American philosopher, Judith Butler, is widely regarded as the preeminent architect of queer theory. The influence of her thought is enormous, having extended beyond the academy to schools, government policy, and the entertainment industry. Daniel Patterson’s Reforming a Theology of Gender: Constructive Reflections on Judith Butler and Queer Theory is an important contribution to Christian cultural and ethical studies, as it is the first thorough scholarly engagement with Butler’s work from a conservative Christian perspective. The book provides a detailed explication of and searching interaction with Butler’s key ideas, and thus offers opportunities both for understanding the nature of sex and gender, and for engaging with queer discourse. Beyond that, it supplies resources for developing a much-needed biblical theology of gender and for deepening Christian anthropology.

The book is structured around three themes central to Butler’s work, which progressively reveal the complex structures of her thought: subjectivity, violence, and life (i.e., ethics). Patterson alternates between chapters that exegete her thinking and explore her philosophical sources, and chapters that bring Scripture and a variety of theological interlocutors into conversation with her ideas. However, while this approach allows him to identify areas of common ground, the multiplicity of interlocutors, the back-and-forth nature of the chapters, and his generous tone, have the effect of quietening aspects of Patterson’s disagreement with her ideology, as I discuss below. Here, I first bring together Patterson’s elucidation of Butler in chapters 1, 3, and 5, before reviewing his theological interaction with her in chapters 2, 4, and 6.

The first theme Patterson explores is subjectivity, that is, human consciousness constructed by social context. He shows how Butler diverges from Foucault in admitting greater agency to the subject who may, to some degree, resist or submit to cultural norms, “performing” them through mostly unconscious repeated behaviours. Patterson identifies desire as fundamental to personhood within this scheme. Indeed, for Butler, gender itself is an expression of desire, implying an incoherence within the person, which Patterson describes in terms of “lack” (p. 37). What the individual lacks and desires is recognition by the other; they want to feel seen. Patterson then introduces Butler’s important concept of the “originary”—the accepted sexual and gender norms that shape our consciousness and condition the way we understand our bodies, which individuals must either reject or re-enact, and which either do or do not allow the recognition by others we all crave.

In chapter 3, Patterson explains Butler’s idea of “gender violence.” Her claim is that heterosexual norms not only exclude those whose sex, gender, or sexuality do not conform, but also harm these individuals by not offering them recognition and by actively persecuting them, whether they repress or express their subjectivity. Although queer theory is commonly thought to ignore the material body, Patterson shows that Butler understands the body as existing but as impossible to understand in itself, as it has been overlaid with notions and expectations constructed by both society and the individual. In this way, Butler seeks to reframe gender, and even sex, not as natural, but as artificial (p. 142).

Moving to Butler’s ethics in chapter 5, Patterson demonstrates how her thinking is rooted in Spinoza’s notion of conatus (the idea that all things strive to persevere in their being), a doctrine that she found validated her homosexual attractions when she was a troubled teenager. In her secular version of Spinoza’s pantheism, all that is exists in relationship and is in a state of eternal becoming. Her ethical project, Patterson argues, “does not fit into the usual ontologically averse mold of the secular ethicist” (p. 166), suggesting that it is about mutual responsibility and care for the other, rather than atheistic individuality, as many assume.

This detailed explication of Butler shows us something of the genealogy of her thought and equips Patterson for the task of interacting with those elements which he finds connect with Christian thought. He turns first to the Christian “originary,” Genesis 1–3. His subtle interpretation of these chapters (pp. 61–76) leads to a discussion of the intersubjective nature of human consciousness. Like Butler, he stresses the social source and meaning of gender. “What is good,” he writes, “is human existence that is found in a particular embodied relationship in the world with God and with this other (as opposed to another) human creature” (p. 62, emphasis original). Patterson’s orthodox reading of Scripture leads him to conclude that this originary is in itself “very good” (Gen 1:31), but because body, mind, and relationships are significantly harmed by the fall, we are now in danger of turning it into an idol. Because we live outside of Eden, he believes Butler is right that we experience a “desire-induced incoherence” (p. 35), identifying this with both Paul’s experience described in Romans 7 and Augustine’s in his Confessions. Nevertheless, while Patterson insightfully portrays the frustration that characterises our desires, and rightly insists on the importance of the body, his treatment of the significance of sex is unpersuasive. If the body is central to being human, then surely “what is a male or female” cannot help but “be at the center of discussions about gender” (p. 207).

Provocatively labeling Butler as “prophetic” (p. 2), Patterson calls upon Christians to unmask the idolatry “latent in theologies of gender that are characterized by a disordered orientation to Adam and Eve” (p. 116). Such idolatry ignores the “inherent sinfulness of all human sexuality” (p. 136) and can bring about cruelty, or even violence, towards those who do not conform to the ideal. But unlike Butler, who sees the originary as something which needs to be continually reformed, Patterson insists that the law of Eden remains good. However, it should not be “misconstrued as a means for self-justification and a means by which some can condemn the troubled bodies of others” (p. 117). Therefore, while there is common grace to be found in living according to “the law of Adam and Eve,” ultimately it is a law that points us to Christ and our need to be saved by him alone (p. 118). There is great strength here, theologically and pastorally. In some evangelical cultures, marriage and rigid codes of masculinity and femininity have been seen as pseudo-salvific with very damaging effects, and the failure to acknowledge the fallenness of sex has meant that sin has been excused or covered up. However, it is one thing to say that we are all fallen in our sexuality, and another to speak of “the inherent sinfulness of all human sexuality” (p. 118, quoting Geoffrey Rees, The Romance of Innocent Sexuality [Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011], 4). Such a confession appears to undermine the ectypal nature of marriage, the reality of common grace and general revelation, and the distinction between righteousness and wickedness. At the very least, Patterson could have brought more precision and nuance to this section.

Patterson’s final chapter offers us the “scarred and bloody body” of Christ (p. 189) as a better model for the “troubled bodies” (p. 117) of our postlapsarian world. By considering ideas of the image of God in light of the idea of the originary he has investigated, Patterson argues that Christ is the true image of God to whom we are called to be conformed, and our horizon is the new creation with its non-marital resurrection bodies. This is a rich exploration, resolving some of the concerns which arose for this reader in earlier sections of the book. Through an examination of Matthew 19:12, Patterson presents Jesus as the God-man who did not conform to the law of Adam and Eve, but, obeying his Father’s will, made himself “a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” while awaiting the formation of his bride, the church. We are thus provided with a new originary: union with him. The Holy Spirit is shown to be the one who can grant power to the individual to live according to this pattern, a power that is absent from Butler’s world of constantly changing norms, which only ends in deathlike “homelessness” and “fragmentation” (p. 29).

Reforming a Theology of Gender is unequivocal about some of the dangers of queer theory. Patterson acknowledges that it has no means of establishing limits around sexual behaviour and provides no rest. He is also clear that the Christian gospel and Butler’s “gender theory are not allies” (p. 3), and yet the book is unerringly (and, in my view, overly) irenic. So, while to many of his conclusions this reader voiced a resounding “yes,” to others this was followed by an almost immediate “and no.” Nevertheless, I commend Patterson’s work as a brave and creative engagement with one seminal theorist (and a range of other thinkers) whose work is both complex and important. I hope that it spurs others to further critical engagement with Butler.