Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today

by L. William Countryman

This new revised edition of the landmark 1988 text includes updated text and notes throughout, taking advantage of recent studies of sexual ethics and, where appropriate, criticizing them. A new chapter engages the presumed "ethic of creation" that has become a major theme among more conservative thinkers and writers in biblical ethics. A concluding chapter on sex is thoroughly rewritten and offers a positive statement of a New Testament sexual ethic.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Queer, Christian, Biblical Studies

368 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Bill Countryman is a retired seminary professor and Episcopal priest (still assisting at Good Shepherd Church in Berkeley, CA). He and his spouse, Jon Vieira, live in Oakland, CA, where he tends the garden and writes mostly poetry these days.

I'm a lover of poetry, classical music (with a particular fondness for choral and chamber music and for late-ninteenth-early-twentieth-century orchestral music. I spread my reading broadly: poetry, fiction, history, theology.

And I blog on gardening, reading the Scriptures, and whatever else interests me at billcountryman.com.

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life in every way.

This cannot be an actual review, because I read this book 14 years ago. I am adding it to my pile to re-read, and perhaps after I do, I will be able to provide a thoughtful review.

What I can say without re-reading it, though, is that this book completely upended my belief system, and as a result, my life, by leading me to reexamine through a historical lens everything I had been raised to believe about religion, God, Christianity, men, and women. Ultimately, I have revised or discarded completely almost all of those beliefs (but not my core values, which have become stronger in the process).

In addition to triggering that difficult, rocky, treacherous, and exhausting but rewarding journey, which continues to this day, this book, more than any other, taught me that every story has another side, and (at the risk of sounding trite) that the unexamined belief isn't worth believing.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of dirt and greed, not so much sex. Kind of a let down in that respect. Although the author does assert that we can't rule out bestiality on a scriptural basis. ;)

[Zach Maier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essentially dividing Christian sexual ethics into two categories, purity and property, I think this book does a great job at looking at Jewish and Christian culture and beliefs around the age of Christ. Though, many of the claims work to uproot often unquestioned beliefs, I cannot say they resolve many beliefs either.

The importance and problem of purity in Christianity was oft overlooked by me, particularly regarding Jewish and Gentile relations in the early church. Ex: Idol sacrificed meat, Circumcision, etc.

Stimulating, but not fulfilling, particularly with the conclusions drawn of the book. I cannot help but find something lacking -- perhaps it is the lack of Reason, Experience, and Tradition to go along with justifying certain ethics. It has left me with a very odd feeling.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for those with an interest in Leviticus and modern sexual ethics (and who doesn't have an interest in that, right?). Countryman does a great job of examining the purity code and the ethic of sexual property in the context of Old Testament sexual ethics. He then looks at how the New Testament approaches these core ethics (and in some cases, upends them) and what that means for modern Christians, who live in a vastly different culture. This book is well-documented but doesn't read like you have to be a Bible scholar. A must read for anyone trying to determine a contemporary sexual ethic with an eye toward the Bible.

[Gail Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skimmed much of this book, so I read it in the loose sense of the word. It was enlightening about our cultural roots of taboos, and Jesus's departure from the old mores in the New Testament by putting compassion above rules. Countyman makes some leaps in the last chapter that I would say I agree with, though I can see how they are arguable in a Christian framework. Definitely provocative and worth investigating.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discusses the ideas of purity and property in the New Testament in the context of the cultural understandings of the time, which are often quite different from what the ideas appear to mean in the context of our own culture today. I found his discussion of the laws in Leviticus particularly eye-opening.