The book is: Covenant and Calling: towards a theology of same-sex relationships
Part One of the Review is here.
Part Two of the Review [
The last part of the last sentence by Ian Paul reads, 'what we are left with is a lucid, elegant and powerful theological case for retaining much of the church’s current teaching on the nature of marriage.'
7 comments:
"Rejecting treatments of the Bible which concentrate on a small number of well-rehearsed texts on same-sex relationships to the exclusion of the Bible's overarching narrative, this book provides a fresh interpretation of the Christian tradition and defends a vision of the church which embraces a plurality of callings, to marriage, celibacy, and covenant partnership." - commentary -
That sounds pretty wholesome to me, Peter. Openness to new insights of what Scripture has to say overall - not just in the pericope that happen to support our own conservative cultural view of biblical 'certainty'."Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" - as I was always taught. My main inspiration comes from the deeds and words of Jesus, himself.
"Covenant relationships clearly do not have to be sexually differentiated, and we find examples of them in scripture, such as between David and Jonathan. But could they be sexual? It seems clear that procreation is not the only purpose of sexual activity; we see in Genesis 2 the language of ‘union’ and in the Song of Songs sex as an expression and fulfilment of desire."
- commentary by Ian Paul -
Clearly, from the evidence in the Song of Songs, procreation was not the only purpose of heterosexual sex.
Marriages, even in the Roman Catholic Church nowadays, are not confined to a couple capable of producing children.
What is really at issue here is the question as to whether sexual activity should always be directed to the purpose of procreation. If it were, then surely the One who makes the rules would have ensured that heterosexual sex would always be fruitful in this way!
One wonders whether every proponent of sex for procreation-only in these arguments, can swear that this has always been their own pure intention for sexual congress with their spouse?
Certainly, this could not be said of people using contraception.
Hi Ron
Have you read all that Ian Paul wrote about sex-for-procreation and sex-not-for-procreation?
My reading does not accord with the critique you bring to bear here.
I have not read 'all' that Ian Paul has ever written about sex, Peter. However, that which I have read - and particularly that which I have quoted - would seem to justify my comment.
Hi Ron
In his second post Ian Paul tackles the question you raise with this:
"So when Song draws the line of demarcation between procreative and non-procreative relationships, he is doing so over an already existing demarcation between sexual and non-sexual relationships. This means he is creating not two but three categories: non-procreative non-sexual relationships; procreative sexual relationships; and the middle category of non-procreative sexual relationships. Since Scripture locates sex as pleasure and sex as union firmly in the second area, and these relationships are heterosexual, Song is left without any clear justification for why the third area might include same-sex relationships—other than reasons he himself has previously ruled out. If the theological logic of NT eschatology has led Paul and Jesus to see celibacy as an appropriate alternative to marriage, rather than sexual, same-sex covenant relationships, what has changed at the level of theology which would lead us to come to a different conclusion?"
" If the theological logic of NT eschatology has led Paul and Jesus to see celibacy as an appropriate alternative to marriage, rather than sexual, same-sex covenant relationships, what has changed at the level of theology which would lead us to come to a different conclusion?
- Dr. Peter Carrell -
Are not new paradigms of New Testament eschatology being enunciated - even as we talk about this subject, Peter? As far as 'what has changed at the level of theology?', I guess you could say that this is praxis in process. Current arguments are being made by theologians from the more liberal Churches as we blog. I could suggest, for instance the writings of Fr. Tobias Haller.
Mind you. I guess decades will have to pass before the existing conservative churches get around to accepting the paradigmatic shift. Gafcon is one such organisation. In the meantime, people (among them, Christians) are being subject to unjust and painful discrimination.
"And the nature of desire in sex means that (as Rowan Williams has argued) sexual activity can also point towards our desire for God." - Ian Paul mark 2 -
This, from Dr.Rowan Williams, a not inconsiderable Anglican scholar and theologian who, in his own writing, has affirmed the authenticity of same-sex relationships.
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