A Time to Be Transformed
Christianity has a positive message about human sexuality – from Genesis through the Song of Solomon to the medieval mystics and contemporary theologians. And that message is connected to God’s desire for creation.
So, what does God desire for creation?
God wants creation to have what God has — ecstatic fellowship — loving relationship of all the creation with each other and with God.
“The risen Christ conveys hope that transforms our present life, and erotic love at its best turns upon episodes of transformation.” – James McClendon in Systematic Theology: Ethics
Many theologians agree that sexuality and spirituality are intimately connected. In sexuality our intimacy is the most mutual. As the most powerful human experience of ecstatic fellowship, sexual love is a window into God’s desire for creation.
Why? Because we are outside of ourselves, caring for and valuing another person completely and wholly, at the same time that we are being cared for and valued as complete and whole persons.
“For many persons, their primary experience of inclusive love, of openness to another, of being accepted and enhanced, of being empowered by love to reach out in love to other, is sexual.”
– Christine Gudorf in Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics
Consider what happens in these moments. We are transformed, created anew, redeemed and healed, sustained and comforted — all of these are functions of the divinity. In this experience we can learn what God really desires for creation.
Contrary to Christianity’s positive message about human sexuality, many of us have taken on shame and guilt about our bodies, about sex, and about our sexuality. This shame and guilt are rooted in one strain of Christian teaching that repressed and hid the body and sex and considered discussion of such to be inappropriate.
Yet, Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition liberate us from those mistaken teachings and free us to understand that our erotic love for one another is a practice of our Christian spirituality.
The Christian story tells us that we are created and redeemed in our bodies. God has delighted in our bodies, so should we. In our most intimate relationship, we find bodily delight.
Our sexuality can be rooted in the Christian story!
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. – Colossians 3:12-15
