This Code of Sexual Ethics and Professional Conduct finds its authority and integrity in the teachings and life of Jesus, especially:
“You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength… you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
Jesus, speaking in Mark 12:29-31
Understanding our life theologically is key to the Christian community. We must do this in order to come to know how Jesus would have us live.
“Faithful Christian living is all of a piece… The essential call of God is constant throughout the many different biblical periods. The people of God are to worship only God, to love God, and to experience holiness in reflecting God’s righteousness and mercy in their own just living and compassion. All human relationships are meant to find their deepest value in the context of this response to God’s love. ‘We love because God first loved us’ (I John 4:9).”[1]
This challenge is especially important as we turn to our faith to gain understanding of ourselves as sexual beings, especially in the rapidly changing culture which offers powerful yet confused messages about sexuality and power. Sexuality is a wonderful gift of God, with the ability not only to create life, but to point to the even deeper self-giving agape love and commitment that God offers us, and makes possible between us.
“Perhaps the greatest danger in the human fascination with sexual activity is that it could cause people to lose sight of the ultimate goal of all of life – to come to respond to God’s love. No earthly relationship will ever wholly satisfy because the full belonging and unity we long for, as individuals and together, is found only in relationship with God… One must be careful neither to take sexuality out of this perspective nor so to concentrate on it that it becomes more than it should be as a part of the whole, both with respect to individuals and society.”[2]
Sadly, sexuality also has the potential to be used to alienate, harm, degrade, dominate and abuse, if it is used outside the purposes of our Lord’s will for fullness of life. More sadly, the nature of relationships in the church – as an ideally inclusive, open, and loving community – can leave us uniquely vulnerable to mistakes, indiscretion, and even deliberate acts of abuse. Worse still is the tragedy when these sins occur among the people of a community called to reconcile, heal, and offer help, hope and new life to the most vulnerable! These are the sins which this code of conduct seeks to prevent and overcome in the church.
“Jesus’ teaching is consistent with the entire biblical witness that calls disciples to show forth God’s care by having a special concern for the powerless and those in need, for children, widows, strangers and refugees, the sick, the imprisoned and the hungry. This life of witness and service was and is a demanding one. Clearly Jesus has strong expectations that his followers would lead disciplined and obedient lives, lives that did not just follow natural impulses, but were to be characterized by gracefulness. His disciples were to be a different kind of people.”[3]
How, then do we understand this difference? How can we be whole people, both in sexuality and in faith? Scripture teaches us that:
- all persons were created by God in the divine image, male and female.
- all persons are equal in the eyes of God, whether young or old, female or male, rich or poor (even if through history this equality is contradicted by cultures, customs, language, laws, habits, and assumptions of society, and even of the Church itself),
- as a special part of the divine creation of matter, the human body is good. It is to be appreciated and respected as the temple, the locus wherein the Holy Spirit dwells, the place where the Word is made flesh.
The ministry of Christ was, and is, to reconcile a fallen humanity to their Creator; to open a path of salvation for all people. In so doing, Christ taught us how to live in faithful community. Misuse and misunderstanding of sexuality has the potential to destroy individuals and communities, but in these circumstances Christ offers redemption of sexuality back to the good purposes for which it was given. In healthy relationships, sexuality is an important and life-giving gift – it is part of being human. But it is only a part, and…
“…in Christian perspective, sexuality is to be disciplined in order to become a way of sharing and learning more about responsible, self-giving love and creativity.”[4]
[1] The Right Reverend Frederick H. Borsch, Christian Discipleship and Sexuality, Forward Movement Publications, 412 Sycamore Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202, 1993, p. 1.
[2] Ibid., p. 1.
[3] Ibid., p. 2-3.
[4] Borsch, p. 15.