Weblogs: Let's talk about sex

dissonant bible: "Silenced(?) by 'sex', the church is too often heard describing and proscribing rules and roles, and too little heard talking about the meanings that are brought into being when we make love.

In his dissonant words on divorce in Mark 10, Jesus ultimately responds to a highly politicised question about the rules and regulations of sexual conduct by bringing into focus the question of 'what does sex mean?' I think that, for all our misunderstandings of these chapters, Paul does the same in 1 Corinthians 6 and 7.

I wonder what would happen if those of us in the church talked about sex more, not less, and if our conversation began, and continued for a good long while, about its meaning(s), instead of almost always beginning with what you do and don't do and when and with whom."

(I think mainstream congregations -- Jewish, Catholic, Episcopal and so on -- do a better job of expressing the numinous nature of physical intimacy -- its mystic qualities beyond externals and our five senses, and why these are the real reasons for taking care with our sexual boundaries. Evangelicals and esp. fundamentalists, on the other hand, tend to focus more on prohibitions of specific behaviors, because ultraconservative views tend to be reactionary and simplistic. The one-size-fits-all or spoon-fed-dictum approaches don't work for everyone, I think -- only the lowest common denominator.)