Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age (original) (raw)

Navigating Sex, Sexuality, and Christian Values

2000

This is an autobiographical essay that attempts to illuminate the cultural factors (e.g., race, religion, social class, gender, and sexuality) that shaped the author's efforts to embrace herself, including her non-conforming sexuality in a context that was quite rigid about most things. The reader is invited to experience some of the author's grapplings about Christianity, growing up black and female in a changing America, and the constant longing to please others that many people from non-dominant positions express. This essay also hopes to provide at least one point of entry into an academic and/or personal exploration of culture and sexuality in America, including discussions about how morality, social class, race, and gender socialization may interact to shape choices and personal expressions of who one is.

Just Love: Constructing a New Framework of Christian Sexual Ethics

A Theological Reader on Gender Diversities and Sexuality Envisioning Inclusivity, 2017

The conventional framework of Christian sexual ethics today is simplesex is only ethical within the confines of marriage. Few people question this framework, even though many Christians have been known toviolate this. This absolutist approach is often presented in churches today, and any further investigation and discussion is cut off. Those who differ, suggesting other approaches, are often accused of moral relativism. There is just no room to talk about sex in the church other than prohibitions. Christian sexual ethics is often limited to prescriptive or normative ethics. Even more concerning is together with the exporting of United States' "culture war" along with the spread of Evangelical Christianity globally that one's stand on sexual ethics becomes a litmus test whether one is a "true Christian," regardless whether one practices what one professes. On the other hand, the secular moral approach to sexual ethics-that sex acts between consenting adults in private, barring a few exceptions, should be nobody else's business-is also inadequate, given that this approach of reasoning often fails to consider the constellations of relationships we are embedded in, and the impact of our actions-be it sexual or otherwise-go far beyond our personal and private realms. Neither the conventional framework of Christian sexual ethics nor the secular moral approach to sexual ethics is adequate today. We desperately need to revisit and rethink our frameworks of Christian sexual ethics today so that instead of parading around the conventional framework of sexual ethics that is out of touch with modern times, we find ways of constructing ethical frameworks that are just, loving, appropriate and lifegiving. In the past half a century, many Christian ethicists and theologians have offered new perspectives for Christian sexual ethics. Margaret Farley writes, "Theology, too, has offered important insights regarding human sexuality and behaviour. Some of this work in North America began among Christian theologians in the 1960s with the Roman Catholic debate on artificial contraception. Soon after, significant publications by Anthony Kosnik and his colleagues in the Roman Catholic tradition, and James Nelson in the Protestant traditions, marked the start of a whole new era for Christian sexual ethics. The contributions of

Sacred Sexuality and Conservative American Christianity: Probing the Boundaries

This paper explores the conflicted sexual and spiritual beliefs of five present or former evangelical Christians living in the south-western US. The churches associated with these individuals traditionally teach that the only legitimate expression of sexuality is within the confines of monogamous heterosexual marriage. Embracing their individual sexuality and recapturing their individual sexual autonomy, which includes the freedom to choose non-monogamy or same-sex couplings, these persons moved across the boundaries of sexual and social normalcy proscribed by their religion. For most of these individuals, their pilgrimage towards sexual liberty (the capacity to experience and express healthy sexuality without coercive constraints) is self-perceived as personally and spiritually rewarding even as they experience isolation and condemnation from their original church affiliations. They found that sacred sexuality is a matter of perspective; sexual purity is not abstinence or withholding pleasure, but in becoming a generous and sincere partner. For professional clergy, departure from mainstream Christianity came after a long period of growing frustration at the heavy-handed tactics used by church leadership to suppress heteroglossia concerning sexuality within the Scriptures. As this clergyman expressed divergent views from the accepted theological paradigm concerning sexuality, he was labeled a heretic by his church and many of its members. A series of informal ethnographic interviews with this couple and three individuals reveals the various social and religious dimensions of their experiences: expressing erotic desire as worship, fearing public censure, experiencing loss.

Holiness Sex: Conservative Christian Sex Practices as Acts of Sanctification

In this article about conservative Christian heterosex advice manuals I will pursue two lines of inquiry: First, I will argue exegetically that these texts represent a particular modern intertwining of sexual and religious discourses. Here, the bodies of the Christian heterosexual couple are shaped as tension-filled sites: In their sexual bodies the Evangelical men and women, who consume and contribute to these texts, are tasked to negotiate and endure the antinomies of sexual discourses in high modernity in addition to those of Christian theologies of grace. While these manuals combine a discourse that highlights the importance of freely enjoying sexual pleasures, they also echo a wider cultural sense that sexuality is a dangerous power in need of constant disciplining. In terms of theology, this complicated shaping of heterosex enables a body theology of grace, in which it remains constantly unclear how much agency and submission the Christian man or Christian wife have to perform in the drama of salvation. As my second and theoretical line of inquiry, I will demonstrate how the proliferation of Christian advice products is part of the modernization of Evangelical heterosex discourse by creating a specific marketable and consumable identity of Christian sexuality.

SEXUALITY AND FAITH: PASTORAL REFLECTIONS ON SEXUALITY AND A THEOLOGY OF SEXUAL BEING

This article discusses the complex relations between sexuality and faith, and pastoral reflections on sexuality and faith in the contexts of Protestant religious traditions. Four general principles that guide faithful sexuality are offered: Covenant, Grace, Empowerment, and Intimacy. Sexuality is defined as an integral part of individual and social life and being which involves relationships with persons, groups, communities, societies, cultures, and God. Sexuality is also discussed in terms of the dynamics of gender, power, role identity, and self-image. Faith is understood as deep investment in centers of value through which the persons and groups seek to establish or construct coherence, meaning, and value in life.

Troubling Ethical Waters: A Christian Perspective of Human Sexuality

The book: Troubling Ethical waters: A Christian Perspective of Human Sexuality, written by a university don, moral theologian/Christian ethicist, chaplain and catholic priest of the Makurdi Diocese, Very Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Pius Ajiki, is a twelve-chapter work with two appendixes which centers on contentious and very topical ethical issues of global concern and the response of the catholic church to the identified issues. The work under review adopts a logical and critical analysis of some of the absolute teachings of the Catholic Church. The motivation to do this stems from the Papacy through the constructive revolutionary thought of Professor Joseph Ratzinger new Pope Benedict xvi. He observes in one of his writings that ‘not all things that exist in the church must, for that reason be equally legitimate tradition’. He stresses that ‘not every tradition that arises in the church is a true celebration and keeping present the mystery of Christ’. He further argues that there is a distorting, as well as legitimate tradition… (and)… consequently, tradition must not be considered only affirmatively but also critically’. Clearly, the work under consideration is premised on the revolutionary thinking that though tradition may be adored and even savoured, it must not only be affirmatively considered but critically too. In his discussion of ‘The Ethics of Sexuality in Christian Perspective’ as a curtain raiser on ethical issues discussed in chapter one, Very Rev. Fr. (Dr) Ajiki though admits the difficulty of sexual morality as a subject of analysis, re-echoes the Catholic Church’s position on sexuality pointing out two purposes of sexual relationship: “unitive” and “procreative”. He adds that to exercise responsible sexuality in practice, the couple must be intentionally committed to a permanent partnership and love.

The Value and Dignity of Human Sexuality: Christian Anthropological Perspective

This paper examines the meaning of human sexuality. It attempts to discover a dependable foundation and draw a positive outline for a human expression of sexual living contrary to certain adumbrated misconceptions which tend to put human sexuality in a negative light. The study argues in favour of its intrinsic goodness and holiness. It thus highlights sexuality, when properly expressed, as the driving force of interpersonal relations, gender difference, physical/erotic attraction, and spiritual growth. The methodology is psycho-theological and philosophical analysis of the subject matter from Christian anthropological perspective.

A Multi-Disciplinary Inquiry of Secular and Christian Approaches to Sex Education

Journal of Research on Christian Education, 2018

Secular scholars have criticized Christian education and counseling on sex as restrictive, ineffective, and outdated. The authors of the current study explored both common non-Christian and Christian approaches to human sexuality with reference to overarching domains of religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Secular approaches were classified as the inward approach, the spatial approach, and the temporal approach, whereas Christian approaches were categorized as the traditional and the modern perspectives. Although Christian faith can be signified as a protective factor against casual and risky sexual behaviors, traditional Christian values should be reevaluated in favor of comprehensive Christian approaches to sexuality, which embrace sexual desires as divine gifts for completeness of humanity.