Aimee ByrdThe Sexual Reformation: Restoring the Dignity and Personhood of Man and Woman

Just finished Aimee Byrd’s The Sexual Reformation: Restoring the Dignity and Personhood of Man and Woman. Rather than offer a full review, an art form I acknowledge I cannot do well and also do not fully appreciate, I offer a series of jots for a work I appreciate a great deal:Her work is not systematic theology / commentary / sociology / whatever, meaning, Byrd did not set out to write a commentary on the Song of Songs (although she ended up with a better one than most), a history, a work of sociology, or whatever other category you’d like. She wrote a work aiming to embrace the nature of sexuality as created by God and by doing so free it from liberal/conservative constraints born of anything other than the will and work of God. Seems like a good goal, and it should be measured according to how well it accomplishes its own goal.1. The book is fully Complementarian in a way I have not seen presented by anything published by or affiliated by CBMW.2. The book accomplishes this by focusing on the ontological reality of male/female (the sacredness of sex) and how that plays out in soteriological imagery and allusion, particularly as Christ and church.3. Because the book is not preoccupied with power as DeYoung and prior complementarian authors, the work is free to draw is into the poetic beauty of the sexual Song as repeated (a la a musical motif) throughout Scripture.4. The allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs presented here falls more in line with interpretations by luminaries like John Gill and Peter Masters rather than the marital/sex advice of Driscoll and Akin.5. If anything, this work reveals the facile and pornographic mindset of “scholars” who cannot see the work as more than life advice for “smoking hot wives.”6. The book opens the door to a sacred understanding of male / female beyond the culturally-superimposed understandings of masculinity/femininity that would be required of “complementarian” types.7. I use “complementarian” in quotes to describe the work of CBMW-adjacent folks because they have pushed a culturally-directed bastardization of true Complementarianism that had more to do with the subjugation and dress of women than the actual loving faithfulness of Christ and his Bride as presented throughout Scripture.8. True Reformed Complementarianism subjugates masculinity and femininity to Sanctification, a point that Byrd does not make but I will: if all sanctification is first “a gracious gift of God” that subsequently “requires our active cooperation,” than all this harping on the way women/men ought to act which does not first point them to their Savior and the sanctifying work of the Spirit is, in fact, a bowing to the culture.9. Byrd does rightly point out how the skewed masculinity and femininity in which our “complementarian” friends have swum for too long has led to the gender crises and pornographic cultures that saturate our churches today.10. Byrd will offend some: she is clearly pro-natal, pro-two-sexes, pro-heterosexuality, all born from her deeper understanding of Complementarianism than the culture-soaked “complementarianism” in which many of us swam for far too long.11. As a young man growing up into ministry around the time of Driscoll’s porn-soaked vision of Song of Songs, I’ve frankly feared the book and have, to my shame, never taught or preached it. If all that comes out of this work is a renewed desire to engage with the sacred text of Scripture, then Byrd has already done much good.

It seems to me that this is Bryd’s most profound work yet, reaching the very heart of the problem she first addressed in Housewife Theologian. Why are women on the sidelines when there is so much to be gained by them joining the great conversation of the church? I am so grateful that Byrd is on the field. This most recent book builds on her previous work, bringing us the heart of the matter and to worship. She tells us that as a church, we have failed to set our minds on things above when it comes to who we are as male and female. We have a “from-below,” horizontal approach to sexuality that focuses our identites on the mundane and impersonal categories of masculinity and femininity. She tells us that we have a man-centered view of ourselves, that lacks the glory ascribed to us in creation and redemption. This is the background of her thesis, which she will support from the Song of Songs: man and woman point to something beyond and above themselves, something eternal.Byrd’s refreshingly theological treatment of gender brings out that we not only represent God as he is one and many, but also his plan for humanity—to bring a chosen bride to a holy realm by means of a covenant head, that she might forever delight in him, and he in her. Our goal is not global dominion (theonomic patriarchy), nor to magnify “masculine strength” (biblicistic complementarianism), nor to promote ourselves over and against our neighbor (idolatrous feminism or androcentrism), but rather magnify God and all he has prepared for them that love him. As Byrd brings out, whether it is the androgyny promoted by our culture, or a genderism which polarizes male and female and makes little of all that we share as “mankind” (which is alot), Byrd reminds us that our bodies tell a story which brings us all to the same end, union and communion with the triune God. To the degree that we make gender about who has power over whom, we show that we have lost touch with our Head, the Shepherd-King of the Song of Songs.Byrd points out that whether it is the idolatry of gender manifest “out there” in secular culture, or the idolatry of certain segments of the conservative evangelical church that polarize and silence half the church, we lose what God is telling us through the two ways of being human. There is a story that God is telling us through our ensouled bodies, one that magnifies the essence and work of the triune God. As Bryd puts us, our meaningfulness is found in that great story. We represent God in his unity and diversity, as well as his unfolding works in creation and providence. We represent his master plan to bring heaven and earth together, unto our eternal blessedness. The patriarchalists want to make the differences of male and female about the Creator-creature distinction, yet the testimony of the Word points to the man as the symbol of the earth pressing to consummation in Sabbath rest, and woman as the symbol of heavenly Mt. Zion, the sphere of that rest. Byrd calls us to see beyond stereotypes, which fix our “roles” in the here and now, to the heart of the matter. She wants us to start singing the right Song, one that “enfleshes the whole story of Scripture.”Byrd says the Song is the superlative Song because it sings us to our eshcatological hope. The bride of the Song teaches us why we sing at all. We sing to learn about who we are as the bride of Christ who has entered the King’s chambers, the Holy of Holies, to unite and commune with the Lover of our souls. We are blissfully naked again because our Groom has taken away our shame at the cross and clothed us with his glorious righteousness. In his chamber (the mother’s house), the burning desire of our hearts will be met. We will drink deeply and forever and receive promised satisfaction (John 4).Byrd then speaks about how the Song unveils the woman as heavenly Zion, the eschatological city, by pointing to the parallels she shares with earthly sacred space—the garden, tabernacle, temple, and earthly Jerusalem: mountain, streams, cedars, fruits, flowers, spices, the gazelle, ewe, and the dove. In Byrd’s words, “All that is beautiful in the natural world consummates in the bride," transformed by Christ, who has brought her from outcast in Song of Songs 1 to queen in Song of Songs 3. The bride makes the invisible city visible. She is not only beautiful, but she is a strong fortress with walls and towers. Byrd is helping us to set our minds on things above, where Christ waits among the lilies, the saints made perfect who have entered their rest. Byrd reminds us why we need the Song here and now. In the Song the themes of exile, absence, longing, and hesitancy are present. We need the Song to ignite our hope as we reach the finish line, which is why I am hoping Byrd continues her meditations on the Song and we get a Volume 2!Finally, Byrd speaks about how our typology fuels our communion not only in marriage but in the church. When we see ourselves in terms of what we represent, whether earth in its heavenward press, or heaven itself, the result could be a fresh dynamism among us. It could be that we begin to enter into synergistic, fruit-bearing relationships with one another, newly empowered by God’s truth to love and esteem our neighbor in the “already” as we wait for the “not-yet.” Men as types of earth pressing heavenward in strength can sacrificially give their strength to protect and empower others (not lord over); women can take their unique beauty and glory to direct eyes heavenward (not to themselves), as they sing “Come, see my Beloved and all He has in store for his beloved.”In all, Byrd would have us see the triune God as our blessedness and reward. She wants us to celebrate the coming together of heaven and earth, when the city will be unveiled as it descends to envelop and transform all things on earth, conforming all things that are seen to the holiness within its walls. Then it will be most truly said, “He has become our God and we have become his people.” All creation, most especially those he has set apart as the crown of creation, are a theater for the glorious consummation that is coming. Byrd invites us to imagine that world: earth and heaven, Christ and his people, consummately united. She is asking us to join our voice with the voice of the bride of the Song, and sing with her until the day breaks and the shadows flee.