A Short Essay on Sexual Theology     

Introduction

“In the beginning. . .” everything God made was “very good” and, as Christians, we recognise and assert that everything God makes is good.  We are in awe of the Psalmist’s “wonderfully and fearfully made” human being, divinely constructed and loved by God, and redeemed at a price through Christ, revealing the unique solidarity between himself and humankind.  It is odd therefore, that for a people confessing an all holy, unconditionally loving and wholly creative God who made us, there seems so little positive and celebratory sexual theology.  Rather, the body appears to be seen as carnal and ‘bad’, while the spirit is perceived as transcendent and ‘good.’ It is a duality view initially based on Paul’s writing, for example, “. . . the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh” (Gal 5 : 17); and expounded by early Christian thinkers such as Augustine: ‘So my two wills, one old, the other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, were in conflict with one another. . .’

In recent decades, theologians and anthropologists have begun questioning traditional concepts of Christian understanding of sexuality, considering whether such negative regard for the human body and its functionalities has validity today.  The purpose of this essay is to look at some of the aspects of this and to consider a few key points raised by three theologians and their respective works: Rowan Williams, The Body’s Grace; James Nelson, Embodiment; and Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel, I Am My Body.

In the light of Old Testament emphasis of the goodness of Creation and the Second Testament’s focus on God’s solidarity with humanity via the Incarnation, Christian theology concerning the human body and sexuality should be entirely positive.  Unfortunately, quite the opposite is true, with a large proportion of Christian theology regarding the body’s, physicalities, desires and functions as separate from – and consequently less significant than – the essential person.  The body seems to be only grudgingly perceived as redeemable by God’s grace, while the spirit is considered transcendent and therefore closer to God.  This ‘double standard’ reveals a warped theology in dire need of review, so it is appropriate to raise questions such as what is the positive significance of our physical bodies in Christian theology?  And how should the contemporary church incorporate the dynamics of Biblical embodiment in its teaching about Christian living? 

A theological focus on embodiment brings back into perspective Christianity’s distinctive characteristic of God’s taking on flesh and thus confirming and healing the body’s nature.  As Moltmann-Wendel  notes, ‘This was a scandal in the religions of the ancient world – and is an unresolved challenge in the present world.’  In taking embodiment as a central a theme of Christianity we move away from a Western Augustinian theology that begins with the Fall and its affects rather than Creation and God’s pleasure in his creation.  Embodiment recognises the destructive tendencies in human beings, viewing conflict and hostility as the inability to relate fully or understand the need for relationship between human beings or between humans and their environment; without negating the problem of sin, which is seen as something to be clearly identified and dealt with.  Moltmann-Wendel emphasises the need for a holistic theology in order to fully appreciate human embodied existence in the same way the incarnate God in Christ is appreciated.  Certainly the second person of the Trinity becoming flesh is a reflection of God’s significant regard for us in our embodiment and not something to be neglected.

As human beings we experience physicality within the time and space of a physical world, and it is in understanding our bodies’ limitations and possibilities that we come to know and understand the world.  Because of this, our view of other people, events and the world will be as clear or distorted as our perception of ourselves.  Nelson comments, ‘If in a false spiritualisation of my selfhood I deny my embodiedness, I will also tend to minimise the personal significance of activities which I carry on through my body [and] my relationships to other body-selves are diminished in their personal meanings.’  Entrenched ideas concerning things like security and dirtiness affect the way we regard our bodies and environment, thus bodily boundaries become important to us and we may become anxious when we perceive them to be crossed.  In short, our world-view corresponds to our perception of the body and our view of the body corresponds to our world-view in relation to its cultural, political and religious dictates.