Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Eroticism

Christian Century, Nov 19, 1997 by Fay Edwin Miller

By Bernadette J. Brooten. University of Chicago Press, 412 pp., $34.95

For those grappling with Paul's opposition to same-sex love not to mention his conflicted theological mind-set in general Bernadette Brooten offers competent scholarships, extensive foot-noted references and astute commentary. The appendix and annotated bibliography alone make thee book a valuable resource.

Brooten, who is professor of Christian studies at Brandeis University amply documents her main theme that Paul is very much a man of his times his opinions shaped by two streams of influence. The first the Greco-Roman, had institutionalized its cultural norms into a structured, rigidly male-dominated, authoritarian class system that demanded gender-specific roles for women of every class. In that culture, love between women was especially puzzling, threatening to the "natural" status quo and subject to cruel and unusual sanctions--socially medically (e.g, clitorectomies) and religiously.

An expertly rendered study of Romans 1:18-32 follows this cultural analysis. Exegesis/exposition of text and Corroboration from several early church fathers, plus "intertextual echoes" from other sources, add intriguing dimensions to understanding Paul's diatribe against female homosexuality and same-sex love in general and to understanding the entire epistle. Paul's theological anthropology and moral assumptions were shaped by his strongly Levitical Jewish heritage, which consigned all homoerotic participants to death. In short, he remained an unconverted Pharisee, though Brooten doesn't use this term. To this mind-set, "gender role transgression constituted" unnatural behavior. Paul's Greco-Roman cultural bias, coupled with his Jewish background, issued in his "natural theology" arguments against homosexuality, especially female same-sex love.

Brooten's argument concludes with what amounts to an incongruous personal wish that Romans 1:26 ff. not be taught "as authoritative." Such wishful thinking is this book's singular weakness. It is simply naive to think Pauline authority will be questioned because of a contextual study of such limited scope--worthy though it may be.

Brooten appeals to "church people and policy makers" to he aware of past injustices so that their perpetuation may be stopped. The author's deep concern for women badly treated and oppressed by Christendom through the ages, and still so treated in virtually all religious systems, is apparent. There can be no doubt that Paul and his interpreters were and remain a chief source of this sad history. We are indebted to Brooten's historical-biblical documentation of this tragic fact. But it is unlikely that her contribution will have much impact upon the "shakers and makers" in church or society who oppose ally expression of same-sex love.

Reviewed by Fay Edwin Miller, chaplain, lieutenant colonel, USAF (retired). He is a registered therapeutic counselor in Tacoma, Washington.