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13 - Sexuality in Christian Traditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2024

By
Adrian Thatcher
Edited by
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks  and
Mathew Kuefler
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Mathew Kuefler
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
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Summary

This chapter finds in the Bible a diversity of views about sexuality, gender, marriage, divorce, celibacy, virginity, and the human body. It next traces in early Christianity an aversion towards same-sex relationships, abortion, and contraception, and a growing gynophobia combined with a growing devotion to the Virgin Mary. It discusses the association between sexuality and original sin, and between misogyny and the invention of the witch, together with the negation of sexual pleasure, the confinement of sexual relations to procreation within marriage, and the struggles of monks with their erotic desires. A painful incompatibility between the sexual practices of colonized peoples and missionary expectations and behaviour is noted. Through to the present time, different models of marriage and attitudes towards same-sex relationships are found within Christianity. The early diversity of views about sexuality is shown to be unresolved, re-appearing in the culture wars of the present century. While attitudes to cohabitation, divorce and masturbation are generally more liberal than in the past, global Christianity still retains a strong antipathy towards loving same-sex relationships, abortion, and even the ordination of women.

Keywords

Christianityvirginitysexual violencesexual binariesmarriagehomosexualitycontraceptionbodyabortionslavery
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History of Sexualities , pp. 271 - 292
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Beardsley, Christina, and O’Brien, Michelle, eds. This Is My Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 2016.Google Scholar
Boswell, John. The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. London: HarperCollins, 1995.Google Scholar
Bray, Alan. The Friend. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. London: Faber & Faber, 1990.Google Scholar
Brownson, James V. Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013.Google Scholar
Brundage, James A. Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Clark, Anna. Desire: A History of European Sexuality. London: Routledge, 2008.Google Scholar
Coontz, Stephanie. Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Viking, 2005.Google Scholar
Cornwall, Susannah. Sexuality and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ: Intersex Conditions and Christian Theology. London: Equinox, 2010.Google Scholar
Elliott, Dyan. The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives of Pious Women, 200–1500. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Dyan. Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1976.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve. New York: W. W. Norton, 2017.Google Scholar
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Kuefler, Mathew. The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.Google Scholar
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Loader, William. Sexuality in the New Testament. London: SPCK, 2010.Google Scholar
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Phillips, Kim M., and Reay, Barry. Sex before Sexuality: A Premodern History. Cambridge: Polity, 2011.Google Scholar
Ranke-Heinemann, Uta. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: The Catholic Church and Sexuality. London: Penguin Books, 1990.Google Scholar
Thatcher, Adrian, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality and Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry. Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2019.Google Scholar
Witte, John Jr. From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition, 2nd ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2012.Google Scholar

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