A Theology of Human Sexuality – Ben Mitchell
A Few Caveats
Our anthropology requires charity
Our language anticipates double entendres
Our calling demands compassion
Our experience requires humility
Our task calls for courage
Our responsibility requires us to contextualize the question
Why so Important?
The order that God has given us (Gen 2:24-25)
Paul says sexual immorality is not even to be mentioned among those in the Christian church (Ephesians 5:3)
Why Such a Difficult Subject?
A confused culture in which our paradigms have shifted radically
A marginalized church
A challenged Bible – both from the outside and the inside
47% of people who say marriage is becoming obsolete still want to be married
Sexual Morality: Creation
Human sex and sexuality are important, powerful and good aspects of God’s creation (Gen 2:15-25 – bonding, procreation, Proverbs 5:15-20 – pleasure, fidelity)
They don’t cease to be man or woman but their flesh is joined in such a way that we call them one flesh
Stanley Grenz Sexual Ethics
There are only two ways to be human, as male or female, at its core is a fundamental incompleteness
Goods of sex and marriage
Procreational good – Gen 1:28; 9:1
Relational good – “humanity which is not fellow-humanity is inhumanity” Barth, CD
Public good – ordered and regulated relationships in human society
Marriage
The relational purpose of marriage (Gen 2:24 – one flesh, sexual and non-sexual companionship, giving of one’s person to another)
Pornography
There is a casual connection between words or pictures and human behavior
“Shame” is part of the natural human condition. It is counterpart of natural human modesty
The political purpose or result of pornography is to make us shameless
There is a connection between shame and self-restrained and therefore a connection between shame and self-government or democracy
Self-restraint is necessary to the moral and political well-being of the community
Pornography threatens self-restraint and then threatens democracy
Conclusion: therefore, government has at least a modest interest in censoring pornography (as a protection of democracy)
By Walter Evans “Beyond the Garbage Pale”
Sexual Morality: After the Fall
Sexuality and sex are disordered
Sex is to be expressed according to God’s instruction: not outside the covenant of marriage (Heb 13:4), sexual lust is forbidden (Matt 5:27-30)
Sex
Not the most important thing in the world!
1 Corinthians 7:1-5
Marriage
The healing purpose of marriage (1 Cor 7:9)
“Marriage functions to provide needed restraint and discipline as the God-given place of healing for our sexual nature” – Gilbert Meilaender
Celibacy or singleness
Vocation?
Pathology?
Gift parallel with marriage? (1 Cor 7:7, 32-35, Adam and Eve were married, Jesus was single)
Pastoral issues: identity and self-worth, solitude and loneliness, sexuality and celibacy – see C.S. Lewis Four Loves specifically his chapter on friendship
Cohabitation
According to sociologist Patricia Morgan, cohabitation relationships are fragile
Cohabiting couple accumulate less wealth than married couples
Cohabiting women are more likely to be abused
Cohabitants have more health problems than married couples
Children of cohabiting couples often suffer
Cohabitation: the biblical witness
Creation-only appropriate expression of sexual intimacy is the bond of marriage
Singleness is an inappropriate context for the sex act “One flesh” is reserved for married couples
No permission for cohabitation in scripture
Marriage and the marriage bed are held up as honorable
Homosexuality
Helmut Thielicke Theological Ethics vol 3, Sex, p. 271
Sexuality: Redemmed and Celebrated
1 Timothy 4:1-5
“Salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ is not redemption from sexuality, sex or our sexual impulses. It is rather redemption within our created sexuality, necessitated by distortions of the Fall”
God’s Will for Today – 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
