A New Christian Sexual Ethic
Debates over questions of polyamory, non-monogamy, and open relationships already shows signs of getting stuck in the historical and false dichotomy of licentiousness or celibacy, which has plagued theology since the early days of the church.
Questions about masturbation, birth control, premarital sex, homosexuality, nonbinary gender, and even open relationships need more than the unsupportable claim that “The Bible says it’s sinful”… because time after time the evidence does not support the mainstream conclusions. All these things can be sinful, and so can married, heterosexual, reproductive sex. The Biblical teaching about sexual sin does not draw the same lines as the dominant Christian traditions – whether conservative or liberal.
We cannot just dismiss the problem of sexual sin. It just looks completely different than what I expected when I set out to study it!
https://youtube.com/shorts/ElgKMuJJOag?feature=share Check out this video on YouTube…and send me a message if you want the full teaching. This is what we miss by translating the word porneia as fornication…and it’s the reason why I wrote a whole book on the topic.
Jesus reinterpreted Old Testament teachings on divorce, claiming it was not intended in the original divine plan. He taught that unless a wife had acted immorally (porneia), divorcing her was tantamount to adultery. Therefore, marriage should not be dissolved arbitrarily, as was common in those times. His teachings marked a significant shift in viewing divorce as a breach of covenant, thus equalizing the relational responsibility of men and women. This concept and its implications call for deeper investigation.
A life of wisdom calls us to understand why we make the moral and ethical decisions that we do…and be able to explain it to others.
Here are some of the complicated issues we have to address in order to do this successfully: