Interfaith Initiative
Grasping the nettle of faith and sexuality
Jnanamitra Emmett
Issue 21, Spring/Summer 2009
The following three questions explore the territory quite broadly. We are looking for responses to these questions from people of faith – please help us by writing your reflections and sending them to the email address below:
- What is your faith’s stance on sexuality (including homosexuality, lesbianism and same sex marriages, and adoption by same-sex couples) and where does it draw its scriptural authority for that teaching?
- How does your community practice inclusion of those who might feel marginalised and excluded by this view?
- What aspects of your faith would you emphasise that may bring comfort, healing and inclusion to those who, because of their sexuality, find themselves at odds with their faith?
Please contact Jnanamitra:
faiths.officer
eefa.net
Exploring the relationship between Faiths and Sexuality is an important aspect of my work as Faiths Officer for the East of England Faiths Agency, and so I was particularly interested in attending an event at Norwich Cathedral entitled: ‘Grasping the Nettle of Sexuality’.
Iwas brought up a Christian (Church of England), attending a high-church school for some years before embracing the Buddhist faith. My childhood experience of religion did not really prepare me for the theological knots that surround the issue of faith and sexuality. I was therefore grateful for two excellent essays presented at the 2007 Stonewall conference in Ipswich: one by a follower of the Pagan tradition, and the other by a Catholic. Both referred to verses in the biblical Book of Leviticus as the doctrinal and theological source for teachings about sexuality. I was hoping for further enlightenment from the ‘Grasping the Nettle…’ conference, encouraged by the title!
The afternoon conference featured two speakers: Jo Ind - a journalist and mother with a string of books to her credit – and Timothy Gorringe, an academic, now St Luke’s Professor of Theological Studies at Exeter University, specialising in contextual theology.
Jo Ind spoke engagingly of embracing the human condition; of the physical experience of being female, particularly the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. She talked of the opportunities our bodies provide for tenderness and kindness, even when they are out of our control, as in childbirth or illness: and the evidence of the presence of God in our body’s capacity to miraculously heal from injury, illness and invasive surgery such as Caesarean Section. She posed the question to us all: “How can we bring these aspects of being female into the presence of infinite love”.
She explored issues around sexuality, noting the conflicting emotions of eroticism and disgust – what was so delightful in the heat of the moment may be reviewed as disgusting in the cold light of day. How loftily we gaze with disgust at the ‘sins’ of the flesh, she said. She asked if we might instead reflect on the presence of the creator God in our human, bodily expressions, whatever form they may take.
I wondered how Christian theology might exclude aspects of human experience from the Light and Universal Love; and whether the increasing access to ordination by women in the Anglican church, might open the door to a reflection of faith and the love of God, that has previously been unseen by a male clergy, and consequent male oriented theology. I also wondered whether ordained Buddhists nuns have embraced the messiness of embodiment in their search for Enlightenment. I suspect that they would see this as pertaining to the Wheel of Life; the endless round of life, which we aspire to leave, rather than the spiral towards Enlightenment. They therefore turn away from the messiness of the body’s life processes towards celibacy, with the danger that such a turning may involve an interminable yearning for one’s unborn child.
Timothy Gorringe focused more on the theology of desire, drawing on his book to lay the groundwork of theology in Plato, Aristotle and St Augustine. His interest has been in how consumerism diverts us by promising to fill the aching void of desire – a void that can, in reality, only be satisfied by the Divine: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (slightly paraphrased from Augustine “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”).
Both speakers raised interesting points about engaging theologically with the human condition, but with an emphasis more on the human as biological mother on the one hand, and human as consumer on the other. I was puzzled that neither seemed to grasp the principle ‘nettle’ - the nettle of human variation in sexual attraction and expression, and the theological problems that surround this.
One of the tasks that I have been given as Faiths Officer is the continuation of a project that was originally undertaken at the request of Social Services in Suffolk who sought to understand the attitudes of local faith groups to human sexuality. Various focus groups were held on the subject, culminating in a conference that provided valuable insights into the complex issues surrounding this subject. A report is available on the work to date: please see www.sifre.org.uk
However, there is a great deal more to be done, especially in the wake of the new Commission on Equality and Human Rights.
