A Lily Among the Thorns

A new way for Christians to think about sexuality

Author Miguel De La Torre, a well-respected ethicist and professor known for his innovative readings of Christian doctrine, rejects both the liberal and conservative prejudices about sex. He instead develops an ethic that is liberative yet grounded soundly in the Bible; a sexuality that celebrates God’s gift of great sex by fostering intimacy, vulnerability and openness between loving partners.

In A Lily Among the Thorns, De La Torre examines the Bible, current events, history and our culture-at-large to show how and why racism, sexism, and classism have distorted Christianity’s central teachings about sexuality. The author shows how the church’s traditionally negative attitudes toward sex in general—and toward women, people of color, and gays in particular—have made it difficult, if not impossible, to create a biblically based and just sexual ethic. But when the Bible is read from the viewpoint of those who have been marginalized in our society, preconceived notions about Christianity and sex get turned on their heads. Taking on hot-button topics such as pornography, homosexuality, prostitution, and celibacy, the author examines how “reading from the margins” provides a liberating approach to dealing with issues of sexuality.

A Note of Thanks ix

Preface xi

Introduction 1

PART ONE Restoring Great Sex

1. Liberating the Female Body 13

2. Liberating the Body of Color 36

3. The Body and Its Pleasures 50

4. A Sexual Ethics for the Body 70

PART TWO Having Great Sex

5. Great Sex in Marriage 89

6. Sex and the Single Christian 108

7. Same-Sex Relationships 130

8. Predatory Sex 158

Notes 185

The Author 199

Index 201

Miguel De La Torre is associate professor of social ethics at Iliff School of Theology, a director to the Society of Christian Ethics, and the co-chair of the Ethics Section at the American Academy of Religion. De La Torre is a newspaper and Internet columnist and a respected expert on liberation theologies. Praise for A Lily Among the Thorns

"No clergyperson, seminarian, or layperson should ever again speak publicly about the Christian view of sex without first reading this book. They will need to undergo such an exercise in order to cleanse themselves of the many presuppositions and prejudices about sex that pervade our religious and secular cultures. This book is written for all liberal, conservative, evangelical, and neo-conservative Christians as a primer for adequate teaching on the subject of sex."
—Peter J. Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor, Christian social ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary

"The best guide to good sex I have seen! Miguel offers us a compassionate, liberating, thoughtful, honest, and well informed manual to the joys of loving, sexual relationships at their most ethical and transformative. He mines scripture and tradition for their life-giving possibilities, analyzes our society, and offers support for everyone seeking to negotiate the church's mixed messages, the right wing's harmful uses of religion, and popular culture's degradations of sex."
—Rita Nakashima Brock, director of Faith Voices for the Common Good, and senior editor in religion at The New Press

"De La Torre has given us all a marvelous gift; not simply justification for throwing away old oppressive models for sexuality and faith, but a new way of seeing ourselves, our sexual giftedness, and each other as we seek God's kingdom together."
—Harry Knox, director of religion and faith program, Human Rights Campaign Foundation

"Finally, a theologian who takes sexuality seriously enough to offer a sense of the sacred in our most intimate being"
—Marc H. Ellis, professor of Jewish studies, Baylor University

"De La Torre is . . . a progressive evangelical with a razor sharp mind who measures justice from the point of view of the oppressed. . . . A Lily Among the Thorns is destined to become a classic."
—John Raines, professor of religion, Temple University