Tabernacles of Clay

Starred review from March 9, 2020
Petrey, a professor of religion at Kalamazoo College, combines meticulous research with illuminating insight in this landmark work on gender and sexuality in Mormon thought. Petrey shows how Latter-day Saint teachings about race, marriage, homosexuality, and gender roles have adapted to different social contexts between post-WWII America and today, and argues that opposition to same-sex marriage has replaced opposition to interracial marriage or egalitarian marriage as a lightning rod for LDS leaders. He also examines contradictions in LDS ideologies—such as church leaders explicitly teaching that gender roles are inherent, while also fretting about parents not properly teaching their children how to “perform” their gender role properly. Information-packed, with a forceful thesis and jargon-free prose, this is an important contribution to Mormon studies as well as a convincing consideration of the ways religions construct and maintain frameworks. Any academic studying the intersection of religious practice and progressive social change will want to pick this up.

April 24, 2020

Petrey's work (religion, Kalamazoo Coll.; Resurrecting Parts: Early Christians on Desire, Reproduction, and Sexual Difference) is a brilliant exception to studies of sexuality, gender, and religion that too often focus on a narrow subject and don't speak to broader concerns of larger issues in history and society. Here, the author integrates an analysis of how the Latter-day Saint religion fits into the story of sexuality and gender in American society within a larger frame of Latter-day Saint history generally. Importantly, he demonstrates how race enters into the mix of sex and gender in Latter-day Saint practices and theology. Petrey's insights are grounded in the thought of philosopher Michel Foucault and scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, among others, in a successful effort to move beyond previous examinations of Latter-day Saint concepts of marriage, patriarchy, family, and homosexuality. Historical analysis of key primary sources serves as the foundation of the book providing evidence that there is no essential Mormon position but always an emergent one. VERDICT Petrey writes beautifully, offering readers across a wide variety of academic fields, including religious studies and the history of sexuality, an elegant intellectual text that will please casual readers as well. Highly recommended.--David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia

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