According to Nelson, bodily meanings and sexual orientation, while rooted initially in genetics, entail ‘a social learning process through which we come to affirm certain sexual meanings in our interaction with significant others.’  He therefore suggests that a symbolic interactionist interpretation of sexuality complements Christian sexual theology, because it is compatible with major biblical perspectives on human nature.  In traditional biblical thought, human nature is not static but rather, it is dynamic, unfolding and developing.  Groups and institutions convey sexual meanings to us, including the family, church, legal system, medical world, and the advertising industry.  Communities exist through shared symbols, language, communication, and meanings, which are the essence of human sexuality and reflects our need for communion with one another.  As a community of faith expressing the grace of God, the church is relied upon to teach those sexual meanings consistent with Christian living.  At the same time, being a community seeking truth and transformation, the church must be open to fresh experiences of God’s presence and interaction in all areas of life, including sexuality.  In this sense, a symbolic interactionist approach is a useful tool for the church. 

At its heart, sexuality is the desire for and expression of communion, of the self with others and with God.  Accepting the wholly ‘otherness’ of God and therefore the human capacity to transcend the self to be in relationship with the divine, it is important to acknowledge and celebrate the sexual dimension in our relationship with God and recognise the unique and deep intimacy experienced between the (loved) human being and the (loving) God.  A failure to look beyond the dichotomy of finite humanity and infinite divinity, ‘results in the fading of an experiential awareness of divine immanence [and] when immanence fades, even God's transcendence becomes less real,’ comments Nelson.  In short, God becomes less realistic to us as does the possibility of an authentic relationship with Him.  Where sexual communion is authentic between partners, mutual giving and receiving exist without blurring individual uniqueness or creative differences.  Therefore, sexual communion reflects communion with God, indeed it is this depth of nurture that reveals the reality of the closeness of God in sexual communion and all other integral human experiences where growth, respect and wholeness become both the goal and the outcome.

Conclusion

Christian faith is an incarnational faith and God is uniquely made known through human presence and interaction, in particular when we express the grace and teaching of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate One.  Consequently, body language provides the building blocks of Christian theology and our sexuality is basic to our capacity to know and to experience God.  Sexuality is therefore too important to be relegated to a mere sub-heading within Christian ethics.  We need to continue asking what Christian theology has to say about the sexual body regarding sin, salvation and holy living, and pursue an understanding of what it means for us as embodied beings to participate wholly in the reality of God.  As Moltmann-Wendel concludes, ‘. . . our bodily life represents God’s life on this earth [and] the beginning and end of all God’s work is embodiment.’  In terms of conversation, the church manages to speak seriously and mindfully concerning the social impact of politics, economics, materialism, and most aspects of human societal living.  It is high time sexual theology was given the time and space it so crucially requires for an embodied people who love and serve an embodied God.

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Bibliography

Augustine, Confessions. [Trans Henry Chadwick],Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford, 2008.
Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age.  Fortress Publications, Philadelphia, 1987. 
Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel, I Am My Body.  From: Theological Aesthetics, A Reader [Ed. Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen], William B Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, 2004.
James Nelson, Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology.  Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, 1979.  
Rowan Williams, The Body’s Grace (A paper produced for The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, 1989).  Archived on www.igreens.org.uk
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