My friend (who knows about this post, by the way) and I align on most issues, but I sensed a divide on this one. Meaning: we have similar views regarding the divinity of Christ, the authority of the Scriptures, and the sublimity of ancient thought but different viewpoints on performing same gender weddings and ordaining practicing homosexuals into Methodist ministry.
Yet here’s how he phrased our different perspectives regarding homosexual intercourse and the Methodist Church:
While you and I may have some disagreements on social issues, I appreciate your witness for doctrinal fidelity.
To which I immediately thought — and replied — “No, no, no. You can’t separate those categories. It’s not merely a social issue. The sexual IS the doctrinal!”
Why do I say that? Because your body is the most theological thing about you.
(Note: theology here is “thinking about & reflecting on God” while doctrine is the kind of official teaching the results from that earlier thinking. Theology produces doctrine.)
So back to the theological nature of our bodies:
Life was breathed into the human body at our origins.
Once we marred the beauty of our creation, it took a body to redeem us:
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation (Colossians 1:21-22).
Paul then reminds the Corinthians that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. In a real sense our bodies are the dwelling place of God.
Finally, at the end of all days we will dwell with God not as immortal souls but as resurrected bodies. From the dawn of creation to the end of time, then, our bodies are God-breathed, God-dwelled, and God-honoring.
And that same rich heritage that teaches us about bodily sacredness also teaches that the most intimate use of our bodies — sexual intercourse with another — is blessed on the marriage bed and there alone. All other expressions of sexual intimacy are . . . and pardon the use of the word . . . sin.
It’s why, in the same paragraph as “your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,” Paul tells us to flee sexual immorality (I Corinthians 6:18). Behind that imperative lies this reasoning: all other sins are outside the body yet this one is against our own bodies. Our own dwelling places of God.
And in Paul’s beautiful logic here in I Corinthians, all these individual “temples of the Holy Spirit” form one corporate Body of Christ. So what one believer does with his or her body has an impact on both the witness and the unity of the larger Body.
Such a profoundly consistent witness on the subject suggests to me that the theological nature of our bodies and our sexuality should result in clarity around Methodist sexual doctrine: celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in heterosexual marriage.
So when we Methodist speak of the sexual issues roiling our denomination, separating the conversation into the doctrinal and the social won’t fly. It’s like the Greek dichotomy of body and soul: it sounds like a way forward but it doesn’t align with the Scriptural revelation.
Because when it comes to sexual intimacy, every act has theological implications.
The sexual IS the theological.
And therefore it is the doctrinal as well.
There are 6 comments
Thank you Talbot. This so eloquently describes what I have been attempting to communicate re: my position on same sex marriage. Was great to see you 2 weeks ago – we miss you! Katherine Hanna
Of course the doctrine of the incarnation and the theology of the body is central to the Christian witness, Rev. Davis. However, the move to make a particular view of human sexuality a centerpiece of Christian dogma is not one – if you look at the historic creeds and confessions – that the Church has found necessary to make across time and space.
Pastor Mack, while homosexuality may not have been a core piece of Christian dogma (primarily because the church’s view on it was assumed), the theological nature of the body is. Hence: “I believe in the resurrection of the body” in the Creed. So moving my from that general I think there are specific applications — for straight and gay — that I hope the essay spelled out.
Even though her Christian witness about sex and marriage has been compromised by her own divorce, Lauren Winner wrote some extremely wise things in her book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity.
One of the terms she used to describe willful sexual immorality among Christian believers was “embodied apostasy.” I don’t know if the label was original to her or not, but it’s one I’m not likely to forget.
I think UMs ought to start using the term and “naming” the sin that besets us both individually and corporately. So many of us have been seduced by the Kinseyan notion that “consenting adults” should be free to do whatever pleases them (as long as no one is harmed in the process) that it will take a powerful (and possibly offensive) counter-message to wake us up.
Thanks, Rev. Talbot, for speaking the truth in love.
“Embodied apostasy” is one of those phrases we can only dream of creating. Thanks for reference, Karen.
Talbot, thanks again for your clarity on this issue. There have been a lot of disingenous mental gymnastics engaged in by those who want to reimagine and reinterpret Christian sexual morality. There are those whose whole identity seems caught up in their ostensible sexual orientation (an extremely unbalanced approach.) None of us are perfect, but we don’t move in the direction of sanctification if we don’t know which way to go, or if we invent new reasons to go in a direction that seems easier.