The Rev. Beverly Dale, a Mt. Airy resident for 27 years, is about as similar to most other ordained ministers as lightning is to a lightning bug. “Rev. Bev” Dale is currently hosting “Pleasure Church Spring ‘26 with a focus on Spiritual Perfection vs. Sexual Authenticity,” an online series of weekly gatherings that began April 12 and will end May 31.

Dale is the author of two books, one for sexual health professionals and clergy, “both of whom are tasked with helping people who have been harmed by religious messages about their sexual bodies.” Her first book was “Advancing Sexual Health for the Christian Client,” and the second is “Who Told You That You Were Naked? Meditations on the Sexual Body,” which according to the local cleric is “for ordinary people who are looking for tools to help them heal from negative religious teaching.”

Now in her 60s, Dale was ordained in the Illinois/Wisconsin region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 42 years ago and served as an ecumenical campus minister at the University of Pennsylvania for 21 years until 2010. After leaving her position at Penn, she began writing extensively and in 2013 founded the Incarnation Institute for Sex & Faith, a nonprofit organization that has trained dozens of “sexual health professionals and clergymen and women.”

Dale said she wrote “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” “to help people heal from the sexual guilt, body shame and judgment of the religious community towards sexuality. It is for the people in the pews or who left the pews. Many struggle with issues of traditional church teaching, gender and sexual shame. I offer exercises they can do. They do not have to stay in shame.”

In her current series, Dale is being assisted by Krysta Rexroad, an ordained United Methodist pastor trained by the Incarnation Institute and is ministering in the nonprofit sector. The purpose of this eight-week spring series includes “teaching and reflection and will incorporate the ideas and exercises from the book ‘Who Told You That You Were Naked?’”

As of the Local’s interview with Dale on April 9, 12 people had signed up to take the online series, which is geared for not just clergymen and women but also “for people in the pews and those who have left them who are seeking a more liberating faith than is found in what I call the Empire Church.”

In an earlier conversation, Dale explained how a traumatic event in her young life turned her into a sex educator within a religious framework. “I was sexually abused by an uncle when I was a child, and that stimulated my interest in this field,” she said. “He was a deacon in the church, but he would not apologize. I don’t fault him as much as I do the church and society at large. I had to ask myself if God justifies the abuse of little girls. And is sex something to be ashamed of? A great many people think it is.”

Dale’s next book (from Pilgrim Press) is titled “Deconstructing Divinity, from Sacred Idol to Sacred Experience.” This book targets what Dale calls “the most common metaphor that I believe is the culprit that holds together the sex-negative religion: A white father God who as a judge punishes us especially for being sexual creatures. I call this metaphor the ‘Emperor God’ because it mimics the power and domination of an empire. Once we deconstruct this dude, we open the door to wider sexuality that is more compatible with a more embodied sacred experience.”

Dale has a son and daughter who, according to her, both search for truth in their own way, “one, by challenging Christianity with a questioning spirit and one by critiquing it with righteous indignation.”

Dale also has two grown grandsons in professional careers and a soon-to-be middle schooler.

Over the years, Dale has unsurprisingly had critics who have called her blasphemous, but she has not been deterred.

“This work is controversial,” she said. “Those who find me are usually surprised by the freedom that comes from thinking more expansively about a pleasure-centered faith. They are intrigued and interested. And by removing the Emperor God, one can find a pleasure-sharing God who delights in our sexual diversity and our pleasure. However, those who are threatened by sexual freedom conclude that I am an atheist, although I am not. I am simply following Jesus, who taught we are to have an ‘abundant life’ (John 10:10).”

For more information, visit beverlydale.org. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.