Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic (review)

Placing embodiment, pleasure, and sexuality at the center of the discussion of Black religious studies, this anthology asks provocative questions such as "Why has the sensuality and eroticism of the black body, so evident in black culture and African American life, remained a taboo topic in the Black Church?" Addressing the lack of substantive work on sex, sexuality, and the erotic within the scholarship on Black religion, editors Anthony B. Pinn and Dwight N. Hopkins have gathered eighteen essays by scholars in various disciplines within African American religious studies. The editors argue that "scholars involved in the study of Black religion must wrestle with sex and sexuality—and the erotic—if they are to actually present liberation as a mode of existence that frees the body and fully appreciates the body" (6). The collection of essays does indeed "involve an honest and straightforward wrestling with an issue of tremendous importance" (7).

The essays span the disciplines of ethics, biblical studies, pastoral studies, theology, musical studies, hermeneutics and cultural criticism, and sociology of religion. Woven through many of the essays is the central importance accorded to incarnation in Black religious thought together with critical attention to the uneasiness of dealing with sex/sexuality and the erotic, hallmarks of embodied existence. Common to all essays is the shared audience of the Black church and academics in direct conversation with African American religious life but also others interested in liberation theology or issues of sexuality and the body. All essays are written in an accessible style and are largely clear about the contribution they wish to make. Most of the essays, although positioned in terms of specific disciplinary locations, draw on a variety of areas of scholarship in substantiating their claims. As is typical of liberation theology and related work, historical frameworks and critical analysis of sociopolitical power structures are included in most essays.

Opening with a call to confront erotic injustice within the Black church's treatment of sex and sexuality, womanist ethicist Katie G. Canon argues that erotic justice requires an unflinching investigation into the sexual norms within the Black church that legitimate unjust and oppressive dualisms to begin dialogues about the various dimensions of human intimacy. In the second essay, Traci West critically investigates the problematic norms and power imbalances that manifest themselves in clergy sexual conduct and sexual moral codes within the Black church.

In the section on Biblical Studies, particular case studies explore, for example, how a reformulation of the Bible's function results from the deconstruction of certain demeaning images and norms in biblical discourse together with a construction of a resistant tradition of sexual and erotic ethics (from among biblical and other literary traditions). Abraham Smith's essay poses crucial challenges to the authoritative position of the Bible within the Black church. In another essay in this section, Allen Callahan demonstrates an insightful "reading against the grain" by tracing the appropriation of Vashti as heroine by African American women.

Reflecting on specific pastoral contexts, Lee H. Butler problematizes the consequences of a splitting of spirituality and sexuality for Black Christians, whereas Irene Monroe offers a challenge to the reliance on the Exodus story as paradigmatic liberation narrative focusing on "the endangered Black male." Arguing for the need to examine the subjugation experienced in particular situations, Monroe calls for a "coming out" of "whatever bondage enslaves us. For African Americans, our bodies and sexualities are in as much need for freedom as our skin color is" (130). Horace Griffin's subsequent essay demonstrates one way to confront heteronormative assumptions in Black theology by developing a Black liberation theology that affirms homoeroticism and the goodness of Black gay and lesbian bodies.

Under the heading of Theology, Anthony B. Pinn offers a provocative essay in which he seeks "to disrupt what had been a comfortable discourse which, while heated, has been sex(ually) non-threatening and unable to approach the deep structures and attitudes that promote other-ing...