Review: Book explores a Christian vision of human sexuality

Beauty, Order, and Mystery: A Christian Vision of Human Sexuality

Edited by Gerald L. Hiestand and Todd Wilson (IVP Academic)

Evangelicals often are criticized—fairly—for being known more by what we are against than by what we are for. This tendency especially is pronounced in current cultural conversations regarding sexuality and gender. Evangelicals—myself included—hold strong opinions on the topics, but we tend to have a hard time articulating a reason for these opinions beyond “this is what Scripture teaches.” This isn’t a bad answer per se, but it presents two problems. First, many in our society don’t accept the Christian Scriptures as authoritative. Second, we don’t all read the Scriptures in the same way or have the same interpretations of important passages. For this reason, further dialogue is needed on these issues beyond a simple appeal to biblical texts.

Beauty, Order, and Mystery: A Christian Vision of Human Sexuality, an upcoming collection of essays on gender and sexuality from the Center for Pastor Theologians, seeks to make a positive, well-reasoned, scripturally faithful case for traditional evangelical views on these issues, and it does it masterfully. Beauty, Order, and Mystery is the best book I have ever read on human sexuality in general, but particularly from a conservative evangelical perspective. For those convinced that Scripture restricts marriage to two heterosexual individuals and that biological sex does not exist on a spectrum, or for those who object to these conclusions but want to interact with the best possible defenses of these positions, Beauty, Order, and Mystery is second to none.

Jake Raabe, student

Truett Theological Seminary

Waco