Is the Christian Sexual Ethic Harmful? (1/5)
As I mentioned in my last post, my family and I have finally made it to Louisville, Kentucky where I am pursuing doctoral studies at Southern Seminary and gospel ministry among College Students at the University of Louisville (U of L).
One thing you may not know about U of L is that it has been given a five out of five star rating by the Campus Pride Index, an online tool designed to measure the commitment level of institutions of higher learning concerning policies, programs and practices that are LGBTQ+ inclusive and affirming.[1] This commitment is seen at U of L in the presence of a thriving LGBT Center on Campus and in that U of L is the first school in the country to endow a chair in LGBT studies—a position currently held by Professor Kaila Story.[2] I am grateful that students who belong to the LGBTQ+ community feel welcome at U of L.
Presently, I am not well known by anyone on campus—aside from some of the delightful, Jesus-loving students and staff of a campus ministry known as Ignite the Ville. But I wonder what the LGBTQ+ community would feel about the presence of a rather traditional evangelical Christian like me on campus. And though the promotion of a Christian sexual ethic isn’t really the focus of my ministry, still some concerned persons might ask: “Isn’t the Christian sexual ethic harmful for LGBTQ+ persons?” This is an important issue!
Doesn’t the Christian sexual ethic…
…ask LGBTQ+ persons to deny who they are?
…tell them to deny themselves love?
…leave them vulnerable to suicidality?
…promote intolerance and incite violence?
I want to dedicate the next several posts to these legitimate and pressing questions. I don’t expect those of you who have stumbled upon these posts to necessarily agree with me, but I do hope you will hear me out. I also invite you to contact me with any concerns you may have with anything that I say, especially if you are part of the U of L community. I would love to know your concerns and your own personal story…preferably over lunch…my treat =)
Here is my claim: The Christian sexual ethic is not harmful to LGBTQ+ persons, rather it is an invitation to all people to submit themselves to a loving God who created them to reflect his triune nature and the glory of the gospel.
I hope to support this claim in my next several posts. But before we get too deep into these waters, it is important for us to be on the same page regarding what the Christian sexual ethic is.
MERE SEXUALITY: THE CHRISTIAN SEXUAL ETHIC
The rest of this post will give us a brief outline of what Todd Williams (Co-Founder and President of the Center for Pastor Theologians) calls “mere sexuality”—the historic, orthodox Christian sexual ethic held by the majority of Christians everywhere throughout Church history.[3]
There are at least three aspects to a Christian sexual ethic:
1. Human beings were created by God with physical bodies that are sexually differentiated as male and female (Gen. 1:27)
The Church’s proclamation of Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection—as well as the future resurrection of all people—demonstrate that our physically sexed bodies are a significant feature in Christian theology regarding what it means to be a human.[4] The Church’s belief in the bodily ascension of Christ into heaven is perhaps the ultimate Christian affirmation of our physical bodies.[5]
We all experience the world as sexed embodied creatures, and we can scarcely imagine our lives apart from this reality. And so, contrary to both current and ancient anti-body proposals, we are not souls trapped in a body or ghosts driving a machine.[6] Our sexed bodies are not merely instruments to carry out our will; they are part of who we are. This material component of our identity is given to us independent of our thoughts or feelings about it.[7]
2. Our sexed bodies play a significant role in the institution known as marriage where one man and one woman come together as “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24)—the comprehensive union of mind, heart and sexually complementary bodies in the context of a life-long covenant commitment between husband and wife.
Regarding this “one flesh” union, Germain Grisez has written:
“Though a male and a female are complete individuals with respect to other functions—for example, nutrition, sensation, and locomotion—with respect to reproduction they are only potential parts of a mated pair, which is the complete organism capable of reproducing sexually. Even if the mated pair is sterile, intercourse, provided it is the reproductive behavior characteristic of the species, makes the copulating male and female one organism.”[8]
If this is true—and I think it is—then sex is more than merely pleasurable; it is an act designed for a “unitive and procreative purpose.” [9] And this leads us to the final aspect of Christian sexual ethics.
3. Any type of sexual behavior outside of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman falls short of God’s design for sex and is therefore wrong.
This understanding assumes a teleological view of nature—one that sees purpose and meaning behind the structures of our physical realities, including the physical reality of our body. Christians believe that the purpose and meaning inherent in the physical structures of reality suggests a divine designer. Christians also believe that though the world is fallen, these traces of divine purpose embedded in the physical world ought to be regarded as sacred and not gone against as they reveal the divine designer’s purposes and character (see Ps. 19:1, and Rom. 1:20).[10]
These three propositions make up what the church has historically upheld as a Christian sexual ethic. They are grounded in descriptions of the creative order found in the early passages of Genesis (Gen. 1:26f; 2:24)—texts central to Jesus’ own understanding of sexual ethics (Matt. 19:4f). This brief post does not give us all that could be said on the subject, but I hope it provides a good starting point to help us think about the central claim I am making in this series of posts: The Christian sexual ethic is not harmful to LGBTQ+ persons, rather it is an invitation to all people to submit themselves to a loving God who created them to reflect his triune nature and the glory of the gospel.
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[1] https://www.campusprideindex.org/campuses/details/492?campus=university-of-louisville
[3] See Todd Williams, “Mere Sexuality: The Church’s Historic Position” in Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues, ed. Joshua D. Chatraw & Karen Swallow Prior (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 68.
[4] See Preston Sprinkle, Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church & What the Bible has to Say (Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2021), 72-77.
[5] Nancey R. Pearcey, Love thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2018), 37.
[6] Pearcey, Love thy Body, 35-36.
[7] See Robert P. George, “Transgenderism, ‘Marriage Equality,’ and Liberalism’s Tragic Error” in Conscience and its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2013), 167-175.
[8] As cited in Robert P. George, “What Marriage Is—and What It Isn’t” in Conscience and its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2016), 137.
[9] Williams, Mere Sexuality, 71.
[10] Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 20-24.