HARRY TANNER is an ex-Evangelical whose book is dedicated to the memory “of all the beautiful queer people I’ll never meet who believed God hated them for their love”. His motivation for writing is not “love for men, but by how hatred — somehow — for something so innocent emerged”.
His answer is twofold: socio-economic influences and some Christian teachings. The former and less familiar of these is given detailed presentation. Two-thirds of the book is about gay love in ancient Greece and Rome. Different attitudes prevailed at different times and places, and gentle scholarly interrogation of classical sources exposes many modern misunderstandings of ancient gay life.
The author’s main thesis swings into view in the chapter “Monetization and the Control of Desire”. Alongside the teachings of the philosophers is the economic plight of the majority of citizens. for whom survival was often a struggle. Their survival depended largely on their own self-control and avoiding excess. When sexual pleasure, like gluttony, became regarded as excess, the lives of gay people suffered.
Most of the biblical passages used in Christian arguments about homosexuality receive fresh treatment — a welcome feature of the book. On the passage in Matthew about eunuchs, Tanner writes: “had the writers of the Gospels and Jesus himself wanted to give the impression they were staunchly opposed to queer identities, this is a very difficult passage to explain.” Some episodes and atrocities in Christian history are revisited, along with (relative) places of safety for gay people.
The author finds a lesson to be learned from the history traced in the book. There will be “a return to values of self-restraint, personal independence and hyper-masculinity” which ruined gay life in ancient Greece. LGBT people are already suffering from this, and trans people are bearing the brunt of it.
The economic strand is valuable and echoes Weber’s Protestant work ethic. The examination of the biblical material is far from partisan (though there is little evident knowledge of progressive interpretations). The work is scholarly and accessible, and deserves its rightful place in a crowded field.
Dr Adrian Thatcher is Honorary Professor of Theology and Religion in the University of Exeter, and Editor of Modern Believing.
The Queer Thing about Sin: Why the West came to hate queer love
Harry Tanner
Bloomsbury £20
(978-1-3994-2229-1)
Church Times Bookshop £18
