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Monday, March 3, 2008

Conservatives have a point

Conservatives seem to get up the noses of many people in the church. I am not sure why, really, because church by definition is conservative - believing the same truth for millennia, believing only God has the power to make changes that really matter. But conservatives might have a point - don't you know! Take the issue of human sexuality where conservatives' 'marriage or singleness' ethic gets up the noses of many because its inflexible, out of step with society, unloving, etc.

But conservatives are unclear what criticism of this ethic is about. Is it purely about homosexuality and a less restrictive ethic re same sex partnerships or is it about a general ethic of sexual freedom? It would help to know. Take, as an example, a phenomenon in our society which is becoming more public about its existence: polyamory (couples extending to inclusion of one or more people in their relationship), which has featured not once but twice in The Press (Christchurch, NZ) of late. Check the latest article.

If critics of a conservative Christian sexual ethic do not wish to include acceptance of polyamory in the revised sexual ethic they would like the church to adopt, it would be good to know this, and even better to know on what grounds they would reject polyamory.

The sneaking conservative suspicion is that once the Bible is set aside as a relevant text in the discussion of homosexuality it becomes an irrelevant text fullstop in the dicussion of sexual ethics!

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