A Book You Should Buy (at a discount!)
Billie and Paul Hoard's book on "disgust theology" and "eucontamination" comes out next week!
Hey all - I’ll keep this one pretty short, and I apologize for this one feeling a bit like a marketing email - I am not getting paid for it and neither Billie nor Paul know I’m writing it. I just believe in their project so much that I had to let y’all know.
Regular readers will be familiar with my friend Billie Hoard. In addition to being an incredible friend, she’s also a phenomenal thinker and writer, as you may have seen over on her substack, TRANSposition, which you should subscribe to now if you haven’t already. I don’t know her brother, Paul, as well but have had the pleasure of meeting him a couple times now and wish I knew him better.
The two of them have been working on a project for years now, and it’s about to get published in book form next week: Eucontamination: Disgust Theology and the Christian Life (Go buy it now, using discount code “DISGUST 50”, July 24-25, to get 50% off!).
What’s in the book?
This book develops three points I want to talk about here (and more!), but the book expands each greatly with so much good stuff1 packed into it.
Here’s my summary of those three points (with apologies to Billie and Paul, who explain it much better than I can):
The Church’s Disgust Reaction
The church’s exclusion of various groups is a result of a misapplied communal “disgust” reaction - an attempt to keep the church “pure” by keeping “contaminants” out. I see this most clearly in my experience as a transgender lesbian woman, in seeing churches go to great lengths to expel not just me, but anyone who supports me, and anyone who supports them, etc.
And they do this because…
Contaminants change the thing they contaminate
Fundamentally, we fear a contaminant because it will change us into something different. Ingesting a bit of arsenic will change us from live to dead. The evangelical church allowing sexual predators to be leaders has changed it into a body that fails to safeguard the most vulnerable in the church, preferring instead to protect its leaders.
The problem is when this response occurs towards people who would actually bring life and flourishing to the body. For example, for many decades or centuries (and in some places, still today), white churches excluded black people, or at least kept them segregated. This created a disatrous “us” vs. “them” where white people failed to interact with and love their Black neighbors. The result of that was slavery and Jim Crow in the past and overincarceration of Black people today.
And the church isn’t wrong - incorporating a new group will change the church. When your church welcomes in a deaf person, it’ll become quickly apparent that it needs an ASL interpreter for sermons. When a church welcomes unhoused people, it will lead to hearts being moved to help the unhoused in the community. But beyond needing help, the people the church may shun can actually transform the church into something better by bringing their different lives and experiences and ways of being into the body.
Billie and Paul call that…
Eucontamination
The titular concept of “eucontamination”, a word Billie and Paul have coined, is basically, “good contamination.” If you take a probiotic or eat greek yogurt, you are intentionally taking bacteria into your body. But unlike dangerous bacteria, these bacteria actually help your body. They make it better.
Billie and Paul first argue that this is what Jesus did - that he “eucontaminated” the world by coming into it. And few could argue that Jesus didn’t change the world2. His teachings around loving our neighbor, his radical love for the most marginalized: the leper, the blind, those unable to walk, even the dead. All of these things should transform the body into one that practices radical love towards those people that Jesus would have.
But then they take it further, arguing that those people the church shuts out can actually be eucontaminants into the church. That, for example, gay people can demonstrate love in ways that the church might have missed. That trans people can cause us to think more deeply about the incredible diversity in God’s creation. And on and on.
I have argued before that the exclusion of queer people (or immigrants, or the unhoused, or people of color, etc) is the body of Christ amputating its limbs. Billie and Paul argue for the vital importance of bringing those people back into the body.
Who is this book for?
If you’re a Christian, please read this book - it’s among the most transformative thinking I’ve come across and I’ll be recommending it to anyone who will listen for some time. If you’re not affirming of queer people, then you especially need to read this book. If you’re not a Christian, there’s still a lot of good in it, though it is a fundamentally Christian book.
When does it come out?
August 1st, but you should seriously go order it now so you can get 50% off (see link above), and because pre-orders really help out authors by sending signals to publishers that people want the book.
Why am I so excited about this?
I’ve heard Billie and Paul talk about this a number of times. I’ve participated in a service they developed with two friends of theirs (also brilliant) which followed what they call the “Liturgy of Eucontamination”, and I cried multiple times during it at the power of what was happening. It’s an idea that can change how we see our neighbors, ourselves, Jesus, and more.
I’ll have more to say soon, I’m only half way through my copy so far, but for now, I’m adding this to my must read list of recommended books, and you can expect to see me cite it regularly in the future!
Closing
Hope this finds you well. I made it through my May surgery and some health issues after it, plus travel, I’ve got a couple drafts in progress that I hope to publish soon - wish me luck!
-Celeste
I am reading an advance copy of the book and will have a full review in the next couple weeks, as well as an interview with Billie and Paul.
Though I understand that many would say that Christians have done more harm than good over the centuries.
I remember reading a twitter thread Billie had about Disgust Theology and how much it opened my eyes to a new framework, so I've been waiting for the book!! Just ordered!!