Elizabeth O Pierre

Swaggert, Hybels, Page, Haggard, Bakker, Farewell, McDonald--all names of famous ministers who over the past thirty-five years have fallen from their platforms of significant ministry and brought hurt and confusion to their families and followers due to sexual failure. Even the Best of Us is written by two veterans of the church whose combined professional ministry experience spans more than sixty years. In addition, Perry and Pierre write from both the perspectives of two persons of color and from the perspectives of difference in gender. Both have seen firsthand the pain of clergy sexual failure and want to see their book help not only congregations and clergy who have experienced the devastation of a clergy sexual failure, but those who could experience this in future, for as they say, even the best of us can succumb to the devastating lies of the enemy of our soul. Whether you are a pastor, parachurch leader, lay leader, or parishioner within a congregation you will thoroughly enjoy this clear and revealing entry into a conversation that few in the church address--the reality of clergy sexual failure and how we can prevent it.

The #MeToo movement is a global phenomenon. Several Christian organizations have been engaging with issues of abuse against women in places like Africa and Asia. Much of this happens among internally displaced or external refugees. I was reared in a New Delhi slum, and saw much of the horrors of human trafficking among the low caste and outcaste people among whom I lived. These kinds of atrocities against girls and women--internally displaced refugees--rightly raises much anger. Are there solutions? My students and leaders of several organizations have asked me to write a biblical response to issues raised by the #MeToo movement and the global horror of sexual trafficking of girls and women. This book provides a biblical response to issues raised by the #MeToo movement--questions that I have had for many years, going back to my childhood days in that New Delhi slum. My thesis is that women experienced these abuses in ancient societies in very heinous ways. This is seen clearly in ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Roman etc. religions. I argue that the Bible sets out to counter attitudes and religious practices of sexual abuse against women. The Bible is the original #MeToo movement. ""True to his biblical namesake, Boaz Johnson applies the Bible's radically counter-cultural ethical teaching about justice for the poor to the plight of abused women. The blending of his childhood in a Delhi slum, his familiarity with contexts of war-zone rape and sex trafficking, and his profound scholarly understanding of the biblical text and its world has produced an eye-opening book that transforms our reading of familiar stories and challenges our response to them."" --Christopher J. H. Wright, Langham Partnership Boaz Johnson is Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University, Chicago, Illinois. Before coming to the US, he pastored a church in a New Delhi slum and taught at Union Biblical Seminary in India. He has also taught widely in other parts of the world, in countries like Ukraine, Russia, Brazil, and Argentina, which, sadly, are hotspots of human trafficking of girls and women.