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AN INTERROGATION OF THE "REAL" IN ALL ITS GUISES



Hamm: What's happening?
Clov: Something is taking its course.
Beckett




Thursday, 20 June 2013

Sex and Christianity (Letter to a friend)


I think the sexual revolution of the 60's has something to do with much of the Church's attitude towards sex.  The blogger was right to point out that for the monastics purity extended to all aspects of their lives, not just their attitudes toward their sex organs (but let's face it, any spirituality that seeks to be truly holistic must also consider the physical act of sex or self-pleasure otherwise it risks becoming an elitist gnosticism scorning even the redeemed flesh). 
 
During the sexual revolution the churches reacted. Like any pushback the reaction may have gone too far. You present us with sexual freedom, we respond with a militant sexual ethic veiled in ideal purity. You say we are existentially free, we say your subjectivity is bound up with your sexual practice. 
 
The tricky part then is reclaiming a Christian subjectivity that is not reactionary.  But Christians, of all people, know something about a new creation.
 
 

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