[1] Sexual intimacy can serve as a resource for spiritual
transformation and renewal in our lives. Through it, we can
experience a restored sense of healing, joy, personal power to
affect and be affected, passionate relationship, creative potency,
and wondrous pleasure. When sexual relating functions this way in
our lives, making love can be one of life's most delightful means
of grace.
[2] This is not to say that sexual intimacy is the only means of
grace available to us or that it automatically solves life's
problems. The goodness of sexuality can be skewed, denied, or
even destroyed by any number of means. The use of sex in an
act of overpowering or coercing another, sexual abuse of children
by adults, or the manipulation of sex as a tool of exploitation are
examples of ways in which sexuality's goodness is marred or
destroyed.
[3] This paper addresses three issues: First, the
principles that have structured the traditional Christian sexual
ethic are articulated and some problems and deficiencies are
highlighted. Second, sexual intimacy is defined and linked
with spiritual belonging by a reflective application of the
incarnation. Third, the Gospel narratives are used to
critique any implied link between sexual purity and access to God's
grace, salvation, or membership in the church.
Problems with Traditional Christian Sexual
Ethics
[4] Historically, Christian communities have followed loosely a
three-fold standard for the moral judgment of sexual acts:
They should be done with the right person (one's lawfully-wedded
spouse), in the right way (heterosexual genital intercourse), and
for the right purpose (procreation). Those who follow this sexual
code often are considered sexually pure, those who do not follow
this code often are considered sexually impure (Nelson: 54). In
this theologically and culturally constructed framework for
controlling sexual expression there is little room for difference,
change, or critique; the moral framework is often considered fixed,
final, and absolute in its application.
[5] The inflexible quality of traditional Christian communities
in regard to sexual morality serves to restrict critical reflection
on its own presuppositions regarding proper sexual conduct.
Many Christians assume that this very particular structure for
sexual expression is the only correct way to engage in natural and
loving sexual relationships regardless of the particular context
involved. This approach to sexual morality locates emphasis
on the form (right person, right way, right purpose) of sex, rather
than the substance and quality of the sexual relationship. In
this form-oriented framework there is little concern with issues of
consent, love, mutual pleasure, chastity, tenderness, intimacy, and
joy. Rather, the concern is with the purity or impurity of
the sex act itself, i.e., is the couple married, attracted to the
right gender, and is there procreative potential?
[6] There are elements of the traditional ethic that are worth
promoting. For example, marital heterosexual sex is fine and
wonderful in many instances and is certainly one of the appropriate
contexts for sexual relating. But there are some problems
with this limited approach to proper sexual
relationships.
[7] First, the terms "marriage" and "heterosexual" are
semantically exclusive. The terms assume that everyone is
going to get married and that everyone is going to be in a
heterosexual relationship. This excludes the experience of
those who have been married and are now divorced, which is roughly
fifty percent of all first marriages. It also excludes the
experience of gay men and lesbian women, for whom marriage to the
person whom they would choose, a person of their own sex, is not a
legal possibility in most states. And of course, it excludes
the situation of those who by choice or accident never marry.
The very terms "marital" and "heterosexual" excludes whole groups
of people and experiences that do not fit the terms.
[8] Second, the terms "marriage" and "heterosexual" are
normatively suspect. Marital sex may not be the best
norm. When we look at marital sex in our culture we learn
some very distressing facts. Strause and Gellis estimate that
one third of all wives in the greater U.S. population are battered
in the course of their marriage and that wife rape accounts for 38
percent of all rape in the United States (Borrowdale: 68). The very
place where women have assumed they would be safe is in fact not a
safe place for many women--or children, for that matter.
Marital sexuality is sometimes violent and abusive just like
non-marital sexuality is sometimes violent and abusive. The
assumption that marital sex always fits a healthy norm is a false
assumption. Other relevant factors need to be incorporated in
an appropriate sexual ethic.
[9] Third, Christian ethicist Karen Lebacqz argues that there
are people who are living their sexual lives according to church
polity (heterosexual marriage), but that their sexual lives simply
do not express what God wants people to express in terms of quality
of relationship (113-133). Virginia Mollenkott articulates this
point well:
With the blessing of church and state, I lived in sin for years
'in a state of permanent estrangement' with my husband. Frightened
and oppressed by fundamentalism's structures, I dutifully committed
fornication with my husband, denied my own nature, and debased the
holy institution of marriage. Now, for the past eleven years,
without the blessing of church, state, or society, I have lived in
a healthy and holy covenant-relationship with a woman who
encourages my spiritual quest and supports my ministry. My marriage
was suicide by inches; my lesbian partnership is the peace, joy,
and bliss of heaven-on-earth (114).
This story could be repeated many times with other cases of
repressed or condemned gay and lesbian sexuality, or with cases of
battering or marital rape. The point, whatever the particular
situation, is this: Living out our sexual lives in accordance with
church policy does not, necessarily, bring intimacy, joy, and
right-relationship to sexual relating. Heterosexual marriage
is a holy and wonderful institution for some, but for others it can
be "suicide by inches."
[10] Fourth, a common theme in Christian sexual morality,
particularly strong in the Catholic Natural Law Tradition, is the
view that the major, if not the only valid, purpose of sexuality is
reproduction. Sexual activities not open to reproduction are
said to produce negative moral and spiritual consequences for
people who engage in them. Therefore, the potential link
between sexual activity and reproduction should not be blocked by
the use of birth control. Non-procreative sexual activities,
such as masturbation, homoerotic activity, or heterosexual
practices that cannot result in pregnancy, are discouraged as
'forbidden fruit' and detrimental to spiritual
development.
[11] A typical historical trend in Christian sexual morality is
to distinguish between sexual sins "in accordance with nature" and
those "contrary to nature." Natural sexual sins include
heterosexual fornication, adultery, incest, and rape.
Unnatural sexual sins include masturbation, gay and lesbian
sexuality, and sodomy. These unnatural sins do not have
procreative possibilities. In this ordering of sins
masturbation may be considered worse than rape and gay and lesbian
sexuality may be considered more sinful than incest.
[12] Clearly there are problems with the traditional criteria for
evaluating sexual relationships. An obvious question
becomes what does the marital, heterosexual, form-based procreative
approach to sexuality leave out? Amazingly, it excludes the
quality of the sexual relationship itself. In the traditional
framework there is very little concern with issues of interpersonal
relating, self-respect, the fullness and diversity of human life,
or even issues of appropriate sexual expression such as mutual
pleasure, joy, tenderness, intimacy or even basic issues concerning
sexual consent.
[13] Quite frankly, we need to begin developing a new Christian
sexual ethics wherein the quality of the sexual relationship itself
is addressed as fulfilling and empowering or degrading and
coerced. We need a sexual ethic that incorporates the
potential for exploitation and abuse and addresses basic issues of
power and consent. The traditional approach focuses almost
completely on externals (what goes where, with whom, when) and does
not seem to be concerned about the intention and motivation that
grounds the relationship. Christian young people are often
addressed with silence concerning issues regarding the sexual body
and sexual desire or a series of don'ts: don't have sex, don't take
pleasure in it, and don't talk about it. Christian churches
might consider engaging in more positive ethical dialogue where
young people are encouraged to talk openly about their sexual
desires, frustrations, indeed, their sexual lives without fear of
immediate condemnation or guilt.
[14] Perhaps one way to begin such a dialogue might be to discuss
what is meant when the terms intimacy and sexuality are
linked. The term intimacy, according to Webster's New World
Dictionary, stems from the Latin word 'intima,' which literally
means "the inner-most layer or living membrane of an organ, artery,
or vein." Therefore intimacy represents the very biological
core that gives life, vitality and agency to our bodies. To
talk about intimacy is to talk about that which sustains life, that
which serves to create, nurture, and care about the wholeness and
welfare of human bodies.
[15] In startling contrast to the definition of the term intimacy,
popular culture often uses the term "intimate" only in terms of the
sex act. A more fundamental understanding is, however, that
sexual intimacy requires more than simply having sex. For sex
to involve intimacy it must be mutually empowering, intentionally
consensual, and motivated by loving-kindness at the very
least. Any hint of abuse, manipulation, coercion, or violence
negates the presence of sexual intimacy.
[16] Any sexual ethic that is concerned only with the external
context of the sex (marital or non-marital, heterosexual or
homosexual, procreative possibilities or not) is not an ethic that
is concerned with sexual intimacy. Traditional Christian
sexual ethics are concerned fundamentally with external purity
boundaries and largely ignore the substance and quality of the
sexual relationship itself.
Incarnational Theology, Spiritual Belonging, and Intimate
Sexuality
[17] "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth" (John 1: 1, 14).
These verses speak to the
core of Christian faith, the embodiment of God in human,
flesh-and-blood encounters. Jesus was embodied in a
particular history, a particular culture, and a particular
body. That Jesus should be a laughing, crying, sweating,
bleeding, sensuous bundle of flesh just as all humans are seems
incomprehensible. Yet the incarnation, the embodiment of
Jesus Christ, is at the core of the Christian message. The
liberation that Jesus talked about was a liberation of
bodies. The significance of incarnational faith is the
importance of our bodies. It is as bodies that people share
creative, intellectual, ethical, emotional, and spiritual
power. Incarnation suggests that it is in the particularity
of embodied experience and embodied relationship that whatever is
common among people can be recognized and
shared.
[18] Christian theologian Dorothee Soelle argues that sometimes
human beings fear and distrust the God of the incarnation because
Jesus was not the kind of God that was desired and expected:
God the all-powerful and sovereign King. It is not power and
control but a notion of God's vulnerability that is at the heart of
the incarnation. God takes the risk of being misunderstood
and unrecognized in Jesus Christ. In the incarnation God does
not act as an independent all-powerful agent but seeks
companionship, friendship, and community with human bodies in human
history (3-17).
[19] And Jesus said, "Behold, the Basileia (Kingdom) of God is
in the midst of you" (Luke 17:21; Matthew 12:28). With this
proclamation, Jesus announces something quite startling; that the
Basileia or Kingdom of God is already at hand, experientially
available in the midst of human history. New Testament
Ethicist Wolfgang Schrage writes:
Through his ministry, Jesus brings the effectual presence of the
Basileia of God into the realm of historical reality. The
involvement of the Basileia with actual experience of the world
makes it impossible to look for the substance and import of Jesus'
message in the difference between God and the humankind and a
consequent separation from the world (20).
The thrust of Jesus' message
is not to announce the coming of a transcendent future Basileia,
but to proclaim that the Basileia of God is at work in the midst of
embodied acts of loving kindness experienced in the here and
now. Jesus announces that the transcendent God becomes the
immanent God through visible acts of hospitality. Jesus
states that when you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the
prisoner, and care for the sick "you do it to me" (Matthew 25:
40). Concrete acts of hospitality, care, and healing are
recognized as embodied works of the Spirit, embodied works of
grace.
[20] The incarnation invites the Christian community to
experience God's spirit and God's grace in concrete acts of loving
kindness: "the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are
healed, the deaf hear, the poor are cared for" (Matt. 11:4 and Luke
7:22). An incarnational theology subverts the notion
that the soul and body are distinct, that grace and embodied love
in the here and now are distinct. The message of Jesus is
clear in spite of the strong elements in the history of Christian
theology that have created dualistic tensions that pit the soul
against the body, the sensual against the spiritual, and salvation
history against human history. The Christian theological
emphasis of "being in the world but not of the world" has too often
been interpreted in terms of "being in a body but not of a
body." Many Christian churches have not fully connected the
human body with the Holy Spirit, openly acknowledging that
compassionate response to people's spirit comes through
compassionate response to people's literal bodies.
[21] If God is present in the midst of human history, if God's
spirit and grace can be experienced in embodied acts of
loving-kindness, then the connections with our sexuality become
quickly apparent. Bodily love may be an expression of God's
presence. Becoming a better lover may be part of becoming a
better disciple and vise versa. At issue is whether or not we
will recognize the spirit of God through the gift of sexual
intimacy. At its best, sex is a positive, empowering, joyful,
creative, life-giving force wherein the grace of God is revealed
and embodied in human affection. In this context, sexuality
takes on a sacramental quality, a quality of bringing God, spirit,
and grace into human relationship. A sexual theology talks
about God in a physical, intimate and embodied manner and locates
mutual physical pleasure as a fundamentally good and desired state
of being-in-the-world.
[22] An incarnational faith recognizes that theology not only
speaks to the human situation, but that theological understanding
arises out of the human situation. Incarnational theology
refuses to make human beings into passive receptors, or waiting
vessels who cannot actively engage but only passively respond to
God's initiative. When God's grace is not acknowledged in
embodied acts of loving kindness and God is considered distant and
otherworldly, then God is no longer experienced as vital,
indwelling presence permeating the stuff of everyday life.
Incarnational faith does not attempt to separate spiritual
belonging from embodied acts of sexual intimacy and
passion.
[23] In the Christian context, it seems to me, a sexualized
spirituality should not be completely content with physically
gratifying sex done for its own sake. Sexual expression
at its best, really good sex, should be both physically gratifying,
and, at the same time, be a source of inspiration that moves people
to expand beyond the realm of private pleasure to incorporate a
more compassionate approach to people in all spheres of life.
In this context, sexual intimacy might serve as a powerful resource
in the building and maintaining of the human community; sometimes
called the "body of Christ." Sexual intimacy views the body
with passion, so it also may view the body politic with
passion. Sexual intimacy may help to create a passion for
justice because social justice issues are at root material and body
issues.
[24] Sexual intimacy, perhaps especially for women, is
associated with creative power: the power to give birth, the
power to produce life, the power to bring joy, energy, and peace
into relationship with self, lover, neighbor, community and
world. Sexual intimacy is recognized as one of the many
fruits of the spirit in our personal and in our collective
lives.
[25] The traditional Christian sexual ethic does not consider
these issues but is constructed around basic purity codes:
Heterosexual, marital, and procreative sex is considered pure while
homosexual, non-marital, and non-procreative sex is considered
impure. However, an incarnational theology suggests that the
signs of God spirit have to do with the quality of the way people
hold each other dear in this world and not, necessarily, with
strict compliance to particular purity codes.
Sexual Purity and the Gospel Narratives
[25] Jesus did not call his disciples to separate from the world
in order to establish sectarian communities marked by barriers of
physical, cultural, and sexual purity codes. For Jesus, the
Basileia was represented more by inclusive wholeness rather than
exclusive holiness. Biblical Scholar Elisabeth Schussler
Fiorenza writes:
The salvation of God's Basileia is present and experientially
available whenever Jesus casts out demons (Luke 11:20), heals the
sick and the ritually unclean, tells stories about the lost who are
found, of the uninvited who are invited, or of the last who will be
first. The power of God's Basileia is realized in Jesus'
table community with the poor, the sinners, the tax collectors, and
prostitutes-with all those who 'do not belong' to the 'holy
people,' who are somehow deficient in the eyes of the righteous
(120-121).
Jesus did not conform to a
decisive rule for Pharisees that said that God's power was located
in temple and Torah. Rather, Jesus locates the presence of
God's power as embodied in the people themselves, particularly in
the presence of hospitality and acceptance of marginalized
people.
[26] The mark of the Jesus movement is its inclusiveness, not
its purity regulations. Indeed, the Gospel narratives portray
Jesus as one who regularly preferred the company of the impure to
that of the religious authorities of his day speaking particularly
kindly about the destitute poor, the sick and the crippled, and tax
collectors, sinners, and prostitutes. Jesus states: "Truly I
say to you, the tax collectors and harlots go into the Basileia of
God before you" (Matthew 21:31). Jesus removed the boundaries
established by physical and sexual purity codes and created new
possibilities in diverse relationships and inclusive community by
welcoming those who were traditionally excluded by the Pharisees
purity regulations regarding food, temple, Sabbath, and many other
things.
[27] The Basileia of God was and is immanent in present moments
of embodied healing and the mission of the Basileia is to bring
embodied healing to others. The Gospel writers rejected a
strict code of physical purity in an attempt to break down the
barriers that purity rules erected between human communities and
against the marginal people of a given society.
[28] When we apply the Gospel teachings about purity codes to
issues concerning Christian sexual ethics the implications are
quite clear. The Gospel writers abolish the link between
physical purity and divine favor and reject any connection between
sexual purity and access to God's grace. The practice of
purity was and is wrong because of its exaltation of one's own
religious excellence at the expense of others. In the Gospel
narratives physical purity remains optional, but it is irrelevant
to grace, salvation, or membership in the church. Biblical
scholar William Countryman writes:
The Gospel allows no rule against the following, in and of
themselves: masturbation, nonvaginal heterosexual
intercourse, homosexual acts, or erotic art and literature.
The Christian is free to be repelled by any or all of these and may
continue to practice his or her own purity code in relation to
them. What we [Christians] are not free to do is impose our
codes on others (243-44).
Jesus' critique of physical
purity codes did not function as a rejection of cultural
distinctiveness and diversity. What it did was to abolish any
perceived link between divine grace and physical
purity.
[29] It is the Christian tradition and not the Gospel narratives
that make sexual purity of primary importance. Countryman
articulates that sexual purity "originated more in the spirit of
the age than in that of the Gospel" (140). Sexual purity may
be important in terms of individual Christian identity; however, it
is not important in terms of Gospel identity and Christians should
not confuse the two.
Conclusion
[30] In conclusion, let me say that the journey towards sexual
wholeness and community support for diverse sexual expressions is
not an easy road for Christian churches to walk. But it is a
journey on which Christian churches must embark for the integrity,
indeed, the survival of the church as sanctuary, a place where
members feel love, safety and acceptance.
[31] In searching for new approaches to sexual relations that
stress issues of sexual joy, mutual pleasure, intimacy and
spiritual belonging, I do not suggest that sex is the be-all and
end-all of life or the only or even the best means of experiencing
God's grace. On the one hand, there are other important means
of grace: worship, rituals, meaningful work, friendships, the arts,
and the world itself, to name a few. On the other hand, there
are times when sex is not a rewarding or appropriate part of our
lives. Sexual intimacy is not something that people must
have; rather, it is something that people yearn for over and over
again. Sexual intimacy can be one of life's most delightful
means of grace. Sexual intimacy can be a
source that propels people to nurture not only the bodies of self
and partner but also the broader human community sometimes called
the body of Christ.
[32] Perhaps in time all Christian churches will be able to
speak and embody the words of James Baldwin: "To be sensual, I
think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life
itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of
loving to the breaking of bread (62).
Works Cited
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1962 The Fire Next Time. New York: Dell Publishing
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1991 Distorted Images: Misunderstandings Between Men and
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1988 Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament
and Their Implications for Today. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press.
Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler
1989 In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of
Christian
Origins. New York: Crossroad Press.
Lebacqz, Karen and Barton, Ronald
1990 Sex in the Parish. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox
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Mollenkott, Virginia
1992 Sensuous Spirituality: Out From Fundamentalism. New
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Nelson, James
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