I read Jason Evert’s Theology of Her Body and Theology of His Body as part of the Catholic Company’s review program. Evert is the author of a number of books and spends a lot of time talking to high school and college teens about sexuality. The book is divided into two parts: Theology of Her Body and Theology of His Body and teens of both sexes are encouraged to read both parts of the book.
I have mixed reactions to this book. The effort to take John’s Paul II’s Theology of the Body and present it in a manner that average readers, especially young ones, can appreciate is a worthwhile one. The book is very readable and easy to understand and one hopes it will succeed in getting young men and women to think hard before jumping early into sexual relations. The book also makes wonderful use of the Song of Songs and other Biblical references to talk about the beauty of human love and sexuality. Equally important is the effort to explain that the receptivity of women, exemplified by Mary, is not a prescription for passivity, but for an active receptivity to God’s will.
Although I am not bothered with some of the author’s assertions having to do with males and females, for example, the claim that women are “able to enter into the emotions of another with much greater ease than men,” there are a few things I do find problematic. One is the remarkable claim that God is never referred to in Scriptures as our mother, which is not unrelated to the author’s criticism of the use of gender-inclusive language in our liturgy. While I share the author’s belief that it would be inappropriate and dangerous to “rid God of all masculine qualities” and to “strip out any references to God our Father,” the idea that the incorporation of some references to the feminine and maternal side of God (of which one can find many examples in the Bible) is to blame for the fact “that the majority of people in church are woman,” is a difficult one to credit.
Second, the emphasis on rigid gender roles is a sticking point for me and will be for many people. Even for those who accept the idea of the complementarity of men and women, the implicit suggestion that there is something wrong with a man who is sensitive (in the way women are sensitive) or with a woman who, for example, suggests going out on a date with a male or proposes marriage (because it is the man’s “job” to ask her) is disturbing to me.
Neither of these is a reason not to read the book. Apart from the fact that there are doubtless many who do not share my concerns on these issues, there is much here that will give teens a lot to think about.
