Tuesday, June 16, 2009

sex is trivial

An interesting discussion. Funny. Seeing sex as essentially trivial frees us up to use (or not use) it appropriately. It is not some transcendent wonder unlocking the secret soul of me.

"...If the One who, in his life, crucifixion, and resurrection defined and actualized for us the very definition of humanness, what does that say about humanness? Clearly it says that marriage, sexual activity, and bearing children do not have any central place in the definition thereof.

Let us be absolutely clear on this point. If Christ is truly the fullness and definition of authentic humanity, we must say categorically that marriage, sex, and parenthood tell us nothing whatsoever of ultimate significance about humanness. If marriage, sex, and parenthood are somehow the fullness of humanity we are forced to say that Christ, far from being the true human as the Christian tradition proclaims, was in fact, sub-human. To grant sexuality any sort of ultimacy with respect to the definition of humanness is to deny that Jesus is the true human being.

So, if we take a Christological defintion for the meaning of humanness, sexuality by definition tells us absolutely nothing about the ultimate meaning of humanness. It may, through the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit be comandeered and become in many and sundry ways a parable of the kingdom, just as many of the trivial aspects of human life are open to God’s interruption and transfiguration. But, insofar as the meaning of authentic human existence, sexuality tells us nothing. Not if we really believe that Jesus defines for us what it means to be be human. And, further to this point, only when we allow sex to be truly and wonderfully insignificant, to be trivial, will it be able to be received as a gift rather than gulpingly grasped in an idolatrous fit of fetishizing." by Halden at Inhabitatio Dei

3 comments:

  1. That blog annoys me. It's far too pretentious for its own good.

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  2. I refuse to engage with the ideas put forward on this blog because doing so causes me to contemplate punching a pacifist.

    ReplyDelete