Christian teaching on marriage, sex and identity: harmful or protective?
by Julie Maxwell, Psephizo:
It is now a couple of months since the Church of England General Synod meeting where we discussed the Bishop’s proposals following the lengthy Living in Love and Faith process, and it is clear to me that there are two broad views. The first is that God’s design for marriage and sex is good and living according to it is beneficial; the other view is that to deny our sexual urges and to have to conform to God’s design is harmful. These two views are in total opposition!
This is the speech I would have made if I had been called (there were so many excellent speeches which were far more powerful than mine):
Louise Perry is a feminist author and journalist who campaigns against sexual violence. In her recent book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution she examines the impact of the so called “sexual revolution” that was supposed to bring freedom and happiness to all. She says “What we need today is a new morality, a new set of virtues: the sexual revolution failed, but women and children were the greatest losers”
As a paediatrician I am all too aware of the current crisis in mental health with question around identity and sexuality frequently part of this. There is also a crisis around the sexualisation of children and the effects of pornography on children and young people. Last month the Children’s Commissioner released a devastating report that details the horrific extent of this problem.
So do we need a new morality as Louise Perry says? Surely what we need is to return to the pattern given to us in the Bible in Genesis, reiterated by Jesus and by Paul. Children need to be told that there is a better story!
Matthew 19.4–6 says: “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
God’s good design as our loving creator is for sexual intimacy to be only within a lifelong relationship between one man and one woman. This is the best way to protect particularly women and children from harm. Our young people are growing up in such a toxic, sexualised environment and they need to hear that there is a better story, that God’s wonderful gift of lifelong marriage between one man and one woman is the only proper context for sexual intimacy and that this is a good thing. They need to hear that singleness and celibacy is also a good thing! God is not withholding anything from us.
As Paul makes clear in Ephesians, marriage and sexual intimacy are a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. They point us towards Christ and we do not choose the terms he does!
I urge you to stand for a biblical definition of marriage that is good and protects us from harm and to reject anything which threatens to undermine or change this definition.
We also had a debate at Synod about safeguarding which throws up some interesting issues when we fundamentally disagree about what causes harm and what protects in this area!
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