EMQ » April–June 2020 » Volume 56 Issue 2
By Boaz Johnson
Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018
164 pages
USD $23.00
Reviewed by Anna M. Droll, PhD candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, professor of Global Christianity at South Florida Theological Seminary, and founder of Kairos Global Missions, an initiative for bringing hope to women and children of West Africa.
The contribution that this volume makes to the global Christian conversation on sex slavery and the abuse of women cannot be overstated. With exegetical expertise, Boaz Johnson brings to life the realities surrounding the sexual abuse of women (and men and children) as a phenomenon addressed plainly in the Bible. Johnson takes the reader through an examination of the Scriptures in the original languages and offers his special insight into Near East cultures. He then carries that thread into the New Testament, and in doing so, serves the Church by examining the underlying issues involved in the systemic abuse of women. In the end, Johnson offers a biblical prescription for bringing healing to the Marys (the Bitter Ones) of today’s hurting masses.
Beyond its solid theological substance, the book stands out as unique on several fronts. First, Johnson offers a male voice to speak against the injustice of human trafficking and especially the plight of vulnerable women. As well, Johnson brings a distinctly non-Western lens and his own engagement with the issues as one reared in the midst of injustices in a slum of Delhi, India. Third, Johnson does not shy away from engagement with the spiritual agencies that represent “a deep spiritual origin to social, economic, etc., maladies and evil” (134). He, therefore, offers a holistic, non-Western appraisal of the spiritual climate in which the Marys of our societies may be healed, as they were in the days of Jesus.
Johnson hails the revelation of God as it unfolds in the Bible as featuring the first voices of an original #MeToo Movement. He points to four women and their stories (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba). Johnson notes that these women stand out as illustrations of the extent of socio-cultural and religious depravity involved in sexual exploitation as recorded in the Bible. The fifth voice, that of the life of the virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, speaks as an icon of the hope to be found in Yeshua, the Messiah. “He will reverse all the years of injustice and evil against the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers” (125). Jesus is the ultimate Goʼel (Redeemer) able to deal decisively with evil, restore economies and societies, and bring about the recreation of a new woman (49).
Johnson’s book is an important read for anyone concerned with the suffering of women and other vulnerable populations at the hands of sexual predators. But the text is crucial as a prophetic stimulus for the Church and a call to reform within and outside its walls. As well, no academic venue hosting a careful exploration of global Christianity as a movement today can afford to overlook this volume. First of all a theological treatise, Johnson’s work is effective in calling the global Church to self-reflection, awareness, and action in regard to the worldwide devaluation of women and to the epidemic of human trafficking plaguing our societies.
For Further Reading
Grey, Jacqueline. “A Prophetic Call to Repentance: David, Bathsheba and a Royal Abuse of Power,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies 41, no. 1 (2019): 9–25.
Krueger, Liz. “Reinterpreting Eve and Mary: A Theological Anthropology for Women,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies 41, no. 1 (2019): 91–109.
