Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Reuniting Sexuality and Spirituality

Published by

Matt Stone

2006-11-15

I came across a very thought provoking article by James B. Nelson entitled, Reuniting Sexuality and Spirituality, which I thought I’d share. In it he points to seven important shifts that have started to emerge in Christian theology the wake of the sexual revolution.

There has been a shift from theologies of sexuality to sexual theologies.
There has been a shift from understanding sexuality as either incidental to or detrimental to the experience of God toward understanding sexuality as intrinsic to the divine-human experience.
There has been a shift from understanding sexual sin as a matter of wrong sexual acts to understanding sexual sin as alienation from our intended sexuality.
There has been a shift from understanding salvation as antisexual to knowing that there is “sexual salvation.
There has been a shift from an act-centered sexual ethics to a relational sexual ethics.
There has been a shift from understanding the church as asexual to understanding it as a sexual community.
There has been a shift from understanding sexuality as a private issue to understanding it as a personal and public one.

I found this to be a good synopsis of the ground we need to cover and found his first point particularly intruiging. As he says, it’s one thing to ask “What does Christianity … say about sexuality?” It is quite another to ask “What does our experience of human sexuality say about our perceptions of faith.” I have been involved in many conversations on general revelation in relation to the natural world and other religions; not so much in relation to sexuality though. This gives me much to ponder.

Tags Sexuality

4 responses to “Reuniting Sexuality and Spirituality”

Sun Warrior

2006-11-16

Very interesting shifts, Matt.
Sex is a massive civilized issue. It is about controlling the creation of life with our limited understanding of reality. Do we control it, or is our control over it the problem?
Hopefully, one day, most Christians will feel confident enough to stand up and pray in the nude. Good to get the ‘shame’ issue taken care of. If we don’t feel comfortable naked in front of God, no wonder we have ‘issues’ with everyone else being naked too. Truth and Life. Still makes most feel uncomfortable.

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Matt Stone

2006-11-16

Sun Warrior. LOL, yes you’ve exposed my greatest weakness. Though I am an enthusiastic advocate of cultural contextualization there are depths for which even I am not ready for. Sky clad worship ranks most highly. I have however met a pastor from Nimbin who assures me he once attended a Confest (an alternative festival in Australia) wearing nothing but mud and the words ‘Jesus loves you’ inscribed on his chest, whereupon he was warmly welcomed into the fold. Your kind of guy?

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sally

2006-11-16

The mind boggles Matt…
good post tho, I pinched a bit of it and linked through, I guess there are hugge issues for us to tackle as far as being in our comfort zones goes!
There is a need to establish a holistic spirituality which will include sexuality and require us to quit being so ridiculous about body image! Challenging indeed, but I’m not ready for the mud just yet!

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Paul Fromont

2006-11-17

Thanks Matt. I’ve had reason to reflect and write on this subject recently – “A Male Spirituality?” I have a post going up tomorrow (Sat)that will interest you…Have a great day.

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