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СКАЧАТЬ in the biblical text as well. Nevertheless, one of the prevailing characteristics of sexual violence is that it can be hidden in plain sight. Either by commission or omission, it is often unseen and rarely discussed outside of specialist scholarship or within victim/survivor support groups. Often we need a catalyst – something outside the norm of what we think and how we do things – to push us to see something differently and to give us new ways of knowing. In recent years, revelations of clergy sexual abuse and sexual harassment cover-ups, and the corresponding #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements, have shone light into some of the most shame-filled experiences of society. As much as ever, we need theologies and biblical interpretations that offer tools that address issues related to sexual violence and abuse in a way that can lead to liberation rather than continued stigma, silence and despair.

The chapters in this book take up the questions and challenges of understanding Jesus’ experience in a way that may at first seem unimaginable. What is presented here is not intended to shock. It is offered with a serious historical, theological and pastoral concern. Many contributors write not just as scholars but as people deeply committed to the Church in a variety of ways. They write with an awareness that the topic is sensitive. Breaking the silence around the unspeakable is fraught with risk of offence. However, keeping silent involves risk of a different sort. As Sara Ahmed says, ‘Silence about violence is violence.’9 Silence risks acceptance of the status quo and complicity with how things are. Sexual abuse and sexual violence demand a response beyond silence. As survivors and people who work with them attest, breaking silence can be a first step to transformation.

How to discuss Jesus as victim of sexual abuse is a question that has to be opened up, not a provocation that must be closed down. But of course this raises ethical concerns. As Roxane Gay asks: ‘How do you write violence authentically without making it exploitative? … [W]e need to be vigilant not only in what we say but also in how we express ourselves.’10 The question is not whether unspeakable abuse should or should not be addressed, but how it can be addressed in an appropriate way.

      Here, authors take a number of theological approaches: feminist, womanist and post-colonial hermeneutics; discourse analysis; constructive and practical theology; memoir and reflection; poetry; and qualitative research drawing on victim/survivor testimony and faith community response. These chapters reflect a variety of opinions and starting points. There is a range of emotions also at play within these pages: curiosity, pain, hope, rage, courage, disgust, healing, anger, as well as resolve to create a better world. For some, there is hope and redemption to be found in the acknowledgement of Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse, and in the belief that recognition of shared experience has value and meaning. For others, there is more attention to the pain and the harm, including a charge to the reader that there are no easy answers.

      The work is divided up into four main sections. We are grateful for the authors’ insights and their courageous commitment in this volume to build a framework for our exploration.

      Part 1: Biblical and Textual Studies introduces the topic with an exploration of the biblical text and historical sources related to Jesus’ crucifixion. This part starts with an abbreviated version of David Tombs’ 1999 article, entitled here ‘Crucifixion and Sexual Abuse’. The original article is now readily available and offers greater detail on the politics of ‘state terror’, exploring the torture practices of the Roman Empire in comparison to Latin American regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. The chapter included here focuses on connections between sexual violence and torture and gives perspective on the sexual humiliation, violence and abuse involved in crucifixion.

      Michael Trainor’s chapter, ‘Covering Up Sexual Abuse: An Ecclesial Tendency from the Earliest Years of the Jesus Movement?’, provides a comparative analysis of the passion accounts in Mark and Luke. Trainor takes into account narrative choices made in each Gospel that reflect early Church sensibilities and what the Gospel audience(s) would have heard and understood. Trainor’s work reads the gospel tradition in the light of the cover-ups conducted within the clergy sexual abuse scandals in Australia, drawing parallels between the two.

      Mitzi J. Smith explores the crucifixion narratives in the Gospels from a womanist lens with her chapter ‘“He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word”: A Womanist Perspective of Crucifixion, Sexual Violence and Sacralized Silence’. Smith explores the parallels in black hymnody, the reality of lynching and racialized sexual violence by building on the notable work of James Cone and Angela Sims, and considers how the black church in the US has historically made meaning from Jesus’ ‘silent suffering’ in New Testament accounts.

      Monica Poole introduces three biblical texts in her chapter ‘Family Resemblance: Reading Post-Crucifixion Encounters as Community Responses to Sexual Violence’. Through a lens of feminist biblical studies, Poole takes on Thomas’s doubting demands (John 20.24–25), the centurion’s declaration of belief (Luke 23.46–49) and Jesus’ words ‘Don’t touch me’ (noli me tangere; John 20.17). In these three texts, Poole takes consent and believing victims/survivors of sexual violence seriously. She also compares acts of sexual violence to a bomb blast with wide area effects, arguing that the ‘blast radius’ includes not only the victim’s own trauma, but how the community members respond, including in ways that may compound the harm.

      In Jeremy Punt’s chapter ‘Knowing Christ Crucified (1 Corinthians 2.2): Cross, Humiliation and Humility’, the focus shifts into the Pauline New Testament. Punt explores the concern for Jesus’ body in Pauline literature and Paul’s emphasis on the humiliation of the cross. In this chapter, Punt addresses gender, body, shame and honour, and what it meant for the church in Corinth to follow a shamed and crucified Christ.

      In the final chapter in Part 1, there is a comparative analysis from Gerald O. West entitled ‘Jesus, Joseph, and Tamar Stripped: Trans-textual and Intertextual Resources for Engaging Sexual Violence Against Men’. West draws links between the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to illuminate sexual violence through forced stripping. He explores the Joseph narrative in Genesis 37—46, the Tamar narrative in 2 Samuel 13, and the gospel texts Mark 15 and Matthew 27. West also describes a contextual Bible study methodology developed at the Ujamaa Centre in South Africa to take this further. In this work, West and colleagues focus on contextual readings that consider the specific experience of men who have been victims of sexual violence and abuse.

      Part 2: Stations of the Cross comprises 14 poems entitled ‘This is My A Body’ from Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama. These serve as a meditation on the 14 Stations of the Cross observed mainly within the Roman Catholic tradition. Ó Tuama’s wider work in the areas of peace, conflict, queerness, biblical studies, stories and the body provide a rich range of resources to encourage new thinking. The moving reflections presented here give space for a different type of creativity which, in turn, enables a different type of engagement with the material. The content of this volume is difficult and we hope to provide multiple entry points for engagement, from biblical studies into cultural analysis, and on to lived experience in the later chapters.

      Part 3: Parsing Culture, Context and Perspectives starts with the chapter ‘Conceal to Reveal: Reflections on Sexual Violence and Theological Discourses in the African Caribbean’ by Carlton Turner. Turner uses post-colonial hermeneutics and socio-historical analysis in order to address the legacies of shame and the systemic consequences of sexual violence in the Caribbean that are ‘hidden in plain sight’. Looking specifically at the legacy of slavery and colonialism and then considering its effect on African Caribbean culture and dance hall music, Turner’s work connects these strands to build a painful picture of a violent past and present that still offers hope and scope for resistance and healing.

      Rachel Starr invites us to consider culture via the television show Veronica Mars with her chapter ‘“Not pictured”: What Veronica Mars Can Teach Us About the Crucifixion’. Continuing a ‘hidden in plain sight’ theme, Starr uses storytelling and references in Veronica СКАЧАТЬ