Abstract
Current debates about same-sex marriage assume that we know what characterizes traditional marriage or queer desires. (I follow Jordan in using “queer” to describe gender or sexual deviant homosexual desires.) Challenging this assumption is Mark Jordan's first important contribution. Underneath the political turmoil surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage lays a morass of confusing ideas about traditional Christian values, homosexual erotic love, and marriage. Given this situation, the book uses a multidisciplinary approach to explore the outlines of what Christianity could have to say about sex in general or about queer love in particular. Far from providing a blueprint for disciplinary decisions about who can or cannot participate in a church blessing, Jordan's ideal marriage theology is meant to intervene when we are too sure about how our sexual desires relate to the mystery of Christ. The book's chapters trace (at times ironically) the stations of homosexual-coupled love from promising beginnings to an end in dissolution by death or divorce, via engagement, wedding, and post-festival life. In the central fourth chapter, Jordan demonstrates that historically there is no unified core of Christian marriage theology. He points to changing discourses and varying attitudes toward erotic love, ranging from endorsements of polygamy to a rejection of the idea that marriage could at all be compatible with Christianity.
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