Theology and Sexuality: Towards a Positive Theological Account of Human Sexuality

This originally was a term paper for an Ethics Class...unfortunately the footnotes didn't survive the transfer from my WP program to here. Oh well, enjoy!


Human sexuality is a powerful force for Christians and non-Christian alike, but it is our Christianity, our identity as a counter-culture that requires that we provide a meaningful account of our sexuality that challenges this worlds’ truly god-less view of sexuality. In recognition of that fact, and to that end, a case will be made herein that sexuality has been mistreated by the church as much as by the world even to the present day, and that the church must deal comprehensively with sex positively in a theological and practical way. After outlining ways in which the contemporary culture has misused and misunderstood sex, the same treatment will be applied to the church. After that, a brief overview of the important recurring themes in the emergent sexual theology of contemporary orthodoxy will be given, and in conclusion there will be comments from the author on the ecclesial nature of Christian sexuality. This paper will not attempt an exhaustive account of human sexuality or try to pursue every implication hinted at to its fullest extent as that is not within the scope of this paper. Inasmuch as the author approaches each of these topics, it is with the realization that they each deserve comprehensive treatment in themselves, and can only be sketched briefly within the practical constraints of this paper.
By way of introduction it must be said that as Creatures of the sixth day, we know we lead an incarnated existence, sharing with our fellow creatures of the earth the natural aspects and trappings of biological life, including genital sexuality, but as the Image-Bearers of God we also are made to look to the endless seventh day, and He who rests and dwells there, for our ways and means in that biological life. This recognition of our super/natural life and meaning is the source of any Christian understanding of human sexuality.
The Church and the World on Sex: Two Sides of the Same Coin
If the world has lifted sex to the heights of Heaven and expected Heaven of it, then the Church has historically pushed it down to Hell and is now catching Hell for doing so. First we shall deal with the world, as its sin is obvious, then the Church’s as its sin is shrouded in much holy apparel. The fact that sex can be powerfully constructive or destructive psychologically, spiritually meaningful/meaningless on the deepest human level, and not least immensely pleasurable has obscured the truth from both Church and World in different ways, and must be dealt with accordingly.
The contemporary culture, (defined as those contemporary systems of thought and cultural sentiment which do not find their philosophical basis in the moral monotheism of the Bible, and lead to a less-than-fully ‘human’ account of our sexuality) has taken man from his proper place at the pinnacle of God’s created order, and reduced him to a merely biological being. As the culture has done this, it has also discarded God as both the source and goal of human life, and more to the point the source and ‘goal’ of human sexuality. In so doing they have also taken sexuality and done one of two things with it: “turned it into a false infinite’ or debased it as nothing more than a commonplace biological act like eating or sleeping. This idolatrous false infinite is created by the transcendence physiologically and experientially implied by sexual union. This transcendence, while very much hinted at anecdotally, is hard to quantify. In a recent ‘phenomenological’ study, MacKnee pointed out the occurrence of ‘sacred Christian sexuality.’ In those instances intense feelings not only of personal transcendence and union between the married lovers, but a tangible sense of God’s holy, sanctifying, and accepting presence was experienced. These sexual ‘mountaintop’ experiences were by no means something manufactured on demand by the lovers involved, but were firmly set in the context of Christian orthodoxy, a functional marriage relationship, and long-term commitment (on the order of decades) and profound emotional care. These peak experiences that exceed normal sexual expectations for both believers and non-believers alike in terms of personal psychological power and numinous quality will be important later in this paper, but for now they show all the more clearly the immense power of sexuality, and give us a lens through which can be seen one of the contemporary culture’s primary misunderstanding of sexuality, sexuality as false absolute or ‘false infinite.’ In the pleasure and intimate union of the sex act, the desire of the human being for self-transcendence, for the joining with the ‘Other’ is indeed ‘hinted at’ to once again quote Yancey. Paradoxically, even though this self-transcendent power remains in sex even for those who believe in no ultimate Other in the form of YHWH, the dominant naturalist/Darwinist worldview has legitimized the cheapening of human sexuality as an animal act that is nothing more than an expedient for the sake of evolution. Ultimately, in evolutionary terms, sex is pleasurable to cause us to participate in it more often, so that we will ensure the continuation of our species. Inasmuch as the only true metaphysical concern in sex is the propagation of mankind, sex is seen as comparable to eating, sleeping, and other common bodily functions. This point is interesting inasmuch as it shows the way in which our culture participates in the unhealthy debasement of human sexuality that is a result of the naturalistic/Darwinistic account of humans sexuality. From these two extremes we can withdraw one very important observation: that neither the viewing of sex as a ‘false absolute/infinite’ or the purely naturalistic explanations of Darwinism are sufficient accounts of what it means to be a sexual human being. It is plain to see that sex is not a divinizing act in the proper and strict sense, because it is plain to see that there are a lot of humans having a lot of sex, and none of which are approaching any sort of god-hood. Nor does the fact that many people behave like animals make them animals, nor does our cultures attempt at voiding sex of meaning make it any less meaningful a force for our hurt or betterment. The power of sex is considerable, but human beings are still precisely what they are: Immanent, contingent individuals that find meaning in their singularity by being in community, and participating in transcendent acts that make their contingent singularity bearable and meaningful, transcendent acts like sex.
The Church, as counter-cultural witness to the world’s ways, means, and weltenschaung, has failed in many ways up until recently to advance a thoroughly Christian account of the meaning and value of human sexuality. It has in various times and places proscribed and (very rarely) prescribed it, but has only as of late attempted at a fully orbed structure of thought that can explain the continuing mystery, power, and created goodness of sex. Up until this point, the two primary ways in which the world conceptually misunderstands sex (from which all of its misuse, abuse, and mis-construal is derivative) has been sketched for the purpose of showing what the church must face in building a meaningful theology of sex. However before that can happen, the church’s laxity must be discussed.
Historically speaking, the Church’s theology has been informed by dualistic, Platonic thinking about sex that relegated it to the realm of the body, of the earth, of the flesh. It was considered an unfortunate necessity at best. This suspicion and rejection of sex arose from a number of circumstances that swirled around the Church in its earliest years. The licentious sexuality of the Greco-Roman culture, and the link that was seen between that civilization’s eventual downfall and its out-of-control expressions of sexuality was a compelling reason for Christians to participate in a degree of anti-sex sentiment. While a historical treatment of the Church’s understanding of sexuality and culture is beyond the scope of this paper, it is helpful to understand in brief what has taken place historically so as to make sense of the attitudes towards sex in the 21st Century amongst evangelical Christians.
Evangelicals in the 20th Century, and more specifically since the late 1970’s have had an increasingly open attitude towards the discussion of sexuality. In a break with the perceived and/or real prudery of the past, they have assimilated a standard secular mode of sexual education: the Sex Manual. Described therein are various techniques, suggested models and timelines for intercourse, and various descriptions of the respective partners’ sexual responses. While DeRogatis is somewhat critical of the broad categories and generalizations made by the conservative/Protestant evangelicals, and applies a feminist critique of the language and substance used in these manuals, she does nonetheless point out their respective similarities. The aspect most important in DeRogatis’ treatment of these “Evagelical Sex Manuals” as she called them, is that they create a strong conceptual link between Scripture, the Protestant understanding of the inherent goodness of Creation, and the acceptance of heterosexual, monogamous, married sexuality as a gift from God. While there is room for critique of the presuppositions about gender roles that are consciously and unconsciously manifested in these books, it does provide an insight into the historical-cultural progression of the sexual attitudes of contemporary evangelicals. This progression of mores and the evangelical subculture’s assumptions will be the departure point for the next part of the discussion.
The evangelical movement in the 20th Century began to part ways with prudery as early as the 1930’s in its attitudes towards married sexuality and more importantly towards the education of married couples for the purpose of marital sexual fulfillment. This stage of initial concurrence in the early to mid-20th Century between the ‘norms’ of the larger society as evidenced by the similarity of Christian sex manuals and education to secular sex manuals and education was soon disturbed by the development in Christian thought of sex not being just ‘permitted’ for the purpose of the control of lust and promiscuity outside the marriage bond, but by it being altogether positive in terms of its ability to unify and bring ‘one-fleshness’ to the marriage partners. With the recent proliferation of Christian sex manuals since 1980, it can now be seen that the evangelical subculture is beginning to take sex not simply as ‘take it or leave it’ sort of matter, but one of great importance, not only for its moral implications (both inside and outside of marriage) but for the way in which Christians are sexual. DeRogatis’ observes that mutually satisfying, unifying, and intimate sex for married Christians is beginning to take on an aspect of witness. The fact that Christians can tout higher levels of satisfaction and fulfillment in marriage is seen as proof of the validity of the institution of Christian marriage itself. While in some ways, this might be an effective advertisement for the relative superiority of being a Christian in a sexualized culture such as ours, it also places the foundation for the value of Christian marriage on shaky ground, inasmuch as sexual dysfunction, poor health, or simple marital discord can oftentimes be detrimental to short or long term sexual fulfillment in marriage. That being said, it seems that regardless if the participants are always in a state of ‘personal fulfillment’ the value of being a Christian in marriage, as well as the value of Christian marriage respectively both remain regardless of their level of ‘sexual success.’
Historically, this movement from prudery to progress has seemed to proceed from a general disgust/distrust with sex (as caricatured at the beginning of this paper in the ascetic, Greek philosophy-influenced Christianity that informed much of the Church’s official thinking up until the time of Luther) to the ambivalent ‘sex as not bad, but morally and spiritually neutral at best’ model illustrated in the sex manuals of mid-20th Century conservative Protestants and Evangelicals. From there we see the current stage of Christian thought on sex as actually positive, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. Currently, sex is viewed as spiritual and positive in the personal sense, inasmuch as it builds unity and accord between the partners. In the public sense, Christian sexuality is still viewed as not precisely spiritual in the theological sense, but spiritual inasmuch as it can be harnessed to the concept of ‘witness.’ Christian sexuality is viewed as an act of ‘witness’ in the popular sense when it garners more of the World’s desired results (numbers of orgasms, amount of personal fulfillment, etc) while reaching those results in an altogether ‘Christian’ manner. This is useful if one’s paradigm for witness is selling the Gospel, or making the Christian life (and Christian marriage) an attractive path leading to greater worldly happiness and pleasure, but as mentioned before, this puts the institution of Christian marriage as well as our corporate witness on shaky ground. Christian marriage ought to include meaningful and satisfying sex, but this is certainly not everything that ought to appeal about it! To reduce its ‘value in the world’s eyes’ to simply getting more of what the world is after is to miss the fact that Christian marriage is fundamentally not participated in for the same reasons as ‘wordly’ marriages are, as will be discussed later.
This reduction of Christian sexuality to a one dimensional expression of the Church’s witness should be a clarion call to the academic theological community that it is time to construct a positive theology of sexuality that moves beyond the mere vagaries of pop culture and its churchly imitators into an understanding of sexuality as an important and vital part of God’s created intention for humanity and not merely a simplistic attitude of “sex is for marriage.” While sex is certainly not less than this, it is so much more, and that will be the task of the concluding section of this paper, showing the innovative and powerful directions that some pastors, mental health professionals, as well as theologians proper are taking human sexuality.
It has been said that all of Western Philosophy is an extended footnote to Plato, and when it comes to contemporary theology, much of the 20th and now it seems the newborn 21st Century will in some way find itself derivative or referential in relationship to arguably the greatest of the 20th Century theologians, Karl Barth. Barth held that at its core human gendered-ness was a statement by God about Himself. In the Genesis passages that indicate Adam’s sense of ‘having no one suitable for him’ as a partner (prior to Eve that is!) as well the Pauline texts that speak of the couple becoming one flesh, Barth saw that the separation between the sexes indicated not only profound sense of difference, but also an inherent desire for one another, a profound sense of need and longing for the ‘other. ‘
“In our attraction-in-difference is reflected the difference-in-relation in the Trinitarian God.” Hereupon is where we encounter eros as a theological category. While eros is never spoken of in the New Testament, it is clearly seen that theologically speaking that the various models of Christ relationship to the Church as His ‘bride’ indicate a level of ‘erotic’ desire for the ‘other.’ As it was in Graham Ward’s article, eros is herein defined as the kenotic emptying of oneself to another, a joining of oneself to another for their (the others) own sake. This ‘erotic’ desire for the “Other” goes both directions, from Christ to the Church, and from the Church to Christ. It is this “I and Thou” relationship that is seen modeled in human sexuality. While Ward does make some theological moves that are unsettling, removing the basis of male and female en-gendering from its biological and historical location in the respective sexes, placing them purely in ‘relational’ contexts (the basis whereupon later in his article, he will begin to defend homosexuality) his analysis of Barth on this point is not only insightful, but makes plain much of what Barth is expressing.
The ‘otherness that desires togetherness’- that is the watchword of human sexuality, once again to quote Wards’ analysis of Barth, “-their vocation as male and female is to be for the other, a vocation that is divine and there communicated through the Spirit; and their desire for each other. The sexual difference is a theological difference…The Church then occupies a space in which the dualism of agape and eros, kenotic and possessive desire, is deconstructed. The agapaic enables the proper realization of the erotic (the completion of the couple, their incorporation) and stands in tension to the more general self-giving of one to another in the community.” From this Barthian foundation, we see not only his foresight and prescience of vision in terms of his theology of sexuality, but also the basis for much of the positive theological analysis that is happening in our own time.
In this Barthian notion of erotic sexuality as desire for the unity with and giving of oneself to another we find a starting point from which, consciously or unconsciously, most contemporary theological thought concerning sexuality springs. In the concluding pages of this paper several derivative themes that are found initially in Barth will be briefly sketched out, with some concluding thoughts on the ecclesiological character of Christian sexuality.
Sex as Sacrament
It is interesting to see this interplay of differing opinions on this particular idea from amongst the authors culled for this paper. The rather more conservative journal includes an article that speaks the most sacredly about sex, implying that God’s presence and graceful blessing are present and wrapped up in the sex act in some way for married believers. “Each contributor knew, beyond a doubt, that God was present with him or her as sexual intimacy was taking place…God’s presence during profound sexual intimacy provoked heightened feelings of physical and emotional responsiveness.” However, Ward, who gave the aforementioned critique and analysis of Barth, (not to mention a very positive account of homosexuality) gave ‘sacramental sex’ very short shrift in his introduction, “I do not believe orgasm and revelation are the same things or two forms of similar self-transcendence.” Instead seeing human eroticism purely as a model from which he wanted to “construct a theology of desire, God’s desire for me (a desire which is prerequisite for any doctrine of election and hence redemption) and my desire for God.” In this author’s opinion, either approach is a way forward because they seem to be two sides of the same coin. If sacrament is the practical participation in and impartation of God’s grace and presence through immanent-physical means (the consuming of bread and wine, the baptism of water) than both approaches are sacramental in their own way. MacKnee’s phenomenological approach locates a tangible, almost ‘charismatic’ presence of God accompanying and bound up with the sexual union in marriage. In the ‘reverse engineering’ that Ward seems to use when constructing his “Erotics of Redemption” the sex act is at least symbolic if not participatory in God’s graceful presence and unity with humanity. In many ways, this fits under the rubric of Ephesians 5:21-33. There is to be mutual service and love between the partners in marriage, each considering the other before his or her self. Moreover, if we are to take Inspiration seriously we ought to take as meaningful the fact that Paul’s chosen metaphor for Christ’s relationship with the Church is marriage! Whether God manifests himself sacramentally in the sex act tangibly or symbolically, it is not to be dismissed flippantly.


Gendered-ness and Sexuality as “I-Thou” Relationship
Genesis 2:18 puts forth that God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, and so created for him a partner suitable for him, much to Adam’s delight! (Genesis 2:23-24) However it was surely not unknown to God that Adam would be lonesome in this state, and would require someone else to complete Him. From these two verses, the first pointing out the incompleteness of one sex without the other, and the second shedding light on the pleasure, rejoicing, and the sheer ‘giftedness’ of the first two humans to one another, we see a model of how God relates to the Church, to the World, and to the individual. “God also created sexuality with male and female becoming one flesh. This is His ultimate Love Story that we retell in our love stories, Christ and the Bride throughout eternity…we experience deep longing and feelings of being incomplete which can only by fulfilled by union with God. He created within man and woman a desire for each other and intimate completion that mirrors our need for Him.”
In this it plain to see that we (all of the respective individual “I’s” to the great single “Thou” of God) were made for the Other, the Thou. We were made to clearly understand our incompleteness, made manifest in our sense of loneliness and longing for a partner in life; that realization of incompleteness was intended to make obvious our need and indeed our created purpose of relationship with God. This understanding of the individual as one made and intended for the other, be they human or divine militates not only against any sort of radical individualism that would separate itself from God in an attempt at freedom and independence, but more directly against homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a seeking of the Other, the Altogether Separate, the Different, as the seeking of male and female for one another, or God and man for one another is. Homosexuality is the avoidance of risk, it is the seeking of the Self, the Same in the Other. It is sin manifestly because it represents metaphorically the human search for Self as Source of Ultimate Meaning and Completion instead of the search for those things in the Ultimate Other, the Eternal Thou, God. That being said, a loving, forgiving, and serving attitude towards homosexuals (their sin is no uglier than mine!) is certainly in order.
Ecclesiology and Sexuality: A Re-interpretation of Sex as Witness
Early in this paper mention was made of evangelicalism trying to use ‘successful’ sexuality as a selling point for the Gospel. This author argued against that because in the end the Church, it seems, is trying to ‘sell’ the Gospel to people on account of its ability to deliver greater earthly goods to them. (“Become a Christian, and you too will have more frequent, and more fulfilling sex!”) The difficulty with this is not that it is necessarily untrue, many studies seem to show that it is indeed true actually. It is the use of ‘successful’ sexuality as an enticement that allows those who have a sexual failure, moral failure, or who simply do not enjoy the relatively ‘good’ sex lives other couples do to de-legitimize the Gospel in their own lives and corporately. These are the dangers in trying to ‘market’ the Gospel to people in terms of its worldly benefits: The Gospel only very indirectly offers worldly goods as rewards for the Christian life if at all, and all the more importantly it misses the true significance of sex for the Christian marriage. In the light of the Gospel not promising phenomenal sex and ecstatic marriage experiences as commonplace for the Christian believer, what does the Gospel have to say about the way in which Christians are sexual? Here we arrive at the conclusion of the matter: it is not altogether central that Christians have more frequent and more enjoyable sex (though it seems that they indeed do…) or that they reject sex as dirty or a necessary evil (as did the church for a very long time) or that they indulge in it as if was devoid of meaning or invest too much power and meaning into it, rendering it an idol (the two common mistakes of the world) but that the reasons and ways, and the means and ends in which the Christian community uses sex for its proper ends are altogether good, and lead to human flourishing in the Christian community.. Speaking apophatically, we can name what Christian sexuality is not, and proclaim a witness from within that. Christian sexuality is not self-seeking, it is not damaging, it does not destroy intimate bonds, it does not break trust between its participants. To speak positively, it is restorative, refreshing and constructive; it is the modeling of God’s Other-ness, the unveiling of the mysterious bond between Christ and His Church, and it is the establishment of a bond in marriage. It is these things that allow the Church to consider sex a matter of witness. With these things in mind we must approach our sexuality both privately and corporately in the body of Christ.