The Best of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 9781463226114

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The Best of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality

The Best of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality

Edited by

Joseph Gelfer

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 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2010

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ISBN 978-1-61143-003-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The best of journal of men, masculinities, and spirituality / edited by Joseph Gelfer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Men (Christian theology) 2. Masculinity--Religious aspects--Christianity. 3. Masculinity--Religious aspects. 4. Spirituality. I. Gelfer, Joseph. BT703.5.B47 2010 200.8105--dc22 2010035600 Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents.....................................................................................v Acknowledgements .................................................................................ix Introduction ..............................................................................................1 About Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality.........................1 The Best of JMMS...........................................................................4 References.........................................................................................6 1 Skin Gods: Circumcising the Built Male Body ...........................7 Posing ................................................................................................8 Penis ................................................................................................10 The Little Object ...........................................................................11 Foreskin ..........................................................................................15 Body.................................................................................................17 References.......................................................................................19 2 A Jesuit Mystic’s Feminine Melancholia: Jean-Joseph Surin SJ (1600-1665)................................................................................21 References.......................................................................................37 3 The Performance of Normativity: Mormons and the Construction of an American Masculinity.................................39 Mormons: A Normative Minority ..............................................39 The First Vision and the Power of the Patriarchy ...................41 The True American Adam ...........................................................46 A Trail of Abjection ......................................................................52 The Great Capitulation: Mormon Assimilation........................54 Staging the American Masculine Ideal .......................................56 Conclusion: Adam, the Abject in His Own Kingdom ............59 References.......................................................................................61 4 “He Was Pretty Good in There Today”: Reviving the Macho Christ in Ernest Hemingway’s “Today is Friday” and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ...................................65 Muscular Christianity ....................................................................67 v

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THE BEST OF JMMS Strict Upbringing ...........................................................................71 Emotional Volatility......................................................................72 Faith and Salvation from Suicide ................................................77 The Importance of Pain ...............................................................79 Christ’s Choice...............................................................................81 References.......................................................................................82 To Love the Orientalist: Masculinity in Leila Aboulela’s The Translator...................................................................................87 References.....................................................................................103 Sexually Explicit? Re-reading Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins as a Response to Roman Discourses........................................105 Introducing Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins ...............................108 The Problem with Virgins..........................................................110 Roman Imperial Family Values.................................................115 The Measure of a Man in Popular Roman Discourse ...........120 Philosophical Discourses on Sexuality and Masculinity........123 Re-reading Revelation’s 144,000 Male Virgins as Metaphor 126 Conclusion....................................................................................133 References.....................................................................................135 Narratives of Silence: Availability in a Spirituality of Fathering .......................................................................................143 Narrative and Life .......................................................................145 The Involvement of Fathers in Parenting ...............................146 Marcelian Availability: Basic Theory and Theological Reflections ...........................................................................147 Silence as Expressive of Paternal Availability .........................152 Restraint ........................................................................................153 Loving Action ..............................................................................155 Listening........................................................................................157 Conclusion....................................................................................159 References.....................................................................................159 Haredi Male Bodies in the Public Sphere: Negotiating with the Religious Text and Secular Israeli Men .............................163 Religious Male Bodies and their Surrounding Societies ........169 Jewish, Israeli and Haredi Bodies .............................................171 Freedom from Bodily Demands or Submission to Them....176 The Body as a Site of Individual or Collective Expression ..178 The Culture of the Body or the Culture of the Spirit............181 Passivity as an Ideal that is Passé ..............................................184

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Dangerous Encounters: Summary and Comments ...............189 References.....................................................................................191 Southern Gospel Sissies: Evangelical Music, Queer Spirituality, and the Plays of Del Shores..................................197 The Gay-Gospel Paradox...........................................................198 Queer Quartets ............................................................................202 Between the Pulpit and the Piano.............................................210 Gospel Music’s “Place for Us”..................................................218 References.....................................................................................221 Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark’s Male Disciples.225 Situating an Ideological Position—Queering the New Testament ............................................................................227 The Socio-sexual Background ...................................................230 Fishing for Men (1:16-20) ..........................................................233 Whose is the Greatest? Measuring Manhood (9:33-37) ........236 The Pash of Judas and a Streaker’s Nuddie Run (14:43-52).239 Conclusion....................................................................................243 References.....................................................................................244

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a large number of people who have been involved with the establishment and continued existence of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. The journal’s editorial board has been crucial to its success. In particular, Philip Culbertson has offered much wise advice, and Björn Krondorfer has provided an excellent service as Book Review Editor. The rest of the board members have all helped out in different ways: John Bartkowski, Jon Bloch, Donald Boisvert, Daniel Boyarin, Stephen Boyd, Harry Brod, Ann Burlein, Virginia Burrus, José Cabezón, Dane Claussen, Jorge Ferrer, Bob Goss, Brendan Hokowhitu, David H. Jensen, Mark Justad, Gregg Lahood, David J. Livingston, Merle Longwood, Anthony J. Marsella, Mark Muesse, Lahoucine Ouzgane, Peter Powers, Clifford Putney, Will Roscoe, Peter Savastano, Paul Schalow, Bill Schipper, David Shneer, Andrew Singleton, Diana Swancutt, David Tacey, and Yvonne Maria Werner. The journal has received excellent editorial support from Janice Cools, Richard Davison, Tony Stroobant, Amanda Thompson, and Stephen C. Finley (who more recently stood up to the role of the journal’s Associate Editor). The journal’s Technical Editor, John Banister, has provided countless hours of technical and moral support, and also provides for the registration of the URL and web hosting. Red K. Sanderson at The Nuclear Family designed the journal’s logo, which has been the source of a number of interesting conversations. Alongside many gifted contributors, the journal has also benefited greatly from a long list of researchers (too numerous to mention) who have acted as peer reviewers. Katie Stott at Gorgias Press has become the journal’s latest ally by providing this print complement to what has historically been an online publication.

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INTRODUCTION JOSEPH GELFER MONASH UNIVERSITY [email protected] ABOUT JOURNAL OF MEN, MASCULINITIES AND SPIRITUALITY I identified the need for Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality (JMMS) in 2006, when I was halfway through my Ph.D. at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.1 As I was casting around for places to publish my work in the area of masculinities and religion, it seemed to me that there was no obvious place to do so. There were a few journals that dealt with the general area of masculinities, but these seemed to shy away from the theme of religion; I believe this has something to do with them being largely sociological journals with a mistrust of the religious as being inevitably rather conservative and backward. At the same time, there were a few journals that dealt with the general area of gender and religion, but these seemed to shy away from the theme of masculinities; I believe this has something to do with them being largely feminist journals with a mistrust of masculinities as being inevitably rather conservative and backward. Both of these positions have good historical reason for such mistrust, but the study of religion and masculinities was nevertheless stuck between a rock and a hard place. In 2006, “men’s studies in religion” had been stuck in this odd position for years. I use the term “men’s studies in religion” be1

ch. 1).

Parts of this introduction are extracted from Gelfer (2007; 2009a,

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cause the one small identifiable collective of researchers in the subject area was the “Men’s Studies in Religion Group” of the American Academy of Religion, but I use it with some caution. Jeff Hearn (1997) introduced the concept of Critical Studies on Men which takes an explicitly feminist/profeminist approach to the study of men and masculinities. This is often put in opposition to men’s studies with what some feel are its “much more ambiguous and sometimes even anti-feminist activities … which can become defined in a much less critical way as ‘by men, on men, for men’” (Hearn & Pringle, 2006, p. 5). Certainly the general study of men, masculinities and religion is perceived to belong more to “men’s studies” than “critical studies on men.” More papers appear to have been published on the subject in The Journal of Men’s Studies, for example, than Men and Masculinities, the academic journals that can be seen to represent the two approaches respectively. I fully appreciate Hearn and Pringle’s comments about the ambiguous nature of men’s studies, and tend to employ their reasoning as my own default position, but it is not necessarily the case. Speculating from my own experience, it may be that people studying men, masculinities and religion felt compelled to “choose a side” and, while their political allegiances may have been with critical studies on men, they were faced with the above-mentioned mistrust, and thus opted for men’s studies where at least such conversations are common. The majority of researchers I have communicated with in “men’s studies in religion” are explicitly feminist/profeminist, which may come as a surprise to some proponents of critical studies on men. Take, for example, Boyd’s (1999) understanding of the function of the Men’s Studies in Religion Group which is to include, among other things, critical theorizing of patriarchy, hegemonic and subordinated masculinities, and the intersection with feminist, mujerista, womanist and queer theories. It seems difficult to locate this in opposition to critical studies on men. So it was with this in mind that I set about organizing JMMS. I wanted to create a home for research about religion and masculinities that was not conservative and backward, but informed largely by feminist and queer theories. I wanted to create a home for research about religion and masculinities that was not stuck in either a theological or sociological rut: a genuinely interdisciplinary journal, which the subject matter demanded. It was a surprisingly

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easy task to email the key researchers in the subject and say, “Hey, what we need here is a new journal!” The immediate and positive responses to someone with no profile in the subject spoke volumes about the need for such a journal. Before long many of the subject’s pioneers had signed on to the editorial board, including Stephen Boyd, Harry Brod, Philip Culbertson, and Björn Krondorfer. Expanding the immediate parameters of the subject, others signed on whose discipline was more defined by sexuality and religion such as Daniel Boyarin and Virginia Burrus, as well as gay scholars such as Bob Goss. In his recent Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism: A Critical Reader, Krondorfer (2009) now describes the field as “critical men’s studies in religion,” which requires “a reflective and empathic stance toward men as individual and communal beings trying to make sense of their lives within the different demands put upon them by society and religion, but it must also engage these issues with critical sensitivity and scholarly discipline in the context of gender-unjust systems” (p. xvii). This definition works just fine for me, and I believe JMMS has played a significant part in soothing concerns that the study of masculinities and religion is inevitably rather conservative and backward. Indeed, in some ways, JMMS contains some of the most progressive work around masculinities, period. Freeing the study of masculinities in all forms from those conservative and backward—or masculinist—roots has always been an important task. Somewhat naïvely, in 2006 I assumed this was part of a general trajectory that would see masculinities being treated with increasing subtlety and nuance, and viewed through an increasingly progressive lens. However, I was wrong: 2010 saw the appearance of a “new” discipline called “Male Studies.” Male Studies took those “ambiguous and sometimes even anti-feminist activities” noted by Hearn and Pringle and ran with them. A home for men’s rights activists who see “misandry” in all quarters, Male Studies suggests that gender studies (both women’s and men’s) is a made-up area of enquiry, and that only a biologically-determined category (“male”) can genuinely be studied (Groth, 2010). It seems a bizarre position to take, somewhat akin to joining the Flat Earth Society, but Male Studies has garnered much media interest since its launch. In this climate, JMMS is more important than ever.

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THE BEST OF JMMS JMMS was established as an online journal that has enjoyed the momentum gathered in recent years by the Open Access movement (Willinsky, 2006). While not being quite the publishing revolution that many people claim (Gelfer, 2009b), the Open Access model has allowed JMMS to function independently without the backing of a commercial publisher or academic institution. A sign of the journal’s success is it being treated just like any other quality journal, in that the content is indexed by selective services such as Scopus, and carried by commercial aggregators such as EBSCO and Gale-Cengage (from the U.S.), and Informit (from Australia). The point of aggregation is to deliver one’s content via as many channels as possible. As an online journal, JMMS has done a pretty good job of this, with the exception of a print presence, which I see as simply another channel of delivery: thus the creation of this volume, The Best of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. This book offers exactly what it says in the title: the best articles to date from JMMS. There is one small caveat to that statement: there are plenty of other excellent articles in JMMS, but the selection process was also about showing the different types of articles the journal publishes. The articles are in chronological order from when they appeared in JMMS; however, this order offers five (reasonably) natural couplets. In Skin Gods: Circumcising the Built Male Body, Roland Boer takes a theoretical microscope to the bodybuilder’s penis, considering it to be an example of Lacan’s objet petit a, and asks what we can learn about the unattainability of God and the ideal male body via a consideration of circumcision. Shock horror—Boer also provides a laugh or two along the way. In A Jesuit Mystic’s Feminine Melancholia: Jean-Joseph Surin (1600-1665), Juan M. Marin takes a further psychoanalytic adventure, looking at how masculine identity was destabilized in a medieval mystic who suffered “feminine melancholia.” Marin puts this in dialogue with Julia Kristeva’s views on melancholia. The Performance of Normativity: Mormons and the Construction of an American Masculinity by Elizabeth Ruchti shows that while Mormon men are in many ways a “peculiar people” they resemble the ideal American masculinity. Ruchti explores the tension in Mormon masculinity of normativity staged from a position of abjection. In “He Was Pretty Good in There Today”: Reviving the Macho Christ in Ernest

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Hemingway’s “Today is Friday” and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Lisa Tyler explores another type of normative masculinity in two forms of “muscular Christianity.” Tyler draws comparisons between Hemingway and Gibson, as they shared conservative Christian backgrounds, repressive fathers, and suicidal tendencies. To Love the Orientalist: Masculinity in Leila Aboulela’s The Translator by Brendan Smyth examines representations of Orientalist and Islamic masculinity in Aboulela’s The Translator, Smythe argues that Aboulela negotiates a way out of stagnant binaries of West and East, and offers a model of progressive, socially engaged masculinity rooted in Islamic tradition. Offering a fresh reading of a more ancient text is Sexually Explicit? Re-reading Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins as a Response to Roman Discourses by Lynn Huber, an image historically considered as “most puzzling.” Huber argues that this imagery of the 144,000 virgins functions as part of Revelation’s rejection of Roman discourse, including the pro-family rhetoric of the Empire and popular depictions of the hyper-masculine male. Embarking on more worldly applications of masculinity, Neil Pembroke’s Narratives of Silence: Availability in a Spirituality of Fathering takes a narrative approach to the spirituality of paternal availability. Via the French Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel, Pembroke shows how silence and paternal availability manifests itself through the modalities of restraint, loving action, and listening. In Haredi Male Bodies in the Public Sphere: Negotiating with the Religious Text and Secular Israeli Men, Yohai Hakak shows how the Israeli Haredi community claims to adhere to stable fundamentals of belief which also shape the male body as different from the secular Israeli male body and as opposed to it. The final couplet takes on a queer flavor. Southern Gospel Sissies: Evangelical Music, Queer Spirituality, and the Plays of Del Shores by Douglas Harrison explores the paradox of gay men involved in southern (white) gospel music, which might be fairly described as the soundtrack for fundamentalist Christianity in America. Harrison argues that southern gospel music serves as a powerful idiom in which to sublimate a range of homosocial, homoerotic, and homosexual feelings or desires that build up within evangelicalism’s psychosexually repressive culture. In Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark’s Male Disciples, Robert J. Myles re-reads three Markan discipleship texts “sexually,” where we find Jesus cruising the shores of Galilee, “the measuring of manhood,” and a nude streaker. Like

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Boer, Myles is guilty of having a chuckle along the way. What can I say? JMMS is full of people who insist on enjoying themselves. Sorry about that: I know this is upsetting to some readers. And lastly, if you like what you’ve read here, don’t forget there’s plenty more where this came from over at the JMMS website: http://www.jmmsweb.org.

REFERENCES Boyd, S. B. (1999). Trajectories in men’s studies in religion: Theories, methodologies, and issues. The Journal of Men's Studies 7(2): 265-69. Gelfer, J. (2009a). Numen, old men: Contemporary masculine spiritualities and the problem of patriarchy. London: Equinox Publishing. Gelfer, J. (2009b). Open access economics. Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 3(2): 97-99. Gelfer, J. (2007). Editor’s note. Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 1(1): 1-2. Groth, M. (2010, February 28). Male studies and men’s studies: Not simply a matter of words. Men’s News Daily. Retrieved from http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/02/28/male-studies-andmens-studies-not-simply-a-matter-of-words-2/. Hearn, J. (1997). The implications of critical studies on men. NORA. Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies 3(1): 48-60. Hearn, J. & Pringle. K. (2006). Studying men in Europe. In J. Hearn & K. Pringle, European perspectives on men and masculinities: National and transnational approaches (pp. 1-19). Basingstoke: Palgrave. Krondorfer, B. (Ed.). (2009) Men and masculinities in Christianity and Judaism: A critical reader. London: SCM Press. Willinsky. J. (2006). The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

1 SKIN GODS: CIRCUMCISING THE BUILT MALE BODY ROLAND BOER UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE [email protected] ABSTRACT Is the body of the male bodybuilder a substitution for his penis, that one part he cannot enhance through weights? Conventional wisdom would have us believe that it is, but I am not so sure. In search of an answer I slide from body, then to penis, to foreskin and back again. On that search I make use of both Lacan and Freud. Lacan gives me a theoretical key with his idea of the ‘little object a’ (objet petit a), the item that simultaneously is excluded from the system in question and what keeps that whole system together. It would seem that the bodybuilder’s penis is precisely this objet petit a. However, Freud suggests to me that objet petit a is not so much the penis as the foreskin that is cut away in circumcision. The catch is that circumcision, the mark of the religion of Moses, also points to nothing less than the absence of God’s body. From that point I return to the built body to argue that the ideal body is in fact a circumcised body, but one that is ultimately as unattainable as God’s body. A personal story, if I may. Writing and pumping, even preparing to write by pumping, I was sweating it out in the tiny corner in which I write. In my amateurish way I work through a regular routine with my collection of dumbbells and barbells, having heeded Arnold Schwarzenegger’s advice that all he ever worked with were free weights. As I labored away at the various pull-ups, rows, 7

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presses and curls, a recurrent pain in my left elbow asserted itself. The pain persisted, so I went to the doctor. An X-Ray ensued and a small protrusion on my radius that rubbed the tendon near my elbow showed up, causing an inflammation. The prescription: rest or a steroid injection… My particular, somewhat self-indulgent reflection is on the male body in bodybuilding, but I am going to play around with that body through the five sets of my argument, each time adding another few kilograms to either end of my barbell. I begin, then, with those big, round, and all too feminine built male bodies, only to move on to the next set of repetitions where I focus on what sticks out, or rather doesn’t, the penis. After considering the penis of the male builder I find that those who have thought about such things fall short, and so I turn, in my third set, to Lacan’s notion of objet petit a in order to make sense of that little thing that sticks out from the bodybuilder, his penis. But Lacan can only get me so far. For the next set I ask Freud to add a few more weights, and as he does so he mentions the idea of circumcision. It is not so much the penis that is the key, it seems to me, but the foreskin that is cut away. Yet, Freud also points out that circumcision signals the absent body of God, and this takes me to the final set where I return to the built body. That ideal body turns out to be a circumcised body, as unreal and as unattainable as God’s own body. I am accustomed to reading with the help of Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud, although I must admit I like to play with both rather than follow one or another orthodoxy (and there are plenty of those in scholarship on Freud and Lacan). Freud certainly loved his jokes, and collected them with zeal, telling them whenever he could. Lacan too was often given to playfulness, punning, teasing, laughing. Rather than engage in what we might call Lacanian or Freudian hagiography, I prefer to engage their more playful spirits.

POSING Let me just say one thing, guys, it was as good as an erection. There I was, on stage in my posing oils and black trunks, and the crowd really loved me. I mean I moved ‘em with my posing exhibition. It was just my fuckin’ time. (‘Vinnie’ cited in Fussell, 1991, p. 135)

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Nothing is more masculine than the built male body, all muscle and power and heterosexual aggression. Or is it? Is not that built body more like the female pin-up or the beauty pageant? Are not male bodybuilders there to be looked at, gazed upon and admired, especially by men? These bodies demand the gaze, for is not the whole purpose of bodybuilding, with its posing routines and competitions, finally to have other men look at and assess the bodies on display? The skin—rippled, stripped and cling-wrap tight—is nothing but a screen upon which the bodybuilder is projected and looked at. This skin/screen is therefore an object of passivity: the beefcake has everything done to him. All he does is flex and pose. Yet, in order to be looked at and assessed, a jock sweats it out for two, four, six hours a day: an intense program of eating, vomiting, pumping and imbibing “the juice” so that, in the end, he may be gazed upon by other men. And then in the posing routine itself, it is not so much the best body that wins, but the one who succeeds in best producing the emotive fantasy of muscle, power, grace and poise, especially in the final “pose down.” Yet, if his being looked upon, his passivity, codes him as conventionally female, so also does the body shape. For bodybuilders seek immensely rounded body shapes. The curving shoulders, rippling backs, bulking upper and forearms, shapely thighs and watermelon calves—all of these give off a series of contradictory messages in relation to dominant conventions regarding body shape. For the rounded and curved shapes of male bodybuilders evoke the now older Western expectations of the curved female, with large breasts, rounded belly, fuller arms and thighs, and a small waist.2 Indeed, the desire for silicon implants in male pectorals mirrors the use of such implants in female breasts. To complicate matters a little further, in female bodybuilding, but also in male gay bodybuilding, the desire is not so much for rounded bulk, but for definition, for the “cut” body, in which the angles are sharper and the

“He had achieved the look gained only by the most advanced builders. While my body was a mess of straight edges and right angles, his, so preposterously muscled, was a mass of curves, fleshy ellipses and ovals” (Fussell, 1991, p. 50). 2

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lines more angular—older conventions for heterosexual males are now appropriated for women and gay men. What then of the aggressive masculinity of these bodies, of the action figures dressed in combat fatigues, of Stallone as Rambo, of Schwarzenegger as Terminator, Commando or Conan? Anyone who has been to a muscle show will attest to the overt heterosexuality that is obsessively foregrounded. Yet, I suggest that what lies beneath this chest-beating is a practice that is coded as feminine in Western culture—the presentation of curvaceous bodies to absorb a penetrating male gaze—and queer—the enjoyment of watching and desiring male bodies, and of being watched.3 Bodybuilders may then be said to protest too much: the overkill, in more than one sense, of aggressive masculinity nervously attempts to efface the underlying queerness of bodybuilding. It is as though these men think that if they shout their heterosexuality loud enough, then the other codes will be effaced, forgetting that such efforts merely foreground the deviance of male bodybuilding. They are heroes and sissies all at once.

PENIS You looked like a human fucking penis! Veins were poppin’ every which way! (‘Vinnie’ in Fussell, 1991, p. 235) A good pump is better than coming, ... the best feeling you can have. (Arnold Schwarzenegger in Gaines, 1977, p. 48)

What, then, of the penis? Is that not supposed to be the anomaly, that which sticks out and abruptly halts the feminine slide of male bodybuilders? Concern with the builder’s penis comes rippling through Kenneth Dutton’s The Perfectible Body (1995), in which much space is given over to the question of the penis, from the 3 In the two versions of this paper presented at different conferences, my oral delivery is part of a larger performance piece, in which I strip down to gym jocks or G-string, throw a set of classic poses and juxtapose them with slides of vast bodybuilders in the same poses. The audience is then asked to judge which bodies they prefer. Apart from the sheer narcissism of such an act, there is an immense pleasure in being watched and ogled.

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small appendages on Greek statues and paintings, to its strategic covering in early beefcake shots to current discussions in psychoanalysis. The irony for the male builder is that it is precisely the penis that cannot be strengthened, enlarged or built up by lifting weights or working out on a machine. What happens, argues Dutton, is that the body replaces the penis: in being able to build its strength and potency, and thereby being able to exhibit masculinity, the body becomes a huge penis, as it were, the location of sexual power and exhibition. What the built body represents, then, is the builder’s penis, or at least the ideal penis the builder would like to have but cannot have. For Rosalind Miles, the body, especially those of actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, becomes a public phallus, huge, rock-hard, gleaming and veined with blood. And as the phallus first stirred and came to life in the primeval swamps of the male imagination, so males above all are uniquely alert to its siren call and baleful power. Becoming an athlete, bodybuilder or “jock” is therefore a clear and overt statement of manhood and male potency, and the clearest possible message to other men. (Miles, 1991, p. 111)

The usual sequence for such an argument begins with the suggestion that the penis is a symbol of male power. However, the inability to enlarge it through bodybuilding creates a problem which is solved by displacing the penis with the whole body, which then becomes the site of displaced prowess and power. The particular penis makes way for a universally suggestive phallic body, which is a much more appropriate signifier of universal power and potency. And here bodybuilding comes into its own: the larger the body, the greater the power. Through its displaced representation of the penis, a male body is able to accrue power directly in proportion to body size. So in the end, all that a bulking body represents is its own penis.

THE LITTLE OBJECT Those who have seen professional bodybuilders naked will attest, not only to the unfoundedness of this assumption [the apparent tininess of the male organ hidden beneath the posing trunks], but also to the remarkable adaptability of the male

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THE BEST OF JMMS sexual organs and compressive powers of Lycra. (Dutton, 1995, p. 308) One of the striking characteristics about symbols is the discrepancy between the symbols and what penises are actually like. Male genitals are fragile, squashy, delicate things; even when erect, the penis is spongy, seldom straight, and rounded at the tip, while testicles are imperfect spheres, always vulnerable, never still. (Dyer, 1993, p. 112)

It is not as simple as it appears, not so directly correlative. The built male body does not represent the penis so purely and simply, and this is where arguments like those put forward by Dutton and Miles lack stamina. Rather, the penis is but a little thing that holds the whole regime of bodybuilding together. In order to make that argument, I turn to Jacques Lacan, for it seems to me that bodybuilding for males is a very Lacanian activity. In my local gym, dogeared copies of Lacan lie on the small table near the door, there for the occasional jocks to peruse in between sets. The key term is one that Lacan himself insisted should not be translated, namely objet petit a. He notoriously refuses to define it, letting the sense emerge from his continual references to it. But that is precisely what objet petit a is: it is “lost object” (Lacan, 1994, p. 180) that one can never quite locate. In order to get a sense of it, let me use an example Lacan borrows from Freud, the famous fortda game of Freud’s grandson (see Lacan, 1994, 239).4 Freud noticed that whenever his mother was away, he would throw objects away and cry a drawn-out “o-o-o-o,” which he interpreted as fort, “away.” One day he did this with a cotton reel out of his curtained cot, except that this time he pulled it back and said with great satisfaction “da,” “here” (Freud, 2001, vol XVIII, pp. 14–15). Freud interprets the game as a compensation for the absence of his grandson’s mother, as revenge for her absence and as a desire to be an adult—all things that are out of the child’s reach. For Lacan, this little cotton reel is an excellent instance of objet petit a, that item that 4 See further on objet petit a Lacan’s The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis (1994), especially pp. 263–76. He also discusses it in the almost impenetrable Seminar XX, On Feminine Sexuality (1998).

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is expelled and excluded, and yet precisely because it is excluded, objet petit a is crucial for the system as a whole. Objet petit a is, then, that which “sticks out,” the item (thought, detail of a picture, word in a text) that cannot be incorporated within the whole picture, that cannot be explained in the usual way, and thereby becomes the focus of anxiety and repression. Yet this thing that “sticks out,” the inconsequential and unnecessary item, is in fact crucial for the structure of the whole (text, picture, pattern of thought etc.). Let me give two examples of objet petit a: picture a well-heeled lawyer, for whom 14 hour days are traded off for some of the best accommodation in town, an expensive car, well-cut clothes from designer boutiques, and a sharp mind that enables her to rise quickly through the ranks of legal professionals. At the same time, she is a heroin addict, easily able to afford the cost yet unable to break the habit. In fact, her addiction threatens her whole career, and the few who know about it tell her so. If only she could break the habit, then that threat would disappear. However, another perspective—the one I follow here—suggests that it is precisely this heroin habit that holds her life together. It is the linchpin: without it everything would collapse—high life, sustained concentration, long work days, and so on. Or take the case of a mundane, suburban middle-class man, with a spouse, three children, home mortgage, two cars and a middle management job with the local branch of a multinational company. Each weekday he works regular hours, while on the weekends he watches his children play sport, mows the lawns, washes the cars and reads the newspapers. An ordinary, thoroughly boring and unexciting middle-class life, except that he has a liking for S/M, both as a personal experience and as an item of pornography. So he searches the Internet late at night, slips away for the occasional Sunday afternoon or weekend “conference.” A foible that threatens to undo his calm life? Not so: rather, the very unexceptionality of his life is based upon his S/M; the bondage and discipline he so much enjoys ensure that he can maintain his boring, normal, life. These examples flip the usual perception around, suggesting that what is excluded is actually central and crucial; after that it is possible to notice the influence of what is excluded on everything else—the lawyer’s habit and the middle-class man’s foible.

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So it is with bodybuilding, which turns out to be a classic example of Lacan’s arguments concerning objet petit a. It is an inverse relationship: the more the body is built in order to compensate for the inability to build up the penis, the more the penis stays outside the bodybuilding regime. The more the voluntary muscles of the rest of the body can be pumped with blood, the tighter the skin and more clearly defined the striated muscles and veins, the less the penis itself becomes.5 (Eugene Sandow, who seems to have set the agenda in so many ways for contemporary bodybuilding, including the use of classical postures like those of Michelangelo’s David, used to pose for photographs with a fig leaf strategically placed over his genitals.) The phallic body is that which is hard, erect and firm, while the penis is squashed into ever smaller posing trunks, drawing ever nearer to that dreaded medical condition, micropenis (Gad et al., 1997). Yet as it shrinks before the bulk of the built body, as it is compressed into the tightest Lycra, the more crucial the penis becomes. Without it the bodybuilder would not undergo all the pain, discipline and devotion to build his body in the first place. Like Freud’s grandson who desperately wanted to recover that little reel, so also the bodybuilder wants desperately to recover a potent penis. Indeed, most, if not all, men imagine that their penises are inadequate in some sense—too short, too narrow, too bent, and so on. So, they imagine some ideal penis that they would like to have— long, thick, straight and with an immense stamina, able to come all the time and satisfy the imaginary man or woman or… What happens here is that their real penises, soft, impotent, short, thin and struggling to come, are wished away in favor of an ideal other. So all the attitude, the anger required to lift and press massive weights, the posturing and modeling on other builders, the shouting and screaming at the weights, “the Walk,”6 the aggression and 5 So I worry about another of my great loves—long distance cycling—where “bicycler’s penis” is a risk. In that crucial zone of the perineum, compression and damage to the nerves may lead to impotence (Andersen & Bovim, 1997; York, 1990). 6 “They swept their arms out to the side, as if the sheer massivity of their lat wings necessitated it. They burrowed their heads slightly into their

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“roid rages”—the desire, in short, to be gods—turn out to be futile efforts to recover that little object, the penis, even in the gym to which builders escape to run through their sets.

FORESKIN I feared that complete exposure might reveal a lagging body part to the judges. (Fussell, 1991, p. 143)

Yet, I have a lingering doubt about all of this. Is the penis really objet petit a? Or rather, is it the only version of this little object that forever eludes the bodybuilder? I suspect not. Thus far I have slid down from the rounded, bulging, rock-hard body of the builder to that small, squashed object that cannot be built up, no matter what spam emails might promise. There is, however, one further slip to make, and that is to what is at the end of the penis, or rather, what was at the end of the penis: the foreskin. The foreskin is that little flap that can be, and often is, sliced away. Is this not the proper objet petit a? Let me pick up a small hint from Lacan (in an untranslated seminar from 1963 called l’Angoisse) and then pick up Freud. Lacan suggests that circumcision is an excellent rendering of the work of objet petit a.7 Let me playfully suggest that what Lacan means is that the foreskin is really that little object. Yet, for a deeper sense of what this means, I need to let Freud come forward, especially his astonishing discussion of circumcision in Moses and Monotheism. Moses intrigues Freud: circumcision is, he suggests, the clear mark of Moses’ monotheism, and yet it also indicates the nature of that belief. Circumcision is the sign of a religion that forbids representing God in any way. No image, statue, or any other representation of God may be made. In other words, circumcision marks the absent body, especially the absent body of God. Or, as I will rephrase it, the foreskin cut away in circumcision represents the absent body of God. That is why Moses’ God commands that it be cut away and discarded. shoulders to make their necks appear larger. They looked bowlegged, absurdly stiff, and infinitely menacing” (Fussell, 1991, p. 55). 7 I am thankful to an anonymous reviewer of this essay for this point.

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Let us take a moment to see how Freud gets to this point. For Freud circumcision is the direct link to the monotheism that the Egyptian Moses brought to the Israelites. It is, as he points out in Moses and Monotheism, the “key-fossil” (Freud, 2001, vol 23, p. 39) that allows him to unlock his own hypothesis about Moses (that he was an Egyptian, that the Israelites killed him and elevated him to divine status, that he gave the Israelites a variation on the monotheism of Akhenaten although this did not emerge properly until later).8 Circumcision was a distinctly Egyptian practice that Moses bequeathed to the Israelites in their journey from Egypt into the wilderness. It is circumcision that links Moses to Egypt: practiced by the Levites, the core group from Egypt who first adopted the practice at Moses’ instigation, it was passed on to other groups that joined their ranks later.9 The religion of Moses brought a “far grander conception of God, or, as we might put it more modestly, the conception of a grander God” (Freud, 2001, vol 23, p. 112). Moses did this by banning any images of God. The ban on seeing, hearing or touching this God is crucial for Freud, for “it meant that a sensory perception was given to second place to what may be called an abstract idea—a triumph of intellectuality over sensuality or, strictly speaking, an instinctual renunciation, with all its necessary psychological Elsewhere Freud speaks of circumcision as a symbol of castration (Freud, 2001, vol 23, p. 91). It is an act with other parallels such as knocking out a front tooth (Freud, 2001, vol 15, p. 165) or blinding (Freud, 2001, vol 23, p. 190). Alternatively, it is a “recognizable relic” of the primeval castration visited by a jealous father on growing boys (Freud, 2001, vol 22, pp. 86–7). He interprets it as a sign of submission to the father’s will—the one who carries out the symbolic castration. This is reinforced by the observation that in many primal societies circumcision takes place at puberty as a rite of initiation (Freud, 2001, vol 13, p. 153). 9 This is also a distinctly masculine holiness. Rashkow, for instance, argues that circumcision, as that which asserts the possible threat of castration and its denial, allows the son to emulate the father while being dependent on the deity’s power. Circumcision ensures the chain of male connection, yet it also is a feminizing process, threatening to make the Israelite male female through bleeding and castration (Rashkow, 1993, pp. 91–5). 8

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consequences” (Freud, 2001, vol 23, p. 113). Abstract and intellectual, such a notion of God led to a far higher feeling of self-worth, but it also checked “the brutality and tendency to violence which are apt to appear where the development of muscular strength is the popular ideal” (Freud, 2001, vol 23, p. 115, italics mine). Who is this God of whom no images are allowed? It is none other than Moses himself. Freud’s own myth is that in a rage of rebellious jealousy the Israelites killed Moses, and then, in order to assuage their guilt, elevated him to divine status. The sons kill the father and then make him a god. This father-god is then the one who may not be represented in any way; he is the one whose body is absent in order to overcome brutality, violence and orgiastic celebrations of the body. And the sign of the absent body of that father-god is none other than circumcision—a rite ordered by the father-god as a sign of holiness. God has no body, in fact cannot have one, and circumcision marks its removal. Cut away the flap of skin, discard it, and you throw away the possibility of representing God’s/Moses’ body.

BODY Thanks to my diet, my skin was thinner than airmail paper. And with my varnish, I was browner than a buried pharaoh. (Fussell, 1991, p. 197) What is the useless piece of skin at the end of a penis? A man. (Anonymous)

I have slipped all the way, from built body, down into the posing trunks to search for the penis, and then out to the tip in a vain search for the foreskin that Freud’s Moses has already sliced off and discarded. And I have gone searching for that little object, objet petit a, the one that is excluded in some fashion only to be crucial. Thus, as the one muscle that cannot be built up, the penis looked for all the world like that little thing. Lagging behind, it refused to join the crown. But then, with a little help from Freud, it seems as though the foreskin might just be that objet petit a, for it really is outside the system. (Perhaps the ultimate foreskin outside the system is that of Christ, for it would not have been resurrected with him. That Christological anomaly has sent more than one person searching for his holy foreskin, albeit to no avail (see Shell, 1997).)

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Yet, Freud has delivered me an unexpected twist: he has taken me all the way back to the body, to God’s body. Or is that Moses’ body? Or… So, as a final step, we need to return to the strapping body of the builder. One might be forgiven for thinking that the ultimate aim of bodybuilding is indeed to circumcise the body itself. For bodybuilders do all they can to minimize the skin. To begin with, the male bodies of builders are completely hairless, although it is a topic not openly discussed in the magazines. Depilation is, after all, still largely a female affair, but what it does is remove a distinctive feature of the skin—its hair. Even more, before a posing session, bodybuilders will seek to produce a “shrink-wrap” effect, reducing as far as possible subcutaneous fat and water so that the skin will cling as closely as possible to the muscles and veins that stand out on the muscle surface. This involves starvation dieting, avoiding sodium and calories in the weeks leading up to an event, and then, a little over a week before, loading up with protein before switching to a high carbohydrate load in the last few days. It also requires the reduction, if not complete stoppage, of steroid intake to avoid water retention. The desired result of such a carefully balanced program is “elasticized, parchment paper for skin” (Fussell, 1991, p. 186). Further, in order to highlight under the harsh lights of competition the curves, dips, crevices and mounds of muscle beneath the skin, the tan is crucial, gained in tanning beds and with a host of specialty tanning products, clogging up the skin and staining everything the builder touches. The posing oil finishes off the effect, sealing the tan in place and making every bump and gully glisten. Then there is the unending attention to the alteration of the shape and the size of the muscles “beneath” the skin. (In fact, it is only the voluntary and striated muscles, not the smooth and involuntary muscles that seem to be of interest.) The talk is always of muscle size and definition, and in bodybuilding circles there is much interest in muscle anatomy—the lats and pecs and traps and so on. Whatever can be done by the bodybuilder will be done to make the muscles look how they should—steroids and endless chemicals, food cramming, muscle tearing, rectal bleeding, vomiting, ammonia fumes, inflammatories, extraordinary diets, tanning agents, oil and so on. Indeed, I would argue that the skin is pared

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down to the point where it marks its own absence. Tanned, paper thin, the bodybuilder desperately tries to circumcise himself. Yet, there is one final question: For all the efforts to circumcise the built body, is this not a present body, in contrast to God’s absent body that circumcision signals? The answer is disarmingly simple. The ideal built body is ultimately unattainable. No matter how hard they train, how much they torture themselves, no matter how much pain, there is no gaining that ideal. In the same way that circumcision of the penis signals the absent body of God, so also the circumcision of the built body shows that it is always beyond reach, that it too, is a version of objet petit a. And what is that ideal body? If you happen to peruse muscle manuals in your vain search for the ideal body, then you will find, usually in the last pages in an appendix, a series of pictures of the muscles without skin, or rather whole human bodies with the skin cut away (e.g. Laura & Dutton, 1991, pp. 222–38). Of course, they are meant to show the muscles underneath, the ones that you should build up, the ones to which you should devote specific routines. But what we have is a grotesque, unattainable body, for it is a circumcised body, a “cut” body. This would mean that the perfect, divine and unattainable body is skinless. And the perfect posing routine would have a group of men on stage, with only bare, bulging and bleeding striated muscle for us to gaze upon.

REFERENCES Andersen, K. V., & Bovim, G. (1997). Impotence and nerve entrapment in long distance amateur cyclists. Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 95, 233-240. Benet, A. E., Rehman, J., Holcomb, J. R. G. & Melman, A. (1996). The correlation between the new rigiscan software and the final diagnosis in the evaluation of erectile dysfunction. Journal of Urology, 156, 1947-1950. Dutton, K. (1995). The perfectible body: The western ideal of physical development. London: Cassell. Dyer, R. (1993). The matter of images: Essays on representations. London: Routledge. Freud, S. (2001). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Edited by J. Strachey. 24 vols. New York: Vintage.

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Fussell, S. (1991). Muscle: Confessions of an unlikely bodybuilder. London: Cardinal. Gad, Y. Z., Nasr, H., Mazen, I., Salah, N., & El Ridi, R. (1997). 5alpha-reductase in patients with micropenis. Journal of Inherited Metabolic Disease, 20, 95-101. Gaines, C. (1977). Pumping iron: The art and sport of body-building. London: Sphere Books. Gallop, J. (1982). Phallus/penis: Same difference. Women and Literature, 2, 243-51. Lacan, J. (1977). Écrits: A selection (A. Sheridan, Trans.). London: Norton. Lacan, J. (1994). The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lacan, J. (1998). On feminine sexuality: The limits of love and knowledge, 1972-1973 (B. Fink, Trans.). London: Norton. Laura, R. S., & Dutton, K. R. (1991). The matrix principle: A revolutionary approach to muscle development. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Miles, R. (1991). The rites of man: Love, sex and death in the making of the male. London: Grafton Books. Moore, S. (1996). God's gym: Divine male bodies of the bible. New York: Routledge. Rashkow, I. (1993). Phallacy of Genesis: A feminist-psychoanalytic approach. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Shell, M. (1997). The holy foreskin; or, money, relics, and JudaeoChristianity. In J. Boyarin and D. Boyarin (Eds.), Jews and other differences: The new Jewish cultural studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. York, J. P. (1990). Sports and the male genitourinary system: Genital injuries and sexually transmitted diseases. Physician and Sports Medicine, 18(10), 92-96, 98-100.

2 A JESUIT MYSTIC’S FEMININE MELANCHOLIA: JEAN-JOSEPH SURIN SJ (1600-1665) JUAN M. MARIN HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL [email protected] ABSTRACT This essay on the mysticism of exorcist Jean-Joseph Surin suggests that the depression from which he suffered can be understood as a destabilization of the masculine identity he wished to uphold when his experience was dismissed as “feminine melancholia.” By incorporating the suffering of two women he is led into a fluid state in which his relation to the divine will become erotic. The inquiry concludes by juxtaposing feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva's views on melancholia with those of Surin's, bringing into a dialogue these two perspectives. One day in 1645, French Jesuit priest Jean-Joseph Surin, who some years earlier became famous for delivering from demonic possession the nuns at the convent of Loudun, tried to kill himself by jumping out of a second floor window. The scene at the end of the film The Exorcist (1971), where the Jesuit priest defeats the devil by assenting to become possessed and then committing suicide by throwing himself out the window, down the stairs, is based on Surin’s life. The only difference is that Surin survived, only to fall victim to depression. The real aftermath of the story would not have made a captivating Hollywood ending. The extraordinary events that led to Surin’s despair were popularized by Aldous Huxley in his The Devils of Loudun (1952) and by Ken Russell in the film, The Devils (1973). They focus on the lurid aspects of the story. Early modern France was rife with beliefs in demonic activity, so when the relationship between priest Urbain 21

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Grandier and the nuns at Loudun, especially the superior Jeanne des Anges, acquires erotic overtones, he is accused of bringing the devil into the convent. He is burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft, while chaos reigns among the nuns who behave erratically, acting out symptoms indicating possession such as rage and increased libido. Perhaps because of its sensationalist appropriations for popular consumption, these events reflecting an important element in the mindset of seventeenth century France have been little studied. The only scholarly study of the Grandier and des Anges case is Michel de Certeau’s The Possession at Loudun (2000).10 While de Certeau exposes the fraudulent activities of those involved and the dangerous superstitions of spectators, he also claims that there is an “otherness” element that cannot be approached with the historian’s tool or reduced to socio-cultural circumstances. As the modern editor of Surin’s works, de Certeau is also aware of the forgotten drama of the Jesuit’s life after the Loudun episode. Surin’s autobiography has not been studied in depth, so its riches remain unearthed.11 In his autobiography, Triumph of Divine Love Over the Powers of Hell, and in its more theological sequel Experimental Science of Otherwordly Matters, Surin narrates how he overcame his own demonic possession, which for 20 years led him to believe that he had lost the love of Christ and was damned for eternity. We learn that after he exorcised mother superior Jeanne des Anges, he was thrown into a despair that alternated with occasional moments of mystical consolation. In the books he defends himself against the accusation that his mystical experience is nothing but “feminine” melancholia. We will see that Surin’s mystical melancholia indeed becomes feminized as understood at the time. Moreover, his own masculine For historical documents describing the events prior to Surin’s arrival see de Certeau (2000). After writing the article, my attention was drawn to a study of demonic possession in early modern France up to, but not including, the events at Loudun. See Ferber (2004). 11 Aside from de Certeau’s works, scholarship on Surin is scant. De Certeau’s main work on Surin, his doctoral thesis, has not been published. For a linguistic approach to some of the issues I am discussing here see de Certeau (1986, pp. 91–93, 101–15). I am aware of only two other studies, both Christian theological. See Breton (1985) and Myle (1979). 10

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identity mutates in a mystical relationship with the divine that subverts preconceived notions of gender stability. Only then was he able to surmount his depression and attain the joy he longed for. In this essay I will argue that Surin’s melancholia involves an incorporation of the suffering of two women. He assimilates the suffering of Jeanne des Anges, transforming it into an erotic and ecstatic joy, by identifying both Jeanne and himself with the longing and mystical ecstasy he found in the writings of Teresa of Avila. His relation with these two women shapes his own experience of demonic possession and affective mysticism, both of which were dismissed by many of his contemporaries as feminine disturbances. I will conclude by engaging Surin’s views on melancholia in dialogue with those of feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva. Kristeva’s work will allow us to gain some insights into Surin’s melancholia. At the same time Surin’s text will offer us the possibility of extending Kristeva’s theory, escaping the temptation to reduce Surin’s lived experience to psychoanalytic phenomena. Suspending a final judgment on these issues will be a sign of respect for that “otherness” that de Certeau encountered and which now the reader will confront.

 ***

 It was in 1633, during the reign of Louis the Just, while Cardinal Richelieu was prime minister of France’s government and doing very illustrious things for the good of the Church and State that Our Lord allowed a terrible attack from Hell to happen at the town of Loudun. (Surin, 1990, p. 11)

 Thus begins Surin’s recollection of the events at the convent of Loudun that led to his spiritual malaise. Here he frames his text within a specific historical context, so that future readers will not dismiss his terrifying narration as product of his own fantasy or that of addled women, and within a theological context, so that these events described will be seen as part of a divine plan. Surin encases the episode within the ecclesiastical renewal and invigoration program that Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) was leading. Church and throne were allied at this time, forming a bul-

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wark against Protestant incursions. Religious orders flourished under regal support, so anything that happened at the convent of Loudun was a matter of state. Indeed, the events quickly became a national affair.12 On the other hand, Surin’s acknowledging the church and state is relegated to the introduction. His involvement in the affair was not related to a desire for fame. His incursion was for him but a sign of his belief that his life was guided by divine providence. Surin arrives on the scene as reinforcement in a battle in which several exorcists had failed to deliver the nuns from the evil beings that had taken control of them. Surin tells us that it was believed that the origin of the possession was some kind of sexual magic performed by corrupt priest Urban Grandier that led to “carnal love.” Surin wants to tell the whole story and say that demonic hatred was more at fault than any kind of “love.” His goal is to show how this hatred was counteracted by God’s love for these women. Writing in the third person, Surin says that “because of the misery of their condition, God gave him such a great love for them that, seeing them, he was not able to stop himself from shedding copious tears or from being moved by a strong desire to help them” (1990, p. 20). He discovers that the possession is centered on the convent’s superior, Jeanne des Anges. His desire to be of help to them will be linked to his intense desire for God; yet, these desires will also be accompanied by sexual desire, which, as we shall see, will be an element in the spiritual battle against the demonic forces. The struggle for Jeanne des Anges’ soul will foreshadow what will happen in his own for the next twenty years. When Surin met Jeanne des Anges, she suffered symptoms that many at the time would have interpreted as those arising from melancholic humors, yet he ascribes them to a demonic attack. He tells us that that the devil threw her

 through malignant operations, not only in a great spiritual loathing, but also in such bodily languidness that she seemed to be dying; her face became emaciated and diminished, her 12

For more on the social and political aspects see de Certeau (2000).

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spirit dull-minded, her heart overwhelmed. She found everything insipid. Her will was entirely in God, but her powers were so blunted that she could barely pay attention to what she was told. (Surin, 1990, p. 106)

 Since Surin was interested in demonology he probably knew from his readings in the subject that these symptoms did not necessarily arise from supernatural causes. He could have learned from influential demonologist and philosopher Marsilio Ficino (d. 1499) that an abundance of black bile “makes the spirits heavier and colder, afflicts the mind continually with weariness, dulls the sharpness of the intellect, and keeps the blood from leaping around the Arcadian’s [melancholic’s] heart” (quoted in Radden, 2000, p. 92). We can see all these signs in the description above. Another influential demonologist, Johann Weyer, in his Of Deceiving Demons (1562), claims that “many persons beset by melancholia are thought to be possessed, and vice versa … so there is need for careful judgment here, to distinguish between the two afflictions (which are often found together in many instances)” (quoted in Radden, 2000, p. 104). Throughout his book, Weyer leans towards the view that melancholia is more often caused by imbalances in bodily humors that resulted in symptoms such as those of Jeanne des Anges above. Even in the case of demonic possession, the devil takes advantage of a natural imbalance instead of being the cause for it. This was often the case with women whose humors made them more susceptible to demonic activity: that crafty schemer the Devil thus influences the female sex, that sex which by reason of temperament is inconstant, credulous, wicked, uncontrolled in spirit, and because of its feelings and affections, which it governs only with difficulty melancholic; he especially seduces stupid, worn-out, unstable old women. (Quoted in Radden, 2000, p. 98)

 Weyer is here repeating common assumptions of the time. Surin knows from his ministerial relationship with Jeanne that these negative prejudices do not apply to her. His admiration for her is

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revealed throughout the text. “The natural disposition of this woman was excellent from the spiritual side, very strong; her temper was gentle, her judgment solid, yet she was very weak in health” (Surin, 1990, p. 23). Rather than describe des Anges as melancholic, Surin prefers to use the term acedia. He defines acedia as a heaviness opposed to the spirit of fervor through which the Devil slips all the vices…. Its poison consists in a deadening that he leaks into the senses, making the soul desire repose, allowing itself to slip into a restive state, into a vague entrainment of thoughts, a blunted and sorrowful demeanor. (Surin, 1990, p. 94)

 The early modern scholars above would have seen these symptoms described by Surin as a case of melancholia. Even today a psychoanalyst could make this interpretation. We will return to this but, briefly jumping ahead for the purpose of comparison, we find Kristeva defining melancholia as “the institutional symptomatology of inhibition and asymbolia that becomes established now and then or chronically in a person, alternating more often than not with the so called manic phase of exaltation” (Kristeva, 1989, p. 9). We can see how Jeanne’s acedia fits the first half of this definition. Kristeva’s asymbolia shows up when Jeanne’s “powers” become “blunted” and she is lost in an entrainment of thoughts that she cannot communicate. She becomes inhibited, a “deadening” invading her mind, with the result that she cannot pay attention to what is spoken to her. Later, Surin will tell us that this behavior will alternate with moments of intense rage in which powerful demons take control of her. Kristeva’s “manic phase of exaltation” shows up here, making the argument for melancholia seem uncontestable. But for now let us stay with Surin’s approach, which I will later compare to Kristeva’s. Surin’s diagnosis is that a demonic manifestation in the form of acedia needs to be confronted here through the ritual of exorcism. Surin’s main weapon is prayer. A favorite weapon of the devil is lust. A battle will ensue in which Surin believes that he vanquishes the demon, yet “the enemy returns and becomes sensible in the same shape of a serpent, coiling itself among the members and biting in order to take away repose and disturb purity” (Surin, 1990,

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p. 37). Surin finds himself tempted to sin against chastity, so he finds a remedy by “turning to the Holy Virgin and imagining her with the child Jesus as he had seen her in paintings” (Surin, 1990, p. 37). This last method was promoted by the Jesuits as a way of confronting the demon of lust. Surin’s honesty reveals the reliability of the text as a personal account, since from the beginning he wanted to distance the possession from being connected to “carnal love.” We do not know the object of his lust but it seems justified to assume that it was Jeanne des Anges. Love for the mother superior, showing itself in its “spiritual” and “carnal” aspects, would become the basis for his later identification with her, as discussed below. Surin and Jeanne together fight the demonic serpent. “She felt something come out from her head something that exhausted her, and saw in front of her a terrifying monster like a dragon … she bravely strikes at it and suddenly it disappears, after which she found herself free” (Surin, 1990, p. 107). This successful battle against one of the demons strengthens them both to fight the Devil himself, who finally leaves her when, some time later, he receives the Eucharist from Surin. Thus ends Jeanne’s possession and, after a few days, Surin’s will begin. Surin’s identification with the woman he loved enough to battle the Devil with her became so strong that after the exorcism he assimilated many of her symptoms. The price of delivering Jeanne des Anges from her suffering had been not only taking the suffering upon himself, but also inviting the demon to accept him as a hostage in exchange. He recalls that at one moment during the exorcism he felt carried by an ardor, wishing to “participate in all her temptations and miseries, even to the point of becoming possessed by the evil Spirit, provided that He gave him the freedom to enter her and devote himself to her soul” (Surin, 1990, p. 27). This wish to be one with Jeanne was granted to the extreme that the identification became complete. The signs of demonic possession did not take long to show up after the exorcism. He began to feel that he had become separated from God. Christ had abandoned and left him at the mercy of the Devil, his soul forever lost:

 he lost the ability to communicate, becoming mute for seven months without being able to say Mass, read, or write. He was not able to dress or undress himself, or make any kind of

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THE BEST OF JMMS movement. He fell into a malady unknown to doctors, their remedies having no effect. (Surin, 1990, p. 119)

 Inhibition and asymbolia show up in Surin’s inability to act and in his mutism, which will occasionally be disrupted by exalted mystical moments in which he felt consoled by God: At Loudun he began to receive, during the time of his obsession, communications from God that worked in his soul consoling it greatly with ardent spiritual fires. Every one of these days they would show themselves in such a way that he was not able to doubt that they came from God, surpassing all natural forces. (Surin, 1990, p. 170)

 We can see in these two passages a new occurrence of melancholia. The claim that his malady was unknown to his doctors is Surin’s interpretation. Although in the passage above he is careful to mention that it surpassed all natural forces, midway through his text he admits that “most people, even the wisest, tended to say that it was nothing but a melancholic humor or devotional illusion, or fantasy” (Surin, 1990, p. 221). Although at the end of his narrative he will accept that melancholy is somehow involved, he will give his condition a supernatural origin. He believes this because “he had read many things from mystical writers about their inner sufferings” (Surin, 1990, p. 175) and saw how similar his state was to theirs. He finds precedent for his despair and his consolations and “ardent spiritual fires” in these writers. But before he can describe his mysticism, he must address the charge that his experience is nothing but feminine melancholia. Besides their autobiographical intention, Triumph and Science are part of a series of works in which Surin defends mystical theology from clerical colleagues who dismiss it as the fervid imagination of “little women” (femmelettes). One of the priests Surin writes against derides those “devout melancholics and mystics” who have their “castle in Spain” (de Certeau, 1963, p. 45). This last reference

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is an attack on the increasing influence of the writings of Teresa of Avila, specially her Life and the Interior Castle.13 Surin, as we will see, was strongly influenced by Teresa, and yet he felt the need to defend himself in Triumph against the feminization of mystical experiences.

 These are not the sweetness gustos of “little women” (femmelettes). Many thinking and wise men have contempt for these [experiences] and compare them to the tears and sensibilities of some women. This is something else. These are spiritual experiences, real and efficacious, that hearten the soul, a demonstration of God and divine things. Truly they are much more than sweetnesses. (Surin, 1990, p. 325)

 Surin here defends mystical theology by turning not to its origin, as he does elsewhere, but to its fruits, such as consolation in the midst of despair and knowledge of the divine. Yet, as an attempt to avoid a feminization of mystical experience, Surin’s text is a failure. His mysticism arises out of identification with Jeanne des Anges, which will then be exchanged for identification with Teresa of Avila. Although he defends his arguments by turning to the authority of the Church fathers, he extracts from them the message that “a simple femmelette can love God more than the greatest doctor in the world” (Surin, 1990, p. 226). We will see that Surin not only defends these femmelettes but become one of them. In other more systematic treatises, Surin refers to most of the fathers of the church; yet, except for Paul, the attention given to Teresa surpasses by far the energy he dedicates to patristic writers. So it is no surprise that in Triumph and Science, Teresa has an important role. During his melancholic phase, Surin’s identification became so extreme that his more intense attacks occurred during Teresa’s holy day:

13 For an account of her influence in seventeenth century France see de Certeau (1992).

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THE BEST OF JMMS sometimes I became a desperate soul, like the fifteenth of October, day of Saint Theresa. She is a saint for whom I have great affection. That day, as in every year on the day of her holy day, my disposition changes and I was brought down to the verge of death. (Surin, 1990, p. 233)

 Surin felt himself this day at the “entrance of ancient darkness,” repeating a motif that appears throughout the text, his being found guilty and condemned to hell. The reference to the dark entrance recalls Teresa’s transport to a place in hell, which she believed was reserved for her as punishment for her sins. In this vision she found herself at the “entrance of a long and strait tunnel ending in a deep, dark, and narrow oven” (Teresa de Avila, 1998, p. 299). In that place, “there was no light but only obscure darkness” (Teresa de Avila, 1998, p. 300). This episode is narrated after Teresa describes, in the previous chapter, her struggle with demons and despair. On Teresa’s holy day, Surin again attempts suicide by jumping out of the window, but is unable to do so because he had broken his leg during the earlier attempt. On a later fifteenth of October he also experienced great anxiety, yet he was able to engage in ministry. In order to do this he availed himself of his desire for God to give him the strength to perform his preaching service. He was able to break his silence temporarily. He says, “the good words that came from my mouth emerged, despite the despair, from the deep desire that my heart had for God” (Surin, 1990, p. 234). The desire that strengthens him is linked later with the presence of Teresa: His frailty was extreme, yet nevertheless he was as if elevated in spirit. He saw in front of him, written in the air with large letters, the words PURE LOVE. Beside them was written: TERESA OF JESUS. At that moment he thought that Saint Teresa was present, as if she had come from the heavens, which seemed to be opening, a clearing that forestalled the thunderstorm. (Surin, 1990, p. 271)

 In the midst of his desperation he holds to the figure of Teresa. We can read the appearance of these words as representing

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his movement towards escaping the silence in which he had been submerged. After this vision he had the desire to rest, so he returned to his chamber. As soon as he lay down a memory of Jeanne des Anges surfaced. He recalled how years earlier at Loudun, on a fifteenth of October, he had a vision of a suffering Christ. The same vision was happening now. Here then a transition occurs, initiated by memories of Teresa and Jeanne, from a damning Christ to identification with Christ’s suffering: I had an impression of suffering Christ. I was fastened to my inner center, and found myself as if crucified for three hours. The first hour the agony was so extreme that I could not do anything. This mystery happened in my spirit and my body, as if I had just been nailed. (Surin, 1990, p. 330)

In the next two hours he shares Christ’s suffering. This was but one of several moments in which his body becomes the place where his desire for Christ is manifested. Christ becomes the divine “spouse.” His suffering is then transformed into joy in an erotic mystical encounter with the beloved:

 when I was on my bed, I felt something descend over me. I was penetrated, as a sponge would be, by a liquid from heaven that infused everything and gave me an indescribable joy and sweetness. There was such a release of melancholy, about which nothing can be said. Then, in a short-lived moment, it seemed that my soul was in glory. (Surin, 1990, p. 271)

 Here we find the final stage of Surin’s melancholy. What first began as the incorporation of Jeanne des Anges’ melancholia is then distilled until only desire remained. The suffering dissipates. Erotic desire is not denied but transformed into something divine. The sexual aspect of mysticism is not metaphorized by Surin but accepted:



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THE BEST OF JMMS there can be something of this sweetness among married couples, which regulated by nature’s order itself, and following God’s design, have such an intimate bond and closeness of heart that it cannot be better expressed than the relationship between God and the soul. (Surin, 1990, p. 331)

 In the passage above, Surin attempts to re-inscribe the eroticism of his experiences within divinely inspired heterosexual social structures. But the description of his mystical encounters betrays the fact that the process of feminization which began with melancholia only accelerated when it became mystical. Had Surin been a woman, his mystical text may have been dismissed as another case of female hysteria. As a male who not only accepts the authors of this tradition of female mysticism as authoritative,14 but incorporates their spirituality into his own, Surin is subverting gender in a way that some ecclesiastical authorities found threatening. At least one of his texts will be found in inquisitors’ lists. Near the end of Surin’s lifetime his own superiors would censor his writings (Surin, 1990, p. 340). We can discern in Surin’s apologetical passages how hostile his environment was to female spirituality, so it is not surprising that his text was controversial. But by then Surin’s experience of the loss and regaining of Christ will make him immune to such a lesser loss as that of reputation. If it was God’s will, he was happy to “die in shame as did his Son” (Surin, 1990, p. 341). His identification with Jeanne and Teresa, and now with Christ, strengthened him to face any future loss.

 ***

 It is tempting to reduce Surin’s experience to just another case of melancholia. If we return to Kristeva’s definition of melancholia, In his texts, especially his Guide, Surin uses as authoritative sources not only patristic ones but also women’s mystical writings. Among the women most often mentioned, besides Teresa of Avila, we find Catherine of Siena, Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Genoa, Gertrude of Helfta, and Magdalene de Pazzi. 14

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we can see that every one of its signs occurs in Surin’s case. Recalling Kristeva’s definition, melancholia can be described as “the institutional symptomatology of inhibition and asymbolia that becomes established now and then or chronically in a person, alternating more often than not with the manic phase of exaltation” (Kristeva, 1989, p. 9). As we saw above, Surin identified Jeanne des Anges’ melancholic inhibition as an attack by the demon of acedia. With regard to his own inhibition, he admitted that melancholia was involved. This state, which became asymbolic when he lost the ability to speak, was broken only in those manic phases of exaltation he called mystical. Kristeva’s investigations about the causes of melancholia can therefore shed some light on Surin’s text. Yet, reading the latter only in the light of the former will give us a skewed perspective. Kristeva’s work does not arise from an objective as opposed to Surin’s subjective approach. Her text on melancholia, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia (1989), like Surin’s, was written after an experience of loss.15 Rather than seeing psychoanalysis as the method and the mystic as the subject, I will engage both of them in a dialogue about the loss of an object of desire which can be both male and female. Kristeva extends the definition of melancholia to include as essential a “mourning for the maternal object.” After birth, all human beings begin a process of separation from the mother that will establish a precedent for all subsequent experiences of loss. The maternal “object” is more like a “preobject.” The individual’s relationship with this preobject will determine how his or her future object relationships will develop, including what the reaction will be in the case of the loss of an object of love. In her work, Kristeva discusses texts written by melancholic mystics whose experiences As Kristeva tells us, “[my research] is very much based on my personal development, on my biography, and on the historical processes that I have lived through, whether these be intellectual movements…or my own experience of maternity” (quoted in Margaroni & Lechte, 2004, p.144). Discussing her own post-partum depression, Kristeva writes: “Discovering autonomy and authority allows you to work with your own suffering and to grant it a discourse – not in an autoerotic or self-enclosed way, but in a way that enables you to connect with other people” (1996, p.10). 15

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of loss express, in her view, a longing for reunification with the mother. She will tell us that “those in despair are mystics— adhering to the preobject, not believing in Thou, but mute and steadfast devotees of their own inexpressible container” (Kristeva, 1989, p. 14). Like Surin, these mystics believed that the divine Thou was no longer present for them. What for Kristeva is longing for a return to the maternal container, the womb, is for these mystics a longing to return to the love of God. In Christianity the mystic’s loss has been represented as the loss of the figure of God in Christ. Surin would not agree with reducing this experience to loss of the mother. On the other hand, we can speculate that he may not completely dismiss Kristeva’s text. As he does in the following poem, written after the events discussed previously, he might identify the longing for a mother as longing for a maternal God who is none other than Christ the beloved.

 The Soul, from a glorious fire saintly hurled, carries deeply within her thoughts the arrow of Love. She seeks from her God the gentle embrace that will assuage her pain and her banishment. At the point of approaching the royal chambers of the lamb that awaits her as a loyal bridegroom, she sings of deeds of love and of severe trials, of the evils that have made her sigh down here below. Yet, beloved Love, when she sets foot upon your path she wants to speak so that the world will listen: When God emerged from the depths of his majesty his power saw herself pregnant. Water, earth, and sky, the whole vast sphere, were the unconstrained fruit of this Love. Then, when she pulled out the world from her side, she placed each thing in its appropriate space. Love insinuates himself everywhere in this great universe that he has designed through a secret instinct, forceful and benign. He joins every member together with its neighbor, desiring to join through strife the highest with the lowest, the heavens with the earth,

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and making co-exist through enchanting attractions the opposed forces of diverse elements. (Surin, 1957, p. 61)

 Surin recounts here again how the melancholia discharged when his banishment was revoked was assuaged by an encounter with the divine bridegroom. Adopting a female stance while awaiting the male Christ, the mystic tells of the soul’s sorrows. Yet, the soul’s pain is transformed into joy as she recalls the majesty of Love, who alternates between being male and female. The gender destabilization that Surin experienced during his trials is now attributed to a divine maternal figure, Love. Through the “strife” of the experience of suffering something new can be created. Love heals the rupture of an original loss that separated heaven from earth. Love reverses through attraction what has been divided into high and low, masculine and feminine. For Surin, love can attain what for Kristeva is impossible: a return to a both masculine and feminine mother in an erotic embrace. Surin believed that he gained insights of God only through the experience of God’s absence. What Kristeva refers to as “mystic atheism” can make sense within Surin’s worldview. For Kristeva the absence experienced in loss is not only absence of an object but absence of names to refer to that object:

 Let me say that this sacred, this “thing without a name” may betray, beyond the depressive silences of our mystic, a suggestion of disbelief. In fact if the divine has no name, does it truly exist? One may believe in it, one may also doubt it. The latencies of a mystic atheism (perhaps the only one, which has nothing to do with the atheistic religion of the so-called materialist intellectuals I told you about last time), and, I think, of a subtle, specifically feminine atheism, take root, it seems to me, in that suspicion borne aloft on the powers of the Word, in that retreat to the unfathomable continent, concealed from the sensible body. (Clément & Kristeva, 2001, p. 37)

 Kristeva refers here to doubts about a divine presence that would support the meaning of it all. This meaning is lost in the midst of depression, such as that which led Surin to admit that “al-

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though a profession of atheism is not an ordinary thing among Christians, nevertheless it is a temptation that can be conceived in the spirit” (Surin, 1990, p. 343). Kristeva would read Surin’s atheism as feminine because of Surin’s attraction towards those female aspects of erotic motherhood. This passage from Kristeva is a discussion of the experience of another mystic, Angela of Foligno, who suffered because of the distance between her and God. Surin’s atheism arises out of this distance he calls damnation, which he exemplifies by turning also to Angela. Kristeva sees Angela as a melancholic who is “suspicious” of the possibility of using language, the “powers of the Word” to bridge the divide between God’s presence and the soul. Surin finds in the authority of the “Blessed Angela” a refusal to fall into the temptation of depressive atheism by accepting the loss in damnation as part of the relationship with God. As he quotes her: “If he wishes to damn me, may he damn me immediately” (Surin, 1963, p. 306). Angela’s, and Surin’s, love for God is so intense that they are willing to give up God and be damned for the sake of God. The pain of the absence of the object of desire is a price to pay for the joy brought about when that object was present. Surin knew that love requires sacrifice, having to go through despair on behalf of another. He claims that in order to bridge the divine–human divide that Kristeva mentions, the soul must go through purgatory and hell before encountering the divine bridegroom in spiritual marriage (Surin, 1963, p. 297). Love of human beings can require just as much. In Surin’s life the loss of Christ followed immediately upon the threat of the loss of Jeanne des Anges’ soul. Her spiritual death was a possibility that he could not tolerate. Kristeva believes that it is such a threat that can lead to mystical ecstasy: “In the place of death and so as not to die of the other’s death, I bring forth—or at least I rate highly—an artifice, an ideal, a ‘beyond’ that my psyche produces in order to take up a position outside itself—ek-stasis” (Kristeva, 1989, p. 99). She proposes understanding the melancholic individual as creating a loved other, divine or imagined, in order to escape having to die of the despair caused by the loss of a loved one. But we saw that Surin extends Kristeva by pushing further the individual “I” into a relation with another, into a “we” that is not produced by the psyche. His relation with a damning Christ may have been an artifice created by the fear of loss; but the ecstasy of his subjective encounter

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with Christ becomes nevertheless real when it is directed towards inter-subjective relations with others, as he himself believed it did. Surin emphasizes: “It is necessary to point out again that all these forces that come to the soul from love, lead particularly to charity for the neighbor” (Surin, 1990, p. 291). This imperative does not cease during ecstasy since “during these operations of grace he felt a singular instinct of love for souls” (Surin, 1990, p. 290). He was ready to “die of the other’s death.” He accepted with equanimity that he would have to go through hell for Jeanne des Anges. But after his damning experience the possibility of peace returning still remains. In his case melancholia disappeared and the ecstatic joy of love was his again.

REFERENCES Breton, S. (1985). Deux mystiques de l’ excès J-J. Surin et maître Eckhart. Paris: Cerf. Clément, C. & Kristeva, J. (2001). The feminine and the sacred. New York: Columbia University Press. de Certeau, M. (1963). Introduction. In J-J Surin, Guide spirituel. M. de Certeau (Ed.). Paris: Desclee de Brouwer. de Certeau, M. (1986). Heterologies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. de Certeau, M. (1992). The mystic fable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. de Certeau, M. (2000). The possession at Loudun. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ferber, S. (2004). Demonic possession and exorcism in early modern France. London: Routledge. Huxley, A. (1952). The devils of Loudun. New York: Harper. Kristeva, J. (1989). Black sun: Depression and melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press. Kristeva, J. (1996). Julia Kristeva: Interviews. New York: Columbia University Press. Maragroni, M. & Lechte, J. (Eds). (2004). Julia Kristeva: Live theory. London: Continuum. Myle, R. (1979). De la symbolique de l’eau dans l’ouvre du père Surin. Louvain: Université Catholique. Radden, J. (Ed.). (2000). The nature of melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Surin, J-J. (1957). Poésies spirituels. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. Surin, J-J. (1963). Guide spirituel. M. de Certeau (Ed.). Paris: Desclee de Brouwer. Surin, J-J. (1990). Triomphe de l’amour divine sur les puissances de l’Enfer et Science experimentale des choses de l’autre vie. M. de Certeau (Ed.). Grenoble: J. Millon. Teresa de Avila. (1998). Libro de la Vida. In Obras completas. Burgos: Editorial Monte Carmelo.

3 THE PERFORMANCE OF NORMATIVITY: MORMONS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN AMERICAN MASCULINITY ELIZABETH RUCHTI CARLOW UNIVERSITY [email protected] ABSTRACT In this essay I argue that men in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have consciously adopted the ideal American masculine performance. I define this ideal through R. W. B. Lewis’ book, American Adam (1959), in which he explains the symbolic relationship between the nineteenth-century American man and the Biblical Adam. I argue that Mormon men, by embracing the role of the American Adam, mastered the performance of normativity while maintaining their abject identity. Mormons have relished their outsider status, often calling themselves a “peculiar people.” Their unabashed peculiarity helped secure their abjection from American culture in the nineteenth century and led to the development of a distinctly Mormon masculinity, one that passes for the ideal American masculinity. I explore early Mormon history to explain the value of abjection for Mormons, and I consider the implications of a performance of normativity staged from a position of abjection.

MORMONS: A NORMATIVE MINORITY A documentary produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (LDS or Mormons), Roots of an American Prophet: the Docudrama of the Restoration, depicts their founder, Joseph Smith, as a quintessential American: 39

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 It was no accident that the Lord spoke to an American boy; not a scholar or a religious leader for they all trusted in the wisdom they already had, and not to the citizen of any other land, for only in America was there freedom enough for a new religion to survive. Only America was filled with enough free-thinking independent people to form the nucleus of the Church that the Lord had promised to restore. (Brown, 2002)

 The history of Joseph Smith, according to the LDS Church, is also the history of a growing America. In his book, Mormonism and the American Experience, Klaus J. Hansen (1981) extends the relationship between Smith and American history to a relationship between Mormonism and America, “the birth of Mormonism coincided with the birth of modern America” (p. 45). Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling (2000), in their study of contemporary Mormonism, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, explain, “Mormonism began as, and still is, a uniquely American faith” (p. xviii). Mormon theology, according to the Ostlings, wove scriptural preordination into the foundation of the United States of America: “Mormonism, as the movement was quickly nicknamed, provided nationalistic Americans with a very American gospel” (p. xix). The Ostlings describe Mormons as “a model minority, hardworking people with more education than the American average, deeply committed to church and family” (pp. xx–xxiv). These virtues the Ostlings use to describe Mormons are also the virtues idealistically used to define the great American man. R. Lawrence Moore (1986), in his book, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, writes: “If inculcation in the work ethic was the hallmark of true Americanism in the nineteenth-century, then Mormons were the super Americans of that century” (p. 31). Not only are Mormons linked to America through their history and their theology, they are linked through the performance of their identity. Accordingly, Mormon men might be considered the ideal example of American men, but as a minority group, they are also considered the other. Hansen (1981) qualifies contemporary descriptions of the Latter-day Saints as “super-American” with the realities of nineteenth century perceptions of Mormons: “Yet for all the apparent Americanism, Mormonism was consistently seen as un- and anti-

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American” (p. xiii). The Ostlings also acknowledge such negative stereotypes that they contend still permeate twenty-first century images of Mormons. The persistence of these stereotypes has prompted LDS leaders and rank-and-file members to become obsessed with their image, wanting desperately to avoid accusations that they are merely a “cult” and not a “real” religion. The Mormon Church has consciously worked at overcoming these stereotypes. They are beginning to see some positive results (Mauss, 1994, p. 22), but, as the Ostlings note, Mormons are still part of a minority, and the stereotypes of the last century still haunt their image. In this essay I argue that the history of Mormonism developed a distinctly Mormon masculinity, a masculinity that emblematizes the ideal American masculinity but does so from the position of a marginalized other. The abjection of the Mormon people from American society in the middle of the nineteenth century is critical to understanding the development of Mormon masculinity and its later relationship to American normativity. The Mormon man’s abjection and subsequent conformity stage the process of becoming normative and help mark the attributes of a normative performance.

THE FIRST VISION AND THE POWER OF THE PATRIARCHY According to the official history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the spring of 1820 a young boy by the name of Joseph Smith, Jr. was overwhelmed by the competing evangelical Christian churches that had overrun his town in western New York (Roberts, vol. 1: 53). After several years, Smith, at age fifteen, decided to take James’ advice, “If you lack wisdom let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). Smith went to a grove near his home to ask God, in prayer, which of the competing churches was the “true” church of God (Smith, 1842/1983, 1:11). The answer to his question came in the form of a celestial vision. Smith says in his history, as published in the Pearl of Great Price, a companion book to the Book of Mormon, that as soon as he kneeled down he was overpowered by some mysterious, evil force. He gathered all of his strength and prayed, asking God to save him from “this enemy.” He then saw a pillar of light, brighter than the sun, which delivered him from the satanic spirit. In the light he “saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all

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description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” Joseph asked the divine spirits which church to join, and he was immediately told to join none of them (Smith, 1842/1983, 1:15-20; Roberts, 1965, vol. 1: 51). According to Joseph, the two men he saw in his vision were the Lord and his “only Begotten Son,” Jesus of Nazareth. He saw the Father and the Son as two separate beings, which runs directly contrary to the traditional Christian concept of the Godhead (Allen, 1992, p. 38). Ever since the Roman Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicene, establishing the Doctrine of the Trinity, Christian theology has viewed God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost as three manifestations of the same being (Ferguson, 1990, pp. 648–65). Nineteenth-century American Christians were not entirely committed to the Christian concept of the Trinity, and therefore they would not likely have been shocked or offended by Joseph’s vision of God introducing Jesus (May, 1992, p. 103). Nonetheless, Joseph’s view of the Godhead would have profound and all-encompassing repercussions for him and his Latter-day Saints. Smith’s anti-Trinitarian vision has armed those who oppose the Church with all the ammunition they needed to claim Mormons are not Christians. In spite of the controversy Smith’s first vision generated for modern Mormons, it represents the purity and tenacity of the Mormon Church’s foundation. A young, innocent boy enters a forest seeking divine truth and leaves with the knowledge that he is God’s chosen one. He resisted the power of evil and was thereby able to commune with God and Jesus at the same time; he moved from humanity to apotheosis in this single instance. His vision encapsulated everything that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have come to believe in, and likewise young Joseph has come to embody all of the principles to which Mormons aspire. Eric Eliason (2001) begins his introduction to his anthology, Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion, with the following statement:

 These accounts have come to be remembered by Mormons as the foundational sacred episodes of their religious tradition. They also established the Mormon doctrinal ideas that most

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clearly set them apart from traditional Christianity—namely that humans, angels, and gods are of essentially the same species of physical beings but are in different stages of development. (Eliason, 2001, p. 2)

 While it might sound outlandish to a non-believer that anyone might believe they could die and become a god, this belief is a logical extension of Joseph’s first vision and a logical extension of a non-Trinitarian view of God and Jesus. Because Joseph sees two separate beings, his vision suggests that a common man has the ability to become a god. Smith also claims that one of the beings pointed to the other and said, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him” (Smith, 1942/1943, 1: 17). When God introduces Joseph to his “Beloved Son,” He confirms that the man standing next to Him is other than Him. They are two separate beings; two separate gods. In traditional Christian theology, the Father and the Son could not appear in the same time and space because those two beings are actually the same entity wearing two separate guises—that of God and that of Jesus. One of the reasons for this view of the Trinity might be that the founders of the Christian Church realized the implications of three members of the Godhead at three different stages in their deification. In other words, if Jesus is the actual Son of God, then God and Jesus must be understood as existing on a continuum of growth, something akin to what mortal beings experience through the process of birth, life, and death. In a documentary produced by Brigham Young University (BYU), Joseph, Exploring the Life and the Ministry of the Prophet (Black, 2005), Larry C. Porter, Professor Emeritus in Church History at BYU, argues that Joseph’s vision was also important because it was given to a common boy. He explains: “[Joseph Smith] learned that God answers prayer. That here you have revelation, personal revelation, given to a young man who has prepared himself and has gone through that process.” If you prepare yourself, according to Porter, you too can receive divine revelation. Joseph Fielding Smith (1954), President of the LDS Church from 1970–72, encouraged all Mormon men to become prophets in their own right; the potential for which was established by a fifteen year-old boy’s conversation with God and Jesus:



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THE BEST OF JMMS All Saints should be prophets. Every man who can say knowingly that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world and the Only Begotten Son of God, is a prophet. Every man that holds the priesthood, and magnifies his calling, is a prophet; and he has a right to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so far as he is concerned—but not to receive revelation for the Church. There is only one who is appointed to that office. (Vol. 1: 185)





The first vision of Joseph Smith lays the foundation for a Christian religion that does not belong to the tradition of Christianity. The vision establishes a direct link between God and men on earth and ushered in a wave of modern-day prophecies. Those prophecies have been compiled in the LDS scriptures: the Book of Mormon (1930/1983), the Pearl of Great Price (1851/1983), and the Doctrine and Covenants [D & C] (Smith, 1835/1983). The Pearl of Great Price includes Smith’s translation of Matthew, the Articles of Faith—the LDS statement of beliefs, Joseph Smith’s history as written by him, and translations of ancient texts Smith claimed to be the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham. The D & C contains a compilation of revelations given to Church leaders from 1831–1918. The D & C also includes a revelation regarding a manifesto abolishing polygamy, given by President Wilford Woodruff in 1890 and a revelation granting black men the power of priesthood, given by President Spencer W. Kimball in 1978. The power of revelation did not rest solely in the hands of Joseph Smith. Revelation is still integral to the workings of Mormonism. All male Saints have the power to receive revelation, so long as their revelations do not contradict Joseph’s. In 1831, in the D &C, Joseph Smith reveals a commandment from God that only he, as the President of the Church, was entitled to receive revelations for the Church (1835/1983, 43: 3-6). In other words, as long as a man does not try to challenge the divine authority of the Church President, any Latter-day Saint male can commune with God and Jesus Christ and share the truths he learns with the world. Faithful Mormon men, through the power of what the Church calls the restored priesthood, have divine power and authority (Gospel Principles, 1997, p. 81). The Mormon man has authority over his wife and children. He has the power to baptize, per-

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form sacrament rituals, and heal the sick. Men in the Church supervise women, and, while she can hold positions of authority over other women within the Church structure, her decisions and activities must always be approved and monitored by a priesthood holder, any active Mormon male (Latter-day Saint Woman, 2000, vol.1: 93-96). Just as the Mormon woman has limitations to her authority, so too does the Mormon man. In Gospel Principles (1997), an instruction manual provided by LDS leadership for the edification of their members, men in the Church are cautioned about abusing their priesthood authority by unfairly dominating those in their charge: “Priesthood holders should preside in love and kindness. They should not force their families and others to obey them. The Lord has told us that the power of the priesthood cannot be controlled except in righteousness” (p. 83). The Church’s official advice to women on matters of conflict in the home, as stated in their instructional manual, The Latter-day Woman (2000), leaves no room for them to question abuses of the patriarchy:

 After a husband and a wife have counseled together, under the inspiration of the Spirit, the husband has responsibility to make certain that the power of the priesthood call forth wisdom and understanding from heaven to bless that home. The wife and children then support those decisions with full purpose of heart. In this way the husband’s position as head of the home is reinforced and greater family unity will result. (Vo1. 1: 94)





The limitations to patriarchal authority are minimal in comparison to those of women in the Church, especially considering that priesthood authority does not merely reference the superiority of a husband over his wife on earth.16 A Mormon man’s power is The power of the Mormon patriarch seems at times to go unchecked. In Case Reports of the Mormon Alliance (1996), Lavina Fielding Anderson and Janice Merrill Allred demonstrate a systemic problem of abuse within the LDS Church by male members hiding under the auspices 16

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far more pervasive than temporal dominance. His dominance and the gender norms that regulate his relationship with his wife extend into the afterlife (Basquiat, 2001, p. 24). Priesthood authority, the enactment of, and obedience to, is practice for life after death when priesthood holders, if they are worthy, will become gods and their earthly wives, if they are worthy, will become goddesses and serve as their husbands’ helpmates for all eternity (Smith, 1835/1983, 132: 21-25).

THE TRUE AMERICAN ADAM To the LDS Church, love for the United States of America is more than just patriotism, it is devotion to God. According to Mormon teachings and scriptures, America was founded for the purpose of the restoration of the true Gospel of Christ through God’s servant, Joseph Smith. A revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1833 reads, in part: “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood” (Smith, 1835/1983, 101: 80). The Book of Mormon tells us that the American continent was a gift from God to his chosen people; “a land of promise” that was to be “kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations” (2 Nephi 1:5-8). God did not just give his chosen people a land upon which to build His kingdom, He gave them the greatest land on earth, “a choice land […] above all other lands” (2 Nephi 10:19). This land came equipped with a pre-ordained institution that, whether its designers knew it or not, was designed for the coming of the Latter-day Saints. In 1952, the LDS Church published the third edition of W. Cleon Skousen’s compilation of Mormon prophecies, Prophecy and Modern Times. Skousen devotes one third of his book to prophecies pertaining to America, a testament to the important role the Americas have and will play in God’s divine plan (pp. 15–16). One such reference can be found in 2 Nephi, 10: 10-11: “But behold, of priesthood authority. Anderson, in her essay, “The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership,” outlines the over-reaching authority of LDS leaders through their aggressive backlash against Mormon intellectuals in recent decades.

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this land, said God, shall be a land of thine inheritance, and the Gentiles shall be blessed upon the land. And this land shall be a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles.” The glory of America, according to the Book of Mormon, exists for the Latter-day Saints. The gentiles who fought to free the land from foreign kings, Joseph’s grandfathers included, were doing the work of God in preparation for a young boy who would need free-thinking and independent people, confident in their rights to chose God’s law over man’s law. God chose Joseph to embody the characteristics of the nineteenth-century vision of the American Adam. R. W. B. Lewis (1959), in his book, The American Adam, describes the nineteenth-century conception of the American Adam as “a figure of heroic innocence and vast potentialities, poised at the start of a new history” (p. 1). He seems to be, in fact, the incarnation of Manifest Destiny. The period of American literary history that spawned this myth is the same period of time in which Smith created his new religion. After the revolution, Americans saw their “new world” as raw material with which to construct their own destinies. Lewis writes:

 The new habits to be engendered on the new American scene were suggested by the image of a radically new personality, the hero of new adventure: an individual emancipated from history, happily bereft of ancestry, untouched and undefiled by the usual inheritances of family and race; an individual standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling, ready to confront whatever awaited him with the aid of his own unique and inherent resources. It was not surprising, in a Bible-reading generation, that the new hero (in praise or disapproval) was most easily identified with Adam before the fall. (Lewis, 1959, p. 5) [Italics mine]

 The American Adam has no source other than his own natural existence. He creates, defines, and regulates. America was a gift from God, and he, the American Adam—the collective American male consciousness—was the noble creator of this new world. Lewis explains: “This new Adam is both maker and namer; his in-

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nocent pleasure, untouched by humility, is colored by the pride of one who looks on his work and finds it good. The things that are named seem to spring into being at the sound of the word” (1959, 51). This is also the picture of Joseph Smith that the LDS Church circulates. He was a young, innocent boy—consistently portrayed in LDS films as a strong, handsome, blond Aryan of solid AngloSaxon ancestry—seeking truth when God told him that his future was that of a prophet and leader of His people. Joseph was a young poor boy, typically and commonly American, with the strength to fight off evil forces that opposed him. He was predestined to restore the true Gospel to earth, and though he would suffer at the hands of his enemies, his rewards in heaven would be great. Joseph, like all those who followed him, would some day be a god himself. Joseph was the ideal nineteenth-century American Adam, both in the metaphorical sense that Lewis describes, and in the literal sense. Not only was Joseph the preordained prophet of God’s promised land, poised to usher in a new millennium, he was also returning God’s people to the place where all of humanity originated. One of the most unusual and quintessentially Mormon prophecies that Skousen includes in his book pertains to the Garden of Eden. In the D & C, section 116 and section 117: 8, Joseph reveals that the Garden of Eden was once located near Far West, Missouri, the location where the Saints had set up their Zion before being attacked by mobs and militias (Smith, 1835/1983). Klaus J. Hansen explains the significance of the Garden of Eden revelations:

 The American search for the new Adam, in the understanding of Smith, was but a quest for a return of the Old Adam, another corollary of the restorationist theme. The historical reconstruction of Joseph Smith thus made it possible to conjure from the bones of an American Adam and his pre-Colombian descendants an image of America that could motivate those who believed in this past to recreate the Garden of Eden in its literal, original setting. (Hansen, 1981, p. 67)

 According to the teachings found in the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and Smith’s own revelations from the D &

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C, the myth of the American Adam that so many nineteenthcentury Americans fantasized about was real. Adam—the Biblical Adam—was born on what is now known as the North American continent. He was the first inhabitant of the land and therefore supersedes American Indian claims as the original Americans. God gave Adam the power of priesthood authority just miles away from the Latter-day Saints’ Zion, in Missouri. God granted Adam the priesthood, but, according to the Book of Moses and the D & C, God took the priesthood away again when the Israelites failed to keep God’s commandments (Pearl, 1851/1983, 6: 51-68; Smith, 1835/1983, 84: 18-28). God had foreordained that the priesthood would not be returned in full until Joseph Smith was born in the nineteenth century AD (Smith, 1835/1983, 1: 17). Joseph, with his power to commune freely with God and know God’s will, with his authority to create the world around him, and with the determination to follow his destiny, assumed Adam’s role in God’s plan. He became the true American Adam. Everything that happened before Joseph was born was in preparation for his coming. Joseph’s history was Adam’s future. Like the nineteenth-century myth of the American Adam and the Biblical Adam from which that came, Joseph Smith had no history, only a future; a future that he would control by the will of God. This future, as told in The Book of Mormon, is the story of America’s destiny in preparation for Joseph. The story begins with a faithful Israelite, named Lehi, and his family, migrating to America around 600 BC. Lehi predicts the imminent fall of Israel to Babylon, but other Israelites refuse to listen and threaten to kill him. God tells Lehi and his family to leave Jerusalem and go to the desert. Lehi’s family and another family, who joined them for the purpose of procreation, build a ship at God’s command and sail across the ocean. They land somewhere in what is believed to be Central America. The two families quickly grow into a large community led by Lehi’s third eldest son, Nephi. Nephi’s two older brothers, Laman and Lemuel, constantly rebel against, Lehi, Nephi, and God’s will. Sometime after Lehi’s death, Laman and Lemuel threaten a coup, so Nephi and his righteous followers, who call themselves Nephites, leave to establish a separate kingdom far away. Anyone who chose to stay with Laman and Lemuel, instead of following Nephi, was cursed by God with dark skin. The Lama-

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nites, as the cursed people were known, are the ancestors of today’s American Indians. The Nephites and Lamanites fight each other for the rest of the book. Occasionally, the Lamanites find God and the Nephites find sin. In the end, both the Nephites and the Lamanites are sinners, and God allows the evil, dark Lamanites to wipe His chosen white-skinned people off of the face of the earth. Throughout all of this, the Nephites kept a history of their people carved on golden plates. The last historian of the Nephites was a righteous man named Mormon. His righteous son, Moroni, takes the plates when his father dies and records the final days of the Nephites. He then carries the plates to western New York and buries them in a hill. Over one thousand years later, Moroni appears to Joseph Smith and tells him to translate the plates. This very truncated version of the Book of Mormon story provides a framework with which to understand the primary function of the story and its repercussions for LDS theology. In 1982, LDS authorities added the subtitle, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ” to the title of the Book of Mormon, thereby repositioning the Book of Mormon’s function squarely within the tradition of Christianity (Brewster, 1990, p. 9; Davies, 2003, p. 64). This change was justified by the claim in the Book of Mormon that, after being raised from the dead, Jesus traveled the world teaching his gospel and telling the story of his life, his death, and his gift of eternal salvation. Early in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites are told of Jesus’ coming almost six hundred years before His birth. They learn who Jesus is and what his life will mean for them (1 Nephi, 1: 911). The Nephites start living Jesus’ teachings long before he is ever born. It is not until Christ’s death and resurrection, however, that the Nephites enjoy the gifts of Christian salvation. Four hundred years later, the Lamanites destroy the Nephites and wipe Christian practices and salvation from the face of the earth. The Book of Mormon also explains the complicated relationship of Mormon theology and culture to race. The racist assumptions that underscore most of the action in the Book of Mormon still permeate LDS teachings today, and, I argue, are an unavoidable aspect of Mormon theology because of the dependence of the Book of Mormon story on a racial binary. The story follows two loosely interwoven structures: first, the preparation for the coming of Jesus and the destruction of his gospel by evil; second, the mi-

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gration of Israelites to the Americas and their subsequent division into forces of good and evil. When the Israelites arrive in America, they quickly break off into two opposing communities, establishing a binary between Nephites and Lamanites, Christians and nonChristians, the good and the evil. God marks the evil Lamanites with dark skin, and the good Nephites are given white skin. The contrast between the good and evil in the Book of Mormon depends on race. In Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, Newell G. Bringhurst (1981) explains that nineteenth-century Americans, fearing an impending millennium, expected a struggle between forces of good and evil. “Joseph Smith,” Bringhurst writes, “painted this millennialistic struggle in contrasting racial images of black and white” (p. 7). As with Foucault’s explanation of relations of power in Discipline and Punish, one group assumes the role of dominance and the other the role of submission, but the roles are not static and require constant regulation. The fear of lost power and abjection motivates regulation. For Mormons, the fear of evil, as marked by dark skin, serves as the regulatory motivator, the ever-present threat of abjection being written upon the body. Whiteness defines Mormon identity as much as their calling as God’s chosen people because the two are completely intertwined. The Mormon’s whiteness entitles them to their chosen status, and their chosen status entitles them to their whiteness. Mormons have made considerable efforts in the last 40 years to change public perception of them as racist. Their theological and historical relationship with race has made this perception difficult to change, and, in some regards, something they cannot change. The Mormon claim that they are the divinely chosen inheritors of the Promised Land and the “American dream” depends on their superiority as white people. Their whiteness, as presented in the Book of Mormon, is a gift from God. It distinguishes them, as the righteous, from the sinners. To suggest such an inherent racism in Mormon theology would shock and anger most Mormons (Smith, 2005, p. 450). Since 1978, when the Church finally granted black men the right to priesthood authority, Mormons have carefully worked to rid themselves of racism, not just for the sake of their image, but because they understand racism as wrong and immoral. The Mormon belief that they are God’s chosen people is so intertwined with the racism of the Book of Mormon that to give up one they have to give up the other. LDS theology validates Jo-

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seph’s position as the American Adam by arguing that Joseph was handpicked by God to return humankind to the blissful state of the Garden of Eden. He was a good, God-fearing Anglo-Saxon boy of solid Colonial stock not marked by the curse of dark skin, who sought with compassion to bring all of God’s children, darkskinned or not, back to righteousness. With that righteousness, the evil doer’s skin would be lightened, and the doors of Eden and heaven would be opened unto him or her. Joseph had to have white skin to do God’s work and fulfill the destiny of Adam because the pre-cursed state of Adam’s lineage was white (Pearl of Great Price, 1851/1983, Moses, 5: 40). With the privilege granted Joseph by his white skin, he had all of the attributes of the first man, Adam. God gave Joseph the priesthood and the knowledge of heaven and earth. Joseph, according to the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants, was living out Adam’s destiny by re-establishing God’s covenant on earth and handing it down to a lineage of faithful Latter-day Saints. Joseph’s birthplace—America—was also his birthright—the kingdom of Adam, the Promised Land of the Saints.

A TRAIL OF ABJECTION The Latter-day Saints were forced out of one state after another by persecution and mob violence. New York chased them away for Smith’s use of the occult; Ohio ran them off for Smith’s polygamous practices, opposing slavery, communicating with Indians, and building too much wealth (Quinn, 1994, p. 90); Missouri—still the site of the Mormon’s Zion—and Illinois forced them further west for very much the same reasons, except that in these last two cases, the Mormons fought back and the violence escalated (Berrett, 1985, pp. 110–14, 196–199; Quinn, 1994, pp. 91, 95, 100). In each new location, the Mormons violated the sexual and social norms of the various communities, and the communities responded with brutal punishment and eventual abjection. By retreating to Utah, the Saints embraced their abjection and created a world that was not regulated by American cultural values. Their time in isolation must have been a relief to the long-persecuted Mormons because it ended, at least temporarily, their existence as the American abject. One cannot be abject if there is no dominating normative against which to be defined.

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Mormons stuck together on all matters, and through their missionary work they brought new converts into the fold all the time. The citizens of the towns Mormons lived in before they moved to Utah feared becoming minorities in their own communities, and worse, minorities to strange theocratic people who called the Indians “chosen people,” opposed slavery, and accumulated land and wealth at disconcerting rates (Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, pp. 38–9). Mormons were seen as a terrifying and diabolical other that needed to be expelled from their midst. The persecution escalated everywhere the Mormons settled. They traveled further and further west with each new banishment, with the exception of slightly eastward retrenchment to Nauvoo, Illinois. It was during the Nauvoo period, the summer of 1844, that Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob of vigilantes (Roberts, vol. 2: 274-85). Brigham Young became the next president of the Church and led his people west, hoping to establish a temporary kingdom outside of the United States borders where they could worship in peace (Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, p. 44). Under Young’s direction the Mormon’s settled in the Salt Lake Valley in the high deserts of the Rocky Mountains. When they arrived, the land was vacant, save the original inhabitants: the Ute Indians. In the peace and privacy of their new home, Salt Lake City, Young decided that Mormons could now practice their faith with greater commitment and less secrecy. Young became the official theocratic ruler of the Mormons. This was the design established by Smith, though he was not able to fully practice theocracy due to the Mormons’ subjugation to civil law in the settled territories of the east (Quinn, 1994, pp. 86, 248; Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, pp. 48– 49). The practice of plural marriage increased under Young’s leadership (Ivans, 1992, p. 170–1). He reinstated the law of communal living which he called the United Order. This was also one of Smith’s policies, but he was unable to make it work in the east because of outside interference by gentiles. Young was now able to enforce the United Order with some success, that is, until gentiles began to arrive in Salt Lake City in mass (Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, pp. 36–37, 46–49). The federal government, having decided to annex the Utah territory as a state, began to systematically weaken the power of LDS leaders in the Utah territory. The Mormon leadership responded by abandoning their dream of a theocratic state named

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Deseret, and worked to attain statehood on their own terms, but their petition was denied by Congress on the grounds of their polygamous practices (Hardy, 1992, pp. 12–13, 128–9; Roberts, vol. 3: 499–501, vol. 5: 7). When Brigham Young died in 1877, the United States government had imposed their own governor on the territory, Utah already had a large influx of “gentiles,” the United Order had failed, and polygamy was eroding the financial and political stronghold the LDS leadership had over Utah (Roberts, vol. 5: 489, 509). By 1887 the federal government had outlawed polygamy and disenfranchised the Church, confiscating all the Church’s properties and wealth (Ostling, 2000, p. 76). Both polygamy and communalism were ended by the new president, John Taylor (Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, p. 48). Taylor assumed the presidency at a time when Latter-day Saints were again losing the freedom to define themselves—the colonizers of Utah were now the colonized. The Mormons in the early years of Utah Territory had been prosperous. They made their own laws and lived their lives according to their own belief systems. When Manifest Destiny caught up with Utah, the persecution returned, but now it took place on Mormon land—land, that is, that they took from the Ute Indians, land they had developed for their own purposes (Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, pp. 49–50). The Mormons were now the abject of their own society. John Taylor, in succeeding Young, was given the choice of either ending LDS practices considered deviant by mainstream America or finding a way to continue their practices without risking the wrath of abjection. Taylor and the Church leaders who followed him made a strategic choice to Americanize on their own terms (Mauss, 1994, p. 22).

THE GREAT CAPITULATION: MORMON ASSIMILATION According to Armand L. Mauss’ (1994) study of Mormon assimilation, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation, the terms of Utah’s statehood required Mormon assimilation. In his book, Mormonism in Transition (1986), Thomas Alexander notes that by the end of the nineteenth-century Church leaders became increasingly concerned with perceptions of Mormons by nonMormons (p. 239). Church leaders took an aggressive position on assimilation and encouraged their members to obey American laws and participate in American culture. Anything that marked them as

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visibly other disappeared soon after the start of the twentieth century (Mauss, 1994, pp. 21–2, 78). This does not mean that the Mormons completely lost their identities in the short time between the annexation of Utah, 1896, and the period of active assimilation in the early twentieth century. On the contrary, in order for the Latter-day Saints to remain the Latter-day Saints, they would have to maintain and re-emphasize some vestiges of their pre-assimilation identity, such as the health code known as the Word of Wisdom, temple ordinance work for the dead (including genealogical work), and the eternality of the family unit (Alexander, 1986, p. 307). As Mauss explains, for any “deviant” religious group to survive, they must maintain a tension between members who support assimilation—broader social acceptance—and members who support separatism—the protection of their religious respectability (1994, p. 5). Mormons, in other words, have maintained their uniqueness and independence by retaining aspects of their identities that led to their abjection while simultaneously finding normative acceptance—though not normativity itself—by ridding themselves of the most strikingly obvious forms of their otherness (Alexander, 1986, p. 14; Moore, 1986, p. 43; Leone, 1979, 167–8). Mormons curtailed practices that drew the most attention and brought on the most persecution by either altering the role of those practices in the Church or letting them lie dormant through the period of assimilation. This ended, according to Mauss, sometime after the 1960s when Mormons began to reassert their distinct characteristics (1994, pp. 66, 85). Through their active participation in the assimilation process, the LDS leadership developed an effective technique for holding onto their “unique identity” without suffering the wrath of social abjection. Mormons have learned to perform normativity without losing their abject identity. Mauss explains that Latter-day Saints had developed such a distinctively Mormon way of life in Utah that dominant culture perceived them as an “un-American, anti-American, insurgent counterculture” (1994, p. 22). As a necessary part of their assimilation, both explicitly and implicitly, Mormons had shed this image. While the Church did abandon these “un-American” institutions in practice, they retained them at the level of doctrine (Mauss, 1994, p. 24). The United Order ended with the influx of gentiles into the Salt Lake Valley, but the Church operates a vast social welfare pro-

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gram and teaches that Zion will be communal (Moore, 1986, p. 42). Mormons banned the practice of polygamy with excommunication as the punishment for any man taking multiple wives (Ostling, 2000, pp. 67, 87), but the promise of polygamy still exists as a reward in the afterlife and still remains a defining aspect of Mormon theology (Hansen, 1981, p. 177). On the one hand, the Church ordered the practices be stopped and, on the other hand, told members to hold them sacred. Understandably, this caused some confusion in the Church and slowed the process of eradicating polygamy (Alexander, 1986, pp. 4, 6–7). Many members were unwilling to give up this practice as it was fundamental to their understanding of the afterlife (Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, p. 50). As new, more Americanized members took leadership positions the Church took a more aggressive stance on polygamy (Cannon, 1992, p. 207). The Church was eventually able to eliminate most polygamous practices by investigating and excommunicating Saints still engaged in the practice (Hardy, 1992, pp. 290–2; Cannon, 1992, p. 213; Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, p. 227). Through such hard-line stances, the Church was gradually making its position on the matter clear: polygamy was to stop and, more importantly, civil laws were to be obeyed. The Latter-day Saints were well on their way to ridding themselves of their antiAmerican image. Though it took Church leaders some time to prove they were serious about assimilation, Mormons soon became fervently patriotic, law-abiding citizens, and their prospects for assimilation were looking brighter. Latter-day Saint participation in the efforts of World War I marked a new beginning for Mormons as Americans (Ostling, 2000, p. 91).

STAGING THE AMERICAN MASCULINE IDEAL Through the process of assimilation, Latter-day Saints assumed an increasingly conservative image that aligned them with the power brokers of American politics and economics, arenas that have historically blocked people of color. They adopted a corporate style of governance and secularized some of their finances (Alexander, 1986, pp. 94–8, 105–110). Church leaders more and more came from successful careers in law and business. Church authorities increasingly aligned themselves with the Republican Party. They also placed greater emphasis on issues of morality—ironically, em-

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phasizing “sexual morality” despite their own past in practicing sexual and marital liberties beyond the Christian-American “norm” (Alexander, 1986, p. 9; Mauss, 1994, pp. 24, 29; Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, p. 65; Ostling, 2000, p. 119; Hansen, 1981, p. 176). Their political stances have become increasingly conservative throughout the twentieth century. The Mormon Church aggressively opposed the New Deal during the Great Depression; they were strategic in the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. In the 1970s as well, they began a practice of using electric shock therapy as a cure for homosexuality (Alexander, 1986, p. 37; Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, pp. 69, 224). In spite of their status as the abject, Mormons have become the epitome of the silent, moral majority. Everything about the LDS Church now takes on a corporate appearance. Even their Sunday services have a stronger resemblance to a business conference than a worship service. White men—and on occasion men of color—sit in rows of theater-style seats that line the raised stage in front of the congregation. They wear dark-colored business suits and short, conservative haircuts. The presiding Bishop only speaks to give announcements, introduce speakers, and attend to matters of Church business. He is, in other words, more like a business manager than a spiritual leader. Each week different members of the congregation, both men and women, young and old, give “talks.”17 These sacrament speeches replace the sermons typically given by the minister in other churches. The talks typically sound the same following a similar pattern of speech: slow and soft with little affectation. Other members sit quietly on wooden pews that fill the large chapel. They participate in the service by singing hymns, raising their hands to confirm a decision of the Church leadership, and taking the sacrament (Leone, 1979, p. 173). The common style of dress, speech, and building-design give Mormon houses of worship a very homogenous look and feel. Before, after, and during the Sunday service—or at any other time when Mormons congregate for that matter—the mannerisms of, 17 In her book, Mormon Lives: A Year in the Elkton Ward (1993), Susan Buhler Taber provides an excellent description of the structure and style of a Mormon Church service.

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and interactions between, Church members also look and feel uniform. The bishop and the members of his bishopric stand at the two entrances to the chapel and greet members as they enter the chapel. They smile and shake the hands of the adults and older children and pat the younger children on the head or back or simply let them slide past. Mormon men display confidence. They stand up straight, look each other in the eyes, shake hands with authority, hug other men without embarrassment, and emote publicly when “bearing testimony.” Anthropologist David C. Knowlton (1992) argues that Mormonism advocates, “at least officially, a limited kind of male bonding between companions, and within quorums and presidencies. Here, such male bonding is positively sanctioned to build, and express with emotion, love for one another at appropriate times.” This controlled homosocialism gives the appearance of a strong bond that is not too intimate. In their Sunday business suits, with their business-style haircuts and their business-style meetings, Mormon men have embodied the image of the great American capitalist. He is calm, confident, and in control. He no longer matches the stereotypes of yesterday. Mormon men today are more commonly thought of as very average white men who have some very bizarre practices. Mormon folklorists, Austin and Alta Fife (1956/1966), in their important study of Mormon culture, Saints of Sage and Saddle, write:

 We have outlived the legend that the Mormon may be identified on sight as he goes about, complete with horns and hooves, leering indiscriminately at females. So completely has the Mormon been integrated into American culture that we have reached the point where it takes some discernment to identify him. (Fife, 1956/1966, p. 1)

 The Fifes go on to explain that his outward appearances might let him pass as “one of us,” but his identity and cultural practices “differentiate him somewhat more than did the caricatures of the closing years of the nineteenth-century” (1956/1966, p. 1). With polygamy and communalism safely in the realm of theology, the aspects of Mormonism that mark them as other and, at times, relegate them to the realm of the abject, are their everyday practices. Mormons still wear sacred garments and participate in secret

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rituals borrowed from Smith’s early days as a Freemason (Quinn, 1994, pp. 114–5). Mormons live by a strict dietary code called the Word of Wisdom that prohibits the use of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and—though this tenet is rarely if ever observed—meat except in times of famine (Smith, 1835/1983, section 89). Mormons rarely swear, avoid movies with adult ratings, do not engage in pre-marital sex, dress modestly, and follow a tradition of male dominance. Mormons appear to be the romanticized Americans from the “good-old-days” in the nineteenth century. Mormon identity today hinges almost entirely on images of men: homogenous images of conservative, white men. This image of the Mormon man enables him to “pass” in normative culture in spite of his outsider status. It is an image to which Mormon men almost monolithically conform. Mormons, however, have always had the makings of normativity. According to Bruce R. Lott (2000), early Mormon male rhetoric and action demonstrated a marked preference for “a ‘rough’ over a refined ideal of manly performance” (p. 19). Lott explains: “The single characteristic that early nineteenth-century American men believed above all distinguished them from every ‘other’ in contrast to whom they defined their manhood was their ‘manly independence’” (p. 20). Mormon men found their manly independence earlier than average American men because Mormon men married at earlier ages and were indoctrinated into work culture in adolescence (pp. 23, 61). As a result, the groundwork for assimilation, via the normalization of Mormon masculinity, was laid almost a century before the Mormon leadership encouraged members to enter into the normative fray.

CONCLUSION: ADAM, THE ABJECT IN HIS OWN KINGDOM Ancient LDS history has had a profound impact on the ways that Mormons define themselves in the modern world. They are the chosen people, chosen at the dawn of time, chosen to carry out the divine mission of the first man, Adam. God chose Joseph Smith to return the power of priesthood authority to the earth and build a following of Saints who, through this power, would usher in the new millennium and return God’s children to him in righteousness. Their reward for this great work is eternal life and the glory of their own personal godhood. This reward, according to all the teachings of the LDS scriptures, will be granted to faithful white men. Women cannot have

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the priesthood and therefore cannot be fully empowered Gods in the afterlife, except as a Mother in Heaven who supports the Father in Heaven, the ruler of their Heavenly Kingdom. Their role in this life is to support the priesthood, and their reward in the afterlife will be the continued support of their priesthood husband, now a god. Men of color also cannot be Gods, for, according to LDS doctrine, the goal of salvation is to return to the pure state of Adam. This pure state has been defined clearly by LDS doctrine as white. A man of color, according to 3 Nephi, 2: 15, will become a white man once his salvation is granted. It could be argued from this that the only change to the man of color entering heaven is the color of his skin. He is still the same man; only his “countenance,” as it is often referred to in LDS scripture, has changed. This argument would make sense if contemporary issues of race and the application of a racial binary in the Book of Mormon were simply a question of skin color. The racism that permeates LDS scriptures and culture is, at its most fundamental level, an issue of “us” versus “them,” good versus evil. The nineteenth century that gave birth to Joseph Smith and his Saints and the twentieth century that assimilated them into American culture understand people of color as the counterpoint to white people. The rhetoric and practice of such racism in the Mormon faith insist on a white vision of salvation. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the LDS Church ushers in the new image of the American Adam. He is the white, heterosexual, corporate American man: controlled, subtle, and utterly conservative. He defines his world and the past only serves to preordain his future. He is chosen by God, and he is responsible for the salvation of the women and children in his care and for the conversion and assimilation of the heathen other. He is the Mormon man, granted the divine authority of patriarchal power—essentially, a god in embryo. As the Mormon man navigates the world of the gentiles, he must confront their lack of faith, their misunderstanding of their place in his world. The Mormon man, the American Adam, is a minority in his own Promised Land. His patriarchal authority is not recognized outside of his community. He must bow to the laws of the land, the laws that were written to enable his God-given right to rule America through divine inspiration. If he fails to follow those laws, he will be abjected from his own promised land. The Mormon man knows that through his trust in God and his adher-

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ence to God’s law, he lives everyday with the ever-present threat of abjection. The Mormon man, in spite of this threat, continues to believe and espouse his beliefs, even if in a watered-down version. His abject status in his own land has not deterred him from assuming normativity and dominance at the site of performance. Dominant culture views the Mormon man as an outsider, a marginalized other on the verge of complete social deviance—abjection; yet, the Mormon man carries himself with the air of an insider. His marginalized status does not stop him from assuming pivotal roles in American society (Ostling, 2000, pp. 136–7; Gottlieb & Wiley, 1984, pp. 87–90). Mormon men have become the most normative acting marginalized group in the country. Their success depends on their white, corporate appearance and on their undeterred faith that they are the American Adam. They have achieved, in their marginalization, the successful performance of normativity.

REFERENCES Alexander, T. G. (1986). Mormonism in transition. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Allen, J. B. (1992). The significance of Joseph Smith’s “First Vision” in Mormon thought. In D. M. Quinn (Ed.), The new Mormon history (pp, 37-52). Salt Lake City: Signature Books. Anderson, L. F. (1993, Spring). The LDS intellectual community and church leadership—A contemporary chronology. Dialogue, 26(1), 7-64. Anderson, L. F., & Allred, J. M. (1996). Case reports of the Mormon alliance: Volume 1, 1995. Salt Lake City: Mormon Alliance. Basquiat, J. H. (2001). Reproducing patriarchy and erasing feminism: The selective construction of history within the Mormon community. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 17(2), 538. Berrett, W. E. (1985). The Latter-day Saints: a Contemporary history of the Church of Jesus Christ. Salt Lake City: Deseret Books. Black, S. E., Skinner, A. C., Reim, J., & Van Wagenen, S. (Producers). (2005). Joseph: Exploring the life and ministry of the prophet. [Motion picture]. (Vols. 1-6). United States: Brigham Young University Broadcasting.

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Book of Mormon. (1930/1983). Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Brewster, H. W. (1990, January). The 80’s looking back; the 90’s looking ahead. Ensign, 9. Bringhurst, N. G. (1981). Saints, slaves, and blacks: The changing place of black people within Mormonism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Brown, J. F. (Producer) & Bonnell Stephens, L. (Producer/Director). (1994/2002). Roots of an American prophet: The docudrama of the restoration [Motion Picture]. United States: A Living Scriptures Production, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Cannon, K. L. II. (1992). After the manifesto: Mormon polygamy, 1890-1906. In D. M. Quinn (Ed.), The new Mormon history (pp. 201-220). Salt Lake City: Signature Books. Davies, D. J. (2003). An introduction to Mormonism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eliason, E. A. (2001). Introduction. In E. A. Eliason (Ed.), Mormons and Mormonism: An introduction to an American world religion (pp. 1-22). Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Ferguson, E. (Ed). (1990). Encyclopedia of early Christianity. New York: Garland. Fife, A. & A. (1956/1966). Saints of sage & saddle: Folklore among the Mormons. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press; Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. (Alan Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Vintage. Gospel principles. (1997). Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Educational System. Gottlieb, R., & Wiley, P. (1984). America’s saints: The rise of Mormon power. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Hansen, K. J. (1981). Mormonism and the American experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hardy, B. C. (1992). Solemn covenant: The Mormon polygamous passage. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Ivins, S. S. (1992). Notes on Mormon polygamy. In D. M. Quinn (Ed.), The new Mormon history (pp. 169-180). Salt Lake City: Signature Books. Knowlton, D. C. (1992, August). On Mormon masculinity. Sunstone Magazine, 88, 19-30. Retrieved March 1, 2007 from: http://www.sunstoneonline.com.

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The Latter-day Saint woman. (Rev. ed., Vol. 1).(2000).Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Educational System. Leone, M. P. (1979). Roots of modern Mormonism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewis, R. W. B. (1959). The American Adam: Innocence, tragedy, and tradition in the nineteenth century (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Books. Lott, B. R. (2000). Becoming Mormon men. Master’s thesis. Brigham Young University. Marty, M. E. (1981). Forward. In K. J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American experience (pp. ix-xiv). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mauss, A. L. (1994). The angel and the beehive: The Mormon struggle with assimilation. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. May, D. L. (1992). A demographic portrait of the Mormons, 18301980. In D. M. Quinn (Ed.), The new Mormon history (pp. 121135). Salt Lake City: Signature Books. Moore, R. L. (1986). Religious outsiders and the making of Americans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ostling, R. N., & J. K. (2000). Mormon America: The power and the promise. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco. Pearl of great price. (1851/1983). Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Quinn, D. M. (1994). The Mormon hierarchy: Origins of power. Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates. Roberts, B. H. (1965). A comprehensive history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Vols. 1-6). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press. Skousen, W. C. (1952). Prophecy and modern times (3rd ed.). Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press. Smith, D. (2005). These house-Negroes still think we’re cursed: Struggling against racism in the classroom. Cultural Studies, 19, 439-454. Smith, J. (1835/1983). Doctrine and covenants. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Smith, J. (1842/1983). Joseph Smith, History. In Pearl of Great Price. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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Smith, J. (1954). Doctrines of Salvation (Vol. 1). B. R. McConkie (Ed.). Salt Lake City: Bookcraft. Taber, S. B. (1993). Mormon lives: A year in the Elkton ward. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

4 “HE WAS PRETTY GOOD IN THERE TODAY”: REVIVING THE MACHO CHRIST IN ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S “TODAY IS FRIDAY” AND MEL GIBSON’S THE

PASSION OF THE CHRIST

LISA TYLER SINCLAIR COMMUNITY COLLEGE [email protected] ABSTRACT Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, like Hemingway’s 1926 one-act play/short story “Today is Friday,” is about the ways in which its creator believed that he had directly benefited from Christ’s suffering. Both Hemingway and Gibson were raised by religiously conservative, emotionally repressive fathers, and both declared themselves Catholics. Both men experienced suicidal depression as mature young men, and each found in Christ’s torment on the cross both a trope for his own battles with depression and an inspiration to survive his own emotional suffering. In this essay, I first place both men within the sociocultural, religious tradition known as “muscular Christianity” and trace the ways in which they were both influenced by that tradition. I document their emotional volatility and their bouts with profound depression, examining the ways in which each credits faith with enabling him to survive his own dark night of the soul. It is inconceivable that the suffering of Christ on the cross . . . would mean anything to anyone unless pain was intrinsically shareable. (Glucklich, 2001, p. 63)

At Chicago’s First United Methodist Church, a group of about 30 people gathered in the spring of 2004 to discuss the film The Passion 65

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of the Christ. According to a press report, most of those in attendance found the film needlessly, excessively violent. One dissenter, a homeless man and ordained Baptist minister, raised a hand to ask, “Can’t a person benefit from someone else’s suffering? My brother saved me from getting beat up more than once by taking the beatings himself. I’m going through suffering now. If I look at Jesus’ suffering, I know I can do this” (Van Biema, 2004, p. 60). The other attendees listened politely but remained unpersuaded—a problem the speaker later attributed to their own remoteness from suffering. But that fellow who spoke up, the one who responded to Christ’s suffering because it inspired him to endure his own suffering, has a point, one that I think both Ernest Hemingway and Mel Gibson would appreciate. I want to argue that Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ, like Hemingway’s 1926 one-act play/short story “Today is Friday,” is about the ways in which both men believed they had directly benefited from Christ’s suffering. Both men were raised by religiously conservative, emotionally repressive fathers, and both declared themselves Catholics. Both Hemingway and Gibson experienced suicidal depression as mature young men, and each found in Christ’s torment on the cross both a trope for his own battles with depression and an inspiration to survive his own emotional suffering. In this essay, after briefly introducing both works, I first place both men within the sociocultural, religious tradition known as “muscular Christianity” and trace the ways in which they were influenced by both that tradition and their upbringing by strict, religiously conservative fathers. I document their emotional volatility and their bouts with profound depression, examining the ways in which each credits faith with enabling him to survive his own dark night of the soul. As is now widely known, The Passion of the Christ portrays the last twelve hours of Christ’s life, drawing extensively on the Gospels for much of its content. Hemingway’s four-page, one-act play “Today is Friday” focuses on the same event, Christ’s crucifixion, indirectly, by depicting the reactions of the Roman soldiers who carried out the execution. Such indirectness was typical for a man who called his own memoir, A Moveable Feast, autobiography by reflection (M. Hemingway, 1964) and who once wrote (in an article not published until after his death) “I sometimes think my style is

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suggestive rather than direct,” adding, “The reader must often use his imagination or lose the most subtle part of my thought” (Wagner, 1987, p. 275).

MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY It is important to note that in reviving the macho Christ, both men are (consciously or not) working within the tradition known as “muscular Christianity,” a nineteenth-century social, religious, and cultural movement originating in Britain and emphasizing the importance of health and physical fitness in Christian men. It was not a new movement even in the Victorian era: “Throughout Western literature a strong historical connection was drawn between the idealized knightly soldier and the athlete as Christian” (Ladd & Mathisen, 1999, p. 17). Its best known proponents were writers Charles Kingsley, who is now ironically best known for his children’s novel The Water Babies, and Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s School Days, a paean to violence and the British public school of Rugby. (Interestingly, Hemingway owned works by both men—Tom Brown’s School Days, by Hughes, and two copies of Kingsley’s Westward, Ho! [Brasch & Watson, 1981].) The movement was later popularized in the United States via the Young Men’s Christian Association: “The development of the YMCA in the United States relied on a muscular Christian agenda to reach a white, middle-class culture” (Ladd & Mathisen, 1999, p. 43). Theodore Roosevelt, a personal hero of Hemingway’s childhood (Reynolds, 1986, pp. 28–30, 163, 232), was among the American proponents of the movement. In considerations of literary history, Hemingway’s work is usually opposed to the more pious aspects of muscular Christianity. As Clifford Putney (2001) accurately notes, America’s literary modernists rejected “the Christian manliness of Ben-Hur and other literary heroes of an older generation,” instead preferring “Ernest Hemingway’s soldier-narrator in A Farewell to Arms, a rugged stoic who confessed to have seen ‘nothing sacred’ in the Great War, and who wanted nothing more to do with ‘the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain’” (p. 201). But an occasional literary critic has noted Hemingway’s earlier indebtedness to muscular Christianity. Although he does not specifically make the connection to the religious movement, Warren Bennett (1995) has linked “Today is Friday” with Ezra Pound’s

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1909 poem “The Ballad of the Goodly Fere” and suggested that the theme of both is “the masculinization of Jesus of Nazareth” (p. 203). Hemingway biographer Carlos Baker, who has openly admitted he “dislikes” “Today is Friday” (1969, p. xiv), has complained that its “dialogue read[s] like a locker-room discussion among highschool sophomore football players” (Baker, 1969, p. 169)—thus linking Christianity with athleticism. Like Gibson’s film, Hemingway’s short story also takes its place in a larger societal dialogue about how we see (or should see) Jesus. It is possible that it is a direct response to Bruce Barton’s 1925 book The Man Nobody Knows.18 Although there is no direct evidence that Hemingway read Barton’s book, it is probably significant that Barton is the son of the Hemingway family’s minister (Monteiro, 1997, p. 74). Ernest’s father was the Barton family doctor (Fried, 2005), and Barton, a founder of the Madison Avenue advertising agency BBDO, reviewed The Sun Also Rises for Atlantic Monthly (Fried, 2005). In The Man Nobody Knows, Barton (1925), who was 13 years older than Hemingway, attempts to “re-masculinize” Jesus by portraying Christ as a highly successful proto-advertising executive who “picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world” (unpaginated). Like Hemingway and Gibson, Barton is contemptuous of what he sees as the wimpy image of Jesus. “A physical weakling!” Barton (1925) writes in an unpaginated foreword. “Where did they get that idea? Jesus pushed a plane and swung an adze; he was a successful carpenter. He slept outdoors and spent his days 18 George Monteiro has traced the relationship between Barton’s work and Hemingway’s in more detail. Barton’s book was heavily influenced by his father (Fried, 2005, p. 89), the Rev. William Barton, who like Hemingway’s father received a degree from Oberlin (Fried, 2005, p. 8), center of the muscular Christianity movement in America. Intriguingly (given the thesis of this essay), Barton—like both Hemingway and Gibson—experienced his own bouts with mental instability. According to his biographer, he suffered from insomnia intermittently until the late 1920s (Fried, 2005, pp. 18–19, 82–83, 142, 240n29) and described himself soon after his senior year of college as “frightened” that “[he] might lose [his] mind” and “on the edge of a nervous breakdown” (Fried, 2005, p. 19).

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walking around his favorite lake. His muscles were so strong that when he drove the money-changers out, nobody dared oppose him!” The Man Nobody Knows, while controversial, was fourth on the nonfiction bestseller list in 1925 and reached first place by 1926 (Montgomery, 1985). As for The Passion of the Christ, Björn Krondorfer (2004) specifically linked the film to that tradition in an essay in Cross Currents. Patricia J. Williams (2004) presented Gibson’s film with a mock award in her column in The Nation: “Best Harangue in the Style of Father Coughlin went to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, for … its reinvigoration of flayed-muscular Christianity as X-treme sport” (p. 9). Leon Wieseltier (2004) writes of Gibson’s Christ in The New Republic, “He is what the early church fathers, writing with admiration of their martyrs, called an ‘athlete’ of suffering” (p. 19). One scholar has characterized the protagonist of the movie as “the action hero Jesus” (Lawler, 2004, p. 67). Gibson himself has conceded that he wanted to show us a different and more overtly masculine side of Christ than the usual Hollywood version: “He’s usually fairly effete and not a powerful presence, which clearly he must have been” (Mel, 2004). Both works draw on sports themes in their depictions of the Crucifixion. “He was pretty good in there today”—the refrain of the admiring and relatively sympathetic first Roman soldier in Hemingway’s “Today is Friday”—makes Christ sound like a particularly tough prizefighter. It’s probably not coincidental that one alternate title Hemingway ultimately rejected for “Today is Friday” was “One More for the Nazarene” (Smith, 1989, p. 154), which sounds suspiciously like “One more for the Gipper.” While we now associate those words with the late President Ronald Reagan (who uttered them in the 1940 film Knute Rockne All American), they were originally a variation of the famous (albeit possibly apocryphal) last words of the legendary George “The Gipper” Gipp, Notre Dame’s first All American football player, to coach Knute Rockne in December 1920. Gipp died at 25 of a strep throat infection that turned into pneumonia in an era before antibiotics (Howald, 2003). Hemingway’s play on those words casts the Crucifixion as the “Big Game” of the college football season. While that might seem in questionable taste, the poet Allen Tate has suggested that Hemingway’s attitude toward all sport was “rooted in a religious sen-

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sibility” (Stoneback, 1991, p. 129), and in his now classic article on Hemingway’s religious beliefs, H. R. Stoneback (1991) argues that “Sport as a redemptive ritual is central to Hemingway’s life and work” (p. 136). Similarly, in a review entitled “Tough Guy,” one critic writes of The Passion of the Christ, “It’s like viewing an uneven boxing match in which we are forced to watch the underdog, pinned against the ropes, get beaten to within an inch of his life” (Petrakis, 2004, p. 40). Given these odd (but not historically novel) conjunctions of sports and religious faith, it’s probably not coincidental that Hemingway’s official biographer, Carlos Baker (1969), dismissed “Today is Friday” as “tasteless” (p. 321), and film critics have responded to The Passion with comparable distaste, complaining in Newsweek of the film’s “relentless gore” (Ansen, 2004, p. 60) or characterizing it in the New York Times as “an unnerving and painful spectacle that is also, in the end, a depressing one” (Scott, 2004, p. E1). In his film, Gibson is insistent that Christ endured more physical suffering than some viewers can bear to witness. Not coincidentally, both Hemingway and Gibson would have been indirectly familiar with the principles of muscular Christianity. Hemingway’s father attended Oberlin College in Ohio (Sanford, 1999, p. 23), where he played on the football team, and “Oberlin College served as the cradle for the fledgling physical education profession and the muscular Christianity movement” (Ladd & Mathisen, 1999, p. 30). Ernest’s paternal grandfather, Anson Hemingway, was general secretary of the Chicago YMCA—the chief institutional proponent of muscular Christianity in America—and a close friend of Dwight L. Moody (Sanford, 1999, p. 18), the fundamentalist evangelist who has been described as “the champion of an indigenous, American brand of muscular Christianity in the final decades of the [nineteenth] century” (Ladd & Mathisen, 1999, p. 32).19

Kathleen Verduin (1987) has traced the presence of muscular Christianity in Hemingway’s writings but mentions “Today is Friday” only briefly and does not note Ed Hemingway’s involvement in the movement as a result of his Oberlin education. 19

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Gibson, too, would have been acquainted with muscular Christianity. After the Gibson family’s move from New York to Australia in the sixties, Gibson’s father enrolled 12-year-old Mel in St. Leo’s Christian Brothers School, “run by an Irish religious order, with an emphasis on religion, sport and discipline” (Pendreigh, 1997, pp. 37–38). The school modeled itself after the British public schools (Clarkson, 1999, p. 36)—in other words, the birthplace of muscular Christianity. Gibson’s American accent made him something of an outcast initially, and the teachers were evidently given to corporal punishment; he and a classmate would compete to see who could get the most “strappings” in a day, and Gibson won— with 27 (Clarkson, 1999, p. 37; Pendreigh, 1999, p. 38). One biographer suggests that there were rumors that some boys at the school were sexually molested by the priests (Clarkson, 1999, p. 38). Gibson, who told a friend that the priests at the school were brutal (Clarkson, 1999, p. 37), was later publicly quoted as saying, “Some of them were regular sons of bitches” (Clarkson, 1999, p. 38).

STRICT UPBRINGING Both men were raised by strict, religiously conservative fathers. Perhaps partly as a result of his Oberlin education, Hemingway’s father disapproved of dancing, drinking, smoking, and card-playing (Sanford, 1999, p. 39). Mr. Hemingway believed in corporal punishment, and Hemingway’s sister Marcelline recalls her father using a razor strap occasionally and then compelling his children to kneel and ask God’s forgiveness for their transgressions. The Hemingway household upheld high standards: Jack London’s works were forbidden for their “coarseness” (Sanford, 1999, p. 107), and after reading In Our Time, Hemingway’s father wrote Ernest that “no gentleman spoke of venereal disease outside a doctor’s office” (Sanford, 1999, p. 219). Ed Hemingway was horrified by the news of the breakup of his son’s marriage and wrote, “Our family has never had such an incident before and trust you may still make your get-away from that individual who split your home. . . . Put on the arrows of God and shun evil companions” (Mellow, 1992, p. 342). He called the adulterers “Love Pirates” and wrote that he wished them in hell (Mellow, 1992, p. 342). As Hemingway’s older sister recalls of her father, “the rules he had in his own mind as to what was right and what was wrong were very rigid. With him it

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was black and white with very little gray between” (Sanford, 1999, p. 39). Mel Gibson’s father also sees morality in absolute terms: “There’s right and wrong, and that’s all there is” (Pendreigh, 1997, p. 26). “The greatest benefit anyone can have is to be a Catholic,” he once said. “You have the life-long satisfaction of being right” (Clarkson, 1999, p. 5; Pendreigh, 1997, p. 26). Hutton Gibson, Jr., entered a Catholic seminary as a young man and studied to be a priest but eventually dropped out. He seems to have felt the Catholic Church was not sufficiently conservative in its practices, and he particularly opposed the Church’s move away from the traditional Latin Mass and other reforms resulting from the Vatican II conference (Clarkson, 1999, p. 41; Pendreigh, 1997, pp. 26–27; Perry, 1993, p. 10). He apparently believes that Jews have infiltrated the Catholic Church (Clarkson, 1999, pp. 41–43; Pendreigh, 1997, p. 26). Like Hemingway’s father, he resorted to corporal punishment. “Hutt believed in the power of the hand. If the children did not behave they got hit,” one family friend told a biographer (Clarkson, 1999, p. 18). Gibson’s father prohibited not just the usual cursing, smoking, and drinking, but also television, comic books, and most movies (Clarkson, 1999, pp. 18–19).

EMOTIONAL VOLATILITY It’s interesting that both Hemingway and Gibson have chosen to revive muscular Christian themes in their art from a Catholic perspective; the muscular Christian movement has its roots solidly in English and American Protestantism, and Catholic involvement has traditionally been marginal (Putney, 2001, pp. 87–89). I think it’s significant (and revealing, and again, not coincidental) that it is the Catholic Church that has the strongest strictures against suicide of perhaps any mainstream Christian denomination. Both Hemingway and Gibson experienced profound emotional depression as young men. While Hemingway is known to have suffered from manic depression late in life and ultimately committed suicide, it has never been conclusively determined when the mood disorder first manifested itself. Noting that most people with the disorder begin to experience symptoms during their twenties, Peter L. Hays (1995) makes a persuasive (if admittedly speculative) case that He-

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mingway was already experiencing symptoms as early as 1923–25, when he would have been 23 to 26 years old. Hemingway wrote “Today is Friday” in May 1926 (Smith, 1989, p. 154). He claimed to George Plimpton to have written it along with “The Killers” and “Ten Indians” all in the same day, possibly during a manic interlude. “I had so much juice I thought maybe I was going crazy,” he told Plimpton (1986, p. 122). His mood did not last long; that same month he wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “I feel too low to write” (Baker, 1981, p. 203). Hemingway’s self-disgust was profound: He signed another letter to Fitzgerald, “Ernest M. Shit” (Baker, 1981, p. 205). Hemingway was guilt-stricken over his adulterous affair with Pauline Pfeiffer. In February he had sailed to New York to switch publishers, and upon his return, stayed in Paris with Pauline rather than going on to Schruns, Austria, where his wife, Hadley, and their son were staying (Baker, 1969, pp. 165–66). As Hemingway himself (1964) later acknowledged in A Moveable Feast, “I did my business in New York and when I got back to Paris I should have caught the first train from the Gare de l’Est that would take me down to Austria. But the girl I was in love with was in Paris then, and I did not take the first train, or the second or the third” (p. 210). In a passage that does not appear in the published book, he wrote that “the unbelievable wrenching, killing happiness, selfishness and treachery of everything we did gave me such a terrible remorse” (Baker, 1969, pp. 165–66). Hemingway’s conscience seems to have tormented him for a long time over his betrayal of his wife. “Ernest felt very sorry that he was doing this to me,” Hadley herself told researcher Alice Sokoloff (Diliberto, 1992, p. 230). “He had dreadful remorse. It made me suffer to see the way he suffered for me. I don’t think he ever did get over it, but I tried to make him feel it was all right” (Diliberto, 1992, p. 230). Biographer Carlos Baker (1969) notes that Hemingway was contemplating suicide as early as March 1926 (two months before he wrote “Today is Friday”), citing as evidence Hemingway’s own journal entry, in which he contemplates the mechanics of suicide at some length: I like to think about death and the various ways of dying. And I think probably the best way, unless you could arrange to die

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THE BEST OF JMMS some way while asleep, would be to go off a liner at night. That way there could be no doubt about the thing going through and it does not seem a nasty death. There would only be the moment of taking the jump and it is very easy for me to take almost any sort of jump. Also it would never be definitely known what happened and there would be no post mortems and no expenses left for any one to pay and there would always be the chance that you might be given credit for an accident. (Baker, 1969, p. 167)

 Hemingway resumed his affair with Pauline at the end of March, and Hadley confronted him about it later that spring (Baker, 1969, p. 168). Hemingway was profoundly troubled by his betrayal of his wife and later confessed in a November 12th letter to Pauline, “Last fall I said perfectly calmly and not bluffingly and during one of the good times that if this wasn’t cleared up by Christmas I would kill myself” (Baker, 1981, p. 222). He wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in September 1926, “Still having been in hell now since around last Christmas with plenty of insomnia to light the way around so I could study the terrain I get sort of used to it and even fond of it and probably would take pleasure in showing people around. As we make our hell we certainly should like it” (Baker, 1981, p. 217). In November, he wrote Fitzgerald, “Anyway I’m now all through with the general bumping off phase and will only bump off now under certain special circumstances which I don’t think will arise. Have refrained from any half turnings on of the gas or slitting of the wrist with sterilized safety razor blades” (Baker, 1981, p. 232). Clearly, before writing “Today is Friday,” Hemingway had experienced suicidal thoughts and what certainly sounds like clinical depression. There is no evidence that Mel Gibson has ever been diagnosed with either depression or bipolar disorder. Yet his emotional volatility has been widely publicized and was evident very early in his career: “Intriguingly, Mel was at the time already becoming a two-levels personality, even admitting once that he had ‘this maniac inside, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde thing’” (Clarkson, 1999, p. 44). One of the extras on the 1984 film The Bounty called him “a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde figure . . . in the day all solemn while at night he got drunk and did wild and crazy things” (Clarkson, 1999, p. 159).

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(Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is regarded by one researcher who herself has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a particularly apt rendering of what it is like to have “conflicting, or polar, selves” [Jamison, 1993, pp. 126–27].) An early girlfriend reported that Gibson had extreme mood swings: “He could have very solemn moods and be very miserable, [and] then he would be up again. I remember discussing the fact of there being no middle ground with him. He said he was on an even keel but the truth was that one moment he was funny, [and] the next he was quiet and introverted” (Clarkson, 1999, p. 75). Biographers have noted his bouts with alcoholism, an affliction that he has said runs in his family (Clarkson, 1999, p. 316). While not all alcoholics are mentally ill, alcoholics are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with manic depression, perhaps in an attempt to self-medicate (Jamison, 1993, pp. 37–38); Hemingway, who was diagnosed with manic depression late in life, was himself a lifelong alcoholic. Gibson repeatedly drank until he blacked out (Clarkson, 1999, p. 193) and (like Hemingway) has sometimes become involved in bar brawls (Clarkson, 1999, pp. 269–70). He liked to mix a double Scotch with beer, a combination he called “liquid violence” (Clarkson, 1999, pp. 159–60). In April 1984 he was arrested in Toronto for drunk driving after he rear-ended another vehicle; he later pled guilty (Pendreigh, 1997, p. 109). “What I probably needed were some guys in white jackets,” one biographer has quoted Gibson as saying about that time in retrospect. “I was going around the twist. I knew I had to channel the maniac inside me. I had to get hold of it” (Perry, 1993, p. 128). He later conceded that a doctor had diagnosed damage to his liver as a result of his excessive drinking (Perry, 1993, p. 148). His emotional volatility manifested itself in other ways, as well. In Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM, Peter Bart writes of Gibson’s 1984 film Mrs. Soffel, “By the time the shoot was over, some $50,000 had been spent to repair damage inflicted on his rented house in Toronto as a result of the actor’s after-hours tantrums” (Pendreigh, 1997, p. 112). Gibson behaved erratically in interviews, cursing, spitting, confessing he was intoxicated, and calling Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome “a piece of shit” to an on-set reporter (Perry, 1993, pp. 135–37; Pendreigh, 1997, p. 117). In 1993, the tabloids published embarrassing photographs of a drunken Gibson drinking from a woman’s high-heeled shoe and

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otherwise acting out and misbehaving after too much carousing in a Modesto, California, bar two years earlier; by the time the story had appeared, Gibson was a recovering alcoholic attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings (Clarkson, 1999, pp. 255–58; Perry, 1993, pp. 230–40). In a 2004 interview, he said, “I checked into a few places and sorted myself out. I didn’t make a big noise about it” (Mel, 2004). In August 2006, however, Gibson pleaded no contest to a charge of driving under the influence and was sentenced to three years’ probation (Mel, 2006). A vitriolic anti-Semitic outburst during his arrest received worldwide publicity and resulted in two public statements of apology from the star, who was also sentenced to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings several times a week for a year. Gibson volunteered to enter a rehabilitation program and make public service announcements. Gibson has publicly admitted his own difficulties with emotions: “I’m not the most articulate guy. I think a lot of men from Australia are not too good about expressing their feelings” (Pendreigh, 1997, p. 160). Nevertheless, he began seeing a psychiatrist soon after a promotional tour for Hamlet (Clarkson, 1999, p. 301). The scene in which Martin Riggs, Gibson’s character in Lethal Weapon, holds a gun to his head genuinely frightened the director with its intensity, and both the director and Gibson later told (probably apocryphal) stories in which they claimed the gun might have had a real bullet in it (Perry, 1993, p. 152; Pendreigh, 1997, pp. 126–27). It’s probably not coincidental that he has chosen to play so many troubled characters who flirt with suicide—not just Riggs, but also Fletcher Christian and Hamlet: “In all three instances, the viewer is left uncertain of whether he is performing like a lunatic to unsettle his foes or if he really is a lunatic who has lost control” (Perry, 1993, pp. 211-12). Gibson himself has been quoted singling out Hamlet’s mental instability as the central element in his personality: “He’s a minefield of contradictions and ambiguities and can be both acutely sensitive and brutally cruel, and he has no sense of proportion or timing. Hamlet can be rational, yet volatile. The man was a livin’ time bomb and that’s how I decided to play him” (Perry, 1993, p. 200). During the filming of the 1991 movie Hamlet, Gibson confessed to a friend “that sometimes he felt like shooting himself” (Pendreigh, 1997, p. 151).

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FAITH AND SALVATION FROM SUICIDE Both Gibson and Hemingway draw on a longstanding tradition within muscular Christianity that its peculiar combination of faith and athleticism could cure depression—or, to use the late nineteenth-century term, “neurasthenia”—an illness characterized by “headaches, backaches, worry, hypochondria, melancholia, digestive irregularities, [and] nervous exhaustion”(Putney, 2001, pp. 26– 28). Gibson has acknowledged to a reporter that faith has helped him with the problems in his life (Perry, 1993, p. 222). More recently, he has publicly credited his faith with literally saving his life: “At the height of his stardom, he has said, he was drowning in fame, wealth, drink and despair—until he fell to his knees, asked God’s help and returned to the rigid Catholicism of his youth” (“Gospel of Mel,” 2004, p. 82). In a 2004 interview, Gibson has perhaps been most open about the role his faith played in saving him from killing himself, telling interviewer Diane Sawyer that the film originated in a suicidal moment he experienced 13 years earlier:

 Am I going to jump? Am I going to go on? I don’t want to do either. I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die. You ask yourself all these Hamlet questions, and eventually you just have to say, “I’m not good enough to figure this out. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Help! If there’s anything out there, help!” And if you’re lucky, you’ll recognize the signs of that help. (Mel, 2004)

 When Sawyer probed for specifics, asking, “You thought of jumping out a window?” Gibson responded, “I really did, yeah. I was looking down thinking, ‘It is just easier this way.’ You have to be mad—you have to be insane to despair that way. But that is the height of spiritual bankruptcy. There’s nothing left . . .” (Mel, 2004). He turned to prayer, rereading the Gospels and meditating upon their meaning. “I had to use the Passion of Christ and wounds to heal my wounds,” he has said (“Gospel of Mel,” 2004, p. 82). He told Sawyer “I have to” believe in the Gospels’ message. “Have to?” she asked, and he affirmed, “I have to.” “For?” she re-

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sponded. “For my own sake,” Gibson answered. “So I can hope” (Mel, 2004). By his own testimony, then, it is his faith that saves him from the sin of suicidal despair. Hemingway was less overt about recognizing faith as a source of strength in his own struggles with mental illness. But in January 1926 (just five months before composing “Today is Friday”), he wrote, “If I am anything I am a Catholic. Had extreme unction administered to me as such in July 1918 and recovered. So I guess I’m a Super-Catholic. . . . Am not what is called a ‘good’ Catholic. . . . But cannot imagine taking any other religion seriously” (Meyers, 1985, p. 184). H. R. Stoneback (1991) has documented that Hemingway attended Mass regularly from December 1925 to 1927 (p. 129). Perhaps part of the attraction of Catholicism for both men is the role that it gives Mary. Women have generally received short shrift in the Protestant muscular Christian tradition; crafting a Catholic muscular Christianity offers scope for a revision of that traditional exclusion of women. In an implicit condemnation of the disciples, Hemingway notes in his short story which followers remain with Christ throughout his final hours: “Just the women stuck by him” (Hemingway, 1938, p. 358), a point that is then reiterated twice more in the text. Of course, he also has the soldiers admire Mary Magdalene’s good looks and vulgarly acknowledge the tradition (now widely discredited by Biblical scholars) that she was a prostitute (“I used to see her around the town,” says the first soldier [Hemingway, 1938, p.358]). Gibson emphasizes the Virgin Mary’s sufferings as a mother and makes her the audience surrogate, the focal character of Christ’s passion. We witness Christ’s sufferings through her eyes. In their art, both Hemingway and Gibson make it clear that Christ is so important partly because his suffering is not that different from ours. Betrayal is the shared human condition (Flora, 1993). Probably because of preoccupation with his own guilt, it is also the theme of all three of the short stories Hemingway finished in a single day in 1926 (Flora, 1993, pp. 18–19). The title of “Today is Friday” refers not only to the Good Friday of the Crucifixion but to today, the day we read this play. Its contemporary dialogue further suggests that we are complicit in Christ’s death. Gibson chooses Aramaic and Latin dialogue, yet despite this potentially distancing choice, his film, too, underscores the audi-

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ence’s complicity in Christ’s execution: “It’s the director’s left hand nailing Jesus to the cross. The cameo is more than a Hitchcockian gimmick. Gibson feels his telling of the Passion holds all humanity responsible for the death of Jesus. And he has said, ‘I’m first on line for culpability. I did it’” (“Gospel of Mel,” 2004, p. 88). In addressing a group of religious leaders in Chicago, Gibson told them, “For culpability, look to yourself. I look to myself” (Neff, 2004, p. 33). Critic Wirt Williams (1981) contends that in Hemingway’s Weltanschauung, all men share not only in the guilt for Christ’s betrayal but also in Christ’s suffering: “they are born to be crucified and to triumph, if they can, within that crucifixion” (p. 164). Philip Young (1966), alluding to a famous line from A Farewell to Arms, makes a similar point: “the world not only breaks, it crucifies, everyone,” and “when it comes, and they nail you up, the important thing is to be pretty good in there” (p. 130).

THE IMPORTANCE OF PAIN Both Hemingway and Gibson are using the Crucifixion as a trope for the intense physical and mental suffering of depression. Referring to Christ’s trial, scourging, and the procession up the hill to His execution, Diane Sawyer observes that “In Gibson’s film it becomes an intricate, almost unrelenting choreography of pain” (Mel, 2004). Many viewers find the film’s violence gratuitous, and one New Testament scholar has publicly complained that Gibson has put brutality at the heart of Christianity (Mel, 2004). While the scholar meant this comment as a criticism, it accurately describes Gibson’s project. For Gibson, Christ’s pain is the point. “He was beaten for our iniquities. He was wounded for our transgressions. And by His Wounds we are healed. That’s the point of the film,” Gibson told Sawyer, drawing on Isaiah 53:5. In some ways, The Passion of the Christ is the apotheosis of Gibson’s career, a career devoted to playing battered and bruised icons of masculinity. Notable examples include his characters in the films Lethal Weapon (where Martin Riggs is sprayed with water and then shocked with electricity while he hangs by the wrists from the ceiling), Payback (where Porter is shot, run over, repeatedly beaten, and sledgehammered), and Braveheart (where William Wallace is stretched on the rack and then disemboweled). As Jeffrey A. Brown wrote presciently in 2002, “The self-sacrificing, Christ-like

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violence suffered by Gibson’s characters not only proves the superiority of their manliness but also sanctifies the supposedly higher moral value of that manliness. The Gibson protagonist suffers not just for himself but for a higher purpose, and thus his followers in the films (and by extension we in the audience) are saved” (Brown, 2002, p. 137). These characters prefigure Gibson’s direction of actor James Caviezel as the protagonist of The Passion of the Christ. “This is a Jesus who can take the pain,” one film critic has said. “Mel Gibson has reinvented Jesus in his own image” (“Gospel of Mel,” 2004, p. 83). Gibson has acknowledged that the film’s intensity is intentional:

 I wanted it to be shocking, and I also wanted it to be extreme. I wanted it to push the viewer over the edge, and it does that. I think it pushes one over the edge so that they see the enormity—the enormity of that sacrifice—to see that someone could endure all that and still come back with love and forgiveness even through extreme pain and suffering and ridicule. (Mel, 2004)

 As Gibson himself puts it, “Pain is the precursor to change. That’s the good news” (Mel, 2004). Hemingway draws on Tertullian, a native of Carthage (now Tunisia), North Africa, born around 150 A.D. and the first Christian theologian to write in Latin, to make the same point. An alternate title Hemingway rejected for the story is “Today is Friday, or The Seed of the Church” (Smith, 1989, p.154). The second title is an allusion to Tertullian’s famous quotation, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” (qtd. in Pearse). Christ’s martyrdom is what causes Christianity to blossom. While I am presenting a case here for a particular reading of these two works, it is important to note that both Hemingway’s short story and Gibson’s film have been read as distasteful, and in the case of the film, even as sadistic or pornographic. Both works also have troubling anti-Semitic elements. Hemingway uses the term “kike,” which belatedly reveals that George, the tavernkeeper, is Jewish, only after he has George say of the Crucifixion, “I’ll tell you, gentleman, I wasn’t out there. It’s a thing I haven’t taken any

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interest in” (Hemingway, 1938, p. 357). His humor here is unpleasant and heavy-handed. As for Gibson’s film, Diane Sawyer cited the history of the Passion Plays as incitements to anti-Semitism; traditionally, Jews have feared the Easter season because Good Friday was a day of pogroms (“Gospel of Mel,” 2004, p. 86). While it is not in my judgment genuinely anti-Semitic, the film does show some stereotyped Jewish figures and does seem to hold the Jewish high priest Caiaphas more responsible than the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for Christ’s crucifixion. It seems evident that both artists intended their work to be understood as a tribute to Christ’s suffering, but if that was in fact the way the story and film were intended to be read, then both have been subjected to multiple misreadings. Audiences have read the linkage of sport and faith in Hemingway’s film as a trivialization of faith (rather than as an elevation of sport); similarly, filmgoers have found it difficult to relate Christ’s extraordinary physical suffering in Gibson’s film to their own lives. Neither work, then, has entirely achieved its creator’s goals for it. Yet both men value these works. Hemingway asked for the manuscript back when he sent the play off to be published (Smith, 1989, p. 155) and included “Today is Friday” in anthologies for the rest of his life. Gibson has admitted to investing roughly $30 million of his own money into his film (Mel, 2004).

CHRIST’S CHOICE Both men seem particularly fascinated with the self-willed quality of Christ’s suffering on the cross. Perhaps it is because both contemplated escaping from their own emotional suffering through suicide that they both so admire a Lord who chose to endure suffering that He could easily have chosen to escape. Christ voluntarily chooses the Crucifixion. Biblical scholars have pointed out that Jesus could have escaped from the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest but chose not to take any of the possible escape routes, instead allowing Himself to be captured and put on trial (Mel, 2004). As one of the Roman soldiers explains in “Today is Friday,” “He didn’t want to come down off the cross. That’s not his play” (Hemingway, 1938, p. 357). He also chooses consciousness: “When Jesus was offered wine with myrrh (Mark 15:23) before he was put on the cross, a palliative to lessen the pain, he refused. He suffered the lengthy agony of crucifixion cold sober by choice. The centuri-

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ons, on the other hand, afterward resort to alcohol and are a ‘little cock-eyed’” (Bennett, 1995, p. 206). The second soldier in “Today is Friday,” the least sensitive of the three, simply refuses to believe that Christ would willingly have accepted this death: “When they first start nailing him, there’s none of them wouldn’t stop it if they could” (Hemingway, 1938, p. 357). The irony lies in the fact that Christ could stop it but chooses not to. There is a haunting implication in the film that Christ Himself may have come very close to the kind of suicidal despair that both Hemingway and Gibson experienced: “Gibson’s Satan . . . functions throughout this film as the visual and constant reminder of the temptation to terminal despair that tortures Jesus even more than his physical punishment” (Woodward, 2004, p. 15). If we accept this reading, Christ becomes—like Hemingway, like Gibson— a man battling suicidal despair to triumph spiritually not just in spite of, but because of, his own suffering. It is in this sense that Christ becomes an exemplar for all of us: “‘Today is Friday’ is Hemingway’s assessment of the degree to which Christ is a true exemplar figure for modern man” (Bennett, 1995, p. 204). I want to suggest that both “Today is Friday” and The Passion of the Christ are works of gratitude—moral reparations, working off a debt. These men are trying to give to others (and perhaps especially to vigorous, athletic, otherwise healthy young men suffering from depression) what they believe Christ has, through His suffering, given to them—a spiritual exemplar, the moral strength to reject suicidal despair, a sense of hope. As usual, Gibson (2003) is more open about his aims, writing in his (unpaginated) foreword to the book The Passion: Photography from the Movie The Passion of the Christ, “My new hope is that The Passion of the Christ will help many more people recognize the power of His love and let Him help them to save their own lives.”

REFERENCES Ansen, D. (2004, March 1). So what’s the good news? Newsweek, 143 (9), 60. Baker, C. (1969). Ernest Hemingway: A life story. New York: Scribner’s. Baker, C. (Ed.). (1981). Ernest Hemingway: Selected letters, 1917-1961. New York: Scribner’s.

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Baker, C. (1963). Ernest Hemingway: The writer as artist. 3rd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Barton, B. (1925). The man nobody knows. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company. Bennett, W. (1995). Hemingway’s “Today is Friday” as a Ballad of the Goodly Fere. In F. J. Svoboda and J. J. Waldmeir (Eds.). Hemingway: Up in Michigan perspectives (pp. 203-11). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Brasch, J. D., & Sigman, J. (1981). Hemingway’s library: A composite record. New York: Garland. Brown, J. A. (2002). The tortures of Mel Gibson. Men and Masculinities, 5(2), 123-43. Clarkson, W. (1999). Mel Gibson: Living dangerously. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press. Diliberto, G. (1992). Hadley. New York: Ticknor & Fields. Flora, J. M. (1993). “Today is Friday” and the pattern of Men Without Women. Hemingway Review, 13(1), 17-35. Fried, R. M. (2005). The man everybody knew: Bruce Barton and the making of modern America. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Gibson, M. (2003). Foreword. The Passion: Photography from the movie The Passion of the Christ. Icon Distribution, Inc. Glucklich, A. (2001). Sacred pain: Hurting the body for the sake of the soul. New York: Oxford University Press. The Gospel of Mel. (2004, March 8). People, 61(9), 82-88. Hays, P. L. (1995). Hemingway’s clinical depression: A speculation. Hemingway Review, 14(2), 50-63. Hemingway, E. (1964). A moveable feast. New York: Scribner’s. Hemingway, E. (1938). Today is Friday. The short stories. New York: Scribner’s. Hemingway, M. (1964, May 10). The making of the book: A chronicle and a memoir. New York Times, pp. 26-27. Retrieved Sept. 20, 2006, from http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/heming way-mary.html. Howald, E. (2003, January 17). Win one for the Gipper! The Observer Online. Retrieved Sept. 20, 2006, from http://www.nd.edu/~observer/01172003/ Scene/0.html. Jamison, K. R. (1993). Touched with fire: Manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament. New York: Free Press.

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Krondorfer, B. (2004). Mel Gibson’s alter ego: A male passion for violence. Cross Currents, 54(1), 16-21. Ladd, T., & Mathisen, J. A. (1999). Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the development of American sport. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. Lawler, J. (2004). God and man separated no more: Hegel overcomes the unhappy consciousness of Gibson’s Christianity. In J. J. E. Garcia (Ed.), Mel Gibson’s Passion and philosophy: The cross, the questions, the controversy (pp. 9-24). Chicago: Open Court. Mel Gibson pleads no contest in DUI case. (2006, Aug. 17). Retrieved Sept. 13, 2006, from www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/17/melgibson. plea/index.html Mel Gibson’s passion: An Interview with Mel Gibson by Diane Sawyer [Television broadcast]. (2004). Orland Park, Illinois. MPI Home Video. Mellow, J. R. (1992). Hemingway: A life without consequences. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Meyers, J. (1985). Hemingway: A biography. New York: Harper & Row. Monteiro, G. (1997). Grace, good works, and the Hemingway ethic. In A. Barnstone, M.T. Manson, & C. J. Singley (Eds.), The Calvinist roots of the modern era (pp. 73-90). Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Montgomery, E. S. (1985). Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knows: A popular advertising illusion. Journal of Popular Culture, 19(3), 21-34. Neff, D. (2004). The cross and film: The passion of Mel Gibson. Christianity Today, 48(3), 30-35. Pearse, R. (Ed.). (1999, Dec. 10). Quotations. The Tertullian Project. Retrieved Sept. 20, 2006, from http://www.tertullian.org/quotes.htm. Pendreigh, B. (1997). Mel Gibson and his movies. London: Bloomsbury. Perry, R. (1993). Lethal hero: The Mel Gibson biography. UK (no city given): Oliver Books. Petrakis, J. (2004, March 23). Tough guy. Christian Century, 121(8), 40.

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Plimpton, G. (1986). The art of fiction: Ernest Hemingway. In M. J. Bruccoli (Ed.), Conversations with Ernest Hemingway (pp. 10929). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. (Reprinted from The Paris Review, 5 [1958], 60-89.) Putney, C. (2001). Muscular Christianity: Manhood and sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reynolds, M. (1986). The young Hemingway. New York: Basil Blackwell. Sanford, M. H. (1999). At the Hemingways: With fifty years of correspondence between Ernest and Marcelline Hemingway. Centennial edition. Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press. Scott, A. O. (2004, February 25). FILM REVIEW: Good and evil locked in violent showdown. New York Times, E1. Smith. P. (1989). Reader’s guide to the short stories of Ernest Hemingway. Boston: Hall. Stoneback, H. R. (1991). In the nominal country of the bogus: Hemingway’s Catholicism and the biographies. In Frank Scafella (Ed.), Hemingway: Essays of reassessment (pp. 105-40). New York: Oxford University Press. Van Biema, D. (2004, April 12). Why did Jesus die? Time, 163(15), 54-61. Verduin, K. (1987). The Lord of heroes: Hemingway and the crucified Christ. Religion and Literature, 19, 21-41. Wagner, L. W. (Ed.). (1987). Ernest Hemingway: Six decades of criticism. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan State University Press. Wieseltier, L. (2004, March 8). The worship of blood. The New Republic, 230 (8), 19-21. Williams, P. J. (2004, March 22). And the winner is . . . The Nation, 278 (11), 9. Williams, W. (1981). The tragic art of Ernest Hemingway. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Woodward, K. L. (2004, June/July). The Passion’s passionate despisers. First things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life, 144, 13-16. Young, P. (1966). Ernest Hemingway: A reconsideration. Rev. ed. New York: Harbinger, 1966.

5 TO LOVE THE ORIENTALIST: MASCULINITY IN LEILA ABOULELA’S THE

TRANSLATOR

BRENDAN SMYTH UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA [email protected] ABSTRACT This paper examines representations of Orientalist and Islamic masculinity in Leila Aboulela’s The Translator. In her representation of the character of Rae Isles, Aboulela writes back to repressive Western traditions of Orientalist masculinity, fashions a narrative which negotiates a way out of stagnant binaries of West and East, and offers a model of progressive, socially engaged masculinity rooted in Islamic tradition.20 Early in Leila Aboulela’s (2001b) The Translator, as Sammar and Yasmin leave Rae’s flat, Sammar remarks that Rae is “sort of familiar, like people from back home [Sudan]” (p. 21). Yasmin replies, “He’s an orientalist. It’s an occupational hazard” (p. 21). Sammar is uncomfortable with Orientalism: “[She] did not like the word orientalist. Orientalists were bad people who distorted the image of the Arabs and Islam. Something from school history or literature, she could not remember. Maybe modern orientalists were differ20 An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the Middle Eastern and African Studies 2nd Annual Graduate/Undergraduate Conference, Engaging with Africa and the Middle East through Research on January 26, 2007 at the University of Alberta. I am grateful to the participants at the conference and the reviewers at Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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ent” (p. 22). Despite Sammar’s evident discomfort, in this moment she holds out the possibility that cross-cultural relationships can exist which do not serve to suppress difference—perhaps the Orientalist can be redeemed. It is this moment in the text which highlights the convergence and interdependence of the discourses of Orientalism, Islam, religion, academia and masculinity within the novel, particularly as they are represented in the character of Rae Isles. I want to explore how Aboulela’s representations of Rae ultimately subvert conventional Orientalist notions of masculinity. To do this, I examine how Aboulela’s novel writes back not only to Western traditions of Orientalism and romance, but also engages with Aboulela’s own Sudanese Islamic literary tradition. Out of this writing-back, Aboulela fashions a narrative which provides a way out of the stagnant binaries of West and East, and repressive constructions of Islam and masculinity. Writing about women’s narratives in the postcolonial Arab world, Miriam Cooke argues: Women who have learned as feminists to form principled and strategic alliances and networks that allow them to balance their religious, specifically Islamic loyalties, with national, local, class, ethnic, or any other allegiances may be able to invent a contestatory but also enabling discourse within the global context that will not be easily co-opted. They may thus initiate new forms of conversations across what were previously thought to be unbridgeable chasms. (Cooke, 2000, p. 177)

It is in light of Cooke’s claims that I explore The Translator. First published in 1999, The Translator explores the relationship between Sammar, a young Sudanese woman who has recently lost her husband, and Rae Isles, a Scottish academic who studies MiddleEastern history and gives lectures on Postcolonial Politics. Sammar works for Rae at the University of Aberdeen as a translator of Arabic texts, and over the course of the novel, they develop a romantic relationship. However, as Rae is initially unwilling to convert to Islam in order to marry Sammar, Sammar returns to Khartoum to be with her family and son. Aboulela represents Sammar as a woman who must balance religious and national loyalties with her love for Rae, who must resist co-optation by Orientalist discourse,

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and who must initiate and sustain a conversation between East and West, Scotland and Sudan. Through her subversion of Orientalist Western masculinity, and her depiction of Rae’s eventual conversion to Islam, Aboulela narrates and negotiates a potential bridge across these divides. The figure of the male Orientalist features prominently in Aboulela’s writing. In her story “The Museum,” awarded the Caine prize in 2000, Aboulela describes how Shadia, a Sudanese student, finds herself beginning a friendship with Bryan, a Scottish student who has taken a trip to Mecca “In a book” (2001a, p. 112). When Bryan invites her to a museum display about Africa, Shadia finds that “Nothing was of her, nothing belonged to her life at home, what she missed. Here was Europe’s vision, the clichés about Africa: cold and old” (2001a, p. 115). Shadia knows that Bryan’s vision of Africa, the Africa represented in the museum displays and accessed in books, is a European construction which does not correspond to her lived experience. However, she is unable to engage in dialogue with Bryan and challenge the museum’s construction of African identity. When Bryan invites her to speak, offering, “Museums change; I can change...” (2001a, p. 119), Shadia does not respond. The narrator tells us: If she was strong she would have explained and not tired of explaining. She would have patiently taught him another language, letters curved like the epsilon and gamma he knew from mathematics. She would have showed him that words could be read from right to left. If she was not small in the museum, if she was really strong, she would have made his trip to Mecca real, not only in a book. (Aboulela, 2001a, p. 119)

While Bryan appears to be open to having his Orientalist misconceptions challenged, Shadia feels unable to do so. Her inability to sustain a conversation with Bryan signals a failure to challenge the dominant Orientalist discourses represented in the museum displays. Both she and Brian are victims of the misrepresentation of her culture. In The Translator, however, Aboulela provides an alternative narrative for the relationship between a Muslim woman and Orientalist man.

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To understand how Orientalist discourse works, especially how it forms and sustains hegemonic notions of masculinity, I want to turn for a moment Edward Said’s Orientalism. Said argues: Taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient. (Said, 1994, p. 3)

Said continues: “[Orientalism] is, rather than expresses, a certain will or intention to understand, in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different ... world” (p. 12). Orientalism, then, is a discourse which enables the West to create, to manipulate, and to control the Orient. The terms Said uses—“dominate,” “authority,” “ruling,” “authorizing”—are familiar words in terms of studies on masculinity. Hegemonic notions of masculinity are intertwined with notions of power and dominance over the feminized Other. Orientalism then, can be understood as a discourse informed by notions of Western masculinity in which the West is strong, upright, rational, and male, while the Orient is weak, passive, irrational, and female (Said, 1994, pp. 137–138). Said recognizes the long-standing relationship between academia, intellectuals and Orientalism; while he acknowledges the fact that scholars may be motivated by a genuine will to understand the Other, many academics, however, play an instrumental role in constructing and sustaining conceptions of the Orient which serve to authorize Western geo-political policies. It is against this background, then, that we are to understand the representation of Rae Isles: he participates in an academic area of study which is complicit in constructing the West and the Orient in gendered terms. He is already imbricated within a discourse where he is an empowered, mobile, highly masculine figure. Rae is a well-respected scholar in his field—his opinions on Middle Eastern issues are sought by various media outlets, and his book—The Illusion of an Islamic Threat (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 5)—receives positive reviews. Several times, Sammar remarks that Rae teaches her things

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about Islam that she doesn’t know (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 93). However, as John Stotesbury (2004) emphasizes, Rae encounters the Muslim world from the subject position of the aloof, detached, objective Western intellectual. Yasmin, Rae’s secretary, also comments on Rae’s attitude towards knowledge, telling Sammar that “[western scholars] could study all sorts of sacred texts and be detached” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 93). These attributes of detachment and objectivity are what make a good Western scholar. Rae himself tells Sammar, “I believed the best I could do, what I owed a place and people who had deep meaning for me, was to be objective, detached. In the middle of all the prejudice and hypocrisy, I wanted to be one of the few who was saying what was reasonable and right” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 128). The detachment of the Orientalist masculine subject is what authorizes him to make objective, or “right,” knowledge claims about other cultures. Rae’s perception of his own masculinity is bound up in what he considers to be his capacity to access and make objective knowledge claims while remaining disengaged from any socio-cultural context. His appeals to reason and objectivity simply replicate Orientalist justifications for authorizing representations of the Other. Sammar’s discomfort with Rae’s status as Orientalist is similar to Shadia’s experience of feeling overwhelmed by the museum displays. However, Sammar has the strength to confront Rae’s Orientalist position. She tells him, “Don’t you realize how much you hurt me staying objective and detached, like you are above all of this, above me, looking down” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 128). Her point is that Rae’s professed detachment and objectivity is in fact an illusion. Rae is not able to remain apart from socio-cultural contexts. Instead, Rae’s Orientalist masculinity is tied to his position of privilege and status as a white, European/Western academic, whose intellectual virility allows him to authorize, to know, to understand, and to have power over the Orient. However, while Rae’s academic pursuits make him an Orientalist, Aboulela’s representations of Rae work to subvert this notion of masculinity and power. The first thing that troubles the notion of Rae as Orientalist is the fact that he needs a translator. He needs Sammar to help him make sense of—to help him read—the Orient. Sammar sees her job as a translator as “moulding Arabic into English, trying to be transparent like a pane of glass not obscuring the meaning of any word” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 167). She strives for transparency, yet

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her presence is always already mediating Rae’s access to the texts he studies. She chooses the words that he works with. Because translation always involves interpretation, Sammar’s role as intermediary between Arabic and English begins in her interpretation of the texts she translates for Rae. Denys Johnson-Davies (1983), a translator of several Arabic texts, including Season of Migration to the North, explains that when working on translating Hadiths and other religious texts, “accuracy must have ascendancy over any other consideration” (p. 83). Sammar herself privileges accuracy in her translations of Hadiths; in a conversation with Rae about a text she has found, she elaborates on the way she would have altered the translation of one of the Qudsi Hadiths (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 42).21 In the translation of sacred texts, achieving accuracy for Sammar means to not obscure the meaning of a given passage. Her practice of translation acknowledges that meanings are not static and fixed, but are contested and contingent upon specific socio-cultural and historical contexts. Her work challenges the sense of detachment and objectivity prized by Western academic discourse. For Sammar, understanding texts, particularly sacred texts, is inseparable from engaging with the subject matter of those texts. Another way the novel’s representation of Rae challenges Orientalist notions of Western masculinity is through Rae’s illness. Rae is not a physically strong person. Where Western notions of intellectual activity have traditionally associated the masculine with the disembodied mind, Rae’s intellect is fastened to a dying animal. Rae and Sammar are aware of the fact of Rae’s embodiment, of the fact that he is not a disengaged, disembodied intellect. Stotesbury (2004) argues that Rae’s physical weakness and hospitalization “permits Sammar to approach him on terms of approximate equality” (pp. 74–75). His conversations with Sammar and his academic work are interrupted either by violent coughing fits or by his hospitalization. Thus, Rae’s illness represents the inherent contradictions involved in the notion of Orientalist masculinity. While Rae may The Qudsi Hadiths are texts inspired by Allah, but communicated in the words of Mohammed. The Hadiths are considered supplementary and subordinate to the Qur’an, as the Qur’an is both divinely inspired and “is Allah’s wording” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 42). 21

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claim to be objective, rational, and disengaged, in reality, his body’s emphatic announcement of its presence reveals these Orientalist notions as illusory. Rae’s illness then, is emblematic of a specific hegemonic notion of masculinity in crisis. Aboulela further elaborates the theme of masculinity in crisis by having Rae recount one of his dreams. He tells Sammar, “I was in a big house with many rooms. It was almost like a mansion. I was hiding because outside the house I had been followed, chased for days. I carried a sword in my hand and there was blood on it, my enemies’ blood, but I myself, my clothes and my hands were clean and I was proud of that” (2001b, p. 95). He continues: I went into a room full of smoke, a lot of smoke but when I checked there was no fire. When I left the room, the handle of my sword broke. I held it broken in my hands and knew that it could never be mended, it could never be reliable again. This was a terrible loss, I don’t know why, but I had this feeling of deep loss because I had to go on without the sword. (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 95)

The phallic imagery of the broken sword is clearly suggestive of masculinity in crisis. The blood suggests that the particular conception of masculinity here is one of violence and domination. At the end of the dream, Rae mourns the loss of the power this version of masculinity has conferred upon him. The dream suggests that Rae will no longer be able to authorize truth claims about the Other. There are also strong resonances in this dream with the notion of jihad as an internal spiritual struggle. We could read this dream as suggestive of the way Rae struggles with the notion of conversion to Islam. Again, Rae’s clothes are clean, as he has so far been able to remain disengaged from professing any religious commitments. However, the loss of the sword signals that this disengagement is no longer sustainable. The central thrust of the dream is to reinforce the notion of masculinity in crisis, of hegemonic Orientalist articulations of masculinity being no longer available to Rae. Having explored some of the ways in which Aboulela disrupts hegemonic narratives of Orientalist masculinity in her representations of Rae, I now want to turn to the way Aboulela’s novel en-

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gages with both Western and Eastern literary traditions and representations of Orientalism and masculinity. Aboulela engages with these discourses to open up new conversations and spaces for female agency and cross-cultural, transnational contact. Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North has a strong influence on Aboulela’s novel. First published in Arabic in 1966, a decade after Sudan achieved independence, Salih’s novel focuses primarily on two characters: an unnamed narrator, and Mustapha Sa’eed. Mustapha, as a young Sudanese student, travels first to Cairo, where he is cared for by the Robinsons, and then to London, where he engages in the sexual conquest of several British women, leading them to commit suicide. After spending time in prison for the murder of his English wife Jean Morris, Mustapha returns to Sudan, where he recounts his story to the narrator. As several scholars have pointed out, Salih’s novel is itself a writing-back to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In Salih’s novel, the Arab/African subject voyages to Europe on a mission of postcolonial revenge. Said explains: [I]f you look at it more deeply, it not only contains within it the history of decolonization and reaction to Western imperialism, but it also, in my opinion, deepens the tragedy by showing this man’s reactive revenge, which to many readers in the Third World, in the Arab and African world, is a just revenge. But Salih does it fresh because it’s futile, pathetic, and ultimately tragic. Because it reinforces the cycle of isolation as insufficiency of the politics of identity. It is not enough to just be a black wreaking havoc on a white, there’s another world you have to live in. (Said, 2001, pp. 110–111)

Said’s argument is that Salih’s novel narrates a reaction of revenge against Western imperialism and greed. However, Mustapha’s revenge, while it may appear to be just, is ultimately trapped in the binary opposition between East and West, and traps Mustapha in Orientalist discourses of power and masculinity. The figure of the Orientalist looms large in Salih’s novel. Indeed, Mr. Robinson (Ricky) and his wife, who are Mustapha’s first guides in Cairo, are themselves Orientalists. Mrs. Robinson explains her conception of the role of the Orientalist when she describes the work of her husband: “I shall write of the splendid ser-

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vices Ricky rendered to Arab culture, such as his discovery of so many rare manuscripts, and the commentaries he wrote on them, and the way he supervised the printing of them” (Salih, 1970, p. 148). The role of the Orientalist here is to “discover” the Orient, to comment on it, and to authorize its reproduction. As Mustapha’s guides, the Robinsons play an important role in shaping his conceptions of the Orient and Occident, informing how he presents himself to Europe. As Brian Gibson (2002) argues, Mustapha becomes “a self-fabricated Othello, a man who presented himself as the exotic Oriental savage in order to tempt women” (para. 5). Mustapha, according to Gibson, chooses to inhabit the subject position of the Oriental as it has been defined by Orientalism. His actions become a performance which reinforces Western stereotypes. Indeed, Mustapha has the impulse, as he listens to his lawyer try to defend him, to stand up and claim, “This Mustapha Sa’eed does not exist. He’s an illusion, a lie. I ask of you to rule that the lie be killed” (Salih, 1970, p. 32). He realizes that he has tailored his self-image to reinforce Orientalist conceptions of the Arab man. His self-perceived male vocation to “liberate Africa with my penis” (Salih, 1970, p. 120) legitimates, or acquiesces to, the models of Arab and African masculinity laid out by Western Orientalist discourse. Aboulela acknowledges her literary debt to Salih’s novel by using a quotation from the Season of Migration to the North to introduce Part II of The Translator. Stephan Guth (2003) claims that Aboulela inserts this quotation for two reasons. First, Aboulela wants to show Western readers “that there is also a great indigenous Arab literary heritage, that there exist also Oriental experiences, values, traditions and wisdom which can be drawn upon and which are in no way inferior to their Western equivalents” (p. 6). Second, Guth claims that Aboulela intends “to show herself as belonging to this tradition, to give the impression of a harmony between the great (though secular) tradition and her Islamic humanism” (p. 6). Aboulela’s project, as Guth understands it, is to acknowledge and privilege an Arabic literary tradition within which she sees herself participating. Indeed, the similarities between Aboulela’s novel and Salih’s are many. Both narrate the journeys of Oriental Sudanese subjects to Britain, reversing the Eurocentric point of view of imperial travel narratives. Both narrate the return of the Sudanese

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subject to Sudan. And both narrate intimate relationships between Western and Eastern subjects. However, Sammar’s journey provides an alternative to the discourse of Orientalist masculinity which manifests itself in Sa’eed’s sexual conquests. Geoffrey Nash (2002) argues that Aboulela’s writing is situated “within the feminized space which may be said to operate between the continuing pressures of Western cultural imperialism, and conservative, anti-modernist cultural Islamism” (p. 28). Aboulela’s characters, rather than capitulating to the dominant competing discourses of Orientalism and what Nash identifies as “Islamism,” negotiate a new vision by rejecting the imposition of over-determined Orientalist subjectivities. As we have seen, the novel carefully subverts the authority invested in Orientalist masculinity and knowledge/power. However, both Rae and Sammar reject the positions of the young terrorist who claims, “Western men worship money and women. Some of them see the world through dollar bills, some of them see the world through the thighs of a woman” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 159). Although Rae acknowledges that these groups have “plenty to protest about” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 28), he does not see their policies as a “viable alternative” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 29). Sammar claims that the spelling mistakes and stains on their written manifesto are “pathetic,” and that the manifesto itself gives “a sense of people overwhelmed” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 27). By rejecting the binary oppositions offered by both Orientalist discourse and the rhetoric of terrorist groups, Aboulela’s characters articulate an alternative vision. It is relevant here that Guth claims, “The majority of Western reviewers relate the novel to an extra-literary context, which in most cases is Islamic extremism. They praise Aboulela’s ‘seriousness’ and ‘moderation’ in contrast to the discourse of ‘fundamentalist’ radicals” (p. 14). Guth draws attention to the fact that Aboulela’s novel, while it challenges Western literary and discursive traditions, also makes sure to distance itself from the rhetoric of what Western reviewers would call “Islamic fundamentalism.” The rhetoric of “moderation” and “seriousness” employed in the reviews situates the novel within the boundaries of acceptable public discourse, as opposed to narratives which are “strident” or “fundamentalist” or “apologies for terrorism.” While the rhetoric of moderation may be appropriated by reviewers to avoid discussion of the root causes of protest and social unrest in the Middle East, it

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seems that Aboulela wants to narrate a genuinely viable alternative to the reductive discourse of a “clash of civilizations”—a narrative ultimately underpinned by Orientalist ideology. Aboulela is aware of her text as a writing-back to not only the male Arab literary tradition, but also to various literary traditions in the West, such as the tradition of English romance. In The Translator, Aboulela gently disrupts and subverts some of the conventions of romance narratives. According to Stotesbury (2004), in The Translator, “romantic heterosexual fulfillment can be achieved not through negotiation with the desired male but by means of a complex three-way accommodation that involves woman, man, and God” (p. 80). In other words, Aboulela complicates the standard romance narrative by making the success of the heterosexual romantic liaison contingent upon a successful integration of the desires, or perceived desires, of the man, the woman and God. However, Aboulela does not so much insert religious convention into the romance narrative as she recodifies the religious dilemmas, which are invisible because unexamined, already inherent in Western romance narratives. Aboulela writes: I was often asked “Why should Rae convert, why should religion be an obstacle etc. etc?” In my answer I would then fall back on Jane Eyre and say “From an Islamic point of view, why can’t Mr. Rochester be married to both Bertha and Jane?” In the same way that I, as a Muslim reader, respect and empathize with Jane’s very Christian dilemma, I want Western/Christian readers to respect and empathize with Sammar’s very Muslim dilemma. (Cited in Stotesbury, 2004, p. 81)

In other words, while the presence of Islam or religious belief and custom might seem intrusive in the novel, what Aboulela does by including it is to force us to examine how romance narratives are already encoded within Western, Christian religious conventions which often remain invisible to Western readers. The relationship between Rae and Sammar also challenges a literary tradition of very specific gendered Western discourses about relationships between the East and West. Gayatri Spivak (1999), in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, raises for discussion the idea that most narratives of cross-cultural relationships can be re-

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duced to the claim: “White men are saving brown women from brown men” (p. 284). Lila Abu-Lughod (2002) examines Spivak’s claim and elaborates the ways in which Muslim women were (and continue to be) represented in the popular media and by the current Bush administration as a means to justify the war in Afghanistan, and the larger “War on Terrorism” as necessary in order to save or liberate Afghan women. It is partly to contest this larger hegemonic discourse of white men saving brown women that Aboulela writes her novel. A conventional Western narrative of the relationship between Rae and Sammar might be reduced to the narrative Spivak claims underlies Western, Orientalist romances. According to this tradition, Rae ought to save Sammar from her “backwards,” “primitive” culture. However, The Translator refuses to be reduced in this way. In fact, the novel reverses the conventional rescue narrative and asserts a story in which a brown woman saves a white man from white men (and by white men I mean notions of white masculinity). It is Sammar’s soup which restores Rae’s health, and Sammar tells Rae that conversion to Islam “would be good for you, it will make you stronger” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 89). Sammar does not need a white man to save her. Instead, she saves Rae, both physically and spiritually. Rae’s conversion ascribes agency firmly in the hands of the West’s Other. Stotesbury (2004) suggests that “such novels [as Aboulela’s] reiterate an implacable creed: for an Islamic woman to envisage personal fulfillment with a Western man, there is only one alternative: the man’s conversion to Islam” (p. 80). Stotesbury reads a form of reverse colonization at work in the novel, where the only solution to bridging cultures is for a Western man to convert to Islam. However, I think that this reading is limited in important ways, as the novel clearly acknowledges that there are ways of subverting the requirement for “genuine” conversions (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 92). Indeed, a refusal on Rae’s part to convert would have upheld the narrative of Western values of detachment and objectivity—would have reified Islamic tradition as premodern, as something to be circumvented. Ferial Ghazoul refers to Rae’s conversion and claims:

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Though this unexpected reversal is unconvincing, it is prepared for by the fact that Sammar has gradually recognized that her wanting Rae to convert is strictly egotistical. Consequently, she relinquishes such motives and prays for him to convert for the salvation and peace of his soul, and not in order to be an eligible husband for her. She wants him to discover -- for his own good -- God and His words, as well as Islam and its glory. (Ghazoul, 2001, para. 11)

Rae’s conversion signals an alternative to the detached, objective masculinity of Orientalism which manipulates and dominates. Rae’s conversion signals that he is willing to explore an engaged subjectivity as a man who understands not just as a disembodied intellect, but as an embodied believer. It might help to shed light on Rae’s conversion if we remember that Aboulela is effectively writing-back to the West. As Ghazoul (2006) writes, “Arab writers who write in English, French, and Italian are no longer seen as traitors opting out of their own culture and into the culture of the (ex-)colonizers, but as cultural ambassadors who are able to voice a previously silenced point of view” (pp. 121–122). She argues, “with today’s proliferation of the phenomenon of ‘writing-back,’ we find writers from former colonies using precisely the language of the colonizers to question those cultures’ representations of the Other” (p. 121). It is as a form of “writing-back” that we should read Aboulela’s novel. In an essay where she reflects upon her own writing practice, Aboulela (2002) says, “To prove that Khartoum is nicer than London, more beautiful than Edinburgh ... I don’t think so. Not to prove, but to express, to show that it is a valid place, a valid way of life beyond the stereotypical images of famine and war, not a backward place to be written off” (p. 204). Aboulela’s project is not to negate Scottish or English or Western values, but rather to assert the validity of her own Sudanese and Islamic worldview. Her choice of the word “express” rather than “prove” to describe her intentions reveals a distrust of binary opposition and argumentation, a distrust of the rhetoric of the clash of civilizations. Rae’s conversion also serves as a narrative antidote to the popular notion that Muslim societies must “convert” or be converted to democracy, that Islamic societies must convert to West-

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ern notions of freedom and of secular humanism. On a purely narrative level, Rae’s conversion is a relatively implausible deus ex machina. However, within the larger social context of Western neoimperialism and globalization, Rae’s conversion reinforces the validity of Islam as a worldview which offers a promise of social justice and resistance. Sammar tells Rae that “The first believers were mostly women and slaves. I don’t know why, maybe they had softer hearts, I don’t know” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 126). Rae replies, “Maybe in changing they did not have much to lose ... It was the rulers of Makkah who were reluctant to give up their traditions and established ways for something new” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 126). This exchange positions Islam as a religion of the oppressed. Sammar and Rae explicitly identify Islam as a religion which offers the potential for liberation and dignity to women and slaves—the oppressed classes. Indeed, Rae later tells Sammar, “What I regret most ... is that I used to write things like ‘Islam gives dignity to those who otherwise would not have dignity in their lives,’ as if I didn’t need dignity myself” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 200). Rae realizes that Islam offers a space for agency for those who have hitherto been denied one. By converting to Islam, Rae rejects the patriarchal authority previously invested in his Orientalist identity, and embraces a masculinity of the oppressed, of the marginalized. His conversion stands as a rejection of the Orientalist discourse which dominates the East. Rae’s articulation of Islam as a religion of the marginalized echoes a rich theological tradition emphasizing the place of social justice in Islam. Ali Shari’ati, a prominent Iranian scholar deeply influenced by the writings of Franz Fanon, writes: Islam is the first school of social thought that recognizes the masses as the basis, the fundamental and consensus factor in determining history – not the elect as Nietzsche thought, not the aristocracy and nobility as Plato claimed, not great personalities as Carlyle and Emerson believed, not those of pure blood as Alexis Carrel imagined, not the priests or the intellectuals, but the masses. (Shari’ati, 1979, p. 49)

Shari’ati argues that Islam privileges the agency of the people as determinants of social change. In contrast to Western traditions

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which privilege elites, Shari’ati finds in Islam a system of thought which advocates on behalf of those who are marginalized and oppressed. In a similar critical vein, Asghar Ali Engineer and Farid Esack draw comparisons between (predominantly Latin American) Christian liberation theology and Islam. Drawing upon theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez and Aloysius Pieris, Engineer (1984) claims, “Liberation theology subordinates institutions evolved in the historical process to a lively sense of living, active God who inspires human beings for passionate but rational pursuit of social justice which is a dominant note of faith” (p. 23). Engineer argues that there is great potential for developing an Islamic theology of liberation. Drawing upon the Qu’ran, he states, “The Meccan verses revealed to the Prophet sharply condemn the practice of accumulation of wealth and warn the Meccan merchants of the dangerous consequences which will follow if they do not spend their wealth in the way of Allah” (p. 25). For Engineer, the Qu’ran is a text which articulates an explicit vision of social justice through the redistribution of wealth and the privileging of the needs of the poor and marginalized. For Esack (1999), a South African Muslim scholar, the “re-examination or reviewing of our faith in personal terms cannot be done in isolation from the struggle against unjust socioeconomic systems” (p. 3). Drawing upon his experience of resistance to the oppression of apartheid, Esack emphasizes the role of Islam in fostering socio-political challenges to systemic injustice and inequality. Personal faith cannot be separated from social activism and praxis in the wider community. The concept of Islam and the sacred which Aboulela articulates in her novel draws upon the traditions of both Islamic liberation theology and Islamic feminism to challenge both Orientalist and patriarchal Islamist notions of religious experience. Ghazoul writes: The sacred that Aboulela espouses is neither an abstraction, nor a dogma, nor is it empty rituals. Rather, it is the struggle within against the incontinence of desire and the need to grasp the essence of the religious experience. The fiction's voice is unmistakably that of a woman articulating the lived experience and the unlived dreams of a segment of society that has often

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The notion of the sacred that Sammar embraces is one that allows her to articulate her experience in the world and sustains her agency in the face of hegemonic patriarchal Western and Eastern narratives. This is a notion of the sacred which infuses and complements daily life, marking and making time “for praying and tea” (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 137). It is a notion of the sacred which emphasizes a mindful approach to lived experience. Rae’s conversion demonstrates his commitment to lived experience over abstract textual knowledge, and articulates a version of masculinity which brings a mindful awareness of one’s place in the world. His acknowledgement that he too needs the dignity that Islam confers (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 200) emphasizes the way that patriarchal discourses not only suppress women and Others, but also do damage to men in positions of privilege and power. Aboulela’s depiction of Islam as a foundation for social justice writes back to Western imperial discourses which depict Islam as a backward, barbaric religion of extremists and terrorists. Her use of Islam also provides an alternative narrative to those articulations of resistance which appeal to secular or humanist values. Cooke (2000) writes, “Juxtaposing religious observance, however defined, with political activism in the public realm, they [Arab women writers] claim simultaneous and contradictory belongings even as they resist globalization, nationalism, Islamization, and the patriarchal system that pervades them all” (p. 151). Aboulela’s narrative articulates a resistance to the patriarchal models offered by both Islamization and Orientalism, while maintaining a liberatory role for Islam. The relationship between Sammar and Rae provides a model for cross-cultural exchange, conversation, love and translation which resists the stagnant binaries of East and West, the residual ideologies of colonialism. Near the end of the novel, Sammar imagines Rae standing on the balcony of his hotel: The hotel was built by the British in colonial times. It once glittered and ruled. Now it was a crumbling sleepy place, tolerant of rats and with showers that didn’t work. But still the view was as before, something natural brimming over, the last

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stretch of the Blue Nile before it curved and met with the other river, changed color and went north. (Aboulela, 2001b, p. 202)

The image of the crumbling colonial hotel parallels the crumbling edifice of Orientalist representations of masculinity and domination of the Other. These notions are revealed to be no longer sustainable. However, Aboulela, through Sammar, provides us with a hopeful image – the view of the river continuing as before, with “something natural brimming over.” The description invites us to read Aboulela’s narrative as an attempt to build an alternative in the ruins of colonial discourse, an alternative which remains attentive to the way in which identities and relationships exceed representation and language, always brim over.

REFERENCES Aboulela, L. (2001a). Coloured lights. Edinburgh: Polygon. Aboulela, L. (2001b). The translator. Oxford: Heinemann. Aboulela, L. (2002). Moving away from accuracy. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 22, 198–207. Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others: September 11, 2001. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 783– 790. Cooke, M. (2000). Women, religion, and the postcolonial Arab world. Cultural Critique, 45, 150–184. Engineer, A. A. (1984). On developing liberation theology in Islam. In A. A. Engineer (Ed.), Islam and revolution (pp. 13–41). Delhi: Ajant Books International. Esack, F. (1999). On being a Muslim: Finding a religious path in the world today. Oxford: Oneworld. Ghazoul, F. J. (2001, July 12–18). Halal fiction. Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line, 542, 13 paras. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/542/bo4.htm, accessed 27 November 2006. Ghazoul, F. J. (2006). Comparative literature in the Arab world. Comparative Critical Studies, 3(1–2), 113–124. Gibson, B. (2002). An island unto himself?: Masculinity in Season of migration to the North. Jouvert, 7(1), 20.

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Guth, S. (2003, May). Usurping/ appropriating/ joining or secretly undermining the secular literary heritage? Distant echoes of Mawsim al-Hijra in a Muslim writer’s novel (Leila Aboulela, The translator). In Proceedings of the EMTAR symposium (pp. 1– 17). Cracow: Institut für Islamwissenschaft und Neuere Orientalische-Philologie. http://www.cx.unibe.ch/islam/mitarbeiterPubl/translator.pdf accessed 9 December 2006. Johnson-Davies, D., & Ghazoul, F. (1983). On translating Arabic literature: An interview with Denys Johnson Davies. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 3, 80–93. Nash, G. (2002). Re-siting religion and creating feminised space in the fiction of Ahdaf Soueif and Leila Aboulela. Wasafiri, 35, 28–31. Said, E. (1994). Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Said, E. (2001). Power, politics, and culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said. New York: Vintage. Salih, T. (1970). Season of migration to the North. (Trans. D. JohnsonDavis). London: Heinemann. Shari’ati, A. (1979). On the sociology of Islam: Lectures (Trans. H. Algar). Berkeley: Mizan Press. Spivak, G. (1999). A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Stotesbury, J. (2004). Genre and Islam in recent anglophone romantic fiction. In S. Onega & C. Gutleben (Eds.), Refracting the canon in contemporary British literature and film (pp. 69–82). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

6 SEXUALLY EXPLICIT? RE-READING REVELATION’S 144,000 VIRGINS AS A RESPONSE TO ROMAN DISCOURSES LYNN R. HUBER ELON UNIVERSITY [email protected] ABSTRACT The Book of Revelation is arguably one of the most influential and yet puzzling books in Christian history. Among the images of Revelation which modern biblical scholars have labeled as the “most puzzling” is that of a multitude of 144,000 male virgins. This article examines this metaphorical representation of faithful followers of the Lamb in relation to the constructions of masculinity in the firstcentury Roman Empire. In so doing, it becomes evident that this imagery functions as part of Revelation’s rejection of Roman discourse, including the pro-family rhetoric of the Empire and popular depictions of the hyper-masculine male. In contrast, Revelation imagines a community defined in ambiguous gender terms that will take on a feminine gender role in relation to the Lamb or the risen Christ. This reading of the 144,000 virgins deepens our understanding of Revelation, especially as it contributes to the construction of early Christian gender ideologies.22

An early version of this article was presented to the unit on John’s Apocalypse in Cultural Contexts at the 2005 SBL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. I also want to thank those who read and commented upon drafts of this piece, including Kent Brintnall, Gail R. O’Day, Robert Von 22

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Addressed to nascent Christian communities in first-century Asia Minor (Rev 1:4),23 the Book of Revelation calls its audience to create a communal identity within a context of Roman religious, social, and political dominance (Minear, 1966; Zimmermann, 2003). This call grows out of the author’s sense that his audience’s existence as a community is in peril, as a result of growing internal conflicts (Rev 2:2, 14-15), at least one instance of deadly violence (2:13) and the author’s conviction that religious persecution is on the horizon (e.g. 6:9-11).24 To this end, John, the implied author of Revelation, provides his audience with a series of images with which to imagine its identity, including that of a multitude of male virgins. A visionary narrative constructed of complicated metaphors and traditional symbols, Revelation’s fantastic images have captured the imaginations of people over the centuries, arguably becoming one of the most influential books in Christian history (Wainwright, 1993). Propelled by its own claims to divine inspiration and authority (e.g. 1:1; 22:18-19), Revelation has shaped the ways that countless communities throughout the Western world think about God and the world around them and, accordingly, how they act in relation to the world. Revelation’sinfluence is noteworthy given the text’s overall reputation for obscuring more than it actually reveals (Eusebius, trans. 1980, 7.25). Among the communal images that John provides his audience for thinking about its identity is the vision in Rev 14:4, which many modern biblical scholars have labeled as one of this book’s most puzzling elements (e.g. Caird, 1966, p. 179; Olson, 1997, pp. 492– Thaden, as well as the anonymous reviewers of this journal. Any of the paper’s shortcomings, however, are solely my own. 23 Revelation clearly identifies itself with Asia Minor; however, Revelation’s date is much less clear. While traditionally assigned to sometime during the end of Domitian’s reign (c. 95-96 C.E.), the evidence for such dating is far from certain (Friesen, 2001). 24 The question of whether or not Revelation was written within a context of religious persecution has been long debated. It seems, at the very least, that John anticipated some form of intense religious persecution, even though there may not have been a systematic effort, either by the state or other group, to impede the growing movement of Jesus followers (Collins, 1984).

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510; Zimmermann, 2003, pp. 45–70). John writes, “And I looked, and See!, the Lamb was standing upon Mount Zion and with him were 144,000 who have his name and the name of his father written on their foreheads . . . These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins (parthenoi)” (Rev 14:1, 4).25 Specifically, scholars have puzzled over John’s description of the ideal community as a multitude of male virgins (parthenoi). In the following, I explore how this metaphorical image of 144,000 male virgins functions in relation to Revelation’s social context, especially to Roman discourses about the family and masculinity, and to Revelation’s overall rhetorical aims. In so doing, I offer an alternative to the traditional scholarly readings of Rev 14:4 that limit the meaning of this imagery to its Old Testament antecedents. I suggest that reading this metaphor in relation to its firstcentury world allows us to see how the image might have called followers of the risen Christ to reject the pro-family vision of the Empire and to imagine their communal identity in a way that challenges Roman constructions of masculinity that emphasize the importance of procreation and sexual dominance. As such, we will see that Revelation’s vision of a virginal community is not simply John’s repulsion over sexuality or a hatred of the body, but this imagery is an integral part of his political and theological aims. This exploration broadens our understanding of the Book of Revelation, including how Revelation’s narrative might have contributed to early Christian understandings of masculinity and to the emergence of early Christian gender ideologies in general.26

All biblical translations are my own. The study of the construction of masculinity in the Bible and in the New Testament more specifically is an emerging area of study. Two names closely associated with this growing field are Stephen D. Moore and Dale B. Martin. For a helpful introduction to how masculinity studies are being used to read the New Testament, see the edited volume by Moore and Janice Capel Anderson (2003). As the volume’s contents suggest, the focus of this field has been mainly upon the Gospels. Moore’s books God’s Gym (1996) and God’s Beauty Parlor (2001), as well as Chris Frilingos’ (2003) essay entitled “Sexing the Lamb” are the few scholarly works to engage masculinity in the Book of Revelation. 25 26

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INTRODUCING REVELATION’S 144,000 VIRGINS Although the reference to the 144,000 male virgins is brief, it plays an important role within Revelation’s insistence that its audience adopt a distinctive social and political identity in opposition to the Roman Empire. Throughout Revelation’s narrative John constructs for his audience an image of the ideal community, an identity for the faithful to inhabit. As part of this image of the faithful community, the 144,000 make their first appearance in Rev 7:4-8, although they are not identified as virgins at this point. John hears those who “have been sealed” or marked as belonging to God being counted off in twelve groups which correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel: “And I heard the number of those who had been sealed, 144,000, from all of the tribes of the sons of Israel: From the tribe of Judah, 12,000 who had been sealed . . .” (7:4-5a). The description of the 144,000 in terms of the tribes of Israel, the image of twelve thousand multiplied by twelve signaling wholeness (Beale, 1999, p. 733), creates an image of a renewed or complete Israel—a New Israel. Within the narrative, John depicts these sealed ones as “the servants of our God” (7:3). This designation, used to characterize the recipients of John’s vision in Rev 1:1,signals that this group is one with which the audience should identify: The image serves as an ideal that the community as a whole is called to embody.27 These servants appear again as those who remain faithful to the Lamb in Rev 14. Later, in chapter 21, the members of this multitude will constitute the New Jerusalem; for the names of their tribes will be inscribed on the city’s gates (21:12). In this way, John’s reference to the 144,000 virgins functions as a part of a larger complex of imagery that develops over the course of the narra-

27 Many scholars debate over possible referents of the 144,000 outside of the text (Feulliet, 1967). Some argue that the image describes a Jewish remnant apart from the followers of Christ, while others maintain that the image of the 144,000 describes a select group of martyrs (e.g. Bauckham, 1993, pp. 76-80; Collins, 1984, p. 128). Other interpreters insist that the image describes the Christian community as a whole (e.g. Beale, 1999, p. 733). This article aligns itself with the latter reading.

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tive—the depiction of the faithful, the servants of God, as a New Israel and as a New Jerusalem.28 The narrative of Revelation contrasts the faithful multitude of the 144,000 with those who worship the Beast that stands in opposition to God and the Lamb, Revelation’s image of the risen Christ (13:16). With its multiple heads and many crowns, the Beast characterizes political powers and institutions that claim ultimate authority and that dare to assume the role of the divine, namely the Roman Imperial powers that rule Revelation’s historical context (Friesen, 2004). In John’s vision, the Beast not only possesses authority over all the peoples of the earth, but “all the inhabitants of the earth will worship it” (13:8). The followers of the Beast bear on their foreheads the number of its name (13:16-17), signaling their allegiance to the Beast. In contrast, those viewed by John in Rev 14 are markedon their foreheads with the name of the Lamb and his Father: They are clearly“the alternative community of the Lamb” (Schüssler Fiorenza, 1991, p. 88). John’s vision of the 144,000 in chapter 14 prompts Revelation’s audience to envision itself as a community the likes of which it has never seen, something completely new. As John describes the sound of the multitude the audience gains a sense of the 144,000’s uniqueness, for they “sing a new song,” a song that no one else is able to learn (14:2-3). The multitude’s unique identity is further highlighted by John’s comment that “these are the redeemed of the earth.” The 144,000 do not belong to the earth, as they have been

28 Immediately after John hears the number of the 144,000 being counted off, he turns to see an innumerable crowd composed of individuals from every nation, tribe, people and language (7:9). Whether or not this multinational crowd should be identified with the 144,000 is unclear. Arguably, the innumerable crowd can be understood as a reinterpretation of the 144,000, just as John’s vision of the slaughtered Lamb in chapter 5 reinterprets John’s expectation that he will see the Lion of Judah (5:5-6). In both instances, John (and the audience of Revelation along with him) hears or is told about one thing which subsequently appears in a different form: The Lion of Judah appears as the slaughtered Lamb and the New Israel appears as a multitude from every nation.

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“purchased” from it.29 This further distinguishes them from those who follow the Beast, those who remain as “inhabitants of the earth” (e.g. 13:8). This is the identity that John hopes his audience will adopt and become as they simultaneously reject the claims of the Beast, or the Roman Empire, and embrace God’s reign. It is within this vision of an ideal and unique Christian community that John characterizes the community as those who have not defiled themselves with women and as parthenoi.

THE PROBLEM WITH VIRGINS As mentioned above, modern biblical scholars have described Rev 14:4 as one of the book’s most puzzling pieces. An examination of the language used by John and the ways that modern biblical scholars have approached this language reveals the need to reassess this verse and its metaphorical nature. The term hoi parthenoi itself, a masculine plural version of the feminine noun hē parthenos, is unusual, especially before the proliferation of Christian writings in the second-century C. E. (Liddell, 1968, p. 1339).30In contrast, the common feminine noun parthenos traditionally described a girl or young woman who was not yet married. In the first-century context, the term implied that the girl had not yet entered into the ultimate feminine gender role, that of matron or wife and mother (e.g. 1 Cor 7:28, 36-38).Virginity was so closely connected to the social role of an unmarried woman that the term did not always refer specifically to anatomical virginity (Foskett, 2002, pp. 23–36).31 In spite of this, an important aspect of the feminine role of “virgin” in the Roman milieu was chastity or 29 Cf. Rev 14:4, where the 144,000 are described as “the redeemed of humanity.” Zimmermann (2003) offers a provocative reading of the redemption language in Rev 14, arguing that the use of purchasing or redeeming language in conjunction with the language of virginity (which he sees as prefiguring the bridal language of Rev 19 and 21) implies the notion of a bride price (p. 65). 30 One of the only other extant early texts employing the masculine parthenoi is Philo’s De Cherubim 49-50. 31 As Foskett (2002) notes, during the second-century C. E. there was debate as to the existence of the hymen, although many Romans popularly believed that such a membrane did exist normally in women (p. 34).

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sexual self-control (sŇphrosunē, pudicitia), one of the most common virtues ascribed to women, married and unmarried, in the ancient world (Pomeroy, 1999, p. 48). So Catullus lauded the virgin that remained sexually inexperienced (trans. 1962, 62.20–26). The concept of virginity was depicted metaphorically in terms of cleanliness or purity, an idea which, Plutarch noted, was incorporated into the Roman marriage ceremony through the presence of water and fire (trans. 1927, question 1). Although virginity was a common term for assessing and describing the feminine gender, it was uncommon as a description of a masculine subject. A quote from Achilles Tatius’ romance Leukippe and Klitophon (c. late second or early third-century C. E.) underscores this: Klitophon writes to his beloved and long-lost Leukippe, “You will learn that I have imitated your virginity, if that word has any meaning for men as it does for women” (AchillesTatius, trans. 1989, 5.20).  Most modern biblical scholars effectively agree with Klitophon’s assessment of the likelihood of male virginity, avoiding readings of Revelation’s parthenoi that highlight the term’s allusion to male virginity. For example, Charles H. Talbert (1994) writes with disbelief, “The first characteristic of the hundred forty-four thousand is the most difficult to understand. What does it mean for the hundred forty-four thousand to be virgins? Is this a call for universal Christian asceticism?” (p. 60). The discomfort with Revelation’s use of parthenoi is most obvious in the commentary by R. H. Charles (1920), who writes the verse off as the absurd addition of an editor he disparagingly characterizes as a “narrow ascetic” (p. lii). This seemingly reflects an apparent reticence (conscious or otherwise) to imagine that a text that many believe to be morally authoritative might advocate sexual continence. Some interpreters are more restrained about their own displeasure with the verse, arguing that it conflicts with other New Testament teachings on marriage. Daniel C. Olson (1997) comments, “Such an extremely low regard for the married state seems incompatible with the view found in the rest of the NT” (p. 494). Likewise, G. K. Beale (1999) appeals to other scriptural traditions to challenge reading 14:4 in terms of male virginity: “Nowhere else does Scripture view sexual relations within the bond of marriage as sinful. Furthermore, if the

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144,000 is a symbol for the entire people of God, that would mean that John required celibacy for the whole church, which is improbable” (p. 738).32 Seemingly reading the 144,000 as a description of the Church, these interpreters work to discredit the possibility that parthenoi might be used to advocate general Christiancelibacy. As a result, the radical character of Revelation’s parthenoi is lost. The most common way of distancing Revelation’s image of 144,000 virgins from the concept of virginity (or celibacy) of the believers is by highlighting it as an appropriation, albeit a reversal, of the Old Testament marriage/adultery metaphor (e.g. Ezek 16, 23; Hos 1-2). This common metaphor describes the relationship between God and Israel (or Jerusalem) as a marriage and employs the metaphorical language of adultery and/or prostitution to characterize Israel’s idolatry and perceived disloyalty to God (e.g. Galambush, 1992). Referencing this tradition, Revelation scholars suggest that John’s references to virginity, as well as his more frequent references to adultery, be read as a metaphorical description of the community’s religious fidelity or lack thereof. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1991) provides an example of how this reading is typically employed. Explaining that Revelation’s sexual language be understood in relation to the conventional use of fornication as a metaphor for idolatry (p. 14), she writes,

 A literal meaning of “women” and of the 144,000 as male ascetics is unlikely since Revelation’s language does not function as a cipher with a one-to-one meaning . . . A metaphorical meaning of the 144,000 is therefore likely. In addition, celibacy is not stressed elsewhere in Revelation. Since in the rhetorical context and sign system of Revelation sexual language is used metaphorically, the phrase “they have not soiled themselves with women” refers to the idolatry of the imperial cult. (Schüssler Fiorenza, 1991, p. 88)

 32 While the assumption of canonical unity is in itself problematic, the readings of Olson and Beale seemingly overlook the positive valuation of celibacy, over and against marriage, in 1 Cor 7:7-8, for example.

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Most commentary treatments unfold in a like manner, issuing a call to read the language of gender and virginity metaphorically followed by an explanation of how the imagery describes the believer’s faithfulness to God (i.e. non-participation in idolatry) (e.g. Beasley-Murray, 1974, p. 223; Caird, 1966, p. 179; Massyngberde Ford, 1975, p. 242; Rowland, 1998, p. 664). The uniformity of these interpretations is striking given the wide range of scholarly opinions on other passages within Revelation. Revelation draws heavily upon its apocalyptic and prophetic predecessors, including those that employ the metaphorical use of marriage and adultery language, such as Ezekiel (Ruiz, 1989; Fekkes, 1994). However, the suggestion that Revelation’s depiction of the 144,000 draws upon the prophetic marriage/adultery metaphor belies the fact that this depiction diverges with the prophetic depiction of the community as an unfaithful or sexually active woman. Even though the prophets employ masculine gender to describe the people of Israel in general, the Old Testament marriage/adultery metaphor depicts the community in feminine terms, while Rev 14 clearly employs a masculine term. In addition, a positive reversal of the prophetic marriage/adultery metaphor would involve characterizing the metaphorical referent not as a virgin, but as a faithful wife. It seems that if Revelation was reversing the prophetic trope, the text would offer an image of the community as a devoted and sexually faithful wife and not as a multitude of virginal men. As we see with Schüssler Fiorenza, scholars often explain the connection between the 144,000 and the Old Testament marriage/adultery metaphor as a turn away from literal readings and towards an appreciation of Revelation’s metaphorical language. This reminder of Revelation’s metaphorical nature has become a traditional scholarly response to interpretive trends that read Revelation as a blueprint for historical events. While Revelation, including 14:4, is ideally read as a metaphorical construction, the tendency to read the language of virginity in 14:4 only as a reference to religious fidelity reduces parthenoi to a code for “those who do not engage in idolatry” rather than reading it as an evocative metaphor. In contrast to coded language that substitutes one item for another, metaphor involves using one term or conceptual domain (the source domain), including the network of ideas and associations incorporated into this term or domain, to characterize an-

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other term or domain (the target domain) (e.g. Lakoff & Turner, 1989; Turner, 1987). The source domain, which in this case would be male virginity and all that this imagery suggests, shapes how an audience understands or imagines the target domain, which in this case is the nascent Christian communities of Revelation. Metaphor encourages an audience to think of one thing (target) through the framework of another thing (source), as a means of highlighting or elaborating on the target. Taking seriously the metaphorical nature of Revelation’s language does not mean disregarding the imagery that John employs; rather, it involves exploring the cultural concepts and associations evoked through the source domain and examining how these might shape the target domain (Huber, 2007). This does not exclude the possibility that Rev 14:4 might conjure memories of the Old Testament marriage/adultery metaphor in the minds of John’s audience; however, this suggests that understanding Revelation’s 144,000 requires attention to the concept of male virginity, the metaphorical source domain, within Revelation’s cultural context. Two notable exceptions to the dominant trend in reading Revelation’s 144,000, which must be acknowledged, are offered by Adela Yarbro Collins in Crisis and Catharsis (1984) and Tina Pippin in Apocalyptic Bodies (1999). Collins’ reading of the 144,000 does take parthenoi as a reference to virginity or celibacy, maintaining that John advocates a type of social radicalism; however, given the scope of Collins’ work she is unable to get into the details of this imagery in relation to the historical context. In contrast to Collins, Pippin eschews historical approaches to the text (p. 118), although she highlights the male gender of Revelation’s virgins. The 144,000 virgins are males who will enter, sexually, the Bride of the Lamb, and then become the Bride (pp. 122–23). Pippin maintains that this characterization is part of the text’s misogynist vision of a world in which the powerless, namely women, are excluded from the Kingdom of God (p. 125). As a result Pippin reads the imagery of the 144,000 male virgins as one part of John’s fantasy of male dominance tinged with repulsion toward women and female sexuality. However, as we will see below, reading the metaphor in relation to its contextual resonances suggests that John’s image might have a number of functions beyond simple misogyny.

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ROMAN IMPERIAL FAMILY VALUES Recent scholarship has shown how Revelation’s rhetoric seeks to challenge the dominant discourses of the Roman Empire in Asia Minor. In using the term “discourse” I am drawing on the work of Averil Cameron (1991), who defines discourse as “all the rhetorical strategies and manners of expression” that a particular social or cultural group uses to communicate and maintain its world-view (p. 5). When speaking of the dominant Imperial discourse, this includes the many textual and cultural expressions that propagated the multiple related ideologies and social practices endorsed by the Emperor or the Empire, whether or not these can be linked directly to the person of the Emperor (Milnor, 2005, p. 33). This does not mean that Imperial discourse was monolithic; rather, in different settings certain strands or forms of the discourse might predominate. In Asia Minor, Imperial discourse emphasized the Emperor’s relation to the divine nature and power through the spread of the Roman Imperial cult (Friesen, 2001; Thompson, 1990). This discourse permeated Asia Minor and the Greek East where reigning Emperors were worshipped and described as gods, even though in the Latin West divine honors were ascribed to Emperors after death, according to S. R. F. Price (1984).33 Responding in part to this discourse, John characterizes participating in the Roman Imperial cult as a blasphemous attack on God’s reign. By positioning itself in an oppositional relation to this discourse, moreover, Revelation’s own rhetoric is shaped by its ideological constraints, as well as those related discourses within the Empire (Frilingos, 2004). Among the topics addressed by the dominant discourses within Revelation’s milieu that likely reverberate in the image of the 144,000 male virgins were those of the family and the masculine role within the family. These topics were emphasized in Imperial discourse as a part of the social reform initiated by Augustus which How participants in the Imperial cults actually understood the relationship between the Emperor and the divine is a complex question that lies beyond the scope of this presentation. Price (1984) begins the process of exploring this as he investigates the range of ways that the language of divinity was used in conjunction with Imperial titles in Greek. 33

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was characterized as the princeps’ attempt at returning the Empire to a morally idealized past.34 While the actual political motivations behind this continue to be debated (Milnor, 2005, pp. 14–16), Augustus emphasized the preservation of the household or family (domus)35 as crucial to maintaining Roman peace and power and as an essential element of the Empire’s faithfulness to the gods (Zanker, 1988). Augustan rhetoric about the family was not especially new, although, as Kristina Milnor (2005) notes, it employed a new language for understanding the home and emphasized the home as distinct from the forum (p. 31). As part of this renewed emphasis on the domus, the Augustan rhetoric about the importance of the family was spread throughout the Empire. While this rhetoric was aimed primary at Roman citizens, its values were communicated effectivelyto all regardless of social status or class. The Empire’s use of public, especially visual, means to communicate its vision of the family was so pervasive that, as Beryl Rawson (1995) observes, “people could not have been oblivious to it, and it must have influenced their perceptions” (p. 16). Further, the Imperial understanding of the family and the masculine role within the family were communicated as part of the Imperial cult (Fischler, 1998), which, as noted above, was embraced especially in Asia Minor (Friesen 2001). Revelation scholars, in fact, have long asserted that John understands the Imperial cult as one of the Empire’s main affronts to God’s reign. In light of this, the Imperial discourse about the family is crucial for understanding Revelation’s image of the 144,000 male virgins. The theme of social renewal with its emphasis on the family remained an important part of first-century Imperial discourse even after Augustus’ death. Milnor (2005) observes, “In many ways, in Moral “indiscretions” (such as adulteries and incestuous relationships) among members of the Imperial families are well known (Fischler, 1994). The fact that the Imperial family did not necessarily live up to the moral ideal presented in Imperial discourse does not, however, mitigate the presence of this topic in the Imperial rhetorical program. 35 The question of what constituted a family within the Greek and Roman context is debated among scholars and reflects the ambiguity inherent within the ancient sources (Martin, 1996; Rawson, 1986; Veyne, 1978). 34

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fact, the reification of Augustus and Augustanism as symbols took on greater urgency after they were no longer (strictly speaking) living entities” (p. 4). In particular, Domitian, who is traditionally imagined as the Emperor in power when Revelation was written, sought to recapture the success of the divinized Augustus by adopting his social vision (Pomeroy, 1975, p. 166). Some polemical traditionsportrayed Domitian as a sex-crazed tyrant; however, evidence suggests that he actively supported Augustan legislation regarding the family and sexual morality and adopted the Imperial rhetoric that accompanied it (D’Ambra, 1993; Jones, 1992). Even Domitian’s biggest critic, Suetonius, acknowledged that the Emperor sought to correct “public morals” in spite of his own indiscretions and those of his family (trans. 1913, “Domitian” 8). Likewise, Martial lamented that Domitian made it no longer acceptable to betray the “sacred marriage torch” (trans. 1978, Epigr. 6.2). The proper household, according to the Imperial vision, included conforming to clearly defined gender expectations and roles, both feminine and masculine.36 Dating to the early thirdcentury C. E., Dio Cassius’ Roman History offers a glimpse into how the ideal of masculine gender was understood in relation to the household.37 Recounting a speech that Augustus supposedly delivered to the married male citizens of Rome more than a century earlier, Dio writes, Though you are but few altogether, in comparison with the vast throng that inhabits this city, and are far less numerous than the others [the unmarried men], who are unwilling to perform any of their duties, yet for this very reason I for my part praise you the more, and am heartily grateful to you because For this presentation we are able to sketch only the contours of the dominant first-century presentation of masculine gender as a means of better understanding Revelation’s depiction of the 144,000 virgins. A full discussion of the topic, as well as a discussion of feminine gender, must be reserved for another context. 37 Dio’s third-century account of this first-century speech underscores the appropriation of Augustan values and rhetoric for many years after the reign of Augustus. 36

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 Dio characterized the act of marrying, which implied the possibility of procreation, as not just one masculine duty, but as the very essence of masculinity itself; for only those who were married and who, therefore, could produce legitimate offspring were deemed worthy of the designation “man.” Moreover, later in the speech marrying and begetting children are described as noble and as ways that humans imitate the gods (56.3). Immediately after praising the married, Augustus, in Dio’s rendering of history, turned to the unmarried men, challenging their masculinity: “what shall I call you? Men? But you are not performing any of the offices of men. Citizens? But for all that you are doing, the city is perishing” (56.4). The failure to marry and reproduce was a failure to fulfill one’s masculine role and, in essence, one’s political, social, and religious duties. Traditional discourses about the domus emphasized the masculine role as one that was marked by, among other things, a contribution to the family through producing offspring. Just as Augustus was father of the land, the male citizens of Rome were to embrace the role of father. The parallel between Augustus’ fatherhood of the Empire and the fatherhood of men in individual households was reinforced through social discourses that depicted the Imperial family as the ideal household. In particular, monumental art and coins that circulated to the far ends of the Empire provided images of the Imperial family as an ideal domus for all to emulate (Lassen, 1997; Varner, 1995, p. 188). Again, the idea that the Emperor’s role as father was something to be emulated by the male citizenry was something that Domitian seemingly wished to embrace, although his own desire for an heir was never realized. Domitian’s only child, a son born to his wife Domitia Longina before he became Emperor, died as a toddler (D’Ambra, 1993). However, this did not prevent Domitian from deifying his dead son at the beginning of his reign and having coins minted with a portrait of his deceased son on one side and his wife, who would later have a public love affair with an actor, on

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the other side (Varner, 1995). In spite of Domitian’s apparent “bad luck” in the domestic realm, he emphasized his familial role for the public eye. Domitian’s role as father was part of maintaining his masculinity and his status as leader of the Empire. The Imperial call to social reform asserted that individual citizen families were vital in maintaining civil order and peace. Roman law reinforced and institutionalized this view, making marriage and raising a family socially, politically, and economically advantageous for Roman citizens and the upper classes (Grubbs, 1995, pp. 103– 12; Raditsa, 1980). The Imperial vision of the ideal family was closely intertwined with notions of social status, since only citizens could legally marry. As Andrew S. Jacobs (1999) points out “marriage” and the Augustan vision of the household became the ethical ideal of the Roman upper-classes (p. 112). Effectively, acceptance of this vision insinuated participation not just in a moral or ethical viewpoint, but it also suggested that one participated in and benefited from the social and political structures of the Empire. In addition, the pro-family rhetoric of Imperial discourse intertwined religious imagery and traditions with its obvious social and political elements. Augustus’ emphasis on the home served as part of his larger campaign aimed at the restoration of pietas which would hopefully direct divine blessings toward the Empire. In this vein, Horace, a poet in Augustus’s circle of friends, wrote, “So moved by loyal love, his country yearns for Caesar [Augustus]. For when he is here . . . Ceres and benign Prosperity make rich the crops . . . Faith shrinks from blame; polluted by no stain the home is pure; custom and law have stamped out the taint of sin” (trans. 1918, 4.5). Imperial discourse after Augustus continued to employ religious language and imagery, including images of divinities associated with the home, to support Imperial social reform and its vision of the domus. For instance, Domitian’s patronage of Minerva, who was known for her domestic as well as martial attributes, served as part of his espousal of traditional or Augustan views of the household and gender (D’Ambra, 1993). The dominant discourses of the Roman Empire also emphasized the household as an important site of worship and the male head of household as an important figure within this religious cult. This can be seen, most notably, on the Ara Pacis, which depicts Augustus leading his family (including women and children) in a religious procession (Kleiner, 1992, p. 92). Within the context of

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these discourses, whether it reflected reality or not, the male head of the household (kurios, paterfamilias), was the primary individual responsible for worship within the household, as was Augustus (Cato, trans. 1934, 143; Plutarch, trans. 1999, 19). Maintaining household religious rites reflected a family’s concern for and support of the Empire, whether one’s family had direct Imperial ties or not. Since the household was a microcosm of the State, proper participation in the former could be understood as benefiting the latter. Moreover, household worship may have had an even more direct relationship to the Empire. A number of artifacts from Asia Minor imply that household worship might have included votive offerings on behalf of the Roman Emperor (Friesen, 2001, pp. 117–20). Maintenance of the household and its religious practices were believed to be beneficial to the Empire, both indirectly and directly.

THE MEASURE OF A MAN IN POPULAR ROMAN DISCOURSE While first-century Imperial rhetoric embraced a “family values” that lauded the importance of procreation in the construction of the masculine persona, first-century popular discourse (as communicated through poets, playwrights, humorists, and material culture) measured masculinity by sexual domination and power (Cantarella, 1992). While these discourses are not necessarily contradictory, as male sexual domination can be used for a procreative end, they do reflect different emphases. Popular Roman discourse about masculinity understood sexual activity primarily in terms of active/insertive and passive/receptive roles. These roles were associated with binary gender categories (the masculine role being insertive and feminine gender role being receptive); however, these gender categories were not strictly linked to biological sex. Rather, these roles were determined more by one’s class, age, and social status (for example, free or slave), than by one’s biological sex.38 The insertive role, which 38 Any modern discussion of Roman masculinity and sexual practices must point out the marked cultural differences between the ancient world and our own. Ancient Greeks and Romans did not operate with a concept

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was understood as the powerful and dominant role, was deemed natural to the free adult male (vir) (Walters, 1997; Williams, 1999). This was emphasized by Seneca when he described a slave boy who adopted the masculine sexual role in the bedroom with his master’s wife: “He is a man [vir] in the bedroom, a boy in the dining room” (Epist. 47.7 in Williams, 1999, p. 166). The active or insertive role was so closely associated with the free adult male that it was considered natural for all others, whether female or male, to play the receptive or feminine sexual role (Cantarella, 1992, pp. 156–64). As a result, it was culturally appropriate for certain biological males, specifically slaves and young boys, to perform sexual practices culturally associated with the feminine gender. The popular Roman view of masculinity, a tradition with a long history, was revealed especially when an author attempts to impugn the character of an opponent (Kunst, 2006). If an author or speaker wanted to malign an adult male, it could be easily accomplished by characterizing the subject or his actions as “womanish” (muliebris) or “soft” (mollitia). For example, writing in the firstcentury B. C. E., Cicero challenged Mark Antony’s character on the grounds that he allowed Curio, his male lover, to treat him as a wife or a slave-boy (puer), implying that Antony adopted a sexual role not in keeping with a masculine character (trans. 1926, 2). Likewise Suetonius reported that Julius Ceasar was mocked by soldiers serving under him, one of whom called Caesar “queen,” for presumably playing the passive role with his male lover Nicomedes. Caesar not only “gave it” to the other, but was accused of allowing Nicomedes to “give it” to him as well (trans. 1913, Julius Caesar, 49). Mark Antony and Julius Caesar were ridiculed not for having sex with men, but because they were perceived as having adopted feminine roles. They were castigated for not being men, for not fulfilling the masculine role. Roman material culture, especially as seen in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, reflected this popular association beof sexuality, meaning sexual identity or orientation, congruent with contemporary Western discourse. One’s sexual behaviors or acts were not understood as reflecting one’s “nature” or “orientation,” which are modern ideas (Foucault, 1990; Parker, 2001).

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tween masculinity and sexual power, as represented through the image of the phallus or erect penis (Richlin, 1992). As Craig A. Williams (1991) comments, this was a culture that embraced the image of the god Priapus, “whose outstanding attribute was his prodigiously large penis” and whose “vigorous exploits with women, boys, and men indiscriminately are clearly a mainstay of his hypermasculine identity” (p. 18). The figure of Priapus adorned, for instance, the House of the Vetti in Pompeii and “guarded” a number of Pompeii’s gardens. Phalluses decorated a range of Roman art and household objects, including wind chimes, lamps and even fountains (Clarke, 2001). While the image of the phallus served a number of talismanic functions, it simultaneously emphasized masculine sexuality in terms of penetration and power. In this way the understanding of masculine sexuality as a free adult male’s ability to penetrate the other was a commonplace of Roman life. Deviations from this understanding of masculinity were so troubling within the Roman world that, as Mathew Kuefler (2001) notes, the Romans maintained strict laws against castration, including self or voluntary castration (p. 32). Additionally, the popular understanding of masculinity in the Roman world emphasized the “real man’s” willingness and even eagerness to penetrate others (Williams, 1999, p. 163). At times this could take an explicitly aggressive tone. For example, Leslie Cahoon (1988) argues that Ovid employed imagery of military conquest as a metaphor for sexual activity, which suggested that that numerous sexual “victories” contributed to the strength and honor of the soldier/ lover. In this way, masculinity was affirmed by being sexually active and aggressive. Most important for our discussion of Revelation is the fact that the Roman understanding of masculinity relies heavily on the assumption of sexual activity and, specifically, sexual penetration and power. As such, the idea of male virginity contradicts popular Roman assumptions about what it meant to be a man. Underscoring this point Virginia Burrus (2005) writes, describing the trend in late-antique romances of men imitating female virgins, “For a man to play the virgin is an unnatural—and thus radically denaturalizing—act” (p. 65).

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PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSES ON SEXUALITY AND MASCULINITY Certainly, the world of the Roman Empire was home to more than a single discourse on masculinity, although the conception of masculinity described above proved quite popular. Some medical and philosophical traditions idealized masculine self-mastery and sexual moderation. Ancient medical experts even debated whether virginity and celibacy might be more healthful than sexual activity for both women and men. Writing in the second-century C. E., Soranus noted,

 Some have pronounced permanent virginity healthful, others, however, not healthful. The former contend that the body is made ill by desire. Furthermore, all excretion of seed is harmful in females as in males. Virginity, therefore, is healthful, since it prevents the excretion of seed . . . And this is evident in humans too: since men who remain chaste are stronger and bigger than the others and pass their lives in better health. (Soranus trans. 1956, 1.7.30)

 While Soranus concluded that virginity is healthful for males and females, he eventually acknowledged that, “intercourse seems consistent with the general principle of nature according to which both sexes, [for the sake] of continuity, [having to ensure] the succession of living beings” (1.7.32). While virginity might be preferable it seemed unrealistic and against the human desire to procreate. A revival of Pythagoreanism in first century B. C. E. Rome, according to Kathy L. Gaca, included the acceptance of stringent sexual mores among some of the philosophically inclined, including Seneca, who is often more closely linked to Stoicism, and Musonius Rufus, another Stoic who wrote in the first-century C. E. The Neo-Pythagoreans advocated a procreationist view maintaining that sexual intercourse should be used only for the purpose of procreation and in those instances it should be done with as little excitement as possible (Gaca, 2000, p. 113). Reflecting these views, Seneca suggested that given the difficulty inherent in controlling one’s sexual emotions and passions it would be wise to avoid sex-

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ualrelationships in general(trans. 1953–62, Epist. 116). He did recognize the necessity of sex between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation, but he asserted that acts of sexual intercourse be motivated by reason and not passion (Gaca, 2000, p. 129). In contrast to the popular portrayal of masculinity, for Seneca control over desire was the sign of a true man, since this ability to master one’s desire separated humans from animals (trans. 1953– 62, Epist. 122). Musoninus Rufus, like Seneca, also condoned limiting sexual intercourse to marriage and for procreation (trans. 1947). Thus, Gaca (2000) notes that, “Musonius therefore joins a small but growing chorus of men who promote procreationism in its inflexible mode. He even brings new life to the Pythagorean image that brutish animals alone engage in non-procreationist sexual activity” (p. 131). The Stoics generally offered a less negative view of sexual intercourse than the Neo-Pythagoreans, although this view also challenged the popular depiction of masculinity in terms of sexual conquest. Stoics emphasized the importance of mutual consent in sexual relationships and intercourse’s potential for building unity and friendship. While classical Stoic teachings regarding sexuality rejected conventional views of marriage, accepted sexual intercourse between consenting partners as a way of building community, and condoned communal child-rearing, they were generally coherent with the Imperial discourse about family (Gaca, 2003, pp. 79–80). In fact, the Stoics of the first-century, some of whom served as advisors and friends of the Imperial family, may have helped shape the Imperial vision (Gill, 2003, p. 34). Epictetus, a Stoic who would eventually be exiled by Domitian, maintained that marrying and bearing children were obligations of the citizen, for the furtherance of the city or state, just as honoring the gods and conducting business were the citizen’s duties for the good of his community (trans. 1925–28, 3.7). Moreover, Epictetus argued that fidelity within marriage characterized human nature. Infidelity and adultery led to discord within one’s neighborhood, community, and city, making them contrary to the happiness and equilibrium that Epictetus praised (trans. 1925–28, 2.4). The very act of turning away from an object of sexual desire, such as a woman other than one’s wife, could be understood as an embodiment of masculine power (e.g. Epictetus, trans. 1925–28, Ench. 1). Instead of demonstrating one’s masculinity by controlling a sexual partner, Stoic philosophers, like

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Epictetus, suggested that an individual demonstrated his masculinity by controlling the passions that drove his own sexuality (North, 1966). These positive evaluations of celibacy and marital fidelity, especially those of the Stoics, played an important role in some of the most influential early Christian writings on marriage and sex, including Paul’s writings (Deming, 2004). In fact, the notion of sexual self-control and even celibacy would become more acceptable in late-antique Christianity (Kuefler, 2001, pp. 81–87). In light of this influence, it might be easy for modern biblical scholars and historians of early Christianity to mistake these visions with the popular or dominant Roman viewpoints; however, as Dale B. Martin (1995) points out, arguments in favor of sexual continence were most likely the minority opinion (p. 204). In fact, the perceived need to argue in favor of virginity and sexual moderation exhibited by medical writers and philosophers implies that these discourses did not embody the typical outlook. Providing another voice in the ancient discussion on sexuality, some first-century Jewish groups, namely the Essenes, may have advocated celibacy or, at least, periods of sexual abstinence. Sources describing the Essenes closely associate them with the practice of celibacy. Pliny, for example, reported that the Essenes lived apart from the world and, apparently, apart from women (trans. 1945, 5.73). However, Josephus maintained that some of the Essenes did marry for the sake of procreation (trans. 1926–65, Jewish Wars, 2.8; cf. Antiquities, 18.2). Those living at Qumran, who many scholars identify as Essenes, present a more complicated picture of ancient Jewish asceticism, given the presence of female remains at Qumran and of texts attesting to the practice of marriage in the community (Elder, 1994; Ilan, 1999, 38-42; Thiering, 1974). Still some argue that the Qumran community may have understood occasional celibacy as part of the scriptural requirements for holy war (1QM.7; cf. 1 Sam 21:4-5; Deut 23:9–11; Anderson, 1989). These scattered accounts of Jewish sexual asceticism indicate that the groups that may have embraced celibacy were minority groups that positioned themselves in opposition to the dominant culture. As Philo noted in reference to the Essenes in On the Contemplative Life, their lifestyle was not the popular choice (trans. 1941, 1). These positive evaluations of celibacy presented alternatives to the dominant discourse within the first-century world.

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Both the Imperial discourse on the family and popular discourse on masculinity emphasized a connection between masculine identity and sexual activity. Imperial discourse, which permeated the Empire, emphasized the importance of the family and male’s duty to marry and reproduce. In popular discourse, masculinity was measured through sexual activity and dominance. During the firstcentury there were voices calling for sexual self-control and even continence, however sexual renunciation wouldn’t become a popular option for males until the third-century C. E. and beyond (Kuefler, 2001). Generally, in the first-century context of Revelation the notion of male virginity and celibacy generally contradicted the dominant conceptions of masculinity and challenged the Imperial ideal of the family. This raises the question: Why would Revelation depict the ideal community as a multitude of male virgins?

RE-READING REVELATION’S 144,000 MALE VIRGINS AS METAPHOR As explained above, modern scholars usually approach John’s reference to a virginal multitude in Rev 14:4, described as one of Revelation’s most puzzling images, with a call to appreciate its metaphorical nature. Appreciating the metaphorical nature of Rev 14:4, however, involves exploring what the reference to male virgins, an unusual notion in the first-century Roman context, might add to Revelation’s image of the community of the faithful. What does it communicate about the character of the community or, at least, John’s hope for the community’s identity? How does this image fit within Revelation’s rhetorical goals and what does this reveal about the developing early Christian views of gender and sexuality?  At its most basic level, the description of the 144,000 as virgins suggests that John, supposedly speaking on behalf of God (Rev 1:1), pushes his audience to reject the pro-family rhetoric of the Empire and to refuse the masculine role defined by the State and popular Roman culture. By characterizing the faithful 144,000 as parthenoi, John paints a picture of an ideal community that willingly refuses to conform to the demand, made by the Imperial discourse, that men marry and bear children as part of their masculine duty. It is a rejection of the upper-class ideal rewarded by the Empire. Given the religious connotations inherent in maintaining the Roman household, the rejection of the household’s social configu-

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ration is a rejection of its religious aspects as well. The refusal to establish the ideal home, a home where the household gods and perhaps the Emperor were worshiped, is to reject an important aspect of Roman religion. By describing a community that denies the social vision of the Roman Empire, Rev 14:4 functions as part of the distinction John draws between those who follow the Beast, meaning earthly political authorities such as the Emperor, and those who follow the Lamb. The issue of whether or not John expects his audience to take this vision as a literal command to maintain a life of virginity or celibacy is another question. In fact, this is the question which has left so many modern interpreters recoiling from 14:4: Surely, as Beale (1999) pronounces, this might be deemed improbable (p. 738), especially if one reads virginity in a physical sense, rather than as a social role. However, if we read this image as a metaphor, as so many interpreters have suggested, we need to remember that metaphors are not literal truth claims; instead, metaphors coax audiences to see new realities and to imagine new possibilities for existence. As Paul Ricoeur (1974/1991) famously maintains, metaphors equate two unlike things to create a new way of thinking. In the case of Rev 14:4, the faithful community (the metaphor’s target) is not necessarily called to be an actual community of 144,000 virgins (the metaphor’s source); however, John’s equation of the two pushes his audience to imagine and embody the ways that it might be like a multitude of virginal males. Again, this vision prompts the audience to envision itself as distinct from those who follow the Beast through its rejection of Roman family values. A part of this identity for John entails being a community that resists the version of masculinity communicated through popular Roman discourses. Whether or not the prophet living in first-century Asia Minor intended it, his imagining of the community as a virginal multitude diverges from the hyper-masculine figure portrayed in popular Roman discourse. Not only does the designation parthenoi cast the 144,000 in a role usually reserved for young women, it implies a lack of sexual experience as well. Even though chastity was an ideal for femininity, a lack of sexual experience was a failure to conform to popular expectations of the Roman male. Hence, Martial cajoled an inexperienced groom to “experience feminine embraces” before his wedding night, advising him to visit a brothel-keeper so she could make him a man (trans. 1978, 11.78). By rejecting this view

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of masculinity, Revelation’s image of the 144,000 virgins presents an alternative to the phallo-centrism of the Roman world. Even though modern biblical scholars are quick to assert that the image of male virgins not be read as describing literal males (e.g. Schüssler Fiorenza, 1991, p. 88), John depicts the multitude in masculine, or non-feminine, terms. John’s description in 14:4 apparently assumes the binary gender categories prevalent in the firstcentury world, by juxtaposing “these ones” (houtoi), referring to the virgins, and women: “These (houtoi) are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women (gynai).” This contrast seems to presume that the virgins are not female (Pippin, 1992, p. 70). While this does not necessarily restrict a female audience member from identifying with the 144,000, the text takes for granted that the audience is male and assumes that the masculine gender is normative. In this way, John reveals himself to be a true product of his culture, as are many of the dominant Roman discourses that assume a male voice and address males on issues that relate, in a modern estimation, more broadly to family, gender roles, and sexuality (Parker, 1992). The text further distances the 144,000 from the feminine gender by implying that sexual interaction with women (gynai) would threaten the multitude’s purity. Following Revelation’s logic, the imagery suggests that sexual interaction with females would threaten the multitude’s proximity to the divine, for nothing “unclean” will dwell with God within the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:27). Of course, as described above, biological sex and gendered sexual roles were not strictly aligned in the ancient Roman world. As such it remains unclear whether the hypothetical “women” here are biological women or all those who play the feminine sexual role. The former seems a likely interpretation, since various streams of Roman discourse depicted women’s bodies as powerful and potentially threatening (Richlin, 1997). Some Roman authors depict biological women as especially prone to defilement and, even worse, likely to pollute their surroundings and others (e.g. Plutarch, trans. 2005). While Revelation rejects some strands of Roman discourse, the text apparently embraces some of the popular Roman assumptions about female bodies. However, Roman discourse still presented women as appropriate sexual partners for men, which suggests that Revelation offers a radicalization of a common Roman prejudice. As such, Revelation could be assessed, as Pippin (1992)

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argues, as a misogynistic writing. In spite of this, it still remains possible that Revelation’s understanding of “women” here has more to do with the feminine sexual role than with biological women. In other words, Revelation could be making the point that these virgins are such because they have not engaged in intercourse with anyone taking on the feminine role, whether they are biological women, slaves, or boys. Given the popularity of invective which characterizes men as “womanish” in Roman discourse (Richlin, 1992), it may be surprising that Rev 14:4 implies that defilement comes from sexual activity with women and not from engaging in sexual activity like or as a woman. This distinction is important. One could imagine another Roman writing, “These are the ones who have not defiled themselves as women,” just as Julius Caesar was chided for being Nicomedes’ “queen.” A statement such as this would have implied the 144,000’s purity stemmed from their strict adherence to the masculine gender category—they are pure because they do not adopt the feminine sexual role. However, Revelation’s rhetoric works in a somewhat different direction here. Although Revelation asserts that the multitude’s purity stems, in part, from an avoidance of sexual contact with the feminine, the purity of the 144,000 is not explicitly linked to their appropriation of a traditional Roman understanding of masculinity. Revelation does not, at this point in the text, tie the purity of the 144,000 to their avowal of the masculine sexual role. This points to the fact that Revelation’s gendering of the 144,000 does not conform strictly to the dominant and popular Roman discourses about what it means to be a man. Revelation’s blurring of the 144,000’s gender begins even before John characterizes the multitude as undefiled by women and as virgins. One of the first things that John tells his audience about the 144,000 prompts the audience to imagine the multitude in a manner that can be read as a challenge to gender norms: “And I looked, and See!, the Lamb was standing upon Mount Zion and with him were 144,000 who have his name and the name of his father written upon their foreheads” (14:1). By describing the 144,000 as bearing the name of the Lamb and his Father, Revelation places them in a role that could be read as feminine. Just as a

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bride in the first-century would traditionally have taken her husband’s name, which he inherited from his father, so the 144,000 take the name of the Lamb and of his Father.39 Sons were also given the family names of their fathers and slaves (male or female) were named in relation to the paterfamilias; however, the reference to naming in such close proximity to describing the 144,000 as virgins, which traditionally described a young woman or girl ready for marriage, suggests a feminization of the multitude. Although at this point in the text John resists using explicit nuptial language, he sets up the audience for thinking about the 144,000 as progressing through traditional feminine gender roles. While it is possible that someone living within Revelation’s first-century milieu might hear derision in John’s use of parthenoi, the text seems to counter possible negative connotations with a positive evaluation of the 144,000. The 144,000 may not be the hyper-sexualized male of the Roman imagination, but neither is the multitude “womanish” or “soft.” After an angel announces the destruction that will befall those who follow the Beast, there is the announcement, “Here is the endurance of the saints, the ones who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev 14:12).40 Presumably, this statement of endurance describes the actions of the 144,000, as well as affirming the faithfulness of those in Revelation’s audience. Most importantly, the language of endurance suggests that the community has remained strong in the face of turmoil and possibly persecution (Rev 1:9; 2:2-3; 13:10). In this way, John assigns to the 144,000 a traditionally feminine gender role and yet he qualifies the 144,000 in a way not typical of feminine gender. John’s description of the 144,000 is ambiguously gendered. There were exceptions to the tradition of the wife taking her husband’s name at marriage, especially among noble and wealthy women (Salway, 1994). 40 Rev 14:12 is placed at the end of a three part unit, in which three angels flying in mid-heaven make specific pronouncements. There remains some disagreement whether verse 12 is an explanatory interruption into this series of angelic announcements or a continuation of the third angel’s proclamation. 39

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It might be instructive to think of the gender ambiguity inherent in Revelation’s depiction of the virginal multitude in relation to the philosophical discourses that emphasized the importance of sexual self-control. I am not suggesting that John explicitly draws on Greek and Roman philosophical thought; however, it is possible to think about the description of the 144,000 as analogous to the philosophical discourses on self-control. In a manner similar to the Stoic writings, Revelation’s depiction of the 144,000 as virgins reveals the multitude’s power over desire. The 144,000, as a community, demonstrate power not through sexual conquest, but by resisting the social and political power of the Beast. This resistance is exhibited in their refusal to take the mark of the Beast; instead they bear the mark of the Lamb and his Father (14:1). Ironically, the power of this community is tied to the community’s refusal to buy into the popular vision of what it takes to be a “true man.” In addition to illustrating the community’s resistance to the social and political power of the Beast and the Beast’s culture, the language of virginity encourages Revelation’s audience to envision itself as in a faithful relationship to the Lamb. In language evocative of the metaphorical connection between virginity and purity used in the Roman marriage ceremony, John describes the multitude as blameless in 14:5. Further, they are faithful to the Lamb, following him wherever he goes. This image of faithfulness stands in contrast to John’s description of the Whore, who engages in sexual relationships with multiple kings (Rev 17). While the traditional scholarly readings of Rev 14:4 argue a similar point, attention to the concept of virginity in the first-century allows us to see that Revelation envisions this fidelity as something demonstrated through the community’s refusal to participate in the dominant discourse’s vision of the ideal family and in the popular view of masculinity and not just in a refusal to worship other deities or idols. The depiction of the virginal multitude functions as one part of John’s larger vision of the ideal community. Specifically, the blurring of the 144,000’s gender anticipates John’s vision of the community as the virginal Bride of the Lamb in Rev 19 and 21 (Huber, 2007; Zimmermann, 2003): “Let us praise and exult and

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give glory to Him; for the wedding of the Lamb has come and his wife41 has prepared herself. And it has been given to her that she be clothed in linen, shining [and] clean; for the linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Rev 19:7-8). The multitude comprised of the twelve tribes of Israel, the New Israel, will become the New Jerusalem described as a bride descending out of heaven (21:1-3, 911). The movement, from envisioning the community as a multitude of parthenoi to envisioning the community as a bride, makes sense within a first-century context where virgins, with few exceptions, became brides (Pomeroy, 1975, pp. 164–66).  It is possible that an audience that is identified as a virgin would naturally identify itself with a subsequent bridal image, given the cultural understanding of these feminine roles. In the firstcentury, the role of virgin anticipated the bridal role, which anticipated the feminine gender role of wife and mother (Huber, 2007). The text fosters this identification by depicting the bride’s attire as composed of the saint’s righteous deeds: “And it has been given to her that she will be clothed in fine linen, shining [and] clean; for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Rev 19:8). The Greco-Roman bride wove her own garment in preparation for her wedding (La Follette, 1994; Sebesta, 1994). Thus, by identifying the bride’s garment as the product of the saints, John effectively encourages the audience, comprised of individuals who would presumably wish to see themselves as saints, to envision themselves as the bride.42 Some ancient manuscripts replace gynē (woman or wife) with numphē (bride) in 19:7. This reflects the use of numphē in chapter 21. This assimilation makes sense within the context of 19:7–9, since these verses use wedding imagery, suggesting a bride and not a wife. Likewise, some modern English translations of Revelation render gynē as “bride” (e.g. NIV, NIB, NAS). However, the use of gynē is likely the earliest version. 42 Rossing (1999) argues that Revelation does not prompt the audience to envision itself as the Bride or the New Jerusalem, although the audience is to align itself with them. She argues that the blessing in 19:9 refers to the members of the Revelation’s audience, which would require the audience to envision itself as bride and as those at the wedding (p. 140). While the metaphorical shift might seem abrupt, this shift in imagery is not unusual for Revelation. 41

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Moreover, by encouraging the community to envision itself as virgins that will become the Lamb’s Bride, John pushes his audience to envision itself not as a sexually powerful subject, but as one who readies itself for the masculine subject. Revelation’s description of the bride that has prepared herself for her wedding underscores this (Rev 19:7-8). This is not a completely passive object position, but it is an image of the feminine acting in anticipation of a masculine counterpart. This imagery is reminiscent of the wedding hymn penned by Catullus in which the bride is called to prepare herself, to don her veil and yellow slippers, to join her bridegroom. The movement of the hymn as a whole is primarily that of the bride’s movement toward her bridegroom’s home and toward the bridal chamber (Catullus, trans. 1962, 61). Revelation’s narrative follows this pattern, depicting the community in its role as a virgin and in its role as a bride in anticipation of its becoming a wife. By reading the image of the 144,000 virgins as a metaphor that engages discourses within its cultural milieu, we see the complexity of this image, although it seems less puzzling than before. The language of virginity does not need to be discarded or decoded. Instead, we see that the virginal multitude functions as part of John’s overall critique of the Roman Empire in which he pushes his audience to reject the dominant discourses of the Empire, including the Imperial vision of the family and popular conceptions of masculinity. The imagery also contributes to Revelation’s image of an ideal community that lives a life of faithful devotion to the Lamb.

CONCLUSION The blurring of the 144,000’s gender mirrors Revelation’s gendering of the Lamb. In his essay entitled “Sexing the Lamb,” Christopher Frilingos (2003) argues that the image of the Lamb, Revelation’s metaphorical depiction of Christ, actually “slides” between feminized and masculinized gender roles (p. 299). By depicting the Lamb as an object to be viewed (by John, by those within the throne room, and by the text’s audience) and as a wounded, bleeding body, John effectively feminizes the Lamb: The Lamb stands wounded and as a passive object of “the gaze” (Rev 5:6; Kaplan, 1993). However, as Frilingos observes, the Lamb does not remain in the feminized position for long: The Lamb will gaze upon the torture of others, namely those who follow the Beast (Rev 14:10;

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Frilingos, 2003, pp. 309–10). In addition, the Lamb eventually will transform into the rider on the white horse who slays with the sword of his mouth (Rev 19:11–17) and who rules with a “rod of iron” (Rev 12:5; 19:15; Moore, 2001, pp. 180–81). The Lamb’s vacillation between masculine and feminine gender expectations unsettles how the audience finally imagines the Lamb’s gender and, subsequently, the gender of the community that follows the Lamb wherever he goes (14:4).43 The community follows the Lamb, even as he or it moves between gender roles and expectations. Just as the Lamb does not fit the Roman expectations of masculinity, so too, Revelation implies, those who follow the Lamb will refuse to live by the dominant culture’s expectations of masculine gender. They will trade in the hyper-masculine ideal and the vision of the man as the head of the household for a life defined in relationship to the Lamb. Instead of imagining themselves in terms of being dominant and powerful, John pushes his audience members to imagine themselves in a way that indicates their submission to the Lamb. Read in relation to the dominant culture’s understanding of masculinity, the image of the 144,000 parthenoi has a genderbending feel to it. Dale B. Martin (2006) notes this, writing, “It is curious that although there is a marriage in Revelation between a male and a female, the female’s body and clothing are, as we saw, made up of male bodies. John and his brothers, in the person of the Bride herself, actually in the end do get to marry the Horned Lamb” (p. 111). This is not to suggest that John encourages the male individuals within his audience to adopt feminine gender roles; rather, John characterizes the community as a whole to adopt this metaphorical identity. In other words, the community is to be the virginal multitude, singular, and not 144,000 individual virgins, plural. Revelation prompts the community as a whole to adopt the identity of the virgin, as well as the Bride, and the characteristics inherent within these roles. As the virginal multitude the community is called to reject the Imperial call to “focus on the family” and to live a life of fidelity and purity in relation to the Lamb.

43

Frilingos only touches on this idea in (2003, p. 317).

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This reading of Revelation’s 144,000 not only helps us understand the imagery in relation to the text’s overall rhetorical aims, but it provides another piece of the puzzle for understanding the gender and sexual ideologies that emerged in nascent Christianity. We see how Revelation’s assumptions about sexuality in particular were motivated in part by social and political resistance and not a simple rejection of the body. While contemporary interpreters might still find this vision less than appealing, as so many interpreters of Revelation have, or even misogynistic, hopefully we can imagine how for some this vision might have seemed radical and even liberating. In other words, we might be able to appreciate that Revelation’s counter-cultural image of male virginity might have had a liberatory appeal to some first-century individuals who understood themselves circumscribed by Roman visions of the family and masculinity, which might help explain the eventual acceptance of this sometimes confusing text among Christian communities. For the notion of male virginity or celibacy was a recognizable mode of existence for some Christian individuals in the centuries to come (Burrus, 2000, pp. 131–133), making Revelation’s vision of 144,000 male virgins a little less fantastic and a little more close to reality.

REFERENCES Achilles Tatius. (1989). Leukippe and Klitophon. (John J. Winkler, Trans.). In B. P. Reardon (Ed.), Collected ancient Greek novels (pp. 175-284). Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Anderson, G. (1989). Celibacy or consummation in the garden? Reflections on early Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Garden of Eden. Harvard Theological Review, 82, 121-148. Bauckham, R. (1991). The list of the tribes in Revelation 7 again. Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 42, 99-115. Bauckham, R. (1993). The theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beale, G. K. (1999). The book of Revelation: A commentary on the Greek text. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Beasley-Murray, G. R. (1974). The book of Revelation. London: Oliphants. Burrus, V. (2000). “Begotten, not made:” Conceiving manhood in late antiquity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Burrus, V. (2005). Mimicking virgins: Colonial ambivalence and the ancient romance. Arethusa, 38, 49-98. Cahoon, L. (1988). The bed as battlefield: Erotic conquest and military metaphor in Ovid’s Amores. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 118, 293-307. Caird, G. B. (1966). The Revelation of Saint John. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Cameron, A. (1991). Christianity and the rhetoric of empire: The development of Christian discourse. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cantarella, E. (1992). Bisexuality in the ancient world (Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, Trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cato. (1934). Cato and Varro: On agriculture (W. D. Hooper, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Catullus. (1962). Catullus, Tibullus, and Pervigilium Veneris (Francis Warre Cornish, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Charles, R. H. (1920). A critical and textual commentary on the Revelation of St. John. Edinburgh: T and T Clark. Cicero. (1913). On duties (Walter Miller, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cicero. (1926). Philippics (Walter C. A. Ker, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clarke, J. R. (2001). Looking at lovemaking: Constructions of sexuality in Roman art, 100 B.C.- A.D. 250. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Collins, A. Y. (1984). Crisis and catharsis: The power of the apocalypse. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. D’Ambra, E. (1993). Private lives, imperial virtues: The frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Deming, W. (2004). Paul on marriage and celibacy: The Hellenistic background of 1 Corinthians 7. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Dio Cassius. (1924). Roman history (Vols. 1-9, Earnest Cary, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elder, L. B. (1994). The women question and female ascetics among Essenes. Biblical Archeology, 57, 220-34. Epictetus. (1925-1928). Diatribes and the Encheiridion (Vols. 1-4, W. A. Oldfather, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Eusebius. (1980). The ecclesiastical history (Vols. 1-2, Kirsopp Lake, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fekkes, J. (1994). Isaiah and the prophetic traditions in the book of Revelation: Visionary antecedents and their development. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Feulliet, A. (1967). Les 144.000 Israélites marqués d’un sceau. Novum Testamentum, 9, 191-224. Fischler, S. (1994). Social stereotypes and historical analysis: The case of the imperial women at Rome. In Léonie J. Archer, Susan Fischler & Maria Wyke (Eds.), Women in ancient societies: An illusion of the night (pp. 115-133). New York: Routledge. Fischler, S. (1998). Imperial cult: Engendering the cosmos. In Lin Foxhall & John Salmon (Eds.), When men were men: Masculinity, power and identity in classical antiquity (pp. 165-183). New York: Routledge. Foskett, M. F. (2002). A virgin conceived: Mary and classical representations of virginity. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Foucault, M. (1990). History of sexuality (Vols. 1-3, Robert Hurley, Trans.). New York: Vintage. Friesen, S. J. (2001). Imperial cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friesen, S. J. (2004). Myth and symbolic resistance in Revelation 13. Journal of Biblical Literature, 123, 281-31. Frilingos, C. A. (2003). Sexing the Lamb. In Stephen D. Moore & Janice Capel Anderson (Eds.), New Testament masculinities (pp. 297-317). Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Frilingos, C. A. (2004). Spectacles of empire: Monsters, martyrs, and the Book of Revelation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gaca, K. L. (2000). The reproductive technology of the Pythagoreans. Classical Philology, 95, 113-32. Gaca, K. L. (2003). The making of fornication: Eros, ethics, and political reform in Greek philosophy and early Christianity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Galambush, J. (1992). Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The city as Yahweh’s wife. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Galen. (2005). On the usefulness of the parts of the body (14.6-7). In Mary R. Lefkowitz & Maureen B. Fant (Eds.), Women’s life in Greece and Rome: A source book in translation (3rd ed., pp. 243246). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Gill, C. (2003). The school in the Roman Imperial period. In Brad Inwood (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Stoics (pp.33-58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grubbs, J. E. (1995). Law and family in late antiquity: The Emperor Constantine’s marriage legislation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horace. (1914). Odes and Epodes (C. E. Bennett, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Huber, L. R. (2007). “Like a bride adorned:” Reading metaphor in John’s Apocalypse. New York: T and T Clark. Ilan, T. (1999). Integrating women into second temple history. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Jacobs, A. S. (1999). A family affair: Marriage, class, and ethics in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 7, 105-138. Jones, B. (1992). The emperor Domitian. London: Routledge. Josephus. (1926-65). Josephus (Vols. 1-10, H. St. J. Thackeray, et. al., Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kaplan, E. A. (1983). Is the gaze male? In Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell & Sharon Thompson (Eds.), Powers of desire: The politics of sexuality (pp. 309-327). New York: Monthly Review Press. Kleiner, D. E. E. (1992). Roman sculpture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kuefler, M. (2001). The manly eunuch: Masculinity, gender ambiguity, and Christian ideology in late antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kunst, J. W. (2006). Abandoned to lust: Sexual slander and ancient Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press. La Follette, L. (1994). The costume of the Roman bride. In Judith Lynn Sebesta & Larissa Bonfante (Eds.), The world of Roman costume (pp. 54-64). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lassen, E. M. (1997). The Roman family: Ideal and metaphor. In Halvor Moxnes (Ed.), Constructing early Christian families: Family as social reality and metaphor (pp. 103-120). London: Routledge. Liddell, H. G. (1968). A Greek-English lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Livy. (1919). Livy (Vols. 1-14, B. O. Foster, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Martial. (1978). Epigrams (Rev. ed., Vols. 1-2, Walter C. A. Ker, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Martin, D. B. (1995). The Corinthian body. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Martin, D. B. (1996). The construction of the ancient family: Methodological considerations. Journal of Roman Studies, 86, 4060. Martin, D. B. (2006). Familiar idolatry and the Christian case against marriage. In Dale B. Martin (Ed.), Sex and the single savior: Gender and sexuality in biblical interpretation (pp. 103-124). Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox. Massyngberde Ford, J. (1975). Revelation. New York: Doubleday. Milnor, K. (2005). Gender, domesticity, and the age of Augustus: Inventing private life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Minear, P. S. (1966). Ontology and ecclesiology in the Apocalypse. New Testament Studies, 13, 89-105. Moore, S. D. (1996). God’s gym: Divine male bodies of the Bible. New York: Routledge. Moore, S. D. (2001). God’s beauty parlor and other queer spaces in and around the Bible. Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press. Moore, S. D., & Anderson, J. C. (Eds.). (2003). New Testament masculinities. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Musonius Rufus. (1947). Should daughters receive the same education as sons? (Cora E. Lutz, Trans.). Yale Classical Studies, 10, 3-147. North, H. (1966). Sophrosyne: Self-knowledge and self-restraint in Greek literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Olson, D. C. (1997). “Those who have not defiled themselves with women”: Revelation 14:4 and the Book of Enoch. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 59, 492-510. Parker, H. N. (1992). Love’s body anatomized: The ancient erotic handbooks and the rhetoric of sexuality. In Amy Richlin (Ed.), Pornography and representation in Greece and Rome (pp. 90111). New York: Oxford University Press. Parker, H. N.(2001).The myth of the heterosexual: Anthropology and sexuality for classicists. Arethusa, 34, 313-262. Philo. (1941). Philo (Vol. 9, F. H. Colome, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pippin, T. (1992). Death and desire: The rhetoric of gender in the Apocalypse of John. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.

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Pippin, T. (1999). Apocalyptic bodies: The biblical end of the world in text and image. London: Routledge. Pliny. (1945). Natural history (Vols. 1-10, H. Rackham, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plutarch. (1927). Roman questions. In Moralia (Vol. 4, Frank Cole Babbitt, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plutarch. (1999). Advice to the bride and groom (Donald Russell, Trans.). In Sarah B. Pomeroy (Ed.), Plutarch’s advice to the bride and groom and a consolation to his wife: English translations, commentary, interpretive essays, and bibliography (pp. 5-13). New York: Oxford University Press. Plutarch. (2005). The dangers of sharing a bath with women (Fr. 97). In Mary R. Lefkowitz & Maureen B. Fant (Eds.), Women’s life in Greece and Rome: A source book in translation (3rd ed., p. 262). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pomeroy, S. B. (1975). Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves: Women in classical antiquity. New York: Schocken Books. Pomeroy, S. B. (1999). Reflections on Plutarch, Advice to the Bride and Groom: something old, something new, something borrowed. In Sarah B. Pomeroy (Ed.), Plutarch’s advice to the bride and groom and a consolation to his wife: English translations, commentary, interpretive essays, and bibliography (pp. 33-42). New York: Oxford University Press. Price, S. R. F. (1984). Gods and emperors: The Greek language of the Roman Imperial cult. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 104, 7995. Raditsa, L. F. (1980). Augustus’ legislation concerning marriage, procreation, love affairs and adultery. In H. Temporini & W. Haase (Eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung (2.13, pp. 278-339). New York: De Gruyter. Rawson, B. (1986). The Roman family. In Beryl Rawson (Ed.), The family in ancient Rome: New perspectives (pp. 1-57). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Rawson, B. (1995). From “daily life” to “demography.” In Richard Hawley & Barbara Levick (Eds.), Women in antiquity: New assessments (pp. 1-20). London: Routledge. Richlin, A. (1992). The garden of Priapus: Sexuality and aggression in Roman humor. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Richlin, A. (1997). Pliny’s brassier. In Judith P. Hallett & Marilyn B. Skinner (Eds.), Roman sexualities (pp. 197-220). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ricoeur, P. (1974/1991). Metaphor and the main problem of hermeneutics. In Mario J. Valdés (Ed.), A Ricoeur reader: Reflection and imagination (pp. 303-319). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Rossing, B. R. (1999). The choice between two cities: Whore, bride, and empire in the Apocalypse. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press. Rowland, C. C. (1998). The Book of Revelation. In Leander Keck, et. al., The new interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 12, pp. 503-743). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Ruiz, J.-P. (1989). Ezekiel in the Apocalypse: The transformation of prophetic language in Revelation 16,17-19,10. New York: Peter Lang. Salway, B. (1994). What’s in a name? A survey of Roman onomastic practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700. Journal of Roman Studies, 84, 124-45. Schüssler Fiorenza, E. (1991). Revelation: Vision of a just world. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Sebesta, J. L. (1994). Symbolism in the costume of the Roman woman. In Judith Lynn Sebesta & Larissa Bonfante (Eds.), The world of Roman costume (pp. 46-53). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin. Seneca. (1953-1962). Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (Rev. ed., Vols. 1-3, Richard M. Gummere, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sherk, R. K. (1988). Roman empire: Augustus to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Smith, C. R. (1990). The portrayal of the church as the New Israel in the names and order of the tribes in Revelation 7.5-8. Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 39, 111-18. Soranus. (1956). Gynecology(Owsei Temkin, Trans.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. Suetonius. (1913). Lives of the Caesars (Vols. 1-2, J. C. Rolfe, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Talbert, C. H. (1994). The Apocalypse: A reading of the Revelation to John. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press. Thiering, B. (1974). The biblical source of Qumran asceticism. Journal of Biblical Literature, 93, 429-44.

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Thompson, L. L. (1990). The book of Revelation: Apocalypse and empire. New York: Oxford University Press. Treggiari, S. (1991). Roman marriage: Lusti Coniuges from the time of Cicero to the time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Turner, M. (1987). Death is the mother of beauty: Mind, metaphor, criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Varner, E. R. (1995). Domitia Longina and the politics of portraiture. American Journal of Archeology, 99, 187-206. Veyne, P. (1978). La famille et l’amour sous le haut-empire Romain. Annales (E.S.C.), 33, 35-63. Wainwright, A. W. (1993). Mysterious apocalypse: Interpreting the Book of Revelation. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Walters, J. (1997). Invading the Roman body: Manliness and impenetrability in Roman thought. In Judith P. Hallett & Marilyn B. Skinner (Eds.), Roman sexualities (pp. 29-43). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Williams, C. A. (1999). Roman homosexuality: Ideologies of masculinity in classical antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press. Zanker, P. (1988). The power of images in the age of Augustus (Alan Shapiro, Trans.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Zimmermann, R. (2003). Die Virginitäts-metapher in Apk 14:4-5 im Horizont von Befleckung, Loskauf und Erstlingsfrucht. Novum Testamentum, 45, 45-70.

7 NARRATIVES OF SILENCE: AVAILABILITY IN A SPIRITUALITY OF FATHERING NEIL PEMBROKE THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND [email protected] ABSTRACT The author takes a narrative approach to the spirituality of paternal availability. In all of the stories that are investigated, the theme of silence is prominent. Silence manifests itself through the modalities of restraint, loving action, and listening. These three modalities express quite comprehensively the Marcelian concept of personal availability. Marcel relates availability to both receptivity and belonging. Further, he identifies Christ as the ground of these commitments. Using these concepts, a Christian perspective on the spirituality of fatherhood is developed. The research that social scientists have carried out on fatherhood over the past 30 or more years has indicated a small but significant increase in paternal participation in the care and nurture of children. While this constitutes a positive development in fatherhood, it is important to recognize that there is a deeper level of paternal relationality than basic care for the needs of the child. “Caring for” a child is not necessarily the same as “caring about” her (Rohner & Veneziano, 2001, p. 392). When a father cares deeply about his children, there is a spiritual dimension in his relationship with them. The spirituality of fatherhood, I contend, is grounded in a father’s capacity for a loving disposal of himself for the sake of his children. It is this disposability or availability that I am interested in here. In my view, the best treatment of the meaning of personal availability is provided by the French philosopher and Catholic Christian, Gabriel Marcel. In Marcel’s (1964) approach, availability 143

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means both openness to the other and forming a covenant of belonging with her. This covenant of belonging, he contends, is ultimately grounded in the love of Christ. The aim of this paper is to explore the way in which fathers express their love for their children through these spiritual dynamics. The method used in this attempt to gain an understanding of the spirituality of paternal availability is a narrative one. Psychologists, theologians, and moral philosophers who use this method are impressed by the fact that human persons think, feel, act, and exercise their moral imagination according to narrative structures. Story, they note, is highly significant in the human quest for meaning and self-understanding. In carrying out a search for stories of fathers’ caring relationships with their children, I was initially struck by the way in which Sarbin (2002) identified silence as a prominent theme in the narratives that are recorded in the book, Between Fathers and Sons. As I continued my search, I found myself drawn to this motif. Paternal silence was most often presented in a negative light. There were a number of references in adult children’s reports to suffering the “silence of absence,” to receiving “the silent treatment” when father disapproved, and to the inability to communicate affection. Given that paternal parenting failures are a common topic both in the popular media and in academic publications, these are the kinds of reports that one might expect to find. What I was less prepared for was the finding that paternal silence was also reported in a positive light. Specifically, it was associated with paternal love and selfcommunication. It is this dimension of paternal silence that is pursued here. I have taken an account by a father and some stories from adult children (including one drawn from my personal experience) to present a portrait of the spirituality of paternal availability through silence. The way in which silence functions in these personal reports I have sought to capture through the following three modalities: restraint, self-giving, and listening. I discovered, first, that some fathers are wise enough to silence their inclination to dominate their children’s learning. They know the value of restraint. Keeping quiet on occasion creates a space for the child to develop her natural sense of wonder. Through my research, second, I was also reminded that for children loving actions have a moral presence that is stronger than words. Paternal love is often powerfully expressed through a (largely) non-verbal self-communication. And

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finally, reflection on the experience of my own father’s love brought to mind a story illustrative of his capacity to silence his intentions in order to attend to me. Dad was, and is, a good listener. He has the capacity to quickly still his own mental traffic in order to be fully present to others. I have just indicated that the category of story is central in this attempt to grasp the “soul of fatherhood” (Garbarino, 2000). It is well to begin with a brief description of the narrative approach to understanding human thought and action.

NARRATIVE AND LIFE One of the significant recent developments in the intellectual view of human life and the world has been the turn to narrative. Quite a large number of social scientists, psychotherapists, philosophers, educators, political scientists, ethicists, and theologians have identified story as a fundamental category in their work (Cf. Kreiswirth, 2000). That life has a storied nature can easily be seen when one observes, first, that we all live out narratives in our daily activities, and, second, that we use narrative to help us understand what those activities mean (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 197). With this in mind, Sarbin (1986) proposes a “narrative principle.” This principle is used to capture the fact “that human beings think, perceive, imagine, and make moral choices according to narrative structures” (Sarbin, 1986, p. 8). While virtually everyone accepts that human beings use narrative as a way of imposing structure on human experience, some object that the category is assigned a more significant role in interpreting human thought and action than is warranted. They argue that a fundamental difference between what goes on in a literary work and in real life is that in the former case the author has complete control over the story and can therefore generate structure and order (see Crossley, 2000, p. 52). Life is not nearly as neat and orderly as a literary work. Chaos and contingency define the lives we lead. The fact that there is inevitably a “messiness” associated with our lives does not, however, rule out a narrative approach to human existence. This is so because, like the author of a literary work, we are selective in the way that we approach our lives. That is to say, we are quite discriminating in the way we plot our lives (Crossley, 2000, p. 53). Certain options are set aside because they do not fit with the way we understand the story of our lives. That

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is, to some extent we direct the action in our personal narratives. It is also the case that we are selective in the way we tell and retell the central narratives in our experience of the world. In this way, we bring coherence and continuity to the chaos of our live reality. As we communicate to others (and to ourselves) who we are, there is an ordering of personal experience through a narrative process that has the function of producing meaning and a sense of identity (Sarbin, 2002). The self comes into being through story-telling. We know who we are and what our lives mean because of the stories we tell about ourselves. In what follows, the focus is on stories that teach us important truths about the spirituality of a father’s relationship with his children. Social scientific research is telling us that paternal involvement has been on the increase for some time now. In order to set the scene for the narrative study of paternal availability, we will turn to a brief survey of this research.

THE INVOLVEMENT OF FATHERS IN PARENTING Traditionally, fathers have been depicted as relatively uninvolved in the care of children. Their primary roles in this presentation are breadwinner and role model (Atkinson & Blackwelder, 1993; LaRossa, 1997; Palkovitz, 1996). Fathers exist to provide, first, material and moral support for their wives, and, second, a model of responsibility, commitment, and hard work for their children. But many claim that we are now witnessing a revolution in fatherhood. This is the era of the “new father.” According to the new ideology, fathers should not only provide materially for their families, they should also be actively involved both physically and emotionally in the nurture of their children. The distant father of the traditional family is fading away as more and more dads are experiencing a change of heart. “[T]he hearts of men—and the face of parenting—are changing before our eyes. This is about fathers crying, cooking, being afraid, braiding hair, waiting with the children at the doctor’s office, the principal’s office, after school at the soccer field” (Gillenkirk, 2000, p. 20). While there is no doubt that a significant change is in the air, talk of a revolution is probably exaggerated. It is more a case of a gradual evolution toward a new understanding of fatherhood (Parke, 1996, p. 3). Though it is true that fathers are now more involved in parenting, there is still a long way to go. There is clearly a

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gap between the rhetoric of the involved father and what fathers are actually doing (LaRossa, 1997, p. 5). Despite a certifiable increase in paternal participation (LaRossa, 1997; Parke, 1996; Wilcox, 2004), mothers continue to take most of the load in the care of children. Whether it is revolution or evolution that we are talking about, social scientists have shown a high degree of interest in researching the involved father. Lamb (2000) identifies three dimensions in paternal involvement in the care of children, namely engagement, accessibility, and responsibility. Engagement refers to the time spent in one-to-one interaction through activities such as feeding the child, helping her with homework, and playing games with her. The term accessibility is used to denote availability to the child rather than direct interaction. A father may be reading his newspaper, for example, while the child plays a short distance away. Responsibility, finally, is indicative of the extent to which the father acts as “primary manager” in the child’s day-to-day affairs. The common needs of a child include medical care, childcare and baby-sitting, clothing, and care and support when ill. Responsibility is a measure of the level of the father’s involvement in taking care of the arrangements associated with these, and other, needs. While this increase in father involvement constitutes a very welcome development, it is important to recognize that there is a deeper level of paternal relationality than basic care for the needs of the child. As indicated above, “caring for” a child is not necessarily the same as “caring about” her. When a father cares deeply about his children, there is a spiritual dimension in his relationship with them. The spirituality of fatherhood is grounded in a father’s capacity for a loving disposal of himself for the sake of his children. Marcel (1950, 1964) refers to this loving disposal of self as availability. We turn now to a consideration of his insightful work.

MARCELIAN AVAILABILITY: BASIC THEORY AND THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS To describe a willingness to make the self available, Gabriel Marcel uses the word, disponibilité. It has a financial connotation and is linked to the notion of disposable assets. The available person is the one who is prepared to put all of her assets at the disposal of the other.

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Marcel (1964) also interprets disponibilité in terms of receptivity. He develops the link between the two terms in an essay in Creative Fidelity entitled “Phenomenological Notes on Being in a Situation.” To exist with others, he observes, is to be exposed to influences. It is not possible to be human without to some extent being permeable to those influences. Permeability, in its broadest sense, is associated with a certain lack of cohesion or density. Thus, the fact of being exposed to external influences is linked with a kind of incohesion. I am “porous,” open to a reality that seeks to communicate with me. Marcel puts it this way:

 I must somehow make room for the other in myself; if I am completely absorbed in myself, concentrated on my sensations, feelings, anxieties, it will obviously be impossible for me to receive, to incorporate in myself, the message of the other. What I called incohesion a moment ago here assumes the form of disposability. (Marcel, 1964, p. 88)

 Disposability, then, is closely associated with receptivity. Receptivity involves a readiness to make available one’s personal center, one’s ownmost domain. We receive others in a room, in a house, or in a garden, but not on unknown ground or in the woods. Receptivity means that I invite the other chez soi (Marcel, 1950, p. 118). That is, I invite him to “be at home” with me. A home receives the imprint of one’s personality; something of myself is infused into the way my home-space is constructed. Contrast this with “the nameless sadness” associated with a hotel room; this is no-one’s home. To share one’s home-space is disposability or availability because “[t]o provide hospitality is truly to communicate something of oneself to the other” (Marcel, 1950, p. 91). Over against this generosity of spirit sits a tendency to become absorbed in self. The only way to break out of self obsession, according to Marcel (1964), is by “submerging oneself suddenly in the life of another person and being forced to see things through his eyes” (p. 51). One cannot break out of this “inner inertia” on one’s own; it is through the presence of another person that this “miracle” is accomplished. The miracle does not, of course, happen automatically; one must be open, responsive, to the appeal of the other.

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We are, however, still left with the questions: Why am I nonresponsive to the suffering of the other? Why do I feel opaque, non-permeable? Marcel believes that non-availability is associated with the tendency to see one’s existence in terms of possession. I will treat myself as indisposable “just so far as I construe my life or being as a having which is somehow quantifiable, hence as something capable of being wasted, exhausted or dissipated” (Marcel, 1964, p. 54). In this attitude, I become like a person who knows that his small sum of money must last a very long time. I become afflicted with an anxiety and a concern that discourage self-giving. These negative affects are “reabsorbed into a state of inner inertia” (Marcel, 1964, p. 54). But if we feel we really belong to another person, we do not count the cost of, or keep a score on, our self-communication. Marcel broadened his analysis of availability to include the idea of belonging. We seem to be on dangerous ground in speaking about belonging to another person. It seems as if I must disenfranchise myself in giving myself away. Do I not in this act give up my personal autonomy? Marcel (1964) is acutely aware of the pit-falls associated with conceiving of disposability in terms of belonging. He begins his analysis with the case of servanthood. If I assert, he says, of a servant “he belongs to me,” I treat him as a thing acquired, as something to be disposed of as I wish. Everything changes, though, if I declare to another person, “I belong to you.” “Jack, I belong to you,” means “I am opening an unlimited credit account in your name, you can do what you want with me, I give myself to you” (Marcel, 1964, p. 40). The fact that I give myself to you does not mean that I am your slave. I establish my freedom in the very act of freely giving myself to you. “[T]he best use I can make of my freedom is to place it in your hands; it is as though I freely substituted your freedom for my own; or paradoxically, it is by that very substitution that I realize my freedom” (Marcel, 1964, p. 40). (Here I am reminded of Jesus’ teaching on gain through loss: In losing oneself for Christ one gains fullness of life. See, for example, Mk 8:35; Mk 9:35; Jn 12:24.) Though Marcel can assert that to give oneself freely to the other is to be free indeed, he feels the need to establish how it is possible that one can substitute the freedom of another for one’s own without a disenfranchisement. In order to give of oneself

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freely, one must have some authority over the self that is given. That is to say, if I am to dispose of myself I must belong to myself. Belonging to myself means that I am responsible for myself. When one begins to think this way, it is possible to construct a relational triad in which mutual availability and personal autonomy can coexist. The components in this triad are these: I belong to you; you belong to me; I belong to myself (Marcel, 1964, p. 42). Though for the most part Marcel prefers to operate at the threshold of faith rather than engage directly with the Christian heritage, he does make some explicit theological statements in relation to availability. It is interesting that the leading British theologian, Alistair McFadyen, develops a very similar approach to Marcel (McFadyen, 1990, ch. 5). Crucial to the formation of personhood is what McFadyen calls “being centered.” The centering of one’s experience in the self is what constitutes autonomy. Being centered is defined as the “achievement of organizing one’s life from an organizational locus within oneself; the ability to refer the features of the world to oneself and one’s own location, so that the possibilities for action may be focused on as they relate to oneself and so be self-ascribed” (McFadyen, 1990, p. 312). I refer my experience of the world to my personal center and thereby ensure that my actions are self-ascribed. This is another way of stating Marcel’s idea that “I belong to myself.” The normative pattern for dialogue, in McFadyen’s schema, is built on the understanding that “we are properly centered as persons only by being directed towards the true reality of other personal centers: we become truly ourselves when we are truly for others” (McFadyen, 1990, p. 151). In Marcel’s language, I avoid the self-constricting egoism potentially associated with the “I belong to myself” when I simultaneously assert that “I belong to you” and “You belong to me.” McFadyen points to the fact that in a Christian understanding, mutual giving in a relationship is grounded in the presence and power of Christ. It is faith in Christ and the grace of his sustaining love which allows Christians to risk themselves with others: The otherness of other people, including their brokenness, does not pose a threat of disintegration for those who live in the knowledge that they are upheld as integral beings in the presence of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and in the

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love and acceptance of God and/or others: who are, in other words, empowered by the Spirit, conformed to Christ and called into responsibility before God and others. (McFadyen,  1990, p . 157)

Marcel (1964) also claims that belonging to others is grounded in a belonging to Christ. He acknowledges that there may be an initial revolt against Christ’s claim that I belong to him. It seems as if Christ is exerting a tyranny over me. But, says Marcel, what frees this claim from any possibility of tyranny is the fact that, in a sense, Christ is not really someone else but “more internal to me than myself” (p. 100). His right is exercised not in terms of power but of love. If I can but overcome my unproductive resistance to what seems a tyrannical claim, says Marcel, I am set free from the strangulating grip of egoism. I belong to myself; I belong to Christ; I belong to you; you belong to me. With these statements, Marcel (1964) seeks to offer an understanding of availability which holds together personal autonomy and freedom, on the one hand, and a genuine commitment to others that is grounded in Christ, on the other hand. Christ is the ground of the free act in which two persons in a loving relationship engage in a reciprocal substitution of freedom. Or to put it another way, in Christ the persons in relationship cease to belong to themselves as they transcend one another in the very heart of their love (Marcel, 1964, p. 99). The stories of paternal availability that are offered below express both elements—openness and belonging—in disponibilité. We will reflect on the experiences of fathers who open themselves fully to their children. They show a certain “porousness” to the important experiences in their children’s lives. All of the stories, secondly, speak to the experience of fathers expressing their deep sense of belonging to their children. They show us a paternal love grounded in the unspoken message, “I belong to you; I have opened an unlimited credit account on your behalf.” The moral presence that is represented in these stories is not an explicitly Christian one. That is, none of the agents refer to faith in Christ as an inspiration. Nevertheless, Marcel would insist that in each of the acts of love that are referred to, Christ is present. For him, the disposal of oneself for the other is an expression of one’s

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true nature. And to express one’s true self is to express the grace of Christ. This is what Marcel means when he says that Christ is “more internal to me than myself.” In the stories that are presented below, we will encounter fathers who express their bond of love with their children in quite beautiful ways. Like all of us who have the deep privilege and responsibility of being a father, they are not perfect. And yet, their intention is always to give of themselves for their children. What I find interesting in the stories of paternal availability that are offered is that they all involve the theme of silence.

SILENCE AS EXPRESSIVE OF PATERNAL AVAILABILITY Silence is most often viewed negatively in relation to the availability of a father. We are all too aware, for instance, of the “silent treatment” that has such a potential for emotional wounding. When a child has erred in some way, a father may react by creating an emotional distance that serves to communicate his deep disapproval. In writing about this tendency in his father, Kenneth Gergen reflects that “[i]t was not an instructive disapproval, the kind that points to promising routes toward improvement; nor did it seem a charitable disapproval, the kind that otherwise suggests understanding and sympathy for the errant action. Rather, those silences seemed to bespeak a disgust; the depths of which I could not fathom” (Gergen, Gergen, & Martini, 2002, p. 126). Living with this withering silence is deeply painful. Another common form of wounding paternal silence is absence. In looking back on their childhood, many people will comment on the fact that their fathers simply were not there. Work, other responsibilities, and personal passions were always calling them away. When this “silence in absence” (Gergen et al, 2002, p. 134) is compounded by failure to be fully present when actually at home the effect is quite devastating. Peter Garrett gives eloquent expression to the profound sense of loss associated with this experience when he writes: The aching fact is that because my father wasn’t often at home—or when he was, he was unhappy and didn’t talk easily to his sons—I didn’t really get to know this person who in part made me. There are real gaps in this half-formed relationship

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that can’t be filled by photo albums and memories of maiden aunts. (Garrett, 1997, p. 252)

Paternal silence can be particularly toxic. What I want to explore here, however, is the way in which some paternal practices grounded in silence have just the opposite effect. Fathers can, and do, express their personal availability to their children through silence. There are three practices that I want to concentrate on: restraint, loving action, and listening.

RESTRAINT Loving fathers—and mothers—want the best for their children. They see the potential in their daughters and sons and want to do everything that they can to aid them in developing it. An important question that needs to be faced here is this: Along which particular line will the potential be developed? That is, will the child be given a certain amount of freedom in order to find her own way, or will the father succumb to the temptation to push her along the route that he has meticulously mapped for her? I use the phrase “a certain amount of freedom” advisedly. In an age when children are bombarded with unwholesome input from peers, the mass media, and the Internet, parents should not abdicate their responsibility for guiding and training their children. A laissez-faire approach to parenting is unhelpful and irresponsible. Nevertheless, children do need space to be. Fathers express their commitment to their children through a loving restraint. They restrain their tendency to mold them into their own image. In holding back, they create a space that Nouwen (1975, p. 51)—referring to interpersonal relationships in general—calls a “friendly emptiness.” This is not a fearful emptiness, but rather an exciting one that provides room for the child to move. She is given the opportunity to explore herself and her potential. This exploration should be open, but not unbounded. There is a very big difference between pulling back and withdrawing altogether. Pulling back is difficult for some. A father feels that he has so much to teach, so much wisdom to pass on. Words, sentences, and paragraphs tumble out of his mouth until all the holes in the learning space are filled. But it is the father that has done most of the filling. It may be that this is of relatively little concern to him. From

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his point of view, the important fact is that his child is learning and developing. She needed to be equipped to make her way in the world, and the requisite tools have been supplied. There is a deeper paternal wisdom, however. There are those fathers who appreciate the value of silence. There is time to teach and a time to be quiet. Bruce Dawe is a teacher and a poet. He recalls that [w]hen our first child, Brian, was trying out his first words for size, I had to keep on reminding myself that the parent who is a teacher (by profession that is, since all parents, like it or not, are teachers of one kind or another) must be ready to apply the brakes to his/her enthusiasm for correction of the younger generation. The young do have to learn many language lessons on their own. (Dawe, 1997, p. 275)

He captured this central paternal learning experience in a poem: I have to be careful with my boy. When he says tree it comes out hazy very green and friendly and before I’ve got the meaning straight he’s up there laughing in it, or working on the word for aeroplane which is also a little above his head so that he has to stand on tiptoe to touch it --for him it does Immelmanns to order, but when I try it becomes suddenly only a model in a museum with props that slowly turn when the button is pushed and a cutaway section to show the engine in action… I have to be careful with my boy, that I don’t crumple his immediate-delivery-genuine-fold-upand-extensible world into correct English forever, petrify its wonder with the stony gaze of grammar, or turn him into a sort of Sunday visitor at the lakeside

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who brings bags of specially-prepared bread-crusts to feed to swans who arch their necks and hiss. (Dawe, 1997, pp. 275–276)

Dawe’s metaphor of the petrification of wonder is especially instructive. A surplus of paternal teaching has the effect of filling the learning space. When this happens, there are no longer any openings for the child’s inquisitive drive to push through. What began as wonder is metamorphosed through paternal overinvolvement into a solid block of dead imagination. Fathers want the best for their children. Most have accumulated a considerable amount of learning, wisdom, and experience. In their love for their children, they seek to make this available to them. Fathers do need to be teachers, but what Bruce Dawe’s experience reminds us is that there is also a very important place for the “silence of restraint.” Giving of self for one’s child sometimes requires holding back one’s teaching.

LOVING ACTION Children want to hear that their fathers—and mothers—love them, but even more important to them are concrete demonstrations of love. While they can tolerate a certain level of slippage between word and deed, once it extends beyond a certain limit the language of love becomes tarnished. Actions are imbued with a higher degree of moral power than words simply because when it comes to parenting it is much easier to say it than it is to do it. Love is a form of work (Peck, 1990). Work is defined as an activity involving the expenditure of energy in order to achieve a defined goal. It requires physical, mental, and emotional energy to love a child. The fact that many of us who are parents have a tendency to laziness means that we are not always ready to expend the energy required to enact the commitment to our children that we have professed. If these failures become too frequent, the words of love that we utter begin to sound hollow to our children. In reflecting on his relationship with his father, Donald Spence comments that “words of any kind always came second to actions; not only did these speak louder but they contained more of a moral presence. Language was cheap and often untrustworthy” (Spence, 2002, p. 58). What is most prominent in Spence’s memory

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of his father’s (he always called him by his first name, Ralph) mode of parenting is its selflessness. He tells this story:

 I was sick in bed, my mother was in the hospital, and Ralph was planning to go out for the evening and play bridge with some friends. I pleaded with him not to leave and, with almost no hesitation, he offered to invite the bridge group to our house. He didn’t surround the offer with “maybes” or other conditionals; he simply said, “I’ll invite them here” and that was that. I was overjoyed; not only would he not leave me, but I could go to sleep to the sound of laughter and merriment. Looking back on this moment, I can see the same kind of selflessness at work: you do it but you don’t talk about it. Not only did he leave out the “maybes”; he also made no attempt to bargain with me or make a moral point. By doing and not saying, he showed me that actions can often speak much louder than words. (Spence, 2002, pp. 54–55)

 Some readers may wonder at Spence’s reference to his father’s selflessness. Surely Ralph only did what any father with an ounce of decency would do. Be that as it may, this simple act of consideration had a lasting effect on Spence. He has treasured the memory all these years. It is both encouraging and humbling for those of us who are fathers to be reminded that even our small acts of kindness may be deeply valued by our children. Our theme is silence, but words, it goes without saying, can be very powerful. They have the power to bind two people together. A secret shared, for example, creates a very strong bond. When intimate thoughts and feelings are shared and received with love and respect a deep sense of connection is established. It is also true that the bond of love can be firmly established without a word being spoken. In this story of a father trying to retrieve the “one that got away,” the theme of selflessness is again in evidence. Mark Tappan recalls proudly pulling a trout out of the water. But as my dad was trying to get the hook out of its mouth the fish got loose and fell, flopping, onto the bank. In a flash my dad reached for the fish and tried to get a hold of it again, but

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it flopped quickly into the shallow water. Without a pause my dad jumped into the water to catch it—clothes, shoes, and all!!—but the fish was quicker, and it was gone. I was stunned. I was a little sad about losing the fish, but mostly I couldn’t believe that my dad had just jumped into the water to try to catch that fish! My dad looked quite funny, flailing around in the water, and I know he felt bad about losing my fish. I don’t remember being embarrassed; I just remember being amazed at what my dad had done, that he would do something like that for me—jumping into the water, getting his clothes wet, showing no concern for himself, only for me. (Tappan, 2002, p. 94)

 In these ordinary actions fathers display their readiness to dispose of themselves for their children. The father-child bond of belonging is established through the offer and the reception of the gift of self. It is not what is said here that is significant, but rather what is done. The paternal commitment is enacted in the silence above and beyond proclamations of love.

LISTENING High on the list of what children want from their fathers is to be acknowledged and validated through being seen, heard, and attended to. Osherson (1996) refers to the importance of a father becoming an attentive audience for his child. When the performance is being enacted an audience is a silent gathering. The onlookers find themselves fully engaged with what is going on up on the stage. They are receptive and ready for the experience that is offered to them. Or at least this is the case when the performance is both of a high quality and according to personal taste. When these conditions are not in place, the members of the audience may become restless and distracted. What makes listening attentively to a child challenging is the fact that often the “performance” is not especially riveting. If a father is to make himself available he needs to engage his powers of concentration. Nouwen (1972) takes this further when he says that good listening involves concentration without intention. Intentions refer to the random thoughts, pressing concerns, and pleasant musings that tear the listener away from

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his or her conversation partner. The silence required for good listening goes deeper than simply stopping oneself from interrupting. If a father is to attend to his child he needs to silence the intentions that are so distracting. This deeper silence is rooted in a spirituality of personal centering. “Anyone who wants to pay attention without intention has to be at home in his own house—that is, he has to discover the center of his life in his own heart” (Nouwen, 1972, p. 92). The fact that my own father was such a good listener was enormously important to me. One memory that comes to mind just now is the times that he patiently listened to my explanations of how I managed to solve a particularly challenging calculus problem. In High School I really loved math and science. In fact, I was so enamored with these disciplines that I went on to study engineering at university. I would often be up late working on the calculus problems that we had been assigned in the first year of the course. If the problem was especially tough, when I finally found the solution I would be bursting with pleasure and pride. The elegance of the solution was a beautiful thing and I just had to have an audience to share my delight. My poor old Dad, very much engaged with his favorite TV program and not the slightest bit interested in calculus, was always the target. I remember very clearly his earnest attempts to follow each step. Of course he would usually get lost at some point. But that fact mattered little to me. What I really cared about was that he concentrated so hard. He knew how important this was to me, and he did his level best to attend closely to what I was telling him. Part of me knew that I was being silly burdening him with calculus problems that were of no interest to him. And yet I needed to share this important part of my life with him. That he listened so carefully and did his best to share in my excitement was enormously significant in the context of our relationship. My father’s attentiveness expresses very well what is meant by the Marcelian concept of availability. Availability requires a certain “incohesion.” Spaces need to be created within the self into which the communications of the other can flow. It is exceedingly easy, as we all know only too well, to fill those spaces with one’s own musings and concerns. The attentive father is the one who empties himself in the presence of his children. This emptiness is produced through a creating a stillpoint in one’s personal center. When this is

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achieved, a father enters the silence that is the condition of the possibility of personal availability.

CONCLUSION We have taken a narrative approach to the spirituality of paternal availability. In all of the stories we have investigated, the theme of silence has been prominent. We saw it expressed through the modalities of restraint, self-giving, and listening. Some fathers are wise enough, first, to silence their inclination to dominate their children’s learning. They know the value of restraint. Maintaining silence on occasion creates a space for the child to develop her natural sense of wonder. Through the fatherhood stories, second, we were reminded that for children loving actions have a moral presence that is stronger than words. And finally, we reflected on the importance in fatherhood of patient listening. This requires a capacity to silence one’s intentions in order to attend fully to one’s child. These three modalities express quite comprehensively what Marcel means by personal availability. We saw that Marcel talks about availability in terms both of receptivity and belonging. Further, he considers that in these experiences of love and care, Christ is present. For Marcel, the disposal of oneself for the other is an expression of one’s true nature. And to express one’s true self is to express the grace of Christ.

REFERENCES Atkinson, M., & Blackwelder, S. (1993). Fathering in the 20th century. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55(4), 975-986. Crossley, M. (2000). Introducing narrative psychology. Buckingham: Open University Press. Dawe, B. (1997). Snapshots. In R. Fitzgerald & K. Spillman (Eds.), Fathers in writing (pp. 266-278). Nedlands, Western Australia: Tuart House. Garbarino, J. (2000). The soul of fatherhood. In H. E. Peters et al (Eds.), Fatherhood: Research, interventions, and policies (pp. 11-21). Binghampton NY: The Haworth Press. Garrett, P. (1997). One-way train. In R. Fitzgerald & K. Spillman (Eds.), Fathers in writing (pp. 248-253). Nedlands, Western Australia: Tuart House.

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Gergen, K., Gergen, J. S., & Martini, C. (2002). Blessed be the name of the father: Generational echoes. In R. Pellegrini & R. Sarbin (Eds.), Between fathers and sons: Critical Incident Narratives in the development of men’s lives (pp. 125-139). New York: The Haworth Clinical Practice Press. Gillenkirk, J. (2000). A revolution in American fathering, America, 183(14), 18-21. Kreiswirth, M. (2000). Merely telling stories? Narrative and knowledge in the human sciences. Poetics Today 21, 293-318. Lamb, M. (2000). The history of research on father involvement: An overview. In H. E. Peters et al (Eds.), Fatherhood: Research, interventions, and policies (pp. 23-58). Binghampton NY: The Haworth Press. LaRossa, R. (1997). The modernization of fatherhood: A social and political history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacIntyre, A. (1981). After virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. MacIntyre, A. (1990). The call to personhood: A Christian theory of the individual in social relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcel, G. (1950). The Mystery of Being: Vol. I. London: The Harvill Press. Marcel, G. (1964). Creative fidelity (R. Rosthal, Trans.). New York: The Noonday Press. Nouwen, H. (1972). The wounded healer. New York: Doubleday. Nouwen, H. (1975). Reaching out. New York: Doubleday. Osherson, S. (1996). The passions of fatherhood. New York: HarperPerennial. Palkovitz, R. (1996). The “recovery” of fatherhood. In A. Carr & M. Stewart Van Leeuwen (Eds.), Religion, feminism, and the family, (pp. 310-329). Louiseville: Westminster John Knox Press. Parke, R. (1996). Fatherhood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Peck, M. S. (1990). The road less travelled. London: Arrow Books, 1990. Rohner, R. & Veneziano, R. (2001). The importance of father love: History and contemporary evidence, Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 382-405.

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Sarbin, T. R. (1986). The narrative as a root metaphor for psychology. In T. R. Sarbin (Ed.), Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct (pp. 3-21). New York: Praeger. Sarbin, T. R. (2002). Sons and fathers: The storied nature of human relationships. In R. Pellegrini & T. R. Sarbin (Eds.), Between fathers and sons: Critical Incident Narratives in the development of men’s lives (pp. 11-28). New York: The Haworth Clinical Practice Press. Spence, D. (2002). Teaching by doing. In R. Pellegrini & R. Sarbin (Eds.), Between fathers and sons: Critical incident narratives in the development of men’s lives (pp. 53-59). New York: The Haworth Clinical Practice Press. Tappan, M. (2002). The one that got away—or did it? In R. Pellegrini & R. Sarbin (Eds.), Between fathers and sons: Critical incident narratives in the development of men’s lives (pp. 93-103). New York: The Haworth Clinical Practice Press. Wilcox, W. B. (2004). Soft patriarchs, new men: How Christianity shapes fathers and husbands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

8 HAREDI MALE BODIES IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE: NEGOTIATING WITH THE RELIGIOUS TEXT AND SECULAR ISRAELI MEN YOHAI HAKAK UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH [email protected] ABSTRACT As a fundamentalist religious group, the Israeli Haredi44 community claims to adhere to stable fundamentals of belief which also shape the male body as different from the secular Israeli male body and as opposed to it. In this article I will question such claims by focusing on how young Israeli Haredi men construct their bodies in relation to the secular Israeli body, which is considered their principal “Other.” I will show that due to the processes the Haredi community is undergoing, and especially the transition of many men from the protected Haredi space to wider Israeli society, the secular body's influence on the Haredi body is increasing in some respects. Other aspects of the Haredi body remain constant and form a challenging alternative to the secular male

44 Haredi is the singular for Haredim—the Haredi Jews. The word ‘‘hared’’ in Hebrew means tremble and comes from the book of Isaiah (66:5): “Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word.” I use the Hebrew term “Haredi” (and not Ultra Orthodox) because members of the community use it to characterize themselves, and because it is a broader classification which encompasses not only the Eastern European groups. See, for example, Friedman (1991).

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THE BEST OF JMMS body. I will also reveal the organizing logic for this process.45

In 1999–2000, the Israeli Haredi community was alarmed at the establishment of a new Haredi Brigade (Hanachal Hacharedi) within the Israeli Defense Forces. Until then, young Haredi men did not serve in the army.46 The formation of the new unit was received with very vocal protests from all parts of the Haredi community and especially from the more conservative sectors. The common perception of Haredi rabbis of military culture and weapons can be learned from the pamphlet “In the Campaign: Journal of the Torah World,” (No. 1 August 1999). This edition is devoted entirely to the “horrors of recruitment” and its terrible implications. The back page of the pamphlet bears a picture of a Haredi child looking admiringly at a Haredi soldier and stretching out his hand to touch the gun he is holding. The picture is captioned: “a pure Haredi child, attending the ceremony at the end of basic military training of the Haredi Nachal unit” [the newly formed unit, Y. H.]. He looks admiringly at the weapons held by the Haredi soldiers. One of the soldiers lowers it and the child strokes the gun longingly, like children who reach out to the Torah scroll when it is removed from the Ark in the synagogue.47 The faces (of the child and the soldier in the photograph) are blurred for obvious reasons (ostensibly to preserve their anonymity), and thus readers are saved the expression on this pure child's face when first seeing this “new world,” so opposed to the inner atmosphere of the Torah world.

45 The author would like to thank the reviewers of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality for their useful comments. 46 As a rule, yeshiva students receive a deferral from army service for as long as they continue to study in the yeshiva. A similar Haredi army unit was active during the 1960s. It was an initiative of the Tze'irei Agudat Yisrael Youth Movement and was meant to absorb Haredi young men who could not or did not want to continue to study Torah. Following strong internal Haredi criticism the number of new recruits was reduced drastically and the unit was disbanded. 47 This happens every time the Torah is read, usually once a week but also in other special religious events.

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What does the child growing up in an atmosphere of holiness think of this encounter? This short quote illustrates the difficulties that many religious and fundamentalist groups face in attempting to maintain strict adherence to religious positions on all issues, while living in the midst of big, modern and rapidly changing Western cities, surrounded by non-religious majority communities. The Haredi community perceives itself as an alternative to Western culture. Sociologists have described it as a counter-culture (Friedman, 1991) and as an enclave (Sivan, 1991). As part of its attempt to protect itself from outside influences, the community members’ bodies are under close surveillance. These bodies are disciplined and controlled according to what is perceived as unchanging religious principles of belief. Every small change in the body’s appearance or behavior is perceived as an indication of other, less explicit transgressions, and as a major threat to the community’s survival. Since it is also a textual society that lives “by the book,” one would assume that Haredi bodies will indeed reflect these tendencies. In this article I will question such assumptions by focusing on the Haredi male body. I will observe how the Haredi male body is constructed, stressing the points where it conforms to religious dictates and where it transgresses them. This nuanced examination can teach us much about the religious body in other cases where it is constructed in relation to surrounding non-religious bodies. Current theoretical literature dealing with bodies assumes that they are not innate or essentialist, but the result of social structuring. It further assumes that they are constantly shaped and changed in the course of the interaction between the discourse and the social institutions in which individuals and their bodies function (Ferree, Lorber & Hess, 1999, p. xvii). The individual and his body adapt themselves to accepted social perceptions, but in parallel they influence them, change them, and are active partners in the process of affirming the identity and the body (Connell, 1995; Frank, 1991). This literature also indicates that social change at the macro level often leads to change in the body and in male identities at the micro level. One such social change can be the transition of groups of people from one social context to another or the rapid exposure to another competing model of the male body. As I will show, the special social and historical context in which Haredi society finds itself provides such a case. Following Connell (1995), I understand

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the construction of the male body and identity as occurring in relation to other male bodies and identities. Creating these comparisons is a key means in the struggle for hegemony between the diverse models of the body and of masculinity. On this backdrop, I am interested in the comparisons conducted by Haredi males with other males, and primarily with the secular Israeli males who are their principal “Other.” My focus on the relationships between men is in no way intended to marginalize women. It is as much a result of the fact that Haredi men, like men from many other fundamentalist groups, are separated institutionally from women in many aspects of their lives. Therefore, constructing their masculinity is even more dependent on the comparisons they make with other men. Also, as Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne (1994) point out, the ways in which men distinguish themselves and are distinguished from other men must be an important aspect of any study of masculinity. We should also note that the Haredi body is not essentialized, and that differences with respect to it exist amongst the sub-groups that comprise this society, and even between males from the same sub-group, but of different age groups. Yet due to the hegemonic status of the Lithuanian yeshivas and their major influence on yeshivas in other sectors, the similarity between the different sectors, especially regarding the chosen attributes of the male body, is very high. I will only touch on this issue, as it has relatively little impact on the subject under discussion. A similar remark should be made regarding the secular body as perceived by Haredi young men. There is not only one secular male body, and we need to acknowledge its variants. But, in this case, the aspects of the male body which will be discussed here have very similar manifestations and meanings across the secular variations and therefore I will discuss them very briefly. In addition, the Israeli Jewish community is comprised of other groups, such as the modern orthodox (known also as religious Zionism) and traditionalists (Mesorati), which are both religious and modern. These groups, which complicate the dichotomy between Ultra Orthodox and seculars, preferred by Ultra Orthodox, also have a role in the construction of Haredi masculinities. But, due to limitations of space I will not be able to discuss it here. Although encounters between secular and Haredi males occurred as early as the beginning of the Zionist movement, and in-

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creased in intensity after the establishment of the State of Israel, the diverse factors were of limited impact until the last decade. Particularly notable was the Haredi trend to retreat and segregate within the confines of the Yeshiva and the Kollel,48 and the protected Haredi space that typified Haredi society in the years following the establishment of the State. One of the changes that the Haredi sector in Israel has experienced over the last decade is the growing movement from the closed, protected Haredi space to a broad variety of settings in wider Israeli society. Diverse factors contribute to this process, some connected to forces internal to Haredi society and some to external forces originating in wider Israeli society and in Haredi communities abroad. The inner forces include demographic growth and the political strengthening of Haredi society. These trends increase the self-confidence of Haredim and reduce the need to withdraw and segregate as a means of guaranteeing the continuity of the community. To these internal forces should be added the depletion of internal economic resources and the intensification of economic deprivation within Haredi society (Friedman, 1991; Horowitz, 2002; Lupo, 2003). The hardship of Haredi youngsters who are spiritually dissatisfied in the religious seminaries and seek more earthly channels of activity and expression is also a factor (Hakak, 2005). Amongst the external forces is the significant reduction of financial support for large families, Torah students and Torah institutions by the Israeli authorities in recent years. In parallel, the financial support from Haredi communities outside Israel has also diminished. These cutbacks have forced many more male and female Haredim to go out into the labor market. Furthermore, previously the Israeli public sphere was controlled by the great modern secular ideologies, primarily Nationalism/Zionism and Socialism, which posed a threat to Haredi society. The weakening of these ideologies also facilitates the departure of Haredim for the wider Israeli public sphere. This departure does not happen at any specific age, but with regard to males it is more likely to happen after

48 A Yeshiva is a Jewish religious seminary for unmarried young men. A Kollel is for married men.

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the age of 17 when they move to a high yeshiva where supervision is less strict. I will examine the complex interactions between religious dictates on the one hand and the pressures of present circumstances on the other, which result from the recent increased entry of Haredim into the Israeli public sphere. I will show how the social structuring of the Haredi male body vis-à-vis the secular male body both leads to change and triggers further social change. The encounters between Haredi and secular males also affect non-Haredi males, but these will be discussed elsewhere (Hakak, in progress). The findings presented here are based on extensive fieldwork that included participatory observations, in-depth interviews and textual analysis and examined the construction of masculine identities and bodies in several key arenas of activity of young Haredi males.49 The first was a small Lithuanian50 Yeshiva, where the religious authorities attempted to construct the ideal model of the Haredi male body and masculinity. Furthermore, in recent years, significant numbers of young Haredi males entered for the first time many of the other arenas examined here: basic military training, frameworks for professional technological training, and the Haredi headquarters of the Likud party.51 These three arenas were all shaped by modern values and perceptions which in many cases contradict those the young Haredi men have internalized through prolonged religious education. Those active in these three “new” arenas, in contrast to the first arena, the Yeshiva, are mainly young people on the fringes of Haredi society. I will focus here on four main attributes of the Haredi body that appeared repeatedly in these various arenas. These attributes are the control of desires and 49 I would like to thank participants in the research for their trust in me, and for their openness and readiness to involve me in their world. 50 Lithuanian Jews (known in Yiddish and Haredi English as Litvish (adjective) or Litvaks (noun)) are Ashkenazi Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (present-day Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and the northeastern Suwaâki region of Poland). The characteristically “Lithuanian” approach to Judaism was marked by a concentration on highly intellectual Talmud study and it still characterizes “Lithuanian yeshivas” today, even if they are located in Israel. 51 The Likud is a secular party, even if committed to Jewish tradition.

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bodily needs, dress, sport/exercise, and passivity/non-violence. In each case, I will question how the Haredi body is structured in relation to the secular body, and examine if/what changes were generated by such structuring. I will clarify why some attributes of the Haredi body have remained more stable while others have undergone considerable change. Prior to presenting the findings, I will briefly review research on the subject.

RELIGIOUS MALE BODIES AND THEIR SURROUNDING SOCIETIES Following the work of Michel Foucault (1977, 1978), interest in the research of the body has gained momentum. Amongst those exploring practices and discourses that serve to discipline and control the body in diverse contexts, there are also several which focus on the religious institutional contexts (Coakley, 1997; Mellor & Shilling, 1997). Discipline and control are examined in these studies with respect to issues such as clothing, the attitude towards corporeal needs and bodily movement (Arthur, 1999; Welland, 2001). This literature is growing continuously and includes a growing range of case studies. Most relate to Christian groups, many of them in the US, and a few to Muslim groups (Ouzgane, 2006) as well as Jewish. There are also many historical analyses, both on Christian as well as on Jewish groups (Boyarin, 1997; Brod, 1988; Cantor, 1995; Gilman, 1991; Satlow, 1996). A major part of the literature that deals with current fundamentalist groups focuses on their violent characteristics. These are usually interpreted as a response to the encroaching influences of modernity (Aran, Stadler & Ben-Ari, 2008; Brink & Mencher, 1996; Krondorfer, 2007; Sered, 1999). In a recent article, Aran, Stadler and Ben-Arie (2008) suggest a different interpretation for expressions of militancy among fundamentalist groups through focusing on male bodies. They interpret physical expressions of militancy as a solution to intra-fundamentalist problems which emerge in advanced stages of the movement’s lives. They refer especially to process of institutionalization and routinization that change the inner social relations. While focusing on Israeli Ultra Orthodox men they also interpret their militancy as a “solution” to the “bodily frustrations and dissatisfactions… rooted as they are in the ascetic lifestyle and stringent rules governing their lives” (p. 26).

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Another related issue, seemingly contradictory, that arises from the research literature is that in many contexts, religious men and their bodies are perceived as “feminine” by the surrounding society. Other parts of the research literature documents the perceptions of religious men themselves describing their religious institutions as too feminine or feminizing (Kirkley, 1996; Krondorfer, 1996; Muesse; 1996; Soucy, 1999). There also appears to be a common tension between the ideal male models held by different religious groups and those held by their surrounding societies. Two main sources for this tension are the commandment to restrain sexuality and restrict it to the marital framework, and the image of subjugation and submission—identified as feminine—expected of the male, relative to the masculine image of God. These tensions are responsible in some cases for men’s defection from religious communities (Kirkley, 1996) or for attempts to change their religious communities, rituals or liturgy (Torevell, 1997), and create new and different systems of belief and practice which allow the expression of more muscular masculinities and bodies, such as in the cases of the Promise Keepers and GodMen. According to Krondorfer (2007) these tensions became stronger in modernity:

 In modernity… traditional-religious models went out of fashion, among other reasons because respect, power and authority were increasingly found in the secular realm rather than in ecclesiastic contexts. Religious matters were assigned to the private sphere. With the awakening of the idea of nation states, with colonial expansionism and a seemingly unstoppable technical progress, more “manly” (i.e. more belligerent, national and heroic) ideals of masculinity were needed. Religious sentimentality was considered to be something private, soft or even neurotic (as reflected in the thoughts of people ranging from Friedrich Nietzsche to the American pragmatic Williams James). In modernity, repeated attempts were made to remasculinize church life. “Where are the men in church?” is, therefore, a modern question. (Krondorfer, 2007)

 Zionist activists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century have expressed similar opinions about traditional Judaism, describing its males and their bodies as highly feminine (Boyarin,

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1997; Gluzman, 1997; Nordau, 1902). They declared that in order to make the Jewish people a “nation like all nations” there is also a need to create a New Jewish male which will cast away all the exilic remains and will acquire a new manly and heroic masculinity. The Ultra Orthodox community did not take that path and continued to adhere to the traditional religious models. Shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel, yeshiva studies became the only normative path for every Ultra Orthodox young man. Under the shelter of these total institutions was constructed an ideal male model, with many of its attributes identified in western culture as feminine. He is expected to be gentle in his body; his skin, pale from not being exposed to the sun due to his intense religious studies; his back hunched from leaning over his books. He is expected to avoid violent confrontations with other men, to limit his sexuality to marital relations and subdue himself to the will of God. Still, these yeshivas grew and spread at a very fast rate as well as the number of men within them. This tremendous growth was happening while totally different and even contradictory masculine ideals were dominant in the surrounding Israeli society.

JEWISH, ISRAELI AND HAREDI BODIES Before commencing, I will review briefly some of the findings in the literature on the Jewish body, which historically received remarkably little attention. Eilberg-Schwartz (1990, 1992) shows how, in response to the Eurocentric western research on religions which identified certain religions as wild and primitive, Jewish researchers made an effort to downplay most corporeal aspects of Judaism that might be interpreted in this manner. At the same time, great effort was invested in describing the Jewish religion as rational. He maintains that this is one of the reasons for many Jews’ adoption of the moniker attached to the Jewish nation—The People of the Book. For the same reasons, and since anthropology formerly focused traditionally on “primitive” societies and dealt quite considerably with the body, few interpreters of Judaism deigned to address this discipline when in search of a theoretical framework or real insights. These also had far-reaching implications for the questions researchers tended to ask, the comparisons they tried to make and the research tools they typically used. All these contributed to distancing researchers of Judaism from the subject of the Jewish body.

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Most of the existing studies on the Jewish body are based on textual analysis, focusing on the connection between changes in historical circumstances and the attributes of the Jewish male body (Boyarin, 1997, 1999; Cantor, 1995; Eilberg-Schwartz, 1992; Gilman, 1991; Jacob, 1997). Some of the general trends described by these studies are presented below. The reality clearly also embraces out-of-the-ordinary situations. The Jewish attitude towards the body has apparently always been ambivalent, and almost from the outset, has shown considerable concern regarding its supervision and restraint (EilbergSchwartz, 1992). Judaism prohibits monasticism, in contrast to the main streams in Christianity and in several other religions, and the body remains an essential factor on the path to God. The complex objective is sanctifying the body, reducing its earthliness and making it spiritual, mainly through meticulous discipline of the body, harnessing to spiritual goals and self-transcendence. The individual is committed to commandments such as “be fruitful and multiply,” which can only be carried out through the body. But at the same time, the dominant perception is that man is created in God's “image and likeness,” motivating him to rid himself of his earthliness and emulate the Lord’s spirituality. The attitude of Judaism towards the body changed significantly after the destruction of the Second Temple (in 70 C. E.) and the exile that accompanied it. Due to circumstances in the Diaspora and the lack of feasibility of working the land and carrying weapons, definitions pertaining to the body, heroism and masculinity changed. Previously, Judaism emphasized bodily control and discipline and did not hold military might in particular esteem.52 Thereafter, we witness an intensification of the tendency to see those who control their urges and earthly lusts and subordinate them to the heavenly logic embodied in God’s commandments as heroes and ideal men (Boyarin, 1997; More & Anderson, 1998; Satlow, 1996). The hero is not the conqueror of fortresses and vanquisher of enemies, but “he who conquers his passions,” particularly as expressed through the study of Torah. Thus, we find ex52 For a discussion of the concept of bravery in Judaism, see Leibovitz (1993).

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pressions such as “a Torah hero,” the “Torah's battle” and the student as one who “kills himself in the tent of the Torah.”53 Bodily restraint is perceived as a condition for the flourishing of spiritual life, an objective that can best be achieved through the study of the Torah and, mainly, the Talmud. These tendencies gained further strength in the Middle Ages under the influence of Hellenistic trends that identified femininity with the body and with earthliness (Boyarin, 1993), and intensified further with the appearance of Hassidism and the Mussar movement in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. In this framework, the belief that the body is the domicile of the evil inclination and the potential dwelling of impurity strengthened (Etkes, 1982; Katz, 1970, 1996). The Mussar movement, sectors of which brought physical selfmortification to new heights, admittedly disappeared as an independent factor, but did leave a clear stamp on the world of the Lithuanian Yeshivas. The Volozhin Yeshiva, for example, was an exemplary case of the modeling of the yeshiva as a total institution (Goffman, 1961). With the arrival of this model in Israel and its adaptation to become the main instrument of separating between Haredi youth and their non-Haredi environment, these approaches were reinforced.54 Haredi society tries to preserve these tendencies and perceptions in the reality of life within broader Israeli society, in which totally different and sometimes contradictory attitudes regarding the body are common. These attempts require a great investment of energy. They have created a whole new, modern reality, compared to the years during which these perceptions were passed relatively effortlessly by tradition from father to son (Brown, 2006). Under the influence of European nationalist movements that adopted and revived the Hellenistic body culture (Leoussi & Aberbach, 2002), the heads of the Zionist movement expressed similar fears to those mentioned above as to the femininity of the tradiFor a comprehensive anthology of sources on this subject see Breuer (2004, p. 544, n.182). 54 Haredi rabbis totally reject this historical description. From their point of view, the attitude of Judaism towards the body is permanent and unalterable in its essence. 53

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tional Jewish male body. They aspired to shape a new generation of Jewish men who would be modern and secular, with athletic and muscular physiques. These men would be different from the Diaspora Jew, characterized by his traditional and religious Jewish awareness and weak 'female' body (Boyarin, 1997; Gluzman, 1997; Nordau, 1902; Shorek, 2002). Assertive behavior, manifested in diverse ways, including the national and military levels, accompanied the new Jewish body. Haredi rabbis saw the establishment of the State of Israel as a manifestation of this masculine antitraditional assertiveness, some deeming it to be a great sin.55 With the establishment of the State of Israel, the “Tzabar generation” (Almog, 1997) adopted the attributes of the Zionist body. The body of the new Jewish male was supposed to be tall, muscular through exercise and tanned from physical labor under the hot sun; the Jewish male was supposed to be assertive and self-confident. This ideal male model is still a symbol and paradigm for most Jewish Israeli males, particularly in view of the centrality of military service in Israeli society (Ben-Ari & Dardashti, 2001; Kaplan, 1999; Lomsky-Feder & Rapaport, 2003; Sasson-Levi, 2006; Sion, 1997; Weiss, 2002). Modern Israeli society is also exposed to the Western discourse of later permissive capitalism that encourages consumption. In this secular discourse, physical needs and passions are not only condoned, but encouraged. The body in this discourse is highly controlled and disciplined, but this time in an attempt to make it an object of greater passion (Turner, 1996, p. 23).The Ultra Orthodox community resisted these varied influences and continued its attempts to adhere to the traditional religious models. Several studies have explored the Haredi body, focusing mainly on the female Haredi body, whether in Israel (Finkelstein, 1997; Oryan, 1994) or in the USA (Goldman, 1999). Much of this research is focused on the educational attempt to discipline and control women's bodies and sexuality, starting from the kindergarten (Yaffe, 2004) through school years (Oryan, 1994) and the preparation towards marriage (Finkelstein, 1997). Other research

55 For

more on this issue see Ravitzky (1996, pp. 277–305).

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examines dress as reflecting intra-community status (Goldman, 1999). Studies on the Haredi male body in current times are fewer and they rarely discuss the construction of the Haredi body in relation to the secular body. Blumen (2007) focused on the bodily performance of going to (unpaid religious) work in an Ultra Orthodox neighborhood bordering a major secular town. She described both ultra Orthodox men and women as challenging the capitalist bodily performance of going to work and the decree to participate in the labor market and have a paid job. Bilu (2000) explores the psychocultural meaning of corporal ceremonies such as circumcision, the first haircut at age three and the first entry to the cheder—a traditional training in basic religious literacy. The first two ceremonies share the removal of parts of the body identified as female (the foreskin in circumcision and long hair in the first hair cut), en route to creating the desired body and male identity. This study seems to stem from the assumption (not shared in this article) that beyond all cultural aspects there is a deep male identity structure, preserved throughout history and in diverse cultures.56 Examining the Haredi body through analysis of the meaning and effect of the ceremonies contributes to understanding the construction of the hegemonic body and masculinity in this society. It also affords a basis for understanding the subversion and resistance to the hegemonic model discussed in this article. Aran (2003, p. 121), in mapping the diverse aspects of the Haredi body, highlights its attempt to avoid extreme physical situations, such as absolute relaxation or the maximum strengthening of the physique, typical of the secular body. These two contradictory situations are perceived as devotion to the body and hence, he maintains, are rejected by the Haredi world. In this article, I intend to show how, through the encounter with the secular body, Haredi reservations with respect to these physical situations are shaken. At least two of the four attributes of the Haredi body on which I have chosen to focus are connected to those extreme physical situations to which the Haredi body is traditionally averse. Needless to say, of course, the four attributes do not purport to encompass all aspects of the Haredi body and were 56 See

Gutmann (1997) on this issue.

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chosen for a variety of reasons: their centrality to the ideal model of the Jewish male body, their distinctiveness and difference from the male models in relation to which they are constructed, their contribution to the claim that I attempt to develop here, and the ease of my access to relevant findings.

FREEDOM FROM BODILY DEMANDS OR SUBMISSION TO THEM A central aspect of the body in Haredi thinking is the attitude towards bodily needs, urges, desires and wishes. While western culture, under the influence of psychological and consumer discourse, encourages the expression and satisfaction of various physical needs, and emphasizes their legitimacy and even their essentiality for the individual's mental health, the attitude of Haredi society to corporeal needs and urges is totally different. The topic arose in many interviews I conducted with Haredi youth. As Avraham,57 one of the Yeshiva students I interviewed, states:

 I often find it hard to get up for prayers, but eventually I manage …and get up…Because that's what I'm supposed to do. People say the Haredim are poor sods—they are closed, and forced to do this and that. I think it's the exact opposite. The Haredim are the only people who are free of everything. Why? Because no one can force me now to go and steal. Why? Because I will overcome my urge, I won’t do it. I hear that they call secular people free; I don't understand why… because…if the evil inclination obliges you to go now and watch football— you'll go; you are like in a prison …and that's what the Talmud actually says: There are no free men apart from those who are involved in learning Torah.

 Such claims were repeated in diverse contexts. Secular Israeli males from different ethnic backgrounds were perceived as over 57 In order to protect the privacy of my interviewees all names are fictitious.

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legitimizing their bodily urges. Here, Avraham repeats the Haredi criticism of modern freedom,58 i.e., the freedom of the secular person who is not committed to Halacha (religious Jewish law) enslaves him to his proclivities. Real freedom—from the rule of the inclinations and passions—is only facilitated by a Haredi lifestyle. This lifestyle forces the individual to do two things: first, to “overcome”59 his appetites; second, to observe the commandments— and for men primarily, the command to be immersed in the study of the Torah.60 The ability to control and restrain the body is described as a key resource by many interviewees. However, it seems that recent years have seen some attrition in the degree of restraint and control applied to bodily needs. Two main sources for this are the psychological and consumer discourses that infiltrate Haredi society and grant greater legitimacy to individual needs, including bodily needs. At the same time, this attribute, more than any other of the Haredi body, seems to have undergone relatively few changes. It may be possible to explain the endurance of this attribute by its continued usefulness in helping these youngsters adapt to the demands of the wider Israeli society that they encounter. Evidence for this is provided by the comments of Rabbi Meir Tessler, one of the heads of the Haredi Center for Technological Studies, to one of the Center's graduates: “Rest is for the world to come. Here we work” (quoted in Hakak, 2004, p. 83). Rabbi Tessler refers to the Jewish vision of the Garden of Eden in the World to Come, as a place where the hardships and difficulties of survival in this world do not exist; yet one should work and exert oneself in this world in order to reach it. In this case, however, the effort demanded by Rabbi Tessler is not the performance of God's work, as is customary in Jewish perception, but work in the world of hi-technology.

58 For

a more extensive discussion on this issue see Brown (1999). refers to the commandment at the beginning of the Shulhan Aruch “He will arise as a lion in the morning to perform the work of his Creator” (Gantsfrid, 1989, p. 18). 60 And in the mood of the statement by Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi, “No man is free like one involved in Torah” (Avot 86) 59 Avraham

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The restrained and carefully controlled body was most typical in the early stages of capitalism, as it helped increase production (Turner, 1996). Turner shows how the need to increase consumption at home was first created as a result of the shrinking of America's external markets. Consequently, the dominant ascetic discourse changed gradually to one granting greater legitimacy to diverse needs. The world of work, however, continued to demand the ability to delay gratification and to discipline and control the body. Emphasizing the control of bodily needs fulfills a similar role for the Haredi sector that encounters Israeli society and seeks, amongst other things, to integrate into a competitive and achievement-oriented labor market that demands delaying gratification and a high level of discipline. In view of the considerable gaps in secular studies with which most Haredi males arrive at the labor market (Hakak, 2004), the ability to control corporeal needs and delay satisfaction is of double importance. Many of the interviewees also expressed the view that the Haredi way of life and its many religious demands preclude laziness and make Haredi people more disciplined and hard-working than people from other sectors.

THE BODY AS A SITE OF INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE EXPRESSION Another central aspect of Haredi involvement with the body focuses on presenting the body in public and, particularly, through the mode of dress. While Western culture, influenced by consumer culture, stresses dress and personal presentation in public as a central site for self-expression and self-realization, in Haredi society, dress manifests the commitment of the individual to God and the community.61 The distinctive and uniform dress, alongside other external attributes such as side-locks and a beard, are designed to distinguish the Haredi male from his non-Haredi surroundings and prevent him from perhaps being swallowed up and affected by them.

61 For a review of the historical background of the development of accepted dress norms among Yeshiva students, see Hakak (2005, p. 69).

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Torah students are reminded that they are perceived by others as representing G-d and his word, and are thus obliged to be careful in their behavior and appearance, especially in the public sphere. Many quoted the passage of the Talmud, stating that “a sage with a stain on his clothes merits death” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabat, 114: 71) for me. While all Yeshiva students strive to maintain respectability, yeshivas can be classified according to the degree of restraint, control and self-denial required of their students. This will also determine, amongst other things, the degree of openness to the changing styles of dress.62 In discussions with yeshiva students and Haredi young activists at the Likud Party, the mode of dress of their secular cohorts was described as having two main attributes. The first is its accentuated material and earthly character. This is contrasted with the Haredi attempt to restrict these aspects, for example, by wearing delicate shoes rather than high boots with a heavy sole, as habitually worn by secular youth, especially those nearing recruitment age or following discharge. The second is that while the mode of secular dress is intended to emphasize difference, uniqueness and deviation from the norm,63 this is seen by Haredi young men as eccentric and bizarre, and arouses distance and contempt. Especially contemptible were the Punks. On the other hand, the interviewees with whom I spoke also described the criticism levied at them by secular youth regarding their black and impersonal dress. Most did not try to refute this description, but replied with the counter-criticism, that while secular youth is occupied with creating impressions and is prepared to dress in a strange and surprising manner in order to be special, we, the Haredi youth, dress in a respectable manner. In order to illustrate this respectability, the high costs of the items of Haredi dress were described to me, compared to the low cost, they believed, of the secular items of dress. Apparently, in light of the frequent ventures of Haredi youth into the wider Israeli space and their many encounters with nonHaredi youth, and given their need to counter the secular criticism of their uniform dress, Haredi youth today insist on their greater 62 For

more on this issue see Hakak (2005, pp. 69–78). this “exceptional” dress also follows accepted social conventions of a particular social group. 63 Although

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respectability and prestige; this provides some compensation for the drawbacks of its impersonal character. The call to preserve the uniform but respectable appearance is well exploited by advertisers working in the Haredi sector. There, the male clothing market has become very active, especially over the last decade, where it has been exposed to the impact of changing fashion. While Haredi dress is supposed to reflect respectability, simplicity and modesty, the pressures described here and the close encounters with secularity and with the consumer culture have considerably eroded the value of simplicity and its manifestation in dress.64 The simple suits worn by Yeshiva students until a decade ago are now modern and almost completely identical to the suits worn by businessmen or managers in the modern labor market. Another factor that reinforces the impact of current western dress is the recent growth in the number of Haredi men who go to work. Under cover of this process, another consensus was created, according to which many Haredi men who go out into the labor market exchange the yeshiva-style white buttoned shirt, identified as the “uniform” of Torah students and Haredi men in general, for a colorful buttoned shirt, thus increasing their resemblance to the modern businessmen. The legitimization of the colored buttoned shirt sketches, in fact, an alternative physical model that is fairly similar to the yeshiva model. Like the “yeshiva body,” a body enclosed in a business suit and buttoned shirt is restrained, meticulous and under control. The buttoned shirt is, in fact, part of “power dressing,” the male dress common amongst businessmen or managers, which serves as armor against penetrating the body and as a barrier to the flight of diverse bodily materials. Such dress makes it difficult to identify the outline of the body, and in this sense, it obscures the gaze. The straight and sharp lines of both the buttoned shirt and of the suit disguise the body's curves as well as its physical and sensual essence, and are intended to reflect control, power, rationality and masculinity (Longhurst, 2001). The change made by many Haredi youth in their dress enables them, on the 64 On the lively internal, critical debate within Haredi society, regarding the diffusion of Western fashion in male dress, see Hakak (2005, p. 76).

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one hand, greater access to the non-Haredi Israeli space, while preserving most of the attributes of uniform Haredi dress and stressing conformity to community values. Furthermore, in my interviews, Haredi youngsters in all arenas, but especially in the Likud Party and the occupational training program, described the sense of belonging to a community, as symbolized by uniform and impersonal dress, as the key advantage over their non-Haredi cohorts, since that community provides a network of aid, support and useful connections. Consequently, few forego the uniform dress. In this respect, they did not conform but challenged and created an alternative to the male bodies in the surrounding Israeli society. This alternative, of being part of a close and committed community, as symbolized by the uniform dress, is portrayed in wider Israeli media in recent years in very positive terms and with some envy due to its economic and political benefits.65

THE CULTURE OF THE BODY OR THE CULTURE OF THE SPIRIT Another key attribute of the Haredi body is connected to practices and involvements considered appropriate. Since the body supports the soul and is the tool through which the Creator’s work is performed, it must be maintained and nurtured as well as possible. At the same time, the hierarchy between the body and the soul is clear, the final purpose being the wholeness and functioning of the soul and its imposition on the bestial and earthly body. Given the approach that sees the body as only a vessel for the soul, there is no reason to develop it for its own sake through what is known as the “body culture.” Hence, there is no sports equipment in Israeli yeshivas; there are no sports lessons, and no time is allocated to physical activity.66 The Haredi newspapers also ignore the subject,

65 See for example the article on Ynet by Jinji Friedman (25.10.04) “Seculars have what to learn from the Haredim.” 66 This is as opposed to other Israeli non-Haredi institutions as well as American yeshivas where sport and especially basketball is much more accepted. For a broad review of the “body culture” as seen in the rabbinic literature of recent generations see Arend (2002).

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except for reports of a mass scuffle on the football field as evidence of the secular bestiality of Hellenism.67 Limited physical activity is likely to enjoy partial legitimacy as long as it is perceived as helping to increase learning ability. Several rabbis68 have already expressed support for physical activity for yeshiva students as an outlet for their excess energy and as an aid towards overcoming their inclinations. But this is usually an area that belongs to “gentile customs” and, more specifically, to Greek culture,69 and the attitude towards it, whether on the part of the Rabbis or on the part of the community is still hesitant and suspicious. Involvement with sports arouses great resistance, especially when its purpose is to become more professional, more sophisticated and achievement-oriented, and facilitate participation in competitions. Passive involvement in sports culture, i.e. admiring sports stars and watching competitions, also arouses great reservations. Instead of sports, the youth are expected to expend their energy by dancing at weddings; consequently, attending weddings has become particularly frequent. The social conventions described here also have a tremendous impact on how young Haredi men perceive their bodies in comparison with the secular body they encounter. This topic was mentioned in many interviews carried out. The discussion of the physical skills of the Haredi body became central, particularly in basic military training, where I conducted fieldwork. In this setting, as well as in the other research settings, the Haredi body was described repeatedly as far weaker and even shorter (!) compared to the bodies of young secular men. This was usually explained by the lack of Haredi involvement in sports. Just as involvement in the Torah was described as shaping the body, intelligence and behavior For more information on the attitude of Haredi society to involvement in sports, see Hakak (2005, 79-91). 68 Rabbi Shlomo Volbe and Rabbi Yoel Schwartz are amongst them. For Rabbi Schwarz's attitude to the subject and his fear of community censure, see Schwartz (1997, pp. 15, 107, 127–128). 69 For more on the historical background of the reservations regarding “corporal culture” as part of Greek culture see Leoussi and Aberbach (2002). 67

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of the student of the Torah, participating in sports was described as shaping the bodies of secular people. These descriptions were accompanied by some expressions of envy. In spite of the determined misgivings of the rabbis, various branches of sports have gradually become more popular and the number of Haredim and Yeshiva students actually practicing sports, as well as the number of those interested in them as spectators or as supporters, has increased over the years. In this case too, the growing frequency of encounters with secular males plays a key role, but to these are added the increasing influences of the medical discourse and the mounting concern over the “quality of life” in Haredi society. Evidence of escalating involvement in sports are many, starting from the growing number of gyms opening in Haredi areas70 to the increase in the number of Haredi football supporters71 and of those learning martial arts of various types. As in other areas, some of the main agents of change responsible for this trend are Haredim from abroad72 and the newly religious. They bring with them from the “outside” world physical skills and traditions that are hard to change; furthermore, there is a demand for them within the Haredi community. The medical discourse often affords legitimacy to increased involvement in sports, and the common use of the terms “health exercise” and “health center” in the Haredi sector in recent years is evidence of this. I will quote here comments made by a yeshiva student in explaining his participation in Taekwondo (martial art) lessons, in spite of the displeasure of the rabbis of the Yeshiva in which he studied:

 70 On this issue see Tamar Rotem, "Sport is their escape from the house, from the children, from the husband" (Haaretz Hebrew newspaper, 11.2.2003). 71 On this issue, see the article by Avishay ben Chayim, “Living from Sabbath to Sabbath” (Maariv, weekend edition, 26.12.2003) and the article by Alon Hadar, “Black-yellow—the Haredi fans of the Beitar football team” (Kol Ha'ir, 15.12.2000, pp. 74–80. 72 The Haredi communities, both in the USA and Europe, are much more open to various sports in comparison to the Israeli Haredi community. Many Haredi yeshivas both in the USA and Europe have basketball courts on their premises.

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THE BEST OF JMMS Personally, I simply need it to relieve tension. There are many hyperactive guys like myself, who must find relief when they sit and learn, and simply can’t manage without it.

 Haredi rabbis who oppose drafting yeshiva youth to the Israeli army maintain there is a division of labor between Haredi society and the other Jews in Israel. Haredi society guarantees the spiritual existence of the nation via the study of the Torah, while the other Jews in Israel are responsible for the material aspects. But this division of labor is questioned the moment yeshiva students, who are responsible for spiritual aspects according to Haredi belief, also wish to take a greater part in material life. The Haredi rabbis voice their objections, but to no avail.

PASSIVITY AS AN IDEAL THAT IS PASSÉ The last attribute which I will refer to is connected to the attitude of the Haredi body to other bodies. Boyarin (1997) claims that the Talmud encouraged creating a “female” man who does not fear weakness as a key component of his personality, and that this approach greatly influenced Jewish life throughout history since the finalization of the text of the Babylonian Talmud in 500 C. E. Refraining from violence and belligerence, especially in the physical sense, is still typical of Haredi society.73 73 On this issue, see for example, Rabbi Baharan (1990, p. 167), who quotes from the Sefer HaChinuch (Book of Education) regarding the prohibition of revenge and of bearing a grudge: “It is of the roots of the commandment, that a person should know that everything that happens to him has a reason determined by the Holy One, blessed be He… Therefore, when a person is saddened or hurt by someone, he will know in his heart that his transgressions caused it, and that the Holy One decreed this, and he will not let his thoughts stray to take revenge, for the other person is not the cause of the evil…” The proper attitude towards the issue of male assertiveness, especially in situations of conflict, arises anew each year, around the time of Chanukah and the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day when Haredi newspapers discuss the secular interpretation of bravery and clarify how Haredi Jewry relates to these issues. According to Haredi understanding, while the secular world glori-

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The changes with respect to this attribute of the body and of Haredi male behavior are even greater if compared to the other attributes mentioned here. Processes of change and the introduction of assertive male models into male Haredi society were particularly prominent during basic military training, where some of the fieldwork for this research was conducted. As a rule, Ultra Orthodox men are not drafted to the Israeli Defense Force. They comprise a legal category of those for whom “Torah studies is their sole craft” (in Hebrew: Toratam omanutam). Those who do get drafted, like the cadets I have researched, are very few. Usually they are among the less successful yeshiva students. The cadets I observed were going through a very basic and short training of four weeks and were not meant to be part of the fighting forces. After this training they were positioned as teacher-soldiers within Ultra Orthodox schools and as part of the Education Corps. At the beginning of the basic training, and in reaction to the rigid disciplinary efforts of the base staff, the recruits employed traditional Jewish practices to attain power, primarily unity against adversity (Biale, 1980), with remarkable speed, especially given their lack of previous familiarity with each other. A few days after starting basic training, the recruits reacted to the disciplinary efforts and the staff's demands with passive oppositional practices customary in the yeshiva world, such as fasting or refusing to perform certain tasks. These types of action changed rapidly in the course of military training. If military service is seen as a transition ceremony to masculinity, strewn with a series of tests (Ben-Ari & Dardashti, 2001), the ultimate test will be, one may assume, participation in battle. But since in every army, including the Israel Defense Forces, only few soldiers actually participate in the battle (including those in combat units), the military system provides mock battles as an alternative, with shooting practice as a main activity. A soldier who successfully handles these simulations under the critical eye of his friends and officers, also becomes a “man.” fies physical bravery, Haredi Jewry exalts the bravery of the spirit; while secular nationalism aggrandizes the readiness to die for the homeland, Haredi Jewry sanctifies the name of G-d, dying for it when necessary.

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Participation in shooting practice began with much concern and excitement prior to the event, and concluded with tremendous, almost ecstatic joy, especially amongst those who felt they successfully passed the test. In interviews I held after the conclusion of the basic training, many recruits mentioned shooting range practice as one of the peak moments. At least some of them felt that this experience would alter them for the rest of their lives. Ya’acov, one of the recruits, described it thus:

 I believe that the moment you know how to hold a weapon and can react to those attacking you, something changes. You aren’t helpless. For example, already in the first week, after one shooting practice, they told us to guard the base. Although we didn't really know how to shoot or to hold a gun, we guarded the base; even if we hadn’t quite scored a hit they knew we would react... And this is important for life afterwards, even when you walk along the road without a weapon—you already feel different.

 At least for some of the Haredi recruits, the successful completion of the shooting range increased their self-confidence and the feeling they can “react,” even outside the framework of basic training. Several of the cadets, for whom the experience was especially positive, expressed envy towards other non Haredi units which were going through much longer and strenuous basic training in the same base. “We too should have been Rambo for a while,” said Elimelech. The successful passing of the shooting range may also contribute to the increased tensions in their relations with the base staff, as the basic training drew to an end. These tensions reached the point of frontal confrontation in the final days. During the summary session with the base commander, the recruits made levied accusations, especially with respect to their officers. Later, they even adopted some of the language and practices used by the staff,



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including talking about “opening a distance”74 from their officers, for which they employed accessories such as peaked cloth caps and dark sunglasses. These two accessories are meant to block the gaze from the outside and are used usually only by the staff as a means of distinguishing themselves from their trainees. While Haredi rabbis and educators following traditional Judaism prefer avoiding conflictual situations when they might possibly result in desecration of God’s name, the Haredi recruits are not prepared to exercise self-restraint and prefer to retaliate and insist on their honor. This demand for honor and for “opening distance” undoubtedly reflects the adoption of patterns of their officers’ assertive male behavior, while adapting its terminology to their needs. Tuvia, one of the recruits, tried to explain his friends’ behavior:

 We were once a small group which sought to protect itself …we are now a society that does not need to protect itself any more because we have…political…financial, communal power… We help people to become religious, the Haredi political parties are growing…We no longer go to the (Polish) landowner to ask for money…. Now we decide when and if to give money [to others]… 75

 Tuvia links his friends’ behavior and self-confidence to the demographic and political growth of Haredi society. This is no longer a Jewish community at the mercy of the non-Jewish landowner, but a Jewish community in the Jewish state that enjoys a preferred status compared to other non-Jewish communities. Furthermore, due to its political strength, it has not only petitioner status, but already enjoys the status of benefactor. All these also 74 The phrase “open a distance” is part of the Israeli militaristic jargon and means treating someone in a superior, patronizing and detached and commanding manner. 75 Such descriptions were repeated by many interviewees. It seems that these feelings were mitigated following the establishment of the Likud-Shinui government and the “Netanyahu edicts” imposed when Binyamin Netanyahu served as Minister of Finance in 2003.

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filter into the feelings of individuals and are manifested in their behavior and body. The community’s political influence and its tensed relations with the army are some of the reasons for the staff’s extreme tolerance towards the cadets' rebelliousness. Further evidence of increasing self-confidence surfaces from the description of another yeshiva student, Eliyahu, regarding the meeting between one of his acquaintances, described as the neighborhood thug, with secular youngsters at a Jerusalem shopping mall:

 Some guy with a leather shirt came up…trying to prove he’s some sort of toughie and he laughed at religious people, and cursed them saying [that]…all the religious girls are whores… And that Shlomo… He’s no sucker….And when someone offends him, he gets hurt…They began to argue…it came to blows and Shlomo bashed him up, simply ripped him to pieces…yeshiva students react more nowadays ‘cos we feel we are hated. We aren’t afraid either…the silence is over… The Haredi public already feels…(that) being a sucker is in the past…(now) if someone starts with us we’ll show him. There are no more suckers.

 Eliyahu displays his great anger, his lack of desire to restrain himself and his self-confidence that enables him to do this more often than in the past. Eliyahu and Shlomo live in a Jewish state where Haredi members of the Knesset (Parliament) and Haredi government ministers hold many powerful positions and the attitude of the authorities toward them is totally different. Young Haredi people have fewer reasons to fear forbearance when they are attacked or when they feel they are “suckers.” Eliyahu says, in fact, that he and his friends do not intend to restrain themselves if others display arrogance towards them, belittle them or insult them. They feel strong enough to stop waiving their honor, and convert the insult into a motivating force for action. The use made by Eliyahu of vernacular, secular Hebrew, and the many expressions that describe macho and assertive masculin-

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ity, is also prominent. Under present social circumstances and despite the rabbis’ ongoing doubts,76 the manifestations of this new assertive-active male model are increasing. The encounter with the modern, competitive world in which assertiveness and determination are values, is likely to amplify these tendencies. It is possible to assume that these manifestations of masculinity are adjusted to specific situations. In some cases, especially when entering the Israeli public sphere, they might have a strategic value, but on other occasions within the Haredi community, they might be less useful or even unacceptable.

DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS: SUMMARY AND COMMENTS Like many other fundamentalist groups, the Ultra Orthodox community maintains a sharp tension between its rhetoric, which states strict adherence to religious fundamentals, and the changing reality. If one accepts this religious rhetoric uncritically one would expect male identities to be unchanging through time and totally complying with the unchanging religious text. But as I show here, such an expectation would ignore the influence that social forces have, in addition to the religious text, in molding religious masculinities at a specific time and place. As described in the literature review, in many contexts, religious men and their bodies are perceived as “feminine” by the surrounding society or by describing themselves and their religious institutions as too feminine or feminizing (Soucy, 1999; Kirkley, Selengut (1994) shows how, since the establishment of the State of Israel, the heads of Lithuanian Yeshivas constantly warned of the penetration of activist types of behavior and belief in the force of arms into the Haredi public. Such warnings were voiced after the Israeli army’s victory in the Six Day War and on other occasions. He quotes (p. 245) Rabbi Zvi Elya, who, at an Agudat Yisrael conference in the USA in 1990, rebuked 5,000 people for what he identified as their sympathy for Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was murdered shortly before. Kahane, who coined the slogan, “Never again,” encouraged Jews to react violently to attacks against them. Rabbi Zvi Elya believes that Kahane thereby violated Jewish belief. “Never again,” said Rabbi Elya, “Is an anti-Jewish and anti-religious slogan. If G-d wants to bring a Holocaust on us He will do so. 10,000 Kahanes will not stop him.” 76

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1996; Krondorfer, 1996; Muesse, 1996). Most research is on Christian men, but also on Jewish and other men. The research material brought here only partially repeats this pattern. The descriptions of secular males by young Haredi males, as presented here, are rather critical. The latter were largely described as servile and controlled by their urges, as libidinous, self-interested, lacking in values, materialistic, loud, extrovert, arrogant, empty, superficial and aggressive. To link with these perceptions, when moving into wider Israeli space, some aspects of the Haredi men’s bodies form a challenging alternative to other Israeli male bodies. They stress, in particular, the restraint of the body and of inner urges in the spirit of “who is a hero—he who conquers his passions,” in contrast to the considerable legitimacy afforded to satisfying needs and desires, as is commonly accepted in secular Western society. They also stress their notable commitment to the community—again, in contrast to the secular Western ethos which places the individual at the center. These attributes of the body and of Haredi masculinity would also seem to provide a resource in the exodus towards integration within the wider Israeli society; hence, they are retained. The fact that in Israel, state and church are not separated by law, and religion is not limited to the private sphere, might be part of the explanation for the difference in comparison with other modern Christian groups and for the ability of Ultra Orthodox men's bodies to form such a challenging viable alternative. But along with these aspects and the accompanying criticism, ridicule and contempt toward the secular bodies, one can also sense a not-insignificant element of envy, appreciation and amazement, even if their presence is more covert. A large part of that amazement and even envy is focused on the secular male body that is perceived as far more developed, taller and stronger than the Haredi physique. The non-Haredi Israeli male is perceived as capable of defending himself, his honor and his family with his body; he is familiar with his wider surroundings, does not fear nature, and has the ability to influence and mold them to his wishes. In contrast, when entering the wider Israeli space, Haredi masculinity and bodies are seen as “defective” and many of its characteristics are perceived as “female.” Its forbearance, passivity and undeveloped “female” corporeality, are harder to maintain as an alternative. In Israeli society following Jewish exilic experience and the horrors of the Holocaust, these attributes are bearing a

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considerable negative charge. Furthermore, the continued ArabIsraeli military struggle reinforces assertive-masculine attributes, while the competitive capitalist economy only furthers this tendency. Hence the encounter of Haredi men with other Israeli males arouses fear, especially during the formative period of adolescence, when male physical identity is molded through heightened exploration. It would seem that in the struggle for hegemony between male models (Connell, 1995) and in order to claim their place relative to direct, assertive Israeli masculinity, Haredi males are forced to adopt attributes of a more assertive body and masculinity. As presented earlier, similar interpretation served several scholars describing mainly Christian groups but also Jewish ones (Eilberg-Schwartz, 1996). The departure for the material arenas described here and the experience of a corporeality and masculinity more closely connected to the earthly world, the world of action, enable young Haredi males to experience new dimensions of the body and masculinity and reduce their fears. This would also explain the attempts to undermine the ideal Haredi model, still held by the religious authorities, make it more flexible, expand it and remold it. It also explains the tremendous enthusiasm expressed by Haredi military recruits upon firing a gun in shooting practice, and what sometimes seems to be exaggerated Haredi excitement after “action” when volunteering for organizations such as the Israeli emergency medical services. The prevalent image of fundamentalist men in many cultures as feminine could also explain fundamentalist violence and militancy as a form of reaction or compensation related to this image. Following this research it would be interesting to learn how religious male bodies are constructed in other social contexts, and what are the conditions that allow them to create an alternative to secular and other male bodies and what, on the other hand, are the conditions that minimize and limit such a possibility.

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Schwartz, Y. (1997). The path to the yeshiva: A preparatory manual for yeshiva study. Jerusalem: The Institute for Furthering Torah Studies. (Hebrew). Selengut, C. (1994). By Torah alone: Yeshiva fundamentalism in Jewish life. In M. E. Marty & S. Appleby (Eds.), Accounting for fundamentalism: The dynamic character of movements (pp. 236-263). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Sered, S. (1999). “Woman” as symbol and women as agents: Gendered religious discourses and practices. In M. Ferree, J. Lorber & B. B. Hess (Eds.), Revisioning gender (pp. 67-83). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Shorek, Y. (2002). Body culture in the doctrines of the founders of the Zionist movement. In H. Harif & H. Kaufman (Eds.), The culture of sport and body in twentieth century Israel (pp. 9-24). Jerusalem: Yad Ben Tsvi Publishers. (Hebrew). Sion, L. (1997). Masculine images among fighters: Service in the infantry brigades as a rite of passage from youth to adulthood. Jerusalem: Shain Center for Social Science Research. (Hebrew). Sivan, E. (1991). Enclave culture. Alpayim, 4: 45-98. (Hebrew). Soucy, A. (1999). Masculinities and Buddhist symbolism in Vietnam. In K. Biber, T. Sear & D. Trudinger (Eds.), Playing the man: New approaches to masculinity (pp. 123-134). Sydney: Pluto Press. Torevell, D. (1997). Taming the Lion of Judah: Masculinity, the body and contemporary Christian liturgy. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 12(3): 383–400. Turner, B. (1996). The body and society. London: Sage Publications. Welland, T. (2001). Assaults upon the self: Control and surveillance in a theological college. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 16(1): 71-84. Weis, M. (2002). The chosen body: The politics of the body in Israeli society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Yaffe, O. (2004). Being a Haredi girl: Socialization practices, pedagogical discourse and construction of the self. Doctoral Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Hebrew).

9 SOUTHERN GOSPEL SISSIES: EVANGELICAL MUSIC, QUEER SPIRITUALITY, AND THE PLAYS OF DEL SHORES DOUGLAS HARRISON FLORIDA GULF COAST UNIVERSITY [email protected] ABSTRACT This article explores the paradox of gay men involved in southern (white) gospel music, which might be fairly described as the soundtrack for fundamentalist Christianity in America. The intense antipathy among the majority of fundamentalist Protestant evangelicals in America toward homosexuality is often thought to leave little room for nonnormative identities or experiences within evangelicalism. Yet surreptitious but persistent traces of queer experience within the southern gospel tradition suggest that the music and culture of white gospel are vitally connected to the spirituality and sexuality of some gay men who come of age within conservative evangelical Christian traditions. Using the works of Del Shores, particularly his play Southern Baptist Sissies (2001) (and providing the first sustained critical examination of Shores’ writing), I argue that southern gospel music serves as a powerful idiom in which to sublimate a range of homosocial, homoerotic, and homosexual feelings or desires that build up within evangelicalism’s psychosexually repressive culture.77 77 Portions of this essay were presented at the 2008 Midwest Modern Language Association standing panel on Religion and Literature. I am

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THE GAY-GOSPEL PARADOX The origin of this essay is twofold. In the first place, I have for some time now been alternately fascinated and perplexed by the number of gay men—myself included—who enjoy music in the southern, white gospel tradition, which perhaps more than any other could be fairly described as the soundtrack for fundamentalist, evangelical Protestantism in North America. The second catalyst was the appearance in 2006 of an article from Inside Out Nashville, a weekly periodical focused on the queer community in Music City. The piece was a vitriolic critique by a local gay writer unaffiliated with gospel music, aimed at a periodic social gathering of gay southern gospel professionals, whom the writer lambasted for the hypocrisy of being gay and working in conservative Christian entertainment. This gay-gospel social gathering, the writer concluded, was “one of the most cynical and creepy statements of our society” (Derrick, 2006, p. 5). For several years now, I have attended this event, though my association with gospel music goes only so far as an academic interest and a blog devoted to criticism and commentary on southern gospel music and culture, and the columnist’s portrayal of the gathering bore virtually no relationship to what I have encountered there, which might best be described as part religious experience, part cabaret, part family reunion, and—perhaps most important for a group of people whose identity puts them at odds with their spiritual traditions (not to mention their livelihood, in many cases)—unconditional affirmation of both the redemptive promise of evangelical spirituality and gay male sexuality. The paradox of gay men and gospel music has come to occupy more and more of my scholarly energy as I have undertaken a grateful to Meredith Neumann, Jay Twomey, Jessica Lott, Joe Wisdom, Brad Busbee, Felicia Lawrence, Mickey Gamble, Margaret Cavin, Katherine Hale, Judith Linville, and the anonymous reviewers for Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality for their feedback about and contributions to this project at various stages. I also wish to acknowledge the readers of www.averyfineline.com, whose regular responses to my writing about southern gospel music and culture have helped clarify my thinking about southern gospel in general and the problem of evangelical nonconformism in particular.

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sustained study of southern gospel music and its cultural function. In addition to the formal analysis of gospel music—its lyrics, musical form, and performances—my scholarly approach to southern gospel situates the music within the broader contexts of contemporary Protestant evangelicalism, particularly evangelicals’ struggle to balance their commitment to notionally absolute doctrines against the practical need for theological and cultural flexibility if religion is to remain relevant. In general, my research reveals that the interaction of lyrics, music, and religious experience in southern gospel comprises a heterodox discourse through which evangelicals sustain a surreptitious pluralism within an officially absolutist culture. Evangelicals use white gospel, as I have argued elsewhere, not to diminish experience in this world—the conventional scholarly wisdom about the music’s cultural function—but to manage the vicissitudes of psychospiritual life in a way otherwise unavailable in evangelicalism (Harrison, 2008). But what are the limits of this surreptitious heterodoxy? The answer, it seems increasingly apparent to me, is bound up in negotiations of (homo)sexuality and masculine spirituality (and their discontents) in southern gospel culture. After all, it doesn’t get much more heterodox in fundamentalist evangelicalism than homosexuality, and for the many gay men I’ve met—both from my own experience with southern gospel music as an erstwhile Southern Baptist gospel pianist and from my scholarly research into white gospel music and its culture—fundamentalist evangelicalism’s absolute prohibition on homosexuality means that gay males who wish to remain affiliated with evangelical popular culture have learned to be surreptitious about their involvement in white gospel, whether it be as a concert-going fan, a songwriter, producer, performer, promoter, or industry executive. This surreptitiousness, however, poses a methodological problem. It’s one thing to analyze the psychosocial dynamics of a live concert for what they suggest about evangelical culture or to closeread song lyrics for the way they imaginatively construct certain religious identities or make available certain spiritual experiences. It’s quite another issue to inquire after a range of experience and feeling that is purposefully effaced and strategically silenced by the dominant cultural forces within southern gospel music. In some quarters of the industry, it’s axiomatic that behind every gospel song, there’s a gay man somewhere. And even among those who

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might find such a statement blasphemous, the fact that gay people are involved in almost every aspect of the music’s creation, production, and performance constitutes a widely accepted open-secret. But, as one prominent record executive put it in an interview, “in our business, we deal with the market and the ministry. And those two issues have to mesh” (Glock, 2005, p. 168). What he means is that the business side of southern gospel effectively monetizes fundamentalist evangelical biblical literalism. The southern gospel industry places a symbolic and an economic premium on monogamous heterosexual marriage as the ideal expression of Christian identity among southern gospel professionals, while simultaneously and radically devaluing non-heterosexual ways of being. Thus there is a widespread aversion among queer individuals to speak openly about their experience or involvement in evangelical popular culture for fear of reprisals or alienation.78 Moreover, very few textual or artifactual traces exist to document the extensive role that many gay men play in the industry, much less to support the kind of cultural study of gay men and gospel music that I wish to undertake here.79 Such silences and effacements are, as Hubbs (2004) has shown in her study of twentieth-century American composers and For this reason, the utility of human-subject studies of the sort Walton (2006) productively conducted within more progressive sectors of Protestant Christianity is severely limited. 79 This essay’s focus on queer identity within southern, white gospel music reflects the socio-historically distinct trajectories along which white (southern) and black gospel developed in the twentieth century. However, there are enough stylistic and experiential overlaps in the two traditions to strongly suggest that some black gay men find implicit affirmation through black gospel in ways not wholly dissimilar from the white gospel dynamics I am interested in exploring here. In any event, further research is clearly needed into the extent to which race variously mediates the experience of gay men in gospel music among the black and white gospel traditions. For more on the history of black gospel, see Darden (2004). For more on the psychosocial differences between black and white gospel musical performance, see Harrison (2008). For a discussion of the black “gospel impulse” at work in the literature and music of afro-modernism, see Werner (1994). 78

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the role sexuality played in their artistic visions, powerful expressions of heterocentrism:

 The denial and erasure of queer lives and contributions in historical accounts of twentieth-century U.S. culture reflect that culture’s suffusion in homophobia. Homophobic culture provides ample incentive for nonqueer-identified commentators to uphold queer-effacing views, including the dominant myths that assert heterosexuals’ exclusive place in cultural and social production and reproduction. (Hubbs, 2004, p. 5)

 In southern gospel, this heterosexual exclusivity contributes to an environment in which no prominent southern gospel artists have ever openly identified themselves as gay or lesbian while maintaining a full-time career in the industry. There have been cases in which homosexuality has become an unavoidably prominent issue within the industry. Perhaps most famously, the gospel tenor Kirk Talley was outed in 2003 when the FBI arrested a man who tried to blackmail Talley with indiscreet photographs Talley had shared on a gay chat site (Gay Singer’s, 2004). Around the same time, Bill Gaither, arguably the industry’s most successful songwriter and performer, and the eponymous impresario of the Homecoming Friends concert tour and video series, was photographed embracing an openly lesbian songwriter (Linscot, 2006). Gaither had featured her music on one of his videos and spoken from the stage about a song she had written in terms that many fans construed to be a tacit endorsement of homosexuality. But even these are the kind of exceptional examples that prove the rule of carefully enforced silence and denial surrounding the discussion of homosexuality in southern gospel: Talley subsequently sought the counsel of a “Restoration Team” comprising conservative evangelical pastors and some prominent male figures from southern gospel (Talley, Testimony). This group supervised a purification rite and a version of “reparative” therapy that concluded with a public statement from the team certifying Talley’s fitness to return to the stage, although he has nevertheless largely been shunned as a performer (Glock, 2006, pp. 171–172). In Gaither’s case, the outcry over the photograph and his public comments ultimately required him to issue a statement emphatically denouncing

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the songwriter and lamenting her “sad” life as a lesbian (Bill Gaither, 2006). In such a highly regulated culture that enforces what Warner first described as “heteronormativity” (1991, p. 9), how does one access the psychospiritual dynamics unique to gay evangelicals when their experience is at best deeply submerged beneath, at worst vigorously effaced by, Protestant fundamentalism’s aggressive antipathy toward homosexuality? Enter the plays of Del Shores. Shores is most well-known for the mainstream film adaptation of his tragicomic play Sordid Lives (1998)—a “black comedy,” as the film’s promotional material puts it, “about white trash” (imdb.com). But the play is only the most famous work from within a larger corpus of texts that explore the problem of nonconformity in the fundamentalist evangelical South in general, and the problematic intersection of homosexuality and conservative Christian culture in particular—dynamics that are largely hidden from view in the everyday life of Southern fundamentalist evangelicalism, or else surface in ways that misrepresent or distort the lived realities of queer identity. Taken together with the prominent role gospel music plays in most of Shores’ texts, his works provide one important entry point for an inquiry into the role of gospel music in shaping and maintaining psychosexual identities at the margins of fundamentalist evangelical culture.80

QUEER QUARTETS My primary focus here will be on Southern Baptist Sissies (2001), Shores’ most formally sophisticated and aesthetically coherent play about four gay friends growing up and coming out (or not) in a tiny Though fundamentalist evangelicalism is not exclusively anchored within Protestantism, the most familiar and powerful intersections of sexuality and religious fundamentalism in America occur within Protestant evangelical fundamentalist contexts. Indeed, a useful line of inquiry might compare the way Protestant and non-Protestant fundamentalisms respond to non-heterosexuality as a component of religious identity. However, my use of the term “evangelical” and its varietals hereafter in this essay should be understood to include the modifier “Protestant” when not explicitly deployed. 80

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Southern Baptist community in rural Texas during the final decades of the twentieth century. My reading of the play will argue that the crisis of coming out in conservative Christian communities (especially those in the American South) creates seemingly insoluble knots of ideological and psychosexual conflict that dissolve only when Shores’ characters undergo affect-centric conversions to mutual tolerance, incipient pluralism, and sometimes even something approaching acceptance. Through ritual exchanges of sentiment in the singing of nostalgic religious songs, especially Baptist hymns in the gospel tradition,81 Shores’ gay characters consecrate imaginative reconciliations with one another and, in some cases, the straight and narrow religious world around them, in dramas that rely on habits of evangelical conversion and spirituality to— paradoxically—fantasize the liberalization of conservative evangelicalism. One distinguishing feature of the play is its effort to explore fundamentalist evangelicalism’s “hate the sin, love the sinner” approach to homosexuality from the perspective of the “sinner.” Mark is the play’s resident thinker—introspective, defiant, and deeply vulnerable beneath his anger and polemics. He also functions as a cultural tour guide for an audience presumed to be unfamiliar with evangelical fundamentalism. Mark has the power to stop and start scenes at will, and in these moments, he breaks the fourth wall, steps outside the action and offers commentary on the play’s themes and characters. Much of the play’s thematic energy centers on Mark’s refusal to accept the “sinner” label while also acknowledging an abiding affection for important parts of evangelical culture and life. The closest thing to a primary plot line in the play is Mark’s fitful, confused, and doomed romance with TJ. For more on the difference between hymns and gospel songs, see Harrison (2008, pp. 34-35). Though hymnody and white gospel are distinct traditions with discreet stylistic and cultural functions, they share many features, especially in fundamentalist Protestant religious communities. In referring to hymns in the gospel tradition here, I mean to designate the way the lyrics and musical style of certain classic hymns used in the play borrow more heavily from and rely primarily on conventions of white gospel than traditional hymnody. 81

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TJ is butch and terrified by the possibility of losing his place within his family and community because of his sexuality; he retreats into orthodox fundamentalism and a straight marriage, projecting his fear and self-loathing on to others—especially Mark. Their friend Andrew is as scared as TJ, but not as successful in convincing himself that he can pray the gay away; he ultimately hangs himself with a noose he finds in a multipurpose room at his church. Benny is the play’s effeminate sissy who, as the cast notes put it, “escape[s] into the world of drag” (Shores, 2001, p. 6).82 The growing network of conflicts between and among the boys (and with some of their families) becomes the driving force of the narrative, which is nonlinear and works by piecing together a set of psychospiritually emblematic scenes. The play splits time primarily between two settings: a small Baptist church and a gay nightclub that bleeds into a piano/drag bar. Dramaturgically, this division helps structurally reinforce the play’s emphasis on the oppositions and splits created by fundamentalism’s response to homosexuality. As the “Do This in Remembrance of Me” communion table in the Baptist church setting is repositioned as the stripper’s platform during the club scenes, or as the baptistery morphs into a boy’s bedroom loft where Mark and TJ have their first, fumbling, post-pubescent sexual encounter, Shores’ play suggests both that the sacred and the (homo)sexual are inextricably bound together for the queer evangelical, and that there is nevertheless no easily identifiable or functionally inhabitable middle ground between the two on which these misfits can build a life—at least not as things now stand. The four main characters regularly speak directly to the audience during meta-narrative moments that Shores may be using to imagine an alternative, outof-time position for his gay characters to exist in, between the existential extremes represented by the church and the bar. From this in-between space, the sissies confront themselves and their desires, fears, and ambivalences about being gay and evangelical without worrying about being rejected by the church, or about losing con82 This and all quotes from the works of Del Shores reprinted with permission by the author, to whom I am grateful for the support he has shown this study of his work.

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nections to their rural families and Bible-Belt traditions in an escape to urbanized gay life. But in these soliloquies, the characters consistently struggle—and fail—to overcome self-embattlement on their own, and in their isolation they return to their place in the play’s narrative, immobilized with grief, consumed by selfrighteousness, paralyzed with rage, incapacitated by alienation. Here is Mark near the middle of Act II, finally coming into half-sighted realizations about the relationship between his angry defiance as a gay adult and his fundamentalist childhood:

 If someone asks me, “What is your type” Well I just say— needy, fucked-up, sometimes unemployed, most of the time with no car or a place to live. But always really, really cute. A young combination of Elvis and Jesus. (Pause, serious.) What’s that about? I mean, here I’ve spent my life working on myself. Defending to the world who I am after the Baptists fucked me up. Oops, correction. After I allowed the Baptists to fuck me up. See, I’ve had a little therapy. And sometimes … sometimes I think Benny’s right. (A look to BENNY.) Just live your life, and let them live theirs—and shut the fuck up. But I can’t (Chokes up, BROTHER CHAFFEY enters and starts softly playing “Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior”.) (Shores, 2001, p. 60)

 In this soliloquy, Mark considers embracing a live-and-let-live detachment from the world, except that such a pose would mean abandoning the affective structures and emotional logic of Protestant evangelicalism as the framework for understanding psychosexual identity. His reluctance to surrender this familiar idiom (even if in service of an incipient gay activism) coincides with Brother Chaffey’s appearance on stage and the opening strains of the plaintive gospel hymn, “Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior.” For the first time, Mark begins to evince an awareness of the deeper significance of his angry defiance, not as a rejection of all that is familiar, but as a desire for self-transcending integration of the dissonant parts of his identity. Mark’s mention of Elvis and Jesus recalls the point Warner (1997) makes in his autobiographical essay about evangelicalism, sex, and gay male identity that “Jesus was my first boyfriend. He loved me, personally, and he told me I was his own. This was very thrilling, especially when he was portrayed by Jeffrey

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Hunter” (p. 228). What Warner seems to be aiming at here (besides some comic relief) is that habits of evangelical conversion and piety impress themselves deeply into the psychospiritual character of the adolescents whose formative years are spent under the shaping pressure of fundamentalist idioms and imagery. For gay men who come of age within southern evangelical culture, certain experiential symmetries may emerge between the struggle to come to terms with sexuality and evangelical salvation experiences as a religious rite of passage. Each involves deep-set and even more deeply felt shifts in identity, accompanied by public statements of personal transformation (so-called professions of faith, in evangelicalism), suggesting that the phenomena might well serve similar psychosocial functions. And in both coming-out and salvation experiences, identity is (re)constructed simultaneously in the public renunciation of an earlier way of living and in the embrace of new narratives and norms that help disambiguate an individuality in flux and integrate it into a community of support and understanding. In effect, evangelical religion can supply for some gay men what Warner terms “a language of ecstasy, a horizon of significance within which transgressions against the normal order of the world and the boundaries of the self can be seen as good things” (1997, p. 229; author’s emphasis). Shores adds to this general dynamic the particularly powerful role music plays in activating the complex of feelings and spiritual intuitions that are key to transformative religious experiences. As Mark’s soliloquy ends and “Pass Me Not” continues to build, the scene concludes:

 BENNY [singing]. “Savior, Savior …” (he rises and begins to exit.) BENNY/ANDREW [both singing]. “Hear my humble cry …” (ANDREW rises and follows BENNY.) BENNY/ANDREW/TJ. “While on others thou art calling …” BENNY/ANDREW/TJ/MARK [all singing]. “Do not pass me by.” (Shores, 2001, pp. 60-61)

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 On the surface, this image of Shores’ four sissies voicing their feelings of pain and isolation through the singing of a standard Baptist hymn in the gospel tradition would appear to critique evangelical fundamentalism through a quasi-Butlerian queering of hegemonic discourse. This camp-as-critique reading is reinforced by Shores’ own activist vision of himself as a gay playwright. In a 2006 commentary published in The Advocate he declared, “I will not shut up until I breathe my last. I will not soften my position … I will scream loudly and counter the religious right’s hypocrisy by exposing it.” The article’s title poses the question, “Do We Hate Back?” Shores’ answer: “yeah, maybe” (2006, p. 50). In this context, Mark’s angry soliloquy sounds like a re-voicing of Shores’ own outrage at the way anti-gay evangelicalism not only rejects the homosexual, but also dispossesses him of the intellectual and emotional resources needed to redirect the evangelistic impulse into a more humane reform agenda. But the deeper significance of the scene seems to be Mark’s realization of the objectlessness of his anguish. As each boy tentatively joins his voice with the others’, they form a queer quartet that transforms the vicissitudes of individual suffering into a basis for belonging in community, but this community cannot emerge without the surrender of the individual’s aggrieved self-righteousness. This scene is representative of the play’s treatment of music as a spiritual stimulus that converts otherwise insoluble cultural conflicts into moments of reconciliation and unconditional acceptance—a kind of gay grace—created in the mingling of sentiment and song. Or, as one of the alcoholic, depressive, backslidden Baptist barflies puts it early on in the play, “Yeah! Those Baptists know how to sing, that’s for dang sure. There was that feelin’ that I got there … Safe in the arms of Jesus, you know?” (2001, p. 20). In Shores’ plays, these sorts of incongruous lines—an alcoholsodden, loud-mouthed tramp holding forth with her effeminate, homosexual drinking buddy about Jesus and church music in a gay bar—often get good laughs from the audience, but while Shores is well-known for a trademark brand of bawdy, white-trash Christian camp, there’s no indication in the text that he intends these sorts of statements to be dismissed as only so much trailer-park theology or shrugged off as drunken philosophizing. In a note atop the text of his play Daddy’s Dyin’, Who’s Got the Will? (1987), Shores provides

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directions that could be applied to all his works: “These people are real, not cartoons. It’s easy to go for laughs, it’s harder to strive for truth” (p. 7). Shores reinforces the tragicomic aims of his work in a later interview: “I choose a subject that is pretty serious and write a comedy about it … The funniest characters are the most tragic” (2000, pp. 2–3). As the film adaption of Sordid Lives (1998) illustrates, Shores’ notion of his plays as “seriocomedy” does not always translate well into mainstream entertainment (2000, p. 3). The mass-market demand for an easily digestible cinema product results in the tragic element in Sordid Lives being sheared away in the adaptation of the play to film, undercutting the more trenchant elements of the drama and leaving a series of Southernized comedic situations that tend to reinforce over-simple stereotypes of the American South and give (sub)urban audiences permission to laugh dismissively at lower-class, rural Christians in the Bible Belt. In Daddy’s Dyin’, a dysfunctional family of siblings and in-laws warring over their dying father’s farm and money rely on the power and pathos of singing gospel music together to discover a tolerance for one another’s divergent lifestyles as adults. Harmonizing their voices in song metaphorizes a model of mutual respect that allows each voice to be both individual and part of the family ensemble simultaneously, without effacing genuine differences of worldview and life choices. This surreptitious heterodoxy is almost entirely absent from the 1990 film adaption, which treats the musical scenes as sentimental flashbacks of a dying and semi-lucid patriarch fantasizing in his dotage about a lost idyll of Southern, patriarchal pastoralism. Like the “pill-popping, chain-smoking, cement-haired” busybody who anchors the drama in Sordid Lives (Peiker, 2008), gospel music and Baptist hymnody function in the film adaption of Daddy’s Dyin’ as pretexts for punch lines or melodrama, rather than as a psychospiritually strategic way for Southern Christians to manage conflicts between private feelings and public expectations of orthodox culture. As Shores’ career as a playwright has progressed, this idea has increasingly come to focus on the twinned crises of sexuality and spirituality in explicitly gay male experience. The most radical nonconformist in Daddy’s Dyin’ (1987), one of Shores’ earliest works, is a hippie named Harmony Rhodes and the sluttish, foul-mouthed Evalita Turnover—entertaining but stock characters, both. Five years later, in Daughters of the Lone Star State (1992), Shores created

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an all-female cast of brassy, trashy, flawed, but fundamentally decent women whose commitment to the salvific effects of female community and the restorative power of (mostly) unconditional love reads in retrospect like a writer experimenting with his voice in new registers that, perhaps most innovatively, attempt to imagine a contemporary Southern Christian homosocial sphere. By the end of the decade in Sordid Lives (1998), Shores’ work was ranging into transvestitism, coming out in conservative culture, and the Southern Christian propensity to pathologize homosexuality. If, as Shores himself has said, he keeps “getting closer to me” in all his plays, then Sissies (2001) represents not only the culmination of Shores’ nearly two-decades long struggle to come out within a secular artistic and literary world as a gay playwright from a fundamentalist background, but also an authoritative statement on the role of gospel music in the emergence of a more fully selfpossessed identity for many gay men from Southern, evangelical backgrounds who want and need some way to retain a sense of their native spirituality as they acknowledge their sexuality. “When I wrote Sissies,” Shores has said, “I really believed each of the four boys was an extension of me” (2000, p. 2). In singing about the soul’s plea for salvation, each character in Sissies projects into the lyrics and music the particular nature of his experience as a gay man who still longs to retain some affiliation with evangelical culture, but in a way that does not deny the full range of his adult identity. For him to voice the queer struggle for acceptance through a gospel hymn is not only—or even primarily—to critique or satirize evangelicalism, it seems to me, any more than Shores suggests in Daddy’s Dyin’ (1987) that the primary meaning of the family singing gospel music together is the kind nostalgic escape from reality that the film makes it out to be. Shores has spoken publicly about a desire to create work that “shakes people up” (Shores, 2000, p. 1), so it would not be wrong to identify elements of critique, satire, and escapism in his plays’ use of music, religious or otherwise. But for Shores, gospel music seems to matter mainly for its ability to help reconcile the queer and spiritual selves, to consecrate the ordeal of coming out (or trying to) in the reassuringly familiar patterns of evangelical feeling and expression as idiomized in gospel music. Shores seems to have had something similar in mind when speaking in an interview just before the debut of Sissies (2001):

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 When we were doing Sordid [Lives] in Fort Worth in 1997, I hung out a lot with Leslie Jordan [who later become nationally famous playing the flamboyant Beverly Leslie on the sitcom Will & Grace] in the gay bars in Dallas, and I was just coming out, having a great time. My friends and I would listen to this gospel group called the Rambos sing in a gay club, and we sang gospel songs all the way back and forth. I started thinking of this collision of sexuality and the music. That made me remember the church, which led to the inspiration for [Sissies], set in Dallas. (Shores, 2000, p. 3)83

 As an attempt to describe the origins of his work, Shores’ explanation elides as much as it elucidates. The most important insights and motivations seem to exist beyond language, in between the words describing those moments when “this collision of music and sexuality” catalyzes the discovery of a self in which the disparate components of identity are harmonized in the experience of southern gospel.

BETWEEN THE PULPIT AND THE PIANO There is a longstanding link in the literature of conversion between musicality and transformative upwellings of psychospiritual energy going back at least as far as Augustine. In Book VIII of Confessions (1986), he describes his religious conversion experience beginning at the sound of a child singing in the garden. The singing voice seems to be sign from God to turn to scripture as a guide to salvation (1986, p. 177). For Augustine, music collects a set of disaggregated spiritual aspirations into a coherent feeling of epiphany or insight: “take and read,” the child’s voice sings, “take and read.” And “in an instant,” Augustine concludes, “it was as though the In a more recent email exchange, Del Shores clarified to me that he and his friends were listening to the Rambos music being played on their way to the gay club, but that the Rambo family singers themselves were not present at the club. 83

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light of confidence flooded into my heart” (1986, p. 178). For Shores and his characters, the literal meaning of the doctrine as expressed in lyrics seems to be less important than the feeling of salvation (which is to say, unconditional acceptance and belonging) that emerges in the close harmony of gospel music sung in the ensemble—whether coming home from the gay bars in Dallas, or, as Andrew puts it in Sissies (2001), that moment on Sunday morning when “everybody would start to sing, ‘Just as I Am’ or ‘Softly and Tenderly’ or ‘Pass Me Not.’” And “I’d feel that tug … [that] I didn’t quite understand” until “a feeling of peace, of joy and happiness [would] flood through my entire being” (pp. 16–17). In juxtaposing Augustine and Shores in this way, I wish to highlight both the persistent role music has played in affective religious identity formation and the way that role has evolved over time to serve as a contemporary idiomatic bridge between orthodox doctrine and unorthodox experience for gay people whose lives and identities put them in conflict with dominant culture of conservative Protestant Christianity in the Calvinist tradition. In the evangelical vernacular, the experience Andrew (and Augustine) describes is understood as the conviction of the holy spirit (“that tug”) and the work of redemptive grace (“a feeling of peace, of joy and happiness”) imparted to the soul that has come to be aware of the lapsarian state imputed to all humankind through original sin. Perhaps unsurprisingly, contemporary evangelicalism commonly locates this so-called age of accountability during the years of childhood leading up to and culminating in puberty. This emphasis on the conversion of adolescent and early teenage children inevitably blends and blurs religious experience and sexuality. For those pubescent religious strivers coming into comprehension of their incipient homosexuality, the crisis of religious awakening can easily also become a crisis of psychosexual identity. Remembering his own baptism by full immersion—and the experience of seeing TJ naked as they both changed clothes afterward in a small room off to the side of the church baptistery— Mark confesses that “that blend of religion and sexuality was just almost too much for my almost teenage body to deal with. I was supposed to feel different. And I did! But now, in hindsight, on that day, the day of my baptism, my twelve-year-old … body and soul … (Stares at TJ) ... fell in love.” This memory is part of a flashback scene in which young Mark and TJ are both welcomed

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into the communion of Christian fellowship following their baptism. Standing at the front of the church, Mark “walks over and joins TJ, throwing his arm around him,” and they sing with the rest of the congregation the chorus to “Revive Us Again”: “Hallelujah, thine the glory, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory, revive us again” (Shores, 2001, p. 43). As with so many of the play’s psychospiritually pivotal scenes, this one relies on the presence of some classic gospel hymn or other traditional white gospel song to catalyze an imaginative and emotional resolution of the dichotomies that beset the gay male evangelical caught between psychosexual desire and normative cultural values. The transgressive attraction that Mark feels when looking at TJ’s body in the baptismal dressing room is ceremonially sanctified in the experience of hymn singing. A touch that is forbidden in the naked intimacy of the changing room is permitted and encouraged in the public evangelical sphere, which sanctions homosocial bonding as expressions of Christian brotherhood. Mark throws his arm around TJ in a gesture that is not satirical or ironic or blasphemous, but suffused with vectors of identity originating in both religion and sexuality. Under the auspices of evangelical religious cultural practices like baptism and the ceremonial exchange of affection between Christian “brothers,” ordinarily conflicting impulses of gay evangelical identity are momentarily and wonderfully harmonized through the experience of the gospel music that helps consecrate these rituals. From this point of view, the link between gay men and gospel music begins to make sense as an experiential context in which to feel the queer, evangelical equivalent of what James referred to in the Varieties of Religious of Experience as “the high-water mark of his spiritual capacity” (1997, p. 191). That this experience should emerge within such an openly homophobic environment presents a paradox, to be sure, but one that is nevertheless consistent with the structure of feeling and desire found in strictly patriarchal societies. Indeed Kosofsky Sedgwick’s (1985) study of homosociality in “male-dominated kinship systems” has shown “the tendency toward important correspondences and similarities between the most sanctioned forms of male-homosocial bonding”—sports, politics— “and the most reprobated expressions of male homosexual sociality”—cabarets, drag shows, gay strip clubs (pp. 3, 89). Take, for instance, the all-male quartets who spend long stretches of time on the road in the necessary intimacy of a custom

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coach bus (the preferred mode of travel in southern gospel). Unaware of the pious explanations of southern gospel music as a high calling and an evangelistic ministry, one might observe this dynamic as an outsider and easily draw far different conclusions from the sight of four comely (or at least highly coifed) men spending most days and nights together in a confined living space they share for the purposes of eating, sleeping, bathing, and passing most of their waking hours between concerts. For their part, many gospel singers speak of the bonds they form with other singers as akin to brotherhood, strongly suggesting that a great deal of intimacy inevitably builds up between men who not only live this closely together for (often) years at time, but also join their voices night after night in close harmony to sing of the soul’s striving after grace and salvation. “I count it an honor,” the manager of one of the most prominent southern gospel all-male quartets said in a statement referring to the group’s lead singer, “to stand beside this man night after night. He is not only the finest lead singer in Gospel Music, but he has a passion for this music and the message it delivers. I love him like a brother and thank God for his friendship” (Jonathan Wilburn, 2006). I do not mean to suggest that such dynamics are necessarily manifestations of repressed or hidden same-sex attractions. But these networks of religious camaraderie and spiritual intimacy can nevertheless combine with the rhetoric and experiential force of southern gospel to serve as a powerful idiom through which those involved at any stage of the music’s creation and consumption may sublimate a range of homosocial, homoerotic, and homosexual feelings or desires that build up within evangelicalism’s psychosexually repressive culture. A few years after being outed by the arrest of the man who tried to blackmail him, the gospel singer Kirk Talley wrote and recorded a song titled “Intimacy with Jesus” (Talley, 2005b). In the song, the singer describes his desire to touch Christ’s face daily and be near enough to feel the Savior’s heartbeat “as I completely lay upon your chest” (Talley, 2005b). It is not uncommon for southern gospel songs to rely on images and rhetoric of physical or romantic intimacy to dramatize evangelicalism’s ideal relationship with the divine (see, for instance, the recently popular song “Hold Me While I Cry” by Karen Peck and New River), but the New Testament’s prominent descriptions of Christians as the bride of Christ (King James Bible, Eph. 5. 25) and Jesus as a bride-

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groom (Matt. 25.10) provide a scriptural rationale for desexualized interpretations of such imagery as purely metaphorical. Read in light of Talley’s ordeal and the very public way he subsequently discussed having “wrestled and dealt with same-sex attraction” for many years (Talley, 2005a), “Intimacy with Jesus” is notable for collapsing the traditional distance between the tenor and the vehicle of the metaphor. The song’s explicitly homoerotic imagery transparently displaces homosexual desire onto evangelical religious experience. As a culturally authorized language in which to speak of deep feelings of the heart and intuitions of the soul, southern gospel negotiates between unorthodox identity and orthodox culture. Talley himself has come very close to acknowledging as much. In the same interview in which he discussed his same-sex attractions, he said that while “people are just now finding out” about his sexuality because of the criminal case he was caught up in, “all my life I put myself and my personal struggles in my songs,” which are a “transparent look into my real life” (Talley, 2005a). If we take Talley’s words seriously (and I think we should), then one function of southern gospel music may indeed be to redirect culturally forbidden desires of the gay male—on either side of the footlights, whether out, repressed, closeted, or questioning—into pathways of expression that are both psychospiritually familiar and culturally acceptable. In matters of the spirit, soul, and identities in transition, we deal in penumbras just beyond our focal distance; in evidences felt, not seen; in substances hoped for, but never fully grasped. When I have observed—and felt for myself—the self-authenticating force of gospel music at its best (what Don Cusic [1990] has so aptly called “the sound of light” in his history of Christian music), the experience has been as authoritative and affecting in the moment as it has proved difficult to explain or describe after the psychospiritual comedown.84 In addition to the reasons for this phenomenon that I outline above, the difficulty I describe may also be related to a particular quandary facing the queer critic, what Sholock has described as the complicated “relation between one's sexual identity and one's scholarship” and the way that in academic discourse “homosexuality (as both subject of inquiry and 84

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This indescribability is, I think, part of the reason such moments in Shores’ plays sometimes inadvertently teeter on the verge of farce or melodrama. In trying to render such experiences, he seems to be attempting not only to translate an unfamiliar subculture and set of spiritual customs to popular audiences beyond the American South, but also to explain to himself reasons for his and his characters’ continued attachment to a culture that rejects them so strongly. But these reasons remain partially comprehended at best. Gospel music raises the alluring possibility that the outcast might find a single psychospiritual language in which both the desires of the heart and habits of the soul can merge. The queer evangelical is drawn back by this prospect to the mysteries of Protestant grace and Christic redemption, even as the limits of contemporary evangelicalism’s homophobia obstructs strivers’ progress and turns them away. The play visualizes this tension in the opening scene, in which the four boys are first seen singing together while positioned between the pulpit (a dramaturgical symbol of evangelical orthodoxy) and the piano (the one object that endures most visibly from the church to the cabaret and gay nightclub scenes). The existential implications represented by the characters’ location between the pulpit and the piano visually metaphorizes the dilemma facing the Southern Baptist (and southern gospel) sissy and his struggle to hold the self in better psychospiritual balance, to inhabit the space between. What, if anything, is to be done? The play’s conclusion meditates on this question for some time. The final scene of Sissies (2001) stages an evangelical affirmation of queer identity underscored by gospel music. The scene opens at Andrews’s funeral in the church, where Brother Chaffey is playing the Baptist funeralfavorite, “In the Garden” (Shores, 2001, p. 85). While the preacher’s funeral sermon expounds on Andrew’s suicide as the wages of sin, Mark—in his meta-narrative role—starts to annotate the preacher’s remarks with increasing hostility until finally Mark’s rage and frustration halt the funeral scene entirely.

as an identity claim) is [often] deemed excessively personal in a way that heterosexuality in its normativity is not” (Sholock, 2007, 134).

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THE BEST OF JMMS MARK. (Overlap [with PREACHER]). Shut the fuck up!!!! (Music has built and abruptly stops, a minory [sic] feel. Church lights transition to include the God light when music stops.) MARK. (Manic) Sometimes I close my eyes …. And I create a perfect world. A world of acceptance and understanding and love. A world where there’s hope. Even if the hope is just whispered. I hear it. BENNY. (A capella.) “Soft as a voice of any angel, Breathing a lesson unheard, Hope with a gentle persuasion, Whispers her comforting word.” (Shores, 2001, pp. 86-87)

With Benny’s introduction of the opening lines to the gospel classic “Whispering Hope,” Andrew rises, Christ-like, from the dead, and describes heaven as waking up in the arms of a faithful lover, while Mark continues to annotate the scene in a manner that suggests he is literally calling into being the better, hopeful world that he has only longed for up to this point: In this world, the preacher suddenly speaks of love, not judgment; the play’s two barflies, Odette and Peanut, unburden themselves of guilt and shame for their misspent lives; TJ and Mark profess love for one another and “turn towards the pulpit, holding hands, standing there for a moment like a groom and groom” (Shores, 2001, p. 89). Ultimately, Andrew’s pious mother and the rest of the cast join in singing the final bars of the song: “Whispering hope, O how welcome thy voice, Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice” (Shores, 2001, p. 90). As the resolution to a work of dramatic literature, the scene remains firmly in the realm of prolonged wish fulfillment. But I understand the play’s drift from psychosocial realism into queer fantasy as a residual effect of the cognitive and emotional dissonances the text attempts to overcome. As both a meditation on, and at one important level a product of, evangelicalism’s monochromatic worldview, Sissies (2001) struggles to escape fundamentalism’s oppositional way of thinking and responding, as well as evangelicalism’s reliance on effusions of sentiment and nostalgia to mask the rejection of non-normative subjectivities. Neither Shores nor Mark seems able to decide if he wants to eradicate evangelical hatefulness or force evangelicalism to accept him. Indeed, Mark’s have-it-both-ways relationship to evangelicalism is, in its own way,

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every bit as fundamentalist as the preacher or Andrew’s ultraconservative mother. Here is Mark in Act II, contemplating leaving the church: “I’m gonna miss it. The music. The hymns. The sweet old ladies. The covered dish fellowships. That feeling … (Pats his heart, emotional) … I get right here. … But how do you embrace something that doesn’t embrace you?” (Shores, 2001, p. 72). Without a rational language in which to translate “that feeling” into terms that do not circumscribe him within orthodox evangelicalism’s punitive view of homosexuality, Mark assumes he has to surrender his spiritual identity in order to affirm his sexuality. But Mark’s parenthetical, nonverbal gesture signifying the intensity of emotion he has in mind suggests whatever structure of feeling is being described here exists—like Shores’ description of Sissies’ origins—beyond the limits of language, between orthodox evangelicalism and secular gay culture, in a space where certain types of religious songs (“The music. The hymns”) take on the underlying character of participants’ psychospiritual desires for belonging (“the sweet old ladies”) and the fellowship of community (“the covered dishes”) and, by externalizing the feelings in song, legitimize them. At its most affecting, then, white gospel music exceeds the limits of orthodox culture to control what it means or to put limits on the reach of the work it accomplishes. Throughout the play, gospel music that originates in church scenes is held over into, or reappears as part of, bar/club scenes (never the other way around). In Act I, when the two barflies, both lapsed evangelicals, begin talking about growing up in church, the bar’s piano player begins an unsolicited rendition of the altar-call hymn “Softly and Tenderly” (Shores, 2001, p. 20). Late in Act II, one of the barflies— Peanut, a short, middle-aged gay man who pays for sex from hustlers ever since his self-image was destroyed in his twenties by “two evil queens” who very publicly humiliated him (Shores, 2001, p. 32)—approaches Andrew on the street to speak a word of cautionary encouragement to him, and “Pass Me Not” begins to filter out of the piano bar. Theater reviewer Les Spindle has written that Shores uses music in his plays “to comment on the story,” and this is true so far as it goes (Shores, 2001, p. 13). But this assessment fails to comprehend the deeper function of gospel music implied by the play. Shores deploys gospel hymns in ways suggesting that certain affective styles of white Christian music, unlike other con-

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ventions of evangelical culture, have psychospiritual relevance far beyond the confines of the church. To this transcultural aspect of gospel music, the final funeral scene adds the transformative power to integrate disparate components of the hybrid self’s identity—in this case, evangelical spirituality and non-heterosexual sexuality. The conclusion’s force is somewhat scattered by the fantastical transformation of Mark into a herald of gay liberation theology, telegraphed most directly in the plays final words: “I always wake up,” Mark says (as he “looks up, right hand outstretched to heavens, smiles,” according to the stage directions), “but now … with hope!” (Shores, 2001, p. 90). Nevertheless, the ending remains a significant achievement as a culmination of the play’s persistent suggestion of a post-fundamentalist possibility for queer evangelical identity formation, one that frees the queer self from the false oppositions between religious affections and non-normative sexuality by staging the resolution of conflictual energy in the experience of gospel music. In this, southern gospel emerges as a psychodynamic varietal of the “strategies for integration” of gay and Christian identities that Walton (2006) has discussed in his study of evangelicals and homosexuality (p. 5). One of southern gospel’s most distinctive features is its emphasis on the ultimate return of harmonic symmetry in familiar and deeply satisfying triumphs of musical consonance and beauty over dissonance and incongruence. McManus (2004) has written that the centrality in southern gospel of this dissonance-to-consonance harmonic movement “forms a musical metaphorical parallel with the extreme ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’” of evangelical theology (p. 73). Shores’ play (especially the conclusion’s prolonged fantasy of reconciliation) suggests, however, that the frisson of resolution— the thrilling, momentary fusion of typically opposing energies into a single experience of redemptive, liberating totality—can be at least as psychodynamically significant as the fixed poles of possibility (rightness/wrongness, saved/lost, saint/sinner, straight/gay) implied by musical dissonance and harmonic consonance.

GOSPEL MUSIC’S “PLACE FOR US” Finding effective language to describe ineffable moments of spiritual transcendence is difficult enough in the main. No less gifted an evangelical divine than Jonathan Edwards complained in his 1743 treatise on Religious Affections about “spiritual things being invisible,

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and not things that can be pointed forth with the finger,” so that “we are forced to use figurative expressions in speaking of them, and to borrow names from external and sensible objects to signify them by” (1962, p. 243). This problem is especially acute for those hybridized strivers seeking affirmation of their spiritual experience and minority identities within the idioms of evangelical Protestantism. What little language does exist in the anti-modern environment of contemporary evangelicalism is aimed at forcing separations between spirituality and non-normative identities of all kinds. As a result, attempts to integrate the two create complicated constellations of emotion shot through with contradiction and elisions—not least of all, a nagging feeling that to be gay and to enjoy gospel music is to implicate oneself in Protestant fundamentalism’s anti-gay attitudes and praxis. To those (like the author of the Inside Out Nashville article) who are unfamiliar with, or unreceptive to, the many varieties of evangelical religious experience, Shores’ imperfectly realized vision of gospel hymns as a meaningful language of psychospiritual transformation must look like just another kind of closet, with music. But such a dismissive view simply substitutes one set of moral dogmas for another and overlooks both the experiential richness of the gospel tradition and the polyvalence of queer individuality. The lyrical and stylistic tendencies of gospel music have historically emphasized the felt human struggle of trying and failing to live up to impossible goals of official doctrine (Harrison 2008, pp. 34-35). At the same time, American literature that explores the gospel-music experience—most notably, Harry Crews’s The Gospel Singer (1968), but also important parts of Harold Frederic’s Damnation of Theron Ware (1896), Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (1926), and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina (1993)—variously demonstrates the inextricable link between singing about Jesus and living like the Devil. To ignore this persistent linkage is to close off entire quadrants of evangelical life. In describing southern gospel music as a vehicle for implicitly expressing queer experience, I have attempted to demonstrate how queer subjectivity within the context of, and entangled with, evangelical Christianity makes a particular kind of complex sociopolitical statement that moves beyond exclusivity of sexuality and religious identities. However, even as I place emphasis on the diversity of psychospiritual experience that southern gospel music allows

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within fundamentalist evangelical culture, I am also mindful of the risks associated with any discourse of religious pluralism. As Hulsether (2008) has shown in his study of religion, culture, and politics, emphasizing a plurality of religious experiences can inadvertently mask concentrations of hegemony and the operations of dominant cultural power that shape contemporary religious life, especially marginal and minority identities (pp. 16–17). In speaking of southern gospel’s surreptitious heterodoxy, one must emphasize the surreptitiousness—its invisibility and the burden of selfregulation that falls to the nonconforming individual who wishes to forge a religious identity beyond what orthodoxy strictly allows—as much as the heterodox nature of that experience. Taken together, then, the evidence from beneath the pious surface of evangelical life—behind the gospel-music stage, from the back of the bus, beyond the reach of the footlights—tells an alternative story about southern gospel music and its cultural function that doesn’t (yet) definitively disrupt orthodox power structures or discredit orthodox accounts of the music’s purpose, but complicates them considerably in ways that call to mind Hubbs’ observation about “music’s function as a redeemer—or regulator— of twentieth-century homosexuals” (2004, p. 4). Indeed, rightly understood, the history of southern gospel might well be described as the record of misfits, outcasts, non-conformists, and strugglers searching for, hearing, finding, or longing after the right key in which the soul can sing. Thus, perhaps the real paradox at the intersection of homosexuality and gospel music would be if gay men from the fundamentalist evangelical tradition weren’t drawn to southern gospel and its tantalizing promise of accessing an alternative language in which to find (by imagining) something like what Miller (1998) calls in the title of his essay on Broadway and homosexuality a “place for us.” For Miller, mid-century Broadway showtunes operate by suppressing the “Open Secret” of homosexuality, and so possess “a loquacity of prohibition that establishes, shapes, and sharpens the very desire lying beneath it” (1998, p. 94).85 For several generations of 85 For more on the American musical and homosexuality, see also Cohan (2005).

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gay men who grew up in the rural evangelical American South, gospel music functions as what might be thought of as southern, Christian showtunes. The outsized, flamboyant sentimentality of southern gospel merges a network of desires—for transcendence, for affirmation, for the salvation of acceptance without the surrender of self—that are only intensified by the difficulty of ever fully realizing them for more than a few fleeting moments of gospel music harmony.

REFERENCES Augustine. (1986). Confessions. New York: Penguin. Bill Gaither issues statement regarding misrepresentation. (2006, May 4). SingingNews.com. Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://www.singingnews.com/southern-gospelnews/11592497/. Cohan, S. (2005). Incongruous entertainment: Camp, cultural value, and the MGM musical. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Cusic, D. (1990). The sound of light: A history of gospel music. Madison, WI: Popular Press. Darden, R. (2004). People get ready: A new history of black gospel music. New York: Continuum. Derrick, T. L. (2006, April 10). Thinking out loud: The gospel truth. Inside Out Nashville, 5. Edwards, J. (1962). Selections (C. H. Faust & T. H. Johnson, Eds). New York: Hill & Wang. Gay singer’s blackmailer gets prison. (2004, August 6). Rainbow Network News. Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://www.rainbownetwork.com/UserPortal/Article/Print.a spx?ID=14441&sid=27. Glock, A. (2005, August). Out of the lord’s closet. GQ, 132-135, 167-68, 171-72. Harrison, D. (2008). Why southern gospel music matters. Religion and American culture: A journal of interpretation, 18(1), 27-58. Hubbs, N. (2004). The queer composition of America's sound: Gay modernists, American music, and national identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hulsether, M. (2008). Religion, culture, and politics in the twentieth-century United States. New York: Columbia University Press. IMDB.com. Sordid lives. Retrieved March 20, 2008, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0204640/.

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Kosofsky Sedgwick, E. (1985). Between men: English literature and male homosocial desire. New York: Columbia University Press. James, W. (1997). The varieties of religious experience. New York: Touchstone. Jonathan Wilburn celebrates 10 years with Gold City. (2006, June 14). Sogospelnews.com. Retrieved March 30, 2009 http://sogospelnews.com/index/content/articles/jonathanwilburn-celebrates-10-years-with-gold-city/. The King James Bible. (1998). Nashville: Broadman & Holman. Linscot, G. (2006, May 7). Gaither addresses lesbian endorsement allegations. Retrieved March 24, 2009, from http://www.sharperiron.org/category/christianity/protestanti sm/evangelicalism/bill-gaither/. McManus, R. (2004). Southern gospel music vs. contemporary Christian music: Competing for the souls of evangelicalism. In M. Graves & D. Fillingim (Eds.), More than precious memories: The rhetoric of southern gospel music (pp. 57-87). Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Miller, D. A. (1998). Place for us: Essay on the Broadway musical. Boston: Harvard University Press. Peiker, M. (2008, July 14). Dirty southern laundry: Del Shores’ cult class movie “Sordid Lives” now a hilarious LOGO TV series. New York Press. Retrieved March 24, 2009, from http://www.nypress.com/blog-1843-dirty-southern-laundrydel-shores%5C-cult-classic-mo.html. Sholock, A. (2007). Queer theory in the first person: Academic autobiography and the authoritative contingencies of visibility. Cultural Critique, 66, 127-152. Shores, D. (1987). Daddy’s dyin’. Who’s got the will? A comedy in two acts. New York: Samuel French. Shores, D. (1992). Daughters of the lone star state: A comedy in two acts. New York: Samuel French. Shores, D. (2006, March 14). Do we hate back? This gay ex-Baptist rejects moderation and advises a simple strategy against the far right: Stay angry. The Advocate, 50. Shores, D. (1998). Sordid lives: A comedy in four chapters. New York: Samuel French. Shores, D. (2000, October 19). Driving out demons. Interview with Les Spindle. Back Stage West, 14.

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Shores, D. (2001). Southern Baptist sissies: A play in two acts. New York: Samuel French. Spindle, L. (2003, April 3). Review of Trials and tribulations of a trailer trash wife, by Del Shores. Back Stage West, 13. Talley, K. (2005a., August 4). Interview with Pamela Furr. Loyalears.com. Retrieved March 31, 2009 http://podcast.loyalears.com/midwest.php. Talley, K. (2005b.). Intimacy with Jesus. Live at the River: My Story, My Song. Talley, K. Testimony of Kirk Talley. Restorationnet.com. Retrieved March 24, 2009, from http://www.restorationnet.org/12.html. Walton, G. (2006). “Fag church”: Men who integrate gay and Christian identities. Journal of Homosexuality, 51(2), 1-17. Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a queer planet. Social Text, 9(4), 3-17. Warner, M. (1997). Tongues untied: Memoirs of a Pentecostal boyhood. In G. Comstock & S. Henking (Eds.), Que(e)rying religion: A critical anthology (pp. 223-231). New York: Continuum. Werner, C. H. (1994). Playing the changes: From afro-modernism to the jazz impulse. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

10 DANDY DISCIPLESHIP: A QUEERING OF MARK’S MALE DISCIPLES ROBERT J. MYLES THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND [email protected] ABSTRACT While conventional readings of the Bible unambiguously presume the normativity of heterosexuality and binary categories of gender, this article challenges such modern assumptions by purposefully and strategically re-reading three Markan discipleship texts “sexually.” By combining a socio-rhetorical approach with queer and gender criticism as informed primarily by the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, the re-readings attempt to penetrate through existing homophobic and erotophobic interpretations. Particular attention is also given to the ways in which the gender and sexuality of the male disciples has been constructed and can be problematized in both the world behind the text and the world in front of the text. 86 The male disciples in Mark make an interesting case study for queer and gendered hermeneutics because of their ambiguous portrayal. What are we to make of the often flawed followers of Jesus who, within dominant imperial discourses regarding ancient Mediterranean gender, appear hopelessly short of achieving their masculinity? How too might we queer the text, so that in the production of The bulk of this article is drawn from an Honours dissertation submitted to the University of Auckland in 2009. I wish to acknowledge the encouragement and input of the faculty at the School of Theology, particularly Philip Culbertson, Elaine M. Wainwright, and Mary Caygill. 86

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meaning our interpretations are not constrained by oppressive constructions of gender and sexuality? This article seeks the liberation of the Markan text: firstly, from homophobic and erotophobic87 interpretations, both conscious and unconscious, that work within the unacknowledged assumptions of heteronormativity; and, secondly, from interpretations that assume, again usually unacknowledged, that gender and sexuality is binary and essential. These two presuppositions underlie most conventional readings of Mark; however, they limit the text in a number of ways. On the one hand, they are anachronistic with regards to ancient Mediterranean understandings of gender and sexuality, and, on the other, they ignore contemporary queer and gender theorists such as Butler (1990) who, for example, considers gender as a performance measured against a set of culturally determined norms. Such readings are, in fact, not only perpetuated by essentialist interpretations dominant within both “hardcore” traditional and conservative Christianity, but constitute social reality itself which can be further articulated as the heteronormative meta-narrative. Internalized reading guided by the tradition of biblical interpretation is often unconscious to the point that readers of the Bible do not even notice they are constantly interpreting what they are reading. This article reads the male disciples attentive to issues of masculinity and masculine sexuality in both Western culture and the cultures that surrounded the text’s production. This involves the identification of possible interpretative avenues previously obstructed or overlooked by the erotophobia and homophobia present within existing interpretive practices by purposefully reading the texts sexually. The interpretations that I offer are as much a challenge to the limitations and indeed the ethics of conventional reading strategies as they are a fruitful provision of meaning. The task at hand involves a re-reading of three selected texts concerning the male disciples as presented in the Gospel of Mark (1:16-20; 9:33-37; 14:43-52) by combining queer and gendered hermeneutics 87 “Erotophobia,” as employed by Jennings (2003), refers to a fear of physical and personal intimacy that has established itself in dominant reading strategies.

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with socio-rhetorical criticism. The interpretations are not exhaustive in their exegesis, but rather seek to see what might emerge when approached from this particular hermeneutical perspective. First, however, I outline some insights regarding queer theory and the New Testament, and offer a brief description of how gender discourses functioned within the ancient Mediterranean. These discussions should assist in providing a foundation for the subsequent interpretations.

SITUATING AN IDEOLOGICAL POSITION—QUEERING THE NEW TESTAMENT Of those biblical scholars who have explored the application of queer and gender theory, and more recently masculinity studies, many have begun to expose the strange relationship that exists between sex, the Bible, and its interpretation. Although there is a risk of domestication through its definition, Jagose (1997) writes that “queer theory describes those gestures or analytical models which dramatize incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender, and sexual desire” (p. 3). In other words, queer theory locates and exploits the incoherencies that normalize heterosexuality, but moreover, by demonstrating the impossibility of any “natural” sexuality, it calls into question the apparently unproblematic terms of “man” and “woman.” Moore (2007) notes that queer theory enables biblical scholarship to move beyond the increasingly tired debates on biblical texts that apparently deal with homosexuality into a totally different task of problematizing the concept of homosexuality itself. Similarly, Punt (2006) argues that a queering of New Testament texts goes beyond and even challenges homosexual liberationist readings that argue for gay and lesbian inclusion by focusing on the power dynamics of gendered and sexual constructions at work within the text and its reception. While issues of normative gender and sexual behaviors have been intrinsically tied to biblical interpretation by conservatives and liberals alike, many interpreters feel uncomfortable about the deliberate queering of the text. Stone (2008), however, observes that substantive interpretations often serve a heteronormative function. Like many reading strategies that go against the grain of traditional interpretation, a queer hermeneutic expects to be met with suspicion and distrust. In analyzing the contemporary contestation of gender and sexuality with regards to the developments in herme-

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neutical theory (basically the shift from historical recovery/authorial intention to reader-oriented approaches), Martin (2006) argues that the Bible simply cannot be used to prohibit or prescribe particular gender or sexual behaviors, for the text has no agency of its own and predominantly reflects the voice of the reader. Textual meaning, he suggests, is inseparable from hermeneutics and rhetoric. Martin encourages readers to forego the dominant practice of textual “foundationalism,” in which the Bible is used to justify our own points of view, and instead take responsibility for the ethical consequences of particular interpretive moves. The following interpretations, therefore, are pragmatically based on the assumptions of queer theory that the emergence of modern categories of sexuality and gender have shaped us immensely as readers. Conventional readings of biblical texts are prone to lock subjects (both readers and characters within a text) into one category of sexual desire, presumably heterosexual. Dominant readings exclude “deviant” sexualities or masculinities as a result of unconsciously imposing modern filters of normative sexuality and gender onto ancient texts. Moreover, we tend not to recognize certain forms of intimacy within particular texts as we have already presumed their non-existence. These conditions suppress the possibility of erotic and other textures, distorting and reducing our interpretive capacity. What then are the possibilities for interpretation when we refuse to swallow the erotophobic and homophobic interpretations of traditional “hardcore” Christianity? Is there a way to redeem the text for a more subversive but ultimately positive construction of masculinity for contemporary readers? One approach to redeeming the text is proposed by the queer theologian Althaus-Reid (2001; 2003; 2006), who challenges conventional Catholic understandings of gender, sexuality, and patriarchy through the assertion of often outrageous claims that both shock and laugh at normative gender and sexual stereotypes. The Western Christian tradition, she argues, has desexualized theology through regulating “decency hermeneutics” to the point where the body has been completely removed from such discussion. Her solution to erotophobia is to deconstruct and then reconstruct language indecently, in order to provoke our ingrained assumptions of decency.

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Althaus-Reid also proposes that we read the Bible sexually in a way that exposes our oppressive patterns of decency. This involves “seeing” the text in a new light that might challenge existing sexual narratives. Through the telling of sexual stories, we open our eyes to different networking strategies and sources of empowerment by shifting our attention to the margins. Citing Plummer she writes: “Sexual stories perform some social ordering, register changes, tensions and have a political role to fulfill, apart from their narrative structures” (2001, p. 132). They involve liberating the text, and indeed ourselves, from constrictive prescriptions of gender and sexuality that work to undermine and oppress our identities. Even heterosexuality, like sex, is an unstable category, which as a compulsory system itself is abnormal. Althaus-Reid writes:

 Sex may be perceived as potentially chaotic, as the field of ambiguities and unruly life and theology has to struggle to put sex into tidy compartments, each one with a name, a color, a function, and a positive or negative symbol at the door. If theology discovers that in reality there are more sexual behaviors than compartments, identities are essentialised. (Althaus-Reid, 2001, p. 132)

 The re-reading task at hand, rather than merely tolerating difference, is an active attempt to transform our interpretations from constrictive notions of binary and essentialist portrayals of gender and sexuality. As a straight but not narrow reader of the Bible, I desire to move towards a way of reading that goes beyond the relatively impotent toleration of masculine and queer deviancy, to one that embraces it as a force for liberation.88 Althaus-Reid herself 88 I should note that my reading strategy is a unique contribution in that the vast majority of queer interpretations of biblical texts have so far only been published by openly gay men. Krondorfer (2007a; 2007b) has noted the relative heterosexual silence in dialogue with and response to gay men’s studies and religion; the issue is that gay theology and queer hermeneutics, now established as legitimate fields of inquiry, might become “ghettoized” as sub-disciplines for gay men only. As I will demon-

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makes a point of circumventing the ethic of toleration; a category based on certain normative principles that decide what should or should not be tolerated. Toleration, she insists, merely works to reinforce abnormality. Only by dissolving the limits between tolerable and intolerable might we encounter positive transformation. This stresses the importance of telling and retelling queer interpretations rather than simply tolerating difference, and hence affirms the importance of this article.

THE SOCIO-SEXUAL BACKGROUND Because socio-rhetorical criticism investigates both inter-textual and social and cultural phenomena, it is necessary to indicate some of the overarching gender discourses that were present during the first-century against which the following texts will be read. As Robbins (1996) suggests, awareness of common social and cultural topics can assist the interpreter in avoiding ethnocentric and anachronistic interpretation (p. 75). How was masculinity and/or male sexuality constructed in the world of the Bible? Liew (2003) argues that an investigation into ancient masculinity, although influenced by contemporary interests, is not an anachronistic endeavor, primarily because masculinity was a major preoccupation within the ancient Mediterranean (pp. 93–97).89 Interest in the subject of masculinity has seen the recent publication of two significant books in New Testament studies, namely, a collection of essays in New Testament Masculinities (Moore & Anderson, 2003), and an exploration of Jesus’ masculinity in Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Conway, 2008). Both books attempt to understand what masculinity meant at the time of the New Testament and then apply these insights to observe how strate, however, queer theory offers interpretive tools for anyone who seeks to seriously challenge the oppressive binary constructs of gender and sexuality. 89 Because of the limitations of article length and my desire to work more extensively with the Markan text, however, I restrain myself from engaging in a long-winded discussion pertaining to ancient Roman and Jewish masculinities, and rather draw together some of the key observations.

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various characters’ masculinity is constructed. While there can be a tendency among some interpreters to assume that culture during the period of the composition of the New Testament was static and homogenous, Conway and the majority of contributors to New Testament Masculinities (NTM) seem aware of the polyphonic nature of cultural discourses and are at pains to resolve tensions between simplistic and multifaceted readings of culture. In the end, however, they are forced to simplify in order to say anything about masculinity at all (see, for example, Conway, 2008, pp. 9–10). Gleason stresses this point in his response chapter found at the end of NTM, in which he questions by whose standards are we to assess Jesus’ masculinity? Borrowing from the work of classicists, the contributors tend to focus on Greek and Roman gender ideologies with little to say about the more culturally specific construction of gender in Aramaic-speaking Palestine (Gleason, 2003, pp. 325– 327). This would also be true of Conway who places Jesus predominantly in dialogue with constructions of Roman imperial masculinity. Of course, the production and early consumption of Mark’s gospel has traditionally been located among a gentile audience, and so I do not necessarily see this as a major setback for this kind of reading of the Markan text. Moreover, the investigations of both Boyarin (1992; 1993; 1995) and Satlow (1994; 1996; 1998), who have written at considerable length on ancient rabbinic constructions of masculinity, show considerable similarities to GrecoRoman constructions, at least as far as some of the overarching discourses are concerned. Investigations into the dominant discourses of ancient masculinities often draw upon the insights of Laqueur (1990) who argues that before the emergence of modern society, to be a man or a woman was not a category of biology, but rather was to hold a social rank or to assume a cultural role. He observes in antiquity a “one-sex model” of sexual difference, in which women and men were both placed on the same sliding gender scale, with the most masculine man at the top and women at the bottom. It was possible for men to slide down into the feminine realm and women to move up into masculine space. As such, the boundaries between the sexes were highly political and rhetorical. Within the ancient Mediterranean “Roman imperialism aggressively imposed itself as a triumph of masculinity, dominating conquered nations as women or effeminate males” (Burrus, 2007, p. 8). Within the ideology of

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the elite class, perfect masculinity formed the apex of the social hierarchy, and so was intimately linked to status. Those considered “true men” were positioned above all others, including slaves, women, boys, foreigners, and men who assumed a passive role in sexual relations (Conway, 2008, p. 36). Conway suggests that it was not enough to be born a male, even a free male Roman citizen. It was also required, in line with Butler, that one act the part of a man. This included assuming the active role in private sexual relations, as well as in public life (pp. 21-22). Williams (1999) writes that, with the exception of Western culture, very few cultures have offered blanket condemnations of sexual practices between men, although restrictions and qualifications usually exist. He observes that within Roman society, homosexual relations were acceptable within certain contexts and configurations, such as the active/passive distinction (p. 17). While the assertion of an active masculinity was valued, however, such a role required the careful display of control and restraint in regards to passions and the treatment of others. Acting as a man involved the avoidance of excess of any kind, notwithstanding opportunities for manly displays of courage (Conway, 2008, pp. 21–30). It is worth noting that the more social-scientific approaches to ancient masculinity taken by Conway, the various contributors to NTM, and the scholars of ancient (rabbinic) Jewish masculinities, mostly only describe the ways in which gender is constructed, and tend not to provide appropriate critiques of such constructions. In a recent article, Moore (2007) admits that the current investigation into biblical masculinities has made little direct use of queer theory, instead drawing from scholarship in the classics that deal with codes and conventions. Although their research is crucial for an understanding of ancient masculinities, a narrow focus can potentially lead to the re-inscription of patriarchy and gender norms, particularly if coupled with textual “foundationalism.” Therefore, I would insist it is ethically necessary to combine the reading of socio-sexual textures with an ideological hermeneutic of liberation such as the queering of the text, in order to problematize the instability of masculinity and expose the ways in which conventional and dominant interpretations presuppose a heteronormative function.

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FISHING FOR MEN (1:16-20) This foundational discipleship text traditionally referred to as “the call of the disciples,” which I have more erotically re-titled “fishing for men,” provokes the queer imagination in a number of different ways. First of all, it challenges conventional spiritualized interpretations that focus on the existential response to Jesus in a merely religious sense that neglect aspects concerned with the renegotiation of social identity. Many interpreters suggest that the text functions as some sort of universal paradigm in which the religious ideal is a total break from one’s former life in order to follow Jesus (see, for example, Healy, 2008, pp. 42–44). This emphasis not only filters out the inclusion of women who do not feature here, but also overlooks the counter-cultural and erotic textures that tear apart our ideas and ideals of appropriate spaces for masculine homosociality (Sedgwick, 1985). From the beginning, it should intrigue us that Jesus seems to be in favor of enticing and hanging out with a number of other men. What is it about the erect rods of the male fishermen that lures Jesus to them?90 Likewise, what is it about Jesus’ look and commanding voice that urges these men to immediately come for him? I start here with a queer retelling of the short text, before considering some of the justifications and implications. While cruising the seashores of Galilee, Jesus began his ministry by fetching a number of seemingly attached men to join his cohort of male admirers. He saw Simon and his brother Andrew fishing in their boat, and as soon as Jesus invited them to accompany him in his quest to fish for more men, they dropped their rods and joined him. Shortly after, Jesus discovered James and John in their father’s boat mending their fishnets. Upon enticing them, they immediately left their father and their livelihood, to elope with the alluring Jesus. Thanks to the work of liberation hermeneutics, this doublet has been read in light of its obvious counter-cultural rhetoric. According to Myers (1988), for example, Mark pays considerable atWhile I am fully aware of the potential anachronisms with the idea of fishing rods in the first century, the imagery is too good to resist and graphically demonstrates my point made later that by leaving their rods behind the disciples abandon a significant component of their masculinity. 90

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tention to the social location of this episode; the fishing trade is accurately represented, and the disciples are shown to abandon all socio-economic responsibility. Such a paradigm for conversion, of course, is absurd in reality; the point, suggests Myers, is to illustrate that “discipleship involves a reordering of socio-economic relationships” (pp. 132–133). If Jesus’ call to discipleship is this radical, could we also take it to mean a reordering of socio-sexual relationships? As one’s livelihood is an integral component of one’s identity, Jesus’ instruction, according to Punt (2006), “is unexpected, singling out young men and encouraging them to leave their households (along with their livelihood, work and inheritance) which provided them with both a sense of being and social position and function” (p. 35). By eloping with Jesus, both pairs of disciples abandon the values of a dominant culture by acting against traditional familial relations and performing the construction of an alternative, better way of life—that is—the forming of a fawning group of male admirers. Such thinking is not entirely unique. In discussing his construction of the historical Jesus, Moxnes (2003) argues that the calling to discipleship narratives should be read from a spatial perspective rather than a temporal perspective (pp. 97–98). From a temporal perspective, the pericope lends itself to interpretations centered on “conversion” which are influenced by a modern construction of history-based progress and change (i.e., “before” and “after”). From a spatial perspective, however, the call involves a transition from conventional to unconventional space, thus exposing the queer but semi-inclusive nature of becoming part of Jesus’ group. But more than this, by plunging into the group and thereby abandoning their families in such a counter-cultural way, the disciples relinquish a significant component of masculine performance. The male role in the household, according to Moxnes, was “identified with that of the householder as overseer, father, husband, supplier of resources, person responsible for his house and its inhabitants, and so on” (pp. 95–96). To be presented as lacking a house, therefore, deprives Jesus and his admirers of the role of either a householder, or as sons of the household. The disciples appear infatuated enough with Jesus to forego this part of their masculine identity. In other words, they leave their rods behind. The very act of moving away from secure familial attachments meant surrendering to widespread imperial discourses asserting the importance of

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male headship and the relative impotence of falling outside these conventional institutions. To shift back to our world, we might like to think about how masculine space is constructed in contemporary society. Dominant culture would assert that sporting environments or perhaps male bonding in a fishing boat, are generally safe places for male homosociality. It’s not “gay” for men to be with other men so long as it’s in a safe space. The desire to contain male homosocial performance within a strict setting links to Butler’s (1990) observations regarding the discursive gendering within the architecture and space of a social environment. Why is it that the close proximity of men in some contexts is deemed acceptable or safe and in other contexts unsafe or even indecent? I think of the slang term “cockfest” used to describe a social gathering in which men far outnumber women. Homophobia manifests itself over men and society to designate even non-sexual and purely platonic groupings of men in certain spaces as potentially dangerous. However, Jesus challenges his admirers to leave their boats which have previously constrained them to a certain socio-economic and socio-sexual status. Their actions are thus transgressive of the dominant culture’s ideas about appropriate groupings of men. The immediate response to Jesus’ enticing invitation deliberately breaches these boundaries in a way that would have disrupted the cultural sensibilities of those around them. In order for the text to have a similar effect on us, we ought to read it sexually in a way that exposes this indecency. It is worth noting that contrary to the insights of feminist biblical scholarship that has identified a number of examples of female discipleship within Mark’s gospel (Kinukawa, 1994, 2001), “hardcore” Christians involved in a conservative backlash against such inclusive moves often insist on the primacy of the twelve male disciples. It is also worth noting that gender inclusive versions of the Bible that render “fishers of men” (halieĩs anthrŇpŇn) as the more bisexual “fishers of people” are sometimes accused of distorting the text’s “truer” meaning (see, for example, Poythress, 2000). By drawing greater attention to the maleness of the disciples and/or by excluding women as disciples entirely, however, these discourses accentuate the queer observation that Jesus calls his male admirers to forego a definite masculine space in favor of a countermasculine, and even suggestively homoerotic, space. As Martin

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(2006) writes, “[Jesus] seems to enjoy the company of his male disciples a bit more than some would think ‘normal’” (p. 96). If read sexually, the text not only challenges a biblical basis for so called “traditional family values,” but it suggestively undermines the presumed heterosexuality of both Jesus and his followers, thus exposing the limitations of our implicit heteronormative assumptions. This lends itself well to queer theory’s breaking apart of the supposed normalcy of compulsory heterosexuality. The irony, of course, is that within traditionally conservative interpretive communities these texts are seen as anything but queer. In fact, the likely response to such an “indecent perversion” would be one of repugnance and outrage. Yet, intriguingly lurking behind the patriarchal agenda of such communities, there exists a homoerotic undertone that favors the liberation of the text from a constrictive heterosexist bias.

WHOSE IS THE GREATEST? MEASURING MANHOOD (9:3337) This Markan text involves the retelling of an argument between the disciples over who is the greatest. Conventional interpretations tend to read along with the grain of the text: Jesus offers a corrective that reverses normalcy (namely, the first will be last and the last will be first). He then uses a child to illustrate this paradoxical logic; whoever welcomes the child is said to welcome Jesus. What conventional interpretations often miss is that while a reversal of values supposedly takes place, the hierarchical structure that measures manhood remains intact, thus allowing the dominant discourse that “greatness” is central to securing one’s masculinity to reassert itself. I recall a scenario from when I was about seven that occurred in the boys changing room for the school community pool in which one boy was hassled for possessing an abnormally large penis. Peculiarly, as we were to grow immersed in Western society, subjected to dominant discourses concerning male bodies and a hegemonic masculinity reinforced by the popular media, pornography, and numerous “small penis” jokes, our preconceptions about penis size would be reversed. The contestation and negotiation of penis size is an obsession of modern society; disclosure of such affirms one’s (or one’s partner’s) “greatness” and “status” among other men. For these reasons, it seems fitting to re-read this Markan text sexually as a squabble among Jesus’ admirers over the size

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of their members. Again, I start with a queer retelling of the text before discussing some of the associated issues. When they came to Capernaum Jesus asked his admirers, “What were you squabbling about on the way?” There was an embarrassing silence, for they had been comparing with one another to find out whose was the greatest. Jesus sat down, called his disciples, and said to them, “Whoever admires me the most will have the least, for truly I tell you, size doesn’t matter; it’s what you do with it that counts.” Taking a little one in his hand, he said to them, “Whoever is open to one such as this is also open to me, and whoever is open to me is open to the one who sent me.” According to Liew (2003), competition was valuable within the ideals of ancient Mediterranean masculinity and Mark often employs language to reinforce a Jesus who aggressively asserts himself in public competition whether with the Jerusalem authorities or by way of rhetorical performances (pp. 105–106). In line with Butler’s proposal, gender is not simply established by having the correct genitals, but rather by the actions one takes to secure such a status. Therefore, it is not surprising that the disciples initially compete for primacy in order to secure their place as “true men” on the hierarchical gender axis. Nor is it surprising that Jesus is forced to quickly dismiss their potentially threatening contest, given his role as maledom within this all male cohort. Indeed, the conduct Jesus often calls for in his admirers is that of submission and servitude. On Laqueuer’s (1990) gender axis, of course, this desire to emasculate his disciples is effectively a request for their transgendering; as Liew writes, “being ‘slavish’ was a synonym for being ‘womanish’ for all practical purposes” (p. 106). What, then, is the argumentative texture at play behind Jesus’ “preference for the small,” and what agenda does it seek to serve? On the one hand, Jesus’ instruction works to bolster his authoritative control and masculine standing over the seemingly wayward disciples. Liew, for example, contends that the conflicts between Jesus and the disciples (in addition to conflicts between Jesus and the Jerusalem and Roman authorities) work to uphold Jesus’ masculinity. Because the protagonist will eventually suffer an emasculating death, the disciples have the upper-hand in achieving their masculinity. As such, Mark is at pains to bolster Jesus’ performance by repeatedly identifying the disciples’ failure always in comparison to Jesus’ corrective instruction or action in order that

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he is not upstaged (pp. 106–107). This view is strengthened by the observation that the measuring manhood text is placed next to one of the passion predictions (9:30–2) explaining the emasculating fate associated with the career and cause of the Messiah; namely, death at the hands of Roman imperial forces by means of a penetrative crucifixion. On the other hand, the argumentative texture of the text seems to want to undermine prevailing imperial discourses that see “greatness” as central to the performance of any worthy masculine identity. Understood this way the text reads as subculture rhetoric that subverts the dominant Roman imperial culture through the reappropriation of its hyper-masculine values. Conway (2008), for example, argues that much of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples, although using the language of submission, is intended to heighten their masculinity, perhaps through a redefinition of terms. Jesus begins by addressing those among his admirers who want to be great and those who want to be first. This use of subculture rhetoric, insists Conway, concerns those who want to win the masculinity contest of the Greco-Roman world to achieve supremacy over others. It links Jesus to popular discourses found in wider imperial culture that use the language of slavery and service to promote particular ideologies of kingship (see, for example, Seeley, 1993). Appropriating parts of established rhetoric of the literate elite is itself an effective means of resistance to the dominant ruling powers. Jesus’ statement calls attention to the ruling elites’ failure to live up to their own ideals (Conway, 2008, pp. 99–100). Rather than inverting the Roman ideology of leadership, Mark presents Jesus as a truer embodiment of imperial leadership, and as a result, masculinity. The problem with both these agendas, however, is that they still assert the idea that hegemonic-masculinity, or at least Jesus’ masculinity, is something desirable that needs to remain intact. While the text might function as a critique of imperialism, it does not undermine the embedded belief that winning the masculinity contest is still a crucial task. Whether the criterion for greatness is flaccid or erect, it feeds from a subjection to widespread regulating discourses asserting that masculinity itself is an essential component of one’s identity. Dominant discourses are so pervasive that attempts at redefinition often merely re-establish their dominance over us. For instance, while the phrase “size doesn’t matter” at-

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tempts to negotiate power away from a dominant discourse, McKee (2004) argues that its predominant embodiment within satire does not reverse but hardens the discourse that large penises are desirable. This text about measuring manhood functions in a similar way: in the process of negotiating power away from imperial might, it still affirms the discourse that hegemonic masculinity is of utmost importance. The measures of masculinity are complex and often contradictory. Jesus’ supposed corrective to his admirers is itself a means of establishing control and power over his own destiny, which, as an expression of masculinity, silences and emasculates the disciples. Even if the text is read at a literal level in which a reversal of values actually takes place, the subtext that greatness and therefore hegemonic masculinity is something desirable is not rejected but in fact confirmed. From a queer perspective, this calls for a careful reading against the grain of the text, in order that oppressive androcentric and imperial ideals are not re-inscribed onto our own context.

THE PASH OF JUDAS AND A STREAKER’S NUDDIE RUN (14:43-52) One does not have to go far to find erotic textures present in what is traditionally titled “the betrayal and arrest of Jesus.” Not only does it contain a scandalous kiss between two men, but it concludes with a young man whose entire body is exposed during the struggle to escape. The text begins with the arrival of Judas accompanied by a crowd that intends to arrest Jesus. The irony can be seen in the signal by which Jesus is identified, namely, an intimate embrace. While the entire text, including the disciples’ decision to flee, has implications for their masculinity, I focus here on the erotic texture of the betraying embrace and then consider the identity of the mysterious naked youth. Once again, I start with a queer retelling of the text before discussing its interpretive repercussions. Immediately, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; and with him there was a crowd of men with shackles and whips eager to restrain Jesus. The betrayer had said, “The one who I will kiss is the maledom; restrain him and lead him away.” When Judas came, he approached Jesus, said “master,” and pressed his lips up against him. Then the crowd laid their hands on Jesus and tied him down. After an initial struggle his admirers deserted him and fled. Shortly after, a boy escort wearing nothing but a cover of cloth was admiring

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Jesus. As the crowd of men tried to grapple him, however, he dropped it and streaked off naked. The pash of betrayal by Judas is conventionally read as an “innocent” kiss of greeting, used by rabbis and their pupils as a sign of respect. Donahue (2002), for instance, writes:

 The action was most likely a “peck” on the cheeks, similar to greetings used in the Middle East today. The “holy kiss” (philēma) became a customary greeting and sign of affection in the early church. Whether either of these practices illumines the kiss by Judas is debatable and really not important. The point is that Judas’ kiss is a cynical device to insure that the “crowd” will arrest the right man: Jesus. (Donahue, 2002, pp. 414–415)

 But is the kiss really not that important? Suppose it was not Judas who kisses Jesus, but was a female character, say Mary Magdalene. What kind of interpretive speculation might then occur? Would Donahue still consider it just a (harmless and therefore decent) peck on the cheek? Martin (2006) suggests that the popular imagination has often envisioned Jesus in a heterosexual relationship, but has seldom understood his sexuality as ambiguous even though the gospels are relatively silent about it. He notes that such interpretations fixate on Jesus’ supposed celibacy, sexual temptations, or actual relationships, but are always dominated by assumptions of heterosexual normativity (pp. 93–94). Thus, it would seem, conventional interpreters are so locked into categories of heterosexual normativity that even the possibility of homosexual desire or eroticism within the text is completely disregarded. In this sense, the Judas kiss is a “text of terror” for men; the intimate act is so subversive that it can only be read through decency hermeneutics that completely desexualize it in order that it is made safe. If we remove our erotophobic and homophobic “blinkers,” however, and perceive the kiss as something fuller, perhaps conveying intimacy of considerable intensity, then Judas’ choice of action to betray Jesus becomes that much more remarkable, and as a result, shocking. Indeed, Witherington (2001) writes that the verb kataphileŇ used in verse 45 means to kiss with every show of affection, thus making the betrayal that much more treacherous and inexplicable (p. 381). The anxiety caused by any suggestion of homoeroti-

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cism within the text, however, inhibits our appreciation of the irony behind such an intimate embrace and, therefore, reduces our appreciation for the scandal of such a betrayal. The re-reading of this text sexually and therefore indecently should not really shock us as much as it probably does. By all measures, the text itself is inherently indecent as it describes what the Christian tradition has deemed one of the most scandalous events in human history. Judas, one of the twelve of Jesus’ innermost male admirers, betrays not only the one he is supposed to love, but also the savior of humankind. If this is the case, then surely the more intimate the kiss the more treacherous and ironic the offense becomes. These evocative layers of meaning are lost within decency hermeneutics that, for fear of any suggestion of homoeroticism, presuppose that the pash was merely a peck. Attached to the end of the betrayal pericope is mention of a young man (neaniskos) wearing nothing but a linen cloth (sindona), who, once caught by the crowd, loses his garment and runs away naked. Although not explicitly linked to the twelve, the youth is identified as a follower of Jesus, who resists the temptation to flee with the other disciples. The text is puzzling for conventional interpreters because it associates an unnamed and suggestively erotic youth very closely with Jesus. Moreover, the text only appears in Mark, which has led to the de-sexualized tradition that John Mark wrote himself into the text. Because this apologetic interpretation has been largely dismissed (Donahue, 2002, p. 417; Myers, 1988, p. 368), it leaves open suggestions as to the identity of the young man, especially given the erotically-charged texture surrounding his brief appearance. Jennings (2003) describes the text as potentially homoerotic or at least of gay interest. He cites Bentham who suggests the young man was a boy prostitute (cinēdus). This is established through two cultural intertexts: firstly, the way the text draws attention to the nudity of the youth not only suggests he is the object of homoerotic attention, but also places him in relation to the institution of prostitution; and, secondly, Bentham argues that the garment (sindona) is wrapped loosely around his body in order to entice those

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around him.91 The men who laid hands on him and the garment, suggests Jennings, regard both the boy and the cloth as a prize (pp. 109-110). Jennings acknowledges the lack of evidence available to substantiate a link between wearing a sindona and being a prostitute. He does, however, offer another point of interest, namely that the Evangelist deliberately employs the term gumnos to talk about the naked body rather than sŇma as found in Paul when talking about the naked baptized body (1 Cor 12:12-44). This, he argues, would have conveyed all kinds of additional homoerotic connotations for Mark’s implied first-century gentile readers as the word is a derivative of gymnasium, known in classic antiquity for its links to pederasty. The social environment of the gymnasium promoted this cultural practice by offering men a place to meet young boys. Nissinen (1998), for example, notes that in gymnasiums boys performed their physical exercises naked which doubtlessly eroticized the atmosphere and induced a male gaze (p. 65). Although the actions of the boy escort within his brief appearance seem favorable (he continues to follow [akolouthein] Jesus after the other admirers have fled), his social status according to Greco-Roman customs was likely marginal. Nissinen writes that the structures of sexual relationships were hierarchically regulated according to normative masculine ideals. As such, a homoerotic relationship with a slave or prostitute disgraced only the passive partner who would have enjoyed little social respect. Although the profession was tolerated within Roman imperial society, it was constructed in a way that supported the assertion of an active masculinity at the expense of emasculated individuals (pp. 72–73). Again, the implications for re-reading this young man sexually should not really shock us as much as it probably does. When the crowd of “chief priests, scribes, and elders” (14:43) attempt to restrain him, he drops his cloth and flashes them. For the ancient Jews, exposure of the penis was an offense before God (Satlow, 1997, p. 431). Yet we seem blinded from recognizing such insults because the youth’s nakedness gets covered up by safer scholarly 91 The garment, in fact, is not properly clothing at all, but rather a kind of sheet—the same used to wrap Jesus’ body.

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discourses about eye-witness verification, angels, and ambiguous symbols for discipleship. The reign of homophobia and heteronormativity implicit within our hermeneutical filters inhibits the many possibilities of meaning-making with the biblical text. While most interpreters are quite content to believe that Jesus associated with female prostitutes and other disenfranchised members of Greco-Roman society, we seem to want to resist the idea that he might have also fraternized with male prostitutes. Intriguingly, however, if we identify this naked youth as a boy escort it seems to affirm the conventional notion that Jesus’ group of followers included an unconventional assortment of individuals. Just as it was considered inappropriate for an honorable Jewish man to consort with tax-collectors and sinners, it was also indecent to be associated with prostitutes. Such a re-reading demonstrates that our interpretive imaginations are considerably obstructed by substantive heteronormative interpretations, that queer hermeneutics allows us to see the text in the different light, and consequently, take ethical responsibility for particular interpretive moves.

CONCLUSION The above interpretations demonstrate that the selected texts are more than just “pure” narratives devoid of erotic content, and that they can be read in a way that is not only sexual but also convincing. Indecent hermeneutics challenge interpreters to explore new possibilities within a text. While there is no pretension that reading sexually is the only legitimate means of interpretation, such readings are important if we are to recognize the way texts function to construct reality. This is especially the case for the disciples in Mark’s gospel, who are often read by many interpreters as a manifesto for contemporary discipleship. The Markan disciples, just like the Bible itself, are sites for contestation in the contemporary church. Whether or not readers interpret the discipleship themes in a programmatic way, we must take seriously the context of the disciples, who themselves are subject to discourses from both their own socio-sexual culture, and values unconsciously imposed on them from today. Questions about the undeclared hermeneutical presuppositions of readers must be asked if we are to become more ethical readers. Consequently, the point of the above three interpretations is not to establish a new orthodoxy of meaning, but rather to challenge our underlying presuppositions regarding gen-

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discourses about eye-witness verification, angels, and ambiguous symbols for discipleship. The reign of homophobia and heteronormativity implicit within our hermeneutical filters inhibits the many possibilities of meaning-making with the biblical text. While most interpreters are quite content to believe that Jesus associated with female prostitutes and other disenfranchised members of Greco-Roman society, we seem to want to resist the idea that he might have also fraternized with male prostitutes. Intriguingly, however, if we identify this naked youth as a boy escort it seems to affirm the conventional notion that Jesus’ group of followers included an unconventional assortment of individuals. Just as it was considered inappropriate for an honorable Jewish man to consort with tax-collectors and sinners, it was also indecent to be associated with prostitutes. Such a re-reading demonstrates that our interpretive imaginations are considerably obstructed by substantive heteronormative interpretations, that queer hermeneutics allows us to see the text in the different light, and consequently, take ethical responsibility for particular interpretive moves.

CONCLUSION The above interpretations demonstrate that the selected texts are more than just “pure” narratives devoid of erotic content, and that they can be read in a way that is not only sexual but also convincing. Indecent hermeneutics challenge interpreters to explore new possibilities within a text. While there is no pretension that reading sexually is the only legitimate means of interpretation, such readings are important if we are to recognize the way texts function to construct reality. This is especially the case for the disciples in Mark’s gospel, who are often read by many interpreters as a manifesto for contemporary discipleship. The Markan disciples, just like the Bible itself, are sites for contestation in the contemporary church. Whether or not readers interpret the discipleship themes in a programmatic way, we must take seriously the context of the disciples, who themselves are subject to discourses from both their own socio-sexual culture, and values unconsciously imposed on them from today. Questions about the undeclared hermeneutical presuppositions of readers must be asked if we are to become more ethical readers. Consequently, the point of the above three interpretations is not to establish a new orthodoxy of meaning, but rather to challenge our underlying presuppositions regarding gen-

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der and sexuality; namely, that sexuality is predominantly understood in categories of heterosexual normativity, and that gender is assumed to be essential and binary rather than socially constructed. Reading the text attentive to these issues can have tangible effects upon the target culture. Socially conservative political rhetoric, for instance, constantly conjures up images of the 1950’s nuclear family as a biblically supported ideal. Yet, my re-reading of the discipleship calling narratives (1:16-20) undermines such discourse by showing that Jesus and his disciples sought to leave behind conventional practices of familial and social identity. Moreover, discourses regarding greatness and humility become confused when read isolated from concerns of the cultural negotiation of masculine and imperial notions of endowment and status. The queer imagination deliberately transgresses normalcy in order to destabilize. My interpretations are focused on uncovering conventional obscurities, but the ultimate goal is for the reconstruction of the biblical text in order that it is a redeeming text for all, rather than just redeeming for some. As the influence of identity politics becomes more difficult to ignore, we have the ethical responsibility to ask questions of power and control when it comes to biblical interpretation, no matter how transgressive it might seem. Normalcy, as an ideological means of control, obscures our perception of reality. Therefore, it is necessary that interpretations which disturb our sense of normalcy are continued in order that the biblical text is liberated and may also continue to liberate its readers.

REFERENCES Althaus-Reid, M. (2001). Indecent theology: Theological perversions in sex, gender and politics. New York: Routledge. Althaus-Reid, M. (2003). The queer God. New York: Routledge. Althaus-Reid, M. (2006). Mark. In D. Guest, R. E. Goss, M. West & T. Bohache (Eds.), The queer bible commentary (pp. 517-525). London: SCM Press. Boyarin, D. (1992). “Behold Israel according to the flesh”: On anthropology and sexuality in late antique Judaisms. Yale Journal of Criticism, 5(2), 27-53. Boyarin, D. (1993). Carnal Israel: Reading sex in Talmudic culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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der and sexuality; namely, that sexuality is predominantly understood in categories of heterosexual normativity, and that gender is assumed to be essential and binary rather than socially constructed. Reading the text attentive to these issues can have tangible effects upon the target culture. Socially conservative political rhetoric, for instance, constantly conjures up images of the 1950’s nuclear family as a biblically supported ideal. Yet, my re-reading of the discipleship calling narratives (1:16-20) undermines such discourse by showing that Jesus and his disciples sought to leave behind conventional practices of familial and social identity. Moreover, discourses regarding greatness and humility become confused when read isolated from concerns of the cultural negotiation of masculine and imperial notions of endowment and status. The queer imagination deliberately transgresses normalcy in order to destabilize. My interpretations are focused on uncovering conventional obscurities, but the ultimate goal is for the reconstruction of the biblical text in order that it is a redeeming text for all, rather than just redeeming for some. As the influence of identity politics becomes more difficult to ignore, we have the ethical responsibility to ask questions of power and control when it comes to biblical interpretation, no matter how transgressive it might seem. Normalcy, as an ideological means of control, obscures our perception of reality. Therefore, it is necessary that interpretations which disturb our sense of normalcy are continued in order that the biblical text is liberated and may also continue to liberate its readers.

REFERENCES Althaus-Reid, M. (2001). Indecent theology: Theological perversions in sex, gender and politics. New York: Routledge. Althaus-Reid, M. (2003). The queer God. New York: Routledge. Althaus-Reid, M. (2006). Mark. In D. Guest, R. E. Goss, M. West & T. Bohache (Eds.), The queer bible commentary (pp. 517-525). London: SCM Press. Boyarin, D. (1992). “Behold Israel according to the flesh”: On anthropology and sexuality in late antique Judaisms. Yale Journal of Criticism, 5(2), 27-53. Boyarin, D. (1993). Carnal Israel: Reading sex in Talmudic culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Boyarin, D. (1995). Homotopia: The feminized Jewish man and the lives of women in late antiquity. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 7(2), 42-80. Burrus, V. (2007). Mapping as metamorphosis: Initial reflections on gender and ancient religious discourses. In T. Penner & C. V. Stichele (Eds.), Mapping gender in ancient religious discourses (pp. 110). Boston: Brill. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge. Conway, C. (2008). Behold the man: Jesus and Greco-Roman masculinity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donahue, J. R., & Harrington, D. J. (2002). The Gospel of Mark. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. Gleason, M. W. (2003). By whose gender standards (if anybody’s) was Jesus a real man? In S. D. Moore & J. C. Anderson (Eds.), New Testament masculinities (pp. 325-327). Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Healy, M. (2008). The Gospel of Mark. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Jargose, A. (1997). Queer theory: An introduction. Dunedin: Otago University Press. Jennings, T. W. (2003). The man Jesus loved: Homoerotic narratives from the New Testament. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press. Kinukawa, H. (1994). Women and Jesus in Mark: A Japanese feminist perspective. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Kinukawa, H. (2001). Women disciples of Jesus (15.40-41; 15.47; 16.1). In A.-J. Levine (Ed.), A feminist companion to Mark (pp. 171-190). Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press. Krondorfer, B. (2007a). Rejoinder: Navigating through troubled language. Theology & Sexuality, 14(1), 107-112. Krondorfer, B. (2007b). Who’s afraid of gay theology? Men’s studies, gay scholars, and heterosexual silence. Theology & Sexuality, 13(3), 257-274. Laqueur, T. W. (1990). Making sex: Body and gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Liew, T.-s. B. (2003). Re-Mark-able masculinities: Jesus, the son of man, and the (sad) sum of manhood? In S. D. Moore & J. C. Anderson (Eds.), New Testament masculinities (pp. 93-135). Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Martin, D. B. (2006). Sex and the single savior: Gender and sexuality in biblical interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.

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McKee, A. (2004). Does size matter? Dominant discourses about penises in Western culture. Cultural Studies Review, 10(2), 168182. Moore, S. D. (2007). A modest manifesto for New Testament literary criticism: How to interface with a literary studies field that is post-literary, post-theoretical, and post-methodological. Biblical Interpretation, 15, 1-25. Moore, S. D., & Anderson, J. C. (Eds.). (2003). New Testament masculinities. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Moxnes, H. (2003). Putting Jesus in his place: A radical vision of household and kingdom. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Myers, C. (1988). Binding the strong man: A political reading of Mark's story of Jesus. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Nissinen, M. (1998). Homoeroticism in the biblical world: A historical perspective. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Poythress, V., & Grudem, W. A. (2000). The gender-neutral controversy: Muting the masculinity of God's Words. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman. Punt, J. (2006). Queer theory intersecting with postcolonial theory in biblical interpretation. Bulletin/CSSR, 35(2), 30-33. Robbins, V. K. (1996). Exploring the texture of texts: a guide to sociorhetorical interpretation. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International. Satlow, M. L. (1994). “They abused him like a woman”: Homoeroticism, gender blurring, and the rabbis in late antiquity. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 5(1), 1-25. Satlow, M. L. (1996). “Try to be a man”: The rabbinic construction of masculinity. Harvard Theological Review, 89(1), 19-40. Satlow, M. L. (1997). Jewish constructions of nakedness in late antiquity. Journal of Biblical Literature, 116(3), 429-454. Satlow, M. L. (1998). Rhetoric and assumptions: Romans and rabbis on sex. In M. Goodman (Ed.), Jews in a Graeco-Roman world (pp. 135-144). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sedgwick, E. K. (1985). Between men: English literature and male homosocial desire. New York: Columbia University Press. Seeley, D. (1993). Rulership and service in Mark 1-:41-45. Novum Testamentum, 35(3), 234-250. Stone, K. (2008). Bibles that matter: Biblical theology and queer performativity. Biblical Theology Bulletin, 38, 14-25.

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Williams, C. A. (1999). Roman homosexualities: Ideologies of masculinity in classical antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Witherington III, B. (2001). The Gospel of Mark: A socio-rhetorical commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans.