that Jesus was punished
by God for human sin). Although Vasey-Saunders notes that, it is “hard to deny that the form
of penal substitution held by a majority of evangelicals necessitates that divine sacred violence
be seen as righteous and necessary” (p. 211), and that this implies the legitimacy of human
violence, he also argues that the doctrine contains elements that can be deployed to subvert
such violence. If one “stands at the foot of the cross” and affirms one’s own vulnerability
and complicity with sin, while accepting the call to “sacrificial service”, then one may be
resourced to interrupt the propensity toward inflicting violence against scapegoats.
This account is puzzling, in that the source of the cure offered by Vasey-Saunders is the
same as the disease: the evangelical Christian tradition. He both probes evangelical theology
and piety for the roots of sacred violence, while drawing from it resources to resist the
same. While it is certainly possible that a complicated historical tradition can contain both elements, what such an argument lacks is attention to the conditions that might enable evangelicals to emphasize the positive values he wants to recover. As the book so convincingly
demonstrates, to date, the evangelical tradition has emphasized very different elements of
its tradition: what grounds Vasey-Saunders’s confidence that evangelicals will be able to
embody their faith otherwise?
Moreover, although there is much to commend in Vasey-Saunder’s Girardian analysis of
British evangelicalism’s “crisis of undifferentiation”, his account remains isolated from evangelical movements outside of the U.K. This leaves a significant gap in his argument, given, as
he acknowledges, how interconnected British evangelicals are with their counterparts in the
U.S.A. and, increasingly, in the Global South. Is he implying that all evangelicals are being
driven by this “crisis of undifferentiation”? Perhaps, but such a claim may neglect contextual
issues challenging evangelical identity in other regions of the globe. Thus, a broader scope in
the argument would be required to fully convince the reader of the book’s main thesis.
THEOLOGY & SEXUALITY
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Finally, it is curious that a book such as this not only does not defend the legitimacy of
same-sex relationships in the church, but begins by advancing the “traditional” teaching if
the church. Vasey-Saunders invokes the notion that lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual
unions are the norm for men and women as sexual beings (p. 1). One might well ask in the
light of Girard whether beginning with such an operative assertion only risks adding fuel to
an already intense “mimetic rivalry” – both within the church, but also in the wider society.
Yet, such concerns aside, this is a book that merits attention.
Christopher Craig Brittain
University of Aberdeen
c.brittain@abdn.ac.uk
© 2017 Christopher Craig Brittain
https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2017.1367121
Redeeming gender, by Adrian Thatcher, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, 240
pp., £25/$35 (hbk), ISBN: 978-0-19-874475-7
You can judge this book by its cover. Its external beauty, though messy and asymmetrical, perfectly reflects the contents therein – an attractive thesis that finds itself the heir of a messy,
asymmetrical history. In Redeeming Gender, Adrian Thatcher sets out to accomplish two
tasks: (1) to provide a history of the one-sex and two-sex theories and their various interminglings, and (2) to give a renewed theological account of gender, rooted in orthodox Christology
and Trinitarianism.
In the first part of the book, “Retrievals,” Thatcher examines the “awkwardness of history”
regarding theories of sex/gender as well as the Church’s disregard for said awkwardness (5).
For instance, he demonstrates how the Catholic Church contains (like Anglicanism) “a confused
mix of one-sex and two-sex understandings of the human being” (84). According to Thatcher,
we find in the Catholic Church, on one hand, a male priesthood grounded in ancient ideas about
gender, which devalue women’s authority in liturgy (87–92); on the other hand, an exegesis of
Gen. 1:27 that God created two distinct sexes of “‘equal personal dignity’ … without regard to the
very different locations” of the one-sex and two-sex theories (92).
More than a history, however, this section is an “explanation for the extent of sexism that
accompanies the Christian faith and is still proving difficult to shake off” (201). Thatcher’s
argument builds upon Thomas Lacquer’s compelling thesis that somewhere between the medieval and early modern periods, there was a transition from the one-sex theory (that humanity
is fundamentally one ideal sex, which men most closely resemble; all other sexes were defective
iterations of the masculine ideal) to the two-sex theory (that there are two sexes, with different
traits and abilities, either equal or unequal).
I appreciated Thatcher’s careful correction of contemporary notions of gender, namely the
distinction between “sex” and “gender” as biological and social components, respectively.
Thatcher argues that “human life does not simply divide into two realms” (168). While he
does not desire to abolish either term, he recognizes that the two are more closely related
than lay people tend to think. There is a growing body of literature on the topic of sex difference in Christianity, which Thatcher contributes to by providing a clear and detailed history of
the one-sex and two-sex theories and how that transition has been reflected in numerous
Church councils and doctrines.