Mere Sexuality

What do Christians believe about human sexuality? In Mere Sexuality, author and pastor Todd Wilson presents the historic Christian consensus about human sexuality, the Great Tradition of the church for centuries as taught in each of its major expressions - Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Wilson highlights the stunning shift of opinion on issues of sexuality in the evangelical church and why this break with the historic church is problematic for the future of Christianity. Along the way he provides ordinary believers with an introduction to the historic Christian vision of sexuality, yet does so in conversation with some of the twenty-first century’s leading challenges to this vision. In a culture that is deeply confused about human sexuality, Wilson believes it is time for evangelicals to retrieve the historic Christian tradition and biblical teaching on the question of sexuality. Mere Sexuality seeks to guide readers back to the beauty and coherence of this vision of sexuality in the face of an aggressive and all-consuming pagan and secular worldview.

We are living in a rapidly changing culture. Since the 1960s, the changes in our sexual ethics have become increasingly problematic. How are people--especially Evangelicals and other conservative Christians--supposed to respond? Does the Bible address these seismic changes? How is a believer supposed to raise a family in the cultural chaos of the twenty-first century? If you have asked any of these questions before, then this book is for you. Peterson argues forcefully that the changes in our culture are a direct result of a postmodern and post-Christian cultural rejection of the mandates established by God in the opening two chapters of Genesis. The reason Western culture is imploding morally is directly connected to the Enemy's undoing of each of the Genesis mandates established by God for human and cultural flourishing. With Western culture's rejection or undoing of every one of God's mandates in Genesis, is there any hope for the survival of once-thriving Judeo-Christian cultures? Peterson tackles these and many other issues in a forthright and unreserved manner. This book is not for the faint of heart. It is a call for a return to cultural sanity rooted in the fear of God and his Word.

When “rights” go wrong. Does gay marriage support the right-wing goal of linking access to basic human rights like health care and economic security to an inherently conservative tradition? Will the ability of queers to fight in wars of imperialism help liberate and empower LGBT people around the world? Does hate-crime legislation affirm and strengthen historically anti-queer institutions like the police and prisons rather than dismantling them? The Against Equality collective asks some hard questions. These queer thinkers, writers, and artists are committed to undermining a stunted conception of “equality.” In this powerful book, they challenge mainstream gay and lesbian struggles for inclusion in elitist and inhumane institutions. More than a critique, Against Equality seeks to reinvigorate the queer political imagination with fantastic possibility! "In an era when so much of the lesbian and gay movement seems to echo the rhetoric of the mainstream Establishment, the work of Against Equality is an important provocation and corrective.... I hope this book is read widely, particularly by the people who will most disagree with it; in the tradition of the great political pamphleteers, this collection should spark debate around some of the key issues for our movement." —Dennis Altman, author of Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation "Against Equality issues a radical call for social transformation. Against and beyond the "holy trinity" of pragmatic gay politics—marriage, militarism, and prison—the queer and trans voices archived in this collection offer a radical left critique of neoliberalism, capitalism, and state oppression. In a format accessible and enlivening, equally at home in the classroom and on the street, this book keeps our political imaginations alive. Prepare to be challenged, educated, and inspired." —Margot Weiss, author of Techniques of Pleasure

This book examines the figure of the virgin, a symbol central to many aspects of society and sexuality in nineteenth-century England, and its effects on the Victorian literary imagination. Studying the virgin as a social, sexual, and literary phenomenon, the volume contributes to current critical accounts of the relations among the body and language, gender, and discourse. These essays explore the ways in which virginity is not a natural ideal but a complex cultural and literary sign. The authors rethink the virginal as a textual counter-example to the idealization of “natural sexuality.”

Mere Catholicism explains in easily accessible, non-technical language the fundamental doctrines of Catholicism. It also shows how these doctrines follow naturally from the fundamental doctrines common to orthodox Christians ("mere Christianity"). Catholicism can mystify or even repel other Christians, while its complexities can confuse Catholics themselves. Ian Ker's stimulating book makes Catholicism come alive as the fullness of Christianity.

New York Times Bestseller. With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor. What is "biblical womanhood" . . . really? Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn't sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment--a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible's instructions for women as literally as possible for a year. Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period. See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as "master" and "praises him at the city gate" with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.

Few topics evoke so much anxiety and pleasure, pain and hope, discussion and silence as sexuality. Throughout the Christian era it has been a major moral preoccupation. Since the eighteenth century it has also been the focus of 'scientific' exploration and political activity. But, despite this obsessive concern, we are still as baffled as our predecessors about the 'true' meaning of sex. In this book Jeffrey Weeks unravels the dense web of historical, theoretical and political forces that have culminated in the contemporary crisis of sexual meanings and values. The book begins with a powerful evocation of our present discontents and their potent signs: the rise of the New Right, the retreat of progressive forces and a wave of moral panics around sex. It argues that this crisis is rooted in a tradition which has ascribed an inflated importance to sexuality, whilst claiming a privileged access to truth. The author then examines radical debates of recent years, and asks whether they contain the potentiality for taking us beyond the existing boundaries of sexuality. From this analysis emerges a controversial 'radical pluralist' approach to sexuality built on an acceptance of diversity and choice. By linking our present discontents to a clear understanding of the past, Jeffrey Weeks presents a rational, optimistic and challenging vision of a realizable future.

If God means for us to save sex for marriage, why doesn't he just zap us with sexuality on our wedding night? Why do most of us experience sexual feelings throughout our adult lives, not just in the safe confines of marriage? Is limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman anything but outdated prejudice? What is our sexuality actually for? Today's culture overwhelmingly tells us that sex is essential for human flourishing. Far too often the church perpetuates the same message - as long as you are married. But far from being liberating, this idolising of sex leaves us even more sexually broken than before. With refreshing honesty and clarity, Ed Shaw calls on the church to rediscover its confidence in the Bible's teaching about our ability to experience or express sexual feelings. He points us to how God's word reveals that sexuality's ultimate purpose is to help us better know God and the full power of his passionate love. He shows us how this is surprisingly good news for all our joys and struggles with sexuality.

First Published in 1994. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to gather in one place information that otherwise would be difficult to find. Bring together a collection of articles that are authoritative and reflect a variety of viewpoints. The contributors come from a wide range of disciplines— from nursing to medicine, from biology to history— and include sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists, literary specialists, academics and non-academics, clinicians and teachers, researchers and generalists.