Читать книгу Faithful Sexuality - Gary L. Grafwallner - Страница 5

When I told a friend and colleague I was writing on sexuality and the Christian faith he said, “Gary, I think the church should have a moratorium on all speaking and writing about sex for at least one hundred years given all the damage it’s done. Furthermore, the world probably is not interested.” That was a sobering rejoinder to what follows. He’s right, “the world” probably isn’t interested. John the Evangelist defines “the world” as all those individuals, groups, systems, that are against “the God who became a human being and lived among us.”

On my long Ignatian retreat, one of the presenters said, “The kingdom or queendom or reign of God is about right relationships with God, others, and ourselves.” I am writing from the perspective of my own life and faith as a Christian man, husband, father, grandfather, pastor, priest, and theologian. This book also reflects my own journey of learning, coping, and understanding as a married person.

I have seen the sexual revolution, the advent of the pill, and the Implant RU234. Some Christian youth in the parishes I served are sexually active in high school, but the vast majority are sexually active in college. A friend just told me at a media conference he attended, 90 percent of the actors in relationships in sitcoms and movies go to bed on the first or second date. Abortion has become a means of birth control for thousands in the state of Oregon. More and more couples who come for premarital counseling are living together. They’re not only in their twenties but in their seventies, trying to avoid tax penalties from bad laws. Fifty-one percent of all the marriages in Oregon will end in divorce. Sperm banks, surrogate partner/parents, and in-vitro fertilization are becoming more accepted means of becoming a parent. Domestic partners want their relationships blessed. Unsafe sex feeds the spread of various STDs and HIV. Sex continues to sell music, cars, clothes, food, cologne, sports, liquor, travel—you name it. Transgender people are also more public about their changes.

Except for the Christian right and fundamentalists, the church has for the most part been silent during the revolution. Rules and guilt no longer seem to control parishioners’ behavior. In society, people seem to choose their own course. My sense is that there is more public variety manifest around sexual behavior. The Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists have taken heat for their churches’ social statements on sexuality. They’re too liberal for some and too traditional for others. I wonder if as people of faith we simply endorse the world’s agenda.

I have listened to singles, marrieds, gays, lesbians, teens, senior citizens, and parents who were people of faith but who struggled with their feelings, relationships, and their behavior around sexual matters. What is acceptable to Jesus? What honors or pleases God? So I decided to share the stories, experiences, and wisdom of hundreds of people who have taught me. This is not a pious dogmatic treatise, but my own pastoral reflections on the implications of God’s call in matters of faith and sex. It’s a chance to think out loud with you and I hope, in the process, provide a catalyst for conversation and some teaching on what it means to live in God’s light and reflect God’s love in a holy and hopeful community.

Everything that follows is true, although details have been changed to preserve confidentiality. If you recognize yourself or someone you know in these pages, thank you for sharing your struggles and wisdom with me. I am forever grateful that God made us sexual beings and that we are each unique, awesome, and good.

GLG