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It was probably at least a decade ago, while I was teaching at Oberlin, that a young African-American woman — I’ll call her Tonya — who had been a student in several of my classes told me she was leaving school, at least for a year. I knew her quite well and was in fact …
Continue reading “A New Sexual Revolution: The Case for Modesty”
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A 59-year-old woman told a California infertility clinic that she was only 50, and four years later gave birth to a baby girl. The clinic, which sets 55 as the maximum age for patients seeking a donated egg, was fooled by the woman’s relatively young appearance and her falsified documents. At the time of the …
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"As for you, do not pray for this people, . . for I do not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen …
Continue reading “Cakes for the Queen of Heaven: 2,500 Years of Religious Ecstasy”
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"What I’m really looking for is a girl who will give me a beautiful sexual experience. I don’t want only relief of my sexual tension." A college junior blurted out these words in a question-and-answer period after a talk I gave before a college audience. I had challenged the view that there is no longer …
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Like any Catholic college, mine boasts an ethic of sexual abstinence for students, does not allow any form of birth control to be distributed on campus, and has same-sex residence halls that post visiting hours for members of the opposite sex. Yet most students will tell you, if asked in the right setting, that there …
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When I began teaching Christian ethics in the late 1960s, I found Helmut Thielicke’s The Ethics of Sex particularly helpful. It explained to my students the logic, if not the validity, of the traditional "double standard" in sexual morality. Accepting Thielicke’s "orders of creation" argument, I taught that women invest more of themselves in sexual …
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She is an attractive woman, dark hair pulled back in a bun (the way my mother used to wear hers), probably in her mid-40s. Well dressed, friendly and a bit exuberant, she reflects a sense of happiness and excitement rarely found in a seatmate on a crowded plane traveling to Chicago. I am hunched over …
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Samuel Johnson reportedly once told an aspiring author, "Your manuscript is both good and original; unfortunately, the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good." The danger in reflecting on the eight articles in The Christian Century’s sexual ethics series is in producing just such a manuscript. …
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The title of this Christian Century series, After the Revolution: The Church and Sexual Ethics, suggests two things: that there has been a sexual revolution, and that the revolution is over. Though in some ways both claims are true, in other ways the revolution has just begun. Clearly the past quarter-century has witnessed significant changes …
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The publication of Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought by the Catholic Theological Society (Paulist, 1977) is destined to generate a new round of discussion about sexual ethics. I fear, however, that if the debate is carried on in the terms which the report itself uses, we will not make much progress in …
Continue reading “Sex and Politics: Bertrand Russell and ‘Human Sexuality’”
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What is the role of religion in restraining a man who is tempted to commit an illegal sex offense of which society highly disapproves? Religious institutions have placed a great emphasis on sexual morality, seeking to enforce their standards through law, cult, custom, public opinion — indeed, via every means available. The offender is rigorously …
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We are a sexually active society, and teen-agers are no exception. The Moral Right may have won some battles at the ballot box, but there is little evidence that those victories have led to more restrictive sexual behavior. Evidence suggests that even the rise of AIDS has not resulted in a major shift in sexual …
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It should be fairly clear to observers of contemporary Christianity that Roman Catholicism has been embattled in recent years over questions of sexuality. There are several reasons for this development. More than most denominations, the Roman Catholic Church preserves not only a long historical memory but also institutions such as celibacy deriving from earlier periods …
Continue reading “Time Makes Ancient Good Uncouth: The Catholic Report on Sexuality”
