Customer Reviews

Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality

5 star:		(8)
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We keep forgetting how impossible it is to isolate our worship lives from our underlying selves. With data and insights from research studies, Beck scrubs away the inattention that ordinarily keeps us from noticing how psychological influences shape religious practice and attitudes--in this case, how disgust controls our theology. This is a surprising and even astonishing book. Unclean is bound to startle and dismay many church folk, especially those who like their religion "nice"--which is part of the point of the book. Sometimes brilliant, always thoughtful, creative, as with his blog, Experimental Theology, which also explores religious thinking against a background of psychological research, Beck continues to amaze. Five stars for helping get my thinking cleaned up. Great stuff! I'm loaning my copy to my Episcopal priest, on condition he gives it back. Highly recommended.

Richard Beck is a professor at Abilene Christian University whose blog Experimental Theology, which explores the intersections between psychology and theology, has revealed him to be one of the most intelligent and provocative voices in world of theology today. His legion of fans has long hoped that he would eventually start producing books so that his work could make the larger impact that it should in both academic conversations and the church. Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality is the type of excellent thought that I've come to expect from Beck, and I do not think that it will disappoint. It is an important book.

Unclean links, expands, and more fully documents several lines of thought that have appeared on his blog in the past (you can preview the most important of them if you simply search "Spiritual Pollution" on his site). I think the main idea is that much of church life is driven by the psychology of disgust. Disgust is one of the emotions that regulates inner/outer borders of the self. For instance, core disgust keeps us from drinking spoiled milk or eating food that's fallen in the floor, and it can make us vomit to expel a contaminant (real or imagined) from us. Disgust is also peculiarly irrational, driven by "magical thinking." Studies, for instance, show that humans will not eat brownies that are shaped like dog poop, even if they know it's a brownie, and they won't drink apple juice that they've seen contaminated by contact with a cockroach, even if they then immediately afterward see the juice boiled and cleansed in front of them.

Importantly, humans extend the logic of disgust so that it also governs sociomoral boundaries. So, in cultures which emphasize an ethic of divinity (aka are centered around metaphors of purity), disgust laws will be apply to human relationships. In extreme cases, this leads to mass extermination of peoples, such as the Nazi genocide of the supposedly contaminated, subhuman Jews in order to protect the supposedly pure race from contamination. In the church, the logic of disgust manifests itself in the feelings of disgust toward people's whose perceived sins violate rules of purity. This explains, in part, why sexual sins have historically been so egregious in the church. I know many people who admit to feeling physical pangs of disgust upon meeting or touching or even viewing a homosexual of either gender, but nobody responds to other, more harmful, perceived sins, such as theft or overconsumption, with feelings of disgust. Those sins aren't regulated by a logic of disgust in churches, and so the response is less powerful.

This all matters because the ability to love is at stake. Disgust works against the ability to love, something which Jesus showed over and over in the New Testament, such as in Jesus' table fellowship and his assertion that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Beck's exegesis brings out the psychological dynamics of Jesus' teachings, demonstrating the ways in which his ministry sought to break through the lines separating the clean from the unclean.

To say all of that is still to just hint at what all the book is about. Although it is a fairly short read, what Beck has to say has bearing on virtually all aspects of Christian life.

I would also add that Unclean is a book that can appeal to a wide variety of readers. I think the book is intended to appeal to both scholars and lay-readers, audiences which Beck's academic background and successful blog have prepared him to reach, and so is a well-documented book, written with precision, that is yet a good read. It's a provocative work that will, no doubt, ruffle feathers. But Beck has a deep and important insight that deserves to be read widely.

Richard Beck is a professor of Psychology at Abilene Christian University and the writer of the blog Experimental Theology. That perch gives him a fascinating place to ponder both the human condition and the church's role within modern society.

Within the church there is a continual split between a focus on purity and a focus on hospitality or mission. Richard Beck's simple argument is that it is a necessary tension that needs to be regulated. Churches commonly known as liberal have collapsed the tension in the favor of hospitality, but in doing this they have lost the transcendent. Churches commonly known as conservative have turned inward to guard purity, but in doing this they have lost Jesus' own mission to the sinners and tax collectors exemplified in his table fellowship. Dr. Beck's method of regulation is what strikes this reviewer as that rarest of items - a new understanding of the Eucharist or Lord's Supper that at the same time is deeply orthodox.

Dr. Beck achieves this by a solid grounding of the Psychology of disgust which is the emotion that grounds purity. He reviews how core disgust is a psychology regulating food and disease vectors. He then builds the argument how that core understanding spreads in moral, hospitality and mortality dimensions. He clearly demonstrates, through simple explanations of current research and theological reflection, how disgust is both necessary and toxic. It necessarily protects groups from unsafe practices, but it also shuts down mission and dialog. Understanding purity and its basis in disgust is necessary for regulating or keeping the tension. The Eucharist holds these things in tension as it cleanses through oral incorporation, it is aimed at God while also welcoming table fellowship, and body and blood which are reminders of mortality and need are the means that keep the community grounded. The purity and cleanliness is combined with the stranger, need and fleshiness of the body. Either half - the psychology review or the theological reflection - would be worth reading alone. You get them both.

One last and probably most important comment. This book is profound and simple in a way that I did not think was possible in the modern age. Writing from the academy is usually impossibly dense and understanding the purpose is not always easy. Popular writing is usually readable, but at the expense of any real impact on the reader. This book reminds me of reading Luther's Freedom of a Christian - it is a profound bolt of insight that at the end you say 'how could I have ever thought differently'.

Richard Beck is a professor at Abilene Christian University whose blog Experimental Theology, which explores the intersections between psychology and theology, has revealed him to be one of the most intelligent and provocative voices in world of theology today. His legion of fans has long hoped that he would eventually start producing books so that his work could make the larger impact that it should in both academic conversations and the church. Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality is the type of excellent thought that I've come to expect from Beck, and I do not think that it will disappoint. It is an important book.

Unclean links, expands, and more fully documents several lines of thought that have appeared on his blog in the past (you can preview the most important of them if you simply search "Spiritual Pollution" on his site). I think the main idea is that much of church life is driven by the psychology of disgust. Disgust is one of the emotions that regulates inner/outer borders of the self. For instance, core disgust keeps us from drinking spoiled milk or eating food that's fallen in the floor, and it can make us vomit to expel a contaminant (real or imagined) from us. Disgust is also peculiarly irrational, driven by "magical thinking." Studies, for instance, show that humans will not eat brownies that are shaped like dog poop, even if they know it's a brownie, and they won't drink apple juice that they've seen contaminated by contact with a cockroach, even if they then immediately afterward see the juice boiled and cleansed in front of them.

Importantly, humans extend the logic of disgust so that it also governs sociomoral boundaries. So, in cultures which emphasize an ethic of divinity (aka are centered around metaphors of purity), disgust laws will be apply to human relationships. In extreme cases, this leads to mass extermination of peoples, such as the Nazi genocide of the supposedly contaminated, subhuman Jews in order to protect the supposedly pure race from contamination. In the church, the logic of disgust manifests itself in the feelings of disgust toward people's whose perceived sins violate rules of purity. This explains, in part, why sexual sins have historically been so egregious in the church. I know many people who admit to feeling physical pangs of disgust upon meeting or touching or even viewing a homosexual of either gender, but nobody responds to other, more harmful, perceived sins, such as theft or overconsumption, with feelings of disgust. Those sins aren't regulated by a logic of disgust in churches, and so the response is less powerful.

This all matters because the ability to love is at stake. Disgust works against the ability to love, something which Jesus showed over and over in the New Testament, such as in Jesus' table fellowship and his assertion that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Beck's exegesis brings out the psychological dynamics of Jesus' teachings, demonstrating the ways in which his ministry sought to break through the lines separating the clean from the unclean.

To say all of that is still to just hint at what all the book is about. Although it is a fairly short read, what Beck has to say has bearing on virtually all aspects of Christian life.

I would also add that Unclean is a book that can appeal to a wide variety of readers. I think the book is intended to appeal to both scholars and lay-readers, audiences which Beck's academic background and successful blog have prepared him to reach, and so is a well-documented book, written with precision, that is yet a good read. It's a provocative work that will, no doubt, ruffle feathers. But Beck has a deep and important insight that deserves to be read widely.

I found Beck's book a wonderful mix of theology and social science--one of the few books I have read that attempts (and in my view does a very good job) to integrate what we have learned about human interactions and placing that in the light of the Bible and its command that we should be in fellowship with each other. I loved how Beck presented Jesus' approach to the world (one drop of his love makes all clean) in comparison to our own approach where we too often act as if one drop of uncleaness ruins the person/people/relationship.

I see that some of the other reviewers have gone into greater length into the content of this book - and I agree, in part, with these summaries.

For me the brilliant thing about Richard's book is how it gently and progressively leads the reader through a journey of seeing some very familiar terrain with wholly new eyes (the Eye of Spirit as the celtic saints might have it?), and yet the new vista is not completely alien, but somehow the view we always expected to see behind the clouds. What I suppose I am trying to say is that this is one of those once-in-a-decade books, that offers a paradigm shifting moment.

Obviously there is much more work to be done. What Beck has lifted the lid from here has implications for our theology of sin, atonement, church identity and justice / engagement. The sections on mortality also lead to a discussion of the fear of death in our theology and culture, which is being debated right now on Richard's website.

The last book to have this effect for me was Wink's "Engaging the Powers" in 1994, and I think this one could have equally far reaching consequences. In fact this one is probably more analogous to "Unmasking ..." which perhaps whet's the appetite for a work dedicated to the biblical language of holiness, ourity and sin "Naming..." and a more fully fleshed out practical theology, Beck's "Engaging...". That is not to say there are no proactical outcomes alluded to in the text. Beck's picture of the Eucharist as a potential solution to the problem is spot on - and leads one to wish for more, both from Richard himself and others in dialogue.

Now having read it once, I think I need to read it again, which will be the second of many readings...

It was like the secret love-child of Oliver Sacks and William Stringfellow. In a good way. Those with ears, let them hear.

Excellent, thought provoking and deep book. One my new top ten list of books for those interested in how to be more human.