Q.
Does the Bible call for sexual purity?
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Christian Piatt
A.
Is there anything in the Christian faith today more loaded than
discussions about sexual morality? One reason so much energy
is invested in dissecting this issue is because sex is powerful. Not
only can it create life; it can also tear lives apart. It can bring people together in
a way that nothing else can, and it can also drive a permanent wedge between
them.
In addition to the incredible power that sex has, it holds almost an equal
amount of shame. On the one hand, we talk about sex being normal and natu-
ral, but then when we talk about it at all in a faith context it’s usually about all
the bad stuff!
People have argued—and will continue to argue—about the bounds of
the sexual morality called for in scripture. For me, the one guiding principle is
found in Jesus’ so-called Greatest Commandment. In it, he calls us all to love
one another, to love ourselves, and to love God with all of our being. If we fol-
low those rules for our choices throughout life, chances are that the sexuality
we express will be one fi tting for a God-created being.Jarrod McKenna
A.
Around the turn of the third century, Tertullian said of the early
church, “All things in common among us but our wives.” Today,
the church often just refl ects a society that holds nothing in com-
mon except former sexual partners. Free-market spiritualities discipline our
desires and disciple our hearts with every ad and commercial in free-market
sexualities. How we relate to each other and our own bodies is revealed in
how we relate to the land. Our cultures are immersed in economic systems
whose only relationship to the land is exploitative, disconnected, and focused
on short-term profi ts without any attention to long-term consequences.
Our identities as creatures who are inextricably tied in the web of God’s
good creation have been replaced by identities as consumers tied into eco-
nomic empires of exploitation. It is in this context that any talk of “sexual
purity” must move beyond legalistic repression or reactionary license for
transgression, and must hear Jesus’ grace-fi lled invitation.
In Christ, heaven has begun to fl ood the earth, and those healing and
humanizing waters of God’s very presence long to engulf our sexualities
regardless of our orientation. Our powerful sexual energies are like electricity.
Unfocused, they contain a voltage that can lead to death, but when harnessed
can create light (and life!).
The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “Place upon your passions
the bride of love.” Sexual purity is not the equivalent to a libido blackout;