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The Poetry of Sex

Peter J. Leithart is pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho, and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at New St Andrews College. Here,  he looks at Solomon’s Song of Songs from the bible to consider how the poem uses the romantic and the erotic to relate to godliness.

One response »

  1. Sheila Hamilton

    Not quite sure what to make of this piece. The way he ends it by saying that the Song of Songs can only teach us one thing about sex i.e. that sex is an allegory. Are there really people who would look to the Song of Songs for any other type of sexual advice ???

    And his “we” throughout annoys me. (I know it’s a rhetorical device of many clergypeople, but that doesn’t stop it being annoying. And manipulative too, with its implication that if you don’t agree with whatever it is, you are not included in the “we” and are therefore not an intrinsic part of the community.) Especially the “we” when he says “we” don’t experience romance and mystery anymore, that “we” only know sex as “a clash of bodies.” Speak for yourself, sweetheart.

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