A Response to Shane Morris’s TGC Review of Non-Toxic Masculinity
First, I want to thank Shane Morris for reading and engaging with the book. I’m also grateful to the Gospel Coalition, by extension, for seeking to engage in what I think we all feel is an important discussion on sexual ethics and masculinity in the church. I also want to thank Morris for the appreciation he expressed for aspects of my book and for some of his critiques. For instance, I’ve wondered if my own experience and purity culture may loom a bit too large in the book in a way that, for some readers, could distract from my larger points about masculinity and the church’s culture thereof. And it may be the case that I draw too direct of a line between purity culture and the patterns of scandal in the church (more on this below).
Of course, negative and critical reviews of a book are often appropriate and are always fair game. I’m not saying that Morris needed to like the book, but I do take particular issue with the many places where he mischaracterizes what I’ve written and even misses the entire point. Because of this, I’ve decided to write a response.
But before I get to that response, a few thoughts about TGC. I should say at the outset that TGC and Morris are separate entities. So, rather than engage with what “TGC says” about my book, I’ll be engaging with the reviewer. I don’t assume that Morris’s criticism of NTM is representative of everyone at TGC.
However, I want to note some of my ongoing disappointment with The Gospel Coalition on their engagement with issues of sexuality, gender, and masculinity. This gives me no pleasure to say, as TGC has been massively (and, on the whole, positively) influential in my own sense of calling to theological education and pastoral ministry. Many of my dear friends and colleagues continue to be involved in and formed by TGC. Of course, TGC is more than welcome to publish a critical review of my book. That’s not what disappoints me. The sloppy engagement on issues of human sexuality is what’s really alarming. This has become a pattern in recent months with the now infamous (and deleted) Josh Butler excerpt, a scathing and uncharitable review of Amy Peeler’s Women and the Gender of God, and now this review of my own book. I fear that, because of these less-than-careful publications and missteps, TGC continues to lose credibility at a time when the church badly needs to be rehabilitating it. Again, the problem is not with critique. It’s with sloppy critique. And while I don’t take Morris to be speaking for TGC, TGC is in a certain sense responsible for the perspectives and voices they platform, those they criticize, and the way they go about platforming that criticism.
Now, to the review itself.
Introductory Matters (Missed)
While Morris in some ways does a fair job of summarizing the broadest brush strokes of my book, his summary of the second half in particular leaves much to be desired. He writes, “[Wagner’s] solution is an overhaul of Christian teaching on sexuality––particularly male sexuality––that looks suspiciously like a new baptism of secular ideas: not those of the 1990s but of the 2020s, with an emphasis on a therapeutic view of sin and more flexible sexual ethics.”
I’d be interested to hear how, specifically, Morris sees me as adopting a more-flexible sexual ethic. I grant that many of purity culture’s most outspoken critics have done so. But Morris taking issue with other authors on this point does not make this a fair representation of my book in particular. Is the problem, perhaps, that I engage in good-faith dialogue with those who have rejected traditional views? Or that I take seriously the concerns and traumas of people who have been abused by Christian leaders, molested by their fathers, or disowned by their families for even mild infractions against Christian sexual orthodoxy?
For many of my friends who have left Christianity, the straw that broke the camel’s back was not merely that Christianity was sexually restrictive. It was the hypocrisy of those who condemned the culture’s sexual permissiveness while indulging in sexual sin themselves or excusing it on the part of Christian leaders and heroes. Many people who grew up in my generation have looked at the church and said, as Paul says in Romans 2: “At whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”
One of the questions I wanted to ask myself and my readers in writing this book was whether there was a way to address the most serious and egregious issues of sexual hypocrisy in the church today without revising a traditional sexual ethic. And to do so in a way that might be of some help to people of my generation who are literally losing their faith because of these issues.
On this point, Morris writes, “The implication is that purity culture is so burdensome it must be deconstructed, even if that risks rejecting Christianity.” To which I would respond: People already are rejecting Christianity because of purity culture. In particular, the juxtaposition between purity culture on the one hand and sexual scandal on the other has opened a floodgate of apostasy for Millennials in particular, including members of my family and many very dear friends. How should evangelical pastors respond to this? Morris has little to say on this point, but he seems to imply that defending purity culture and doubling down on its good intentions is the correct approach. The solution appears to be simply saying, “Bummer about all the scandals and the ongoing frustrations and confusion you experience, but that purity culture thing really wasn’t so bad and our intentions were good. The problem is really with you and how you received it.”
This is pastorally irresponsible. Parents, pastors, and authors were the ones who should have known better, not teenagers with raging hormones and half-developed brains. The sons and daughters of purity culture have repeatedly been told that they were the problem. Any suffering or frustration or confusion they experienced was their fault, a result of their sinful and broken inclinations. To be fair to Morris, I read him as trying to guard against an opposite extreme where individuals take no responsibility for their own sin or suffering and as a matter of course defer responsibility to others (or Joshua Harris, specifically). Perhaps pastoral wisdom and personal virtue exists between these two extremes. People, even teenagers, are responsible for their own failings, but it is also the case that these teens were often unhelpfully directed by parents, leaders, and the church.
Jesus was deadly serious when he said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away––it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matt 18:6, CSB). While this is certainly not an indictment of every well-intentioned parent who got overzealous in their preoccupation with “sexual purity,” it very well may serve as a harsh warning for anyone who would minimize and dismiss the problems of abuse in the church. It is certainly a terrifying pronouncement of judgment against abusers themselves.
This is the exact verse I had in mind when I wrote that the “more urgent ethical imperative of our time isn’t whether teenagers are having sex with their boyfriends or girlfriends. It is how we can stem the ongoing epidemic of abuse and dehumanization in our churches” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 58). But Morris suggests this is evidence that I am unconcerned with Christian sexual ethics, or at least that “the historic Christian sexual ethic itself is nonessential to [my] argument.” However this betrays a narrow view of sexual ethics, where said ethics are only about premarital abstinence or opposing same-sex practice. But surely Morris would grant that a robustly Christian sexual ethic must include a forceful rejection of sexual violence and dehumanization. Indeed, I would argue that, as long as we fail to take seriously and address the epidemic of abuse in the church, any arguments for traditional views on sexuality will (rightly) continue to be seen as hollow and hypocritical.
From Whence Toxic Masculinity?
Morris writes, “Male sexuality, even in the church, has often proved selfish, predatory, and hypocritical. But purity culture didn’t start that fire. If anything, purity culture was an attempt to contain it.” Precisely. But even sincere and well-intentioned attempts to contain a fire can be ineffective or sometimes even make the fire worse. This is what I argue is the case with purity culture. I write, “Rather than challenge perspectives that saw men as out-of-control-sexual ‘animals,’ the messages many men (and women) got in church confirmed and reinforced the worst cultural stereotypes about male sexuality. Purity culture didn’t invent toxic masculinity, but many toxic and dehumanizing tendencies have found their way into our churches through its messages” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 43).
I do not argue, as Morris claims I do, that purity culture itself created toxic masculinity in the church. Rather, I argue that purity culture was the mechanism whereby many of the unhelpful and destructive cultural “headwinds of a revolution dedicating to liberating sinful libido” found root in the church. This is perhaps the most problematic mischaracterization in Morris’s review. He spends most of his time opposing a thesis I don’t argue for in the book.
I am very clear that toxic masculinity is a broader cultural (and indeed human) problem that has infected the church despite best efforts to inoculate against it. Morris writes, “The fact that predatory male sexuality seems to have no special preference for religious subcultures shows that purity culture––no matter how flawed––was never the root of the problem.” But my argument in Non-Toxic Masculinity is more nuanced than this. In my introduction, I write, “The church as an institution is sick. Some [like Morris, ironically] may object, ‘It’s not the church that’s sick, it’s the culture!’ But the church should be better than the culture in this regard. [Non-Toxic Masculinity, 8, emphasis added]” Morris goes on to write, “But, of course, this is naive, as anyone who has heard names like Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar, Bill Cosby, or Brock Turner will know. These men were hardly pupils of purity culture, yet they had no difficulty becoming deeply toxic or dehumanizing their victims.” That Morris points to secular scandals as evidence against my supposed thesis shows that he missed what the thesis actually was. Again, in my introduction I write, “As Christians, our first and primary concern should be the righteousness of the church community. As the apostle Paul wrote in response to a sexual scandal in Corinth, ‘What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel the wickedness from your own community”’ (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 8–9).
The point is that the same toxic masculinity we see in the culture has reproduced itself in the church, and this despite the church’s massive efforts to combat sexual immorality. Christians’ sexual integrity and our ability to witness to the culture are closely related. As I write, “Is it any wonder that the broader culture has a hard time taking evangelicals seriously when we speak about sex, gender, and marriage? Our house––God’s house––is not in order. It has become clear that the church is not in a moral position of strength from which to speak to the culture about human sexuality. They have known us by our fruits” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 8).
This is a speck and a log situation. “Christians should both address the manifestations of toxic masculinity in our own communities and oppose toxic masculinity in broader society. The church should be a place of healing and resurrection, not abuse and dehumanization.” (46) I think it’s fair to say that purity culture and Christian activism in recent decades has erred on the side of the latter while comparatively neglecting the former. We have pointed out the speck in the culture’s eye while too often ignoring the log in our own.
I go on to make the case that purity culture’s harmful and sub-Christian messaging is one reason why the church cannot get its act together. And until we recover a more robust biblical and theological vision for sexuality (and male sexuality in particular), we should only expect more of the same––scandals, dysfunction, abuse, hypocrisy. That thesis may well be contestable. But this is not the argument I see Morris making in his review. Given the fact that I so explicitly signal these pastoral concerns in the introduction, it’s interesting that Morris fails to mention them.
On Defining Purity Culture
Morris’s argument that I have a “murky” view of purity culture is hard for me to wrap my head around. Of course, part of the difficulty with defining purity culture is that it is itself an ambivalent movement that simultaneously celebrates the glories of sex while also creating an at times all-consuming culture of fear around sex. To be fair, this at least echoes a tension that exists in the biblical text and the Christian tradition––namely the tension between the created goodness of sexuality and our fallen expression of it. Despite my acknowledgement of this (cf. NTM, p. 32), Morris argues that my characterization of purity culture is “uncharitable” because its ill effects were unintended and the most heinous messages are not citable in the purity culture classics themselves. (On this latter point, see my recent conversation with Sheila Gregoire and Andrew Bauman about Every Young Man’s Battle). However, I repeatedly grant that purity culture was well-intended (and I’ve had some hard but ultimately life-giving and redemptive conversations with my parents on this very point). Moreover, my choice to not line by line rebut purity culture classics was because (1) others have already done so and (2), “Purity culture wasn’t just about the books. It was and is a culture. Often people were more shaped by face-to-face relationship with parents, pastors, and peers who spoke to them in even more unhelpful ways than the books” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 18). This is something I tried to demonstrate with my many interviews with anonymized sources in NTM.
Morris seems to lump me into the claim that “many critics of purity culture don’t seem to appreciate the extent to which evangelical discipleship around sex was a reaction to the wider culture throwing off all sexual restraint.” What’s ironic, and frankly a bit humorous, is that Morris misses the definition of purity culture I give in the second chapter of the book where I agree with this very premise! Hard to see how he missed it as it’s positioned under a subhead, “Defining Purity Culture” within a chapter entitled “What Is Purity Culture.” But here it is, in context:
“Purity culture is a cultural movement that defines itself in opposition to a wider cultural movement, the sexual revolution. Purity culture is not only characterized by the what of evangelical sexual ethics. It is also about the why and the how.
Here’s how I define the term: Purity culture refers to the theological assumptions, discipleship materials, events, and rhetorical strategies used to promote traditional Christian sexual ethics in response to the sexual revolution” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 19).
After reading Morris’s review and going back and re-reading what I’ve written here I’m genuinely confused as to what his beef is with how I’ve defined purity culture. It appears that he and I agree that it should not be defined simply as any belief that sex and marriage should go together. He and I are also in agreement that it’s not helpful or fair to cry foul at any parent or church leader who taught that young people ought to hold off on becoming sexually intimate until marriage. I say this at various points throughout the book, but I’ll quote myself just one more time from the conclusion.
“I still believe [the Christian sexual ethic is] a beautiful way to live. It’s a way of living that honors the goodness of sex, bodies, children, and marriage. It honors the witness of Scripture and the best aspects of the Christian tradition. I also believe that––when separated from the dehumanizing elements of evangelicalism's purity culture and wider society’s promiscuity culture––Christian sexual ethics promote human flourishing” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 188).
Now, I grant that this is a controversial claim, and one that is likely to not score me many points with Christians (and ex-Christians) with more progressive leanings on sexual ethics than my own. But I confess I’m disappointed that Morris did not seem able to see or understand that he and I agree, at least on some level, that “There was enduring wisdom at the heart of purity culture, however it failed in its delivery.” I say as much in various places, even if my own delivery is, on balance, much more critical than it is appreciative.
His review suggests that he is more concerned about sociological markers and tribal alignment than the argument of the book itself. This is evidenced by another mischaracterization, namely, Morris’s parenthetical claim that I cite Nadia Bolz Weber “favorably.” While I do commend Christian leaders to “grapple with” Bolz-Weber and other progressive-leaning women authors, in doing so I note my disagreement with some of their conclusions (cf. NTM 30–31). To say I was helped and challenged by many authors I disagree with on various points does not amount to a favorable citation. As a PhD student, this is just how I’m trained to read and interact with others’ work, namely with honest and charitable appreciation balanced against critical evaluation. Moreover, the one time I do cite Bolz-Weber directly I note my strong disagreement with her suggestion that pornography production and use can ever be morally acceptable (cf. NTM 124–26). We could quibble about whether charitable engagement amounts to favorable citation. Others can judge for themselves, I suppose. In the context of Morris’s review, it’s obvious what this comment is attempting to do: dismiss me through guilt by association and “other” my perspective by lumping it together with that of “theological liberals”.
Another critique Morris levels against Non-Toxic Masculinity is that I adopt a “Therapeutic Theology” over and against more conspicuously theological categories and terms. This is more of a substantive disagreement rather than a mischaracterization, but since I’m already writing this response, I’ll address it briefly. Morris writes, “Perhaps because Wagner found help through therapy, he appropriates therapeutic rather than theological language to make his case.” To say that my journey and story was in some sense therapeutic is not to say that it was not a biblically-informed process of Christian discipleship. Moreover, I found therapy (by excellent Christian counselors) helpful at a time in my life after I had exhausted all of the “biblical” resources and strategies commended to me: accountability software, scripture memory, mentoring relationships, etc. I had done it all. In fact, I could quote scripture about sexual purity better than literally anyone I knew. But it wasn’t working, I wasn’t experiencing joy or freedom. It wasn’t until I dug into the theological substructure of my sexual upbringing and did the heart/soul work (yes, in therapy) that things turned around for me. I explicitly situate the therapeutic within a broader vision of discipleship, but this didn’t seem to cut it for Morris. Fair enough.
Regarding language, Morris is right to note that I often favor some culturally relevant terms like “trauma” and “dehumanization” in my book. This is an intentional, pastoral choice when speaking to my primary audience: a generation of disaffected Christians and former Christians who were often taught a legalistic list of sexual “sins.” But, when I use the language of dehumanization in particular, I very much mean “sin.” What is sin if not dehumanization, a falling off the path of who we were created to be and a missing the mark of how God calls us to treat others and ourselves? To say that what Morris considers theological language isn’t “load-bearing” in my argument (which is itself a very contestable claim, cf. especially my chapter on Jesus, “The True Man: Jesus and the Redemption of the Male Body”) does not mean that my argument is not theological. In fact, I believe that part of the problem with purity culture was its nascently heretical theological structure and that good and orthodox theology is in fact the solution to many of its problems. As I write, “purity culture isn’t simply an extreme version of historic Christian sexual ethics. It is a perversion of Christian sexual ethics. It’s not too Christian. It isn’t Christian enough” (Non-Toxic Masculinity, 32).
I could note other disagreements––e.g. on singleness and the role of the family in Christian formation––but time and space has already gotten away from me on this. I’ll wrap up by noting a few more general observations.
Concluding Thoughts
First, the experiences of women are conspicuously absent from Morris’s review, despite the fact that they constitute a central theme of my book. He mentions mine and Shelby’s struggles with intimacy in marriage but fails to note that this was largely precipitated by her experiences as a survivor of church-based childhood sexual abuse. My book wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t had to face this challenging marital dynamic and come to terms with the fact that the discipleship I received around my sexuality left me woefully unprepared for it.
Speaking of women, the patronizing language often reserved for female critics of theological conservatives is here applied to me. Namely, the implication that my personal hurt and emotional investment somehow invalidates my criticisms. I’ll note two examples: “[Wagner] doesn’t seem to consider that his temperament and emotional immaturity might also have caused him to take reasonable advice to an unhealthy extreme, or to caricature it in hindsight.” And, “Zachary Wagner’s Non-Toxic Masculinity is a halting attempt by a hurting soul to address real and unconscionable harms within the church. At moments, he shows signs of reaching for something nobler and older than the demands of the #MeToo movement and modern psychology.” This is, obviously, patronizing and dismissive, a thinly-veiled personal attack (against my masculinity?). But that’s besides the point. More importantly, it is not a charitable or good-faith engagement with my ideas. This way of speaking reminded me, for instance, of the beginning of Kevin DeYoung’s (TGC-published) review of Beth Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood. This point has been made over and over, but to suggest that personal investment in a topic or the experience of harm disqualifies someone from levelling a critique of something is just silly.
In conclusion, I’ll speak personally and say that Morris did not seem to grapple at all with the substance of the story I tell. Yes, I engage in a lengthy critique of the church and purity culture in particular. But the villain in my story is not, ultimately, purity culture. It was my own sinful brokenness and sense of entitlement to sexual gratification and to women’s bodies. This brokenness was a function of my sinful nature, yes, but it was also cultivated in me by the broader culture, and (too often) the culture of the church itself. Still, I was the one who had to take responsibility for my brokenness, accept God’s forgiveness in Christ, and move through the journey of sanctification, putting to death the sinful flesh. I was the one who needed to be no longer conformed to the pattern of this world (including the worldly aspects of church culture) and instead be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I was the one who, in obedience to Christ’s lordship in my life and in submission to the authority of scripture, needed to give up something that was valuable to me and offer myself to God as a living sacrifice. God used (and continues to use) my marriage as a crucible for teaching me how to give myself up, in imitation of Christ, who models a form of masculinity wherein he lovingly and joyfully gives himself up for his bride, for her good. Call that journey “therapeutic” if you want. I’ll just call it discipleship.
In sum, it seems that Morris may have been predisposed to dismiss a critique of purity culture out of hand, so on that score this review isn’t surprising. He concludes by expressing disappointment that my book failed to offer a positive vision. But this isn’t true. This is literally what the entire second half of the book is trying to do: offer a vision of masculine sexuality that is grounded in Christian virtues like love and self-sacrifice while rejecting worldly vices like entitlement to sexual fulfilment and licentiousness. Perhaps that this vision didn’t come through is a fault of my writing and communication. Or, perhaps, it’s that Morris simply didn’t like or even failed to grasp the substance of what was on offer.