...There are many philosophies and myths about conflicts between humans’ body and the mind. Major role in this conflict plays religion – Christianity. Religion has always tried to limit people’s sexual desires and needs. One of the major beliefs in Christianity regarding sexuality is that every sexual act that happens outside of marriage and not for reproduction purposes is considered a sin. What are the bases to this strong belief in Christianity? The bases of the rules for this religion come from a concept of Platonic dualism, Stoicism and Gnosticism movements, and Augustin’s contribution; all these historical beliefs influenced religion because they implement that there is a conflict between the soul and the body. These theories and beliefs impacted on people’s view on sexuality because people held their sexual needs within themselves to help their soul find salvation....
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...between two lovers. This book can be considered as an allegory of human sexuality, or divine love. However, there is no direct mention of the Divine Presence anywhere within the book. Even the Jewish Rabbis with the most understanding of biblical concepts regarding sexuality have trouble agreeing that a book of seemingly secular love poetry should be included in the sacred canon.(Davidson) When Aqiba said the Song of Songs was the Holy of Holies, he probably intended that to mean that the Song was detailed symbolism of the historical relationship between Yahweh (the Divine Presence) and the people of Israel from the Exodus to the coming of the Messiah.(Davidson) During the time, sexual feelings were considered pagan and evil. Some Christian allegorists believe that the author (or authors) of the songs wrote in a way that disguised sexual expressing as a yearning for God. Most scholars believe that the authors purposely wrote about yearning for God in an incredibly sexual way to further imply the strong emotions behind said yearning. These songs are regardless a type of sexual expression. These songs should be read only by those who are mature and no longer troubled by sexual temptation. The writers of these poems are merely using the emotions of sexuality to convey the divine senses of the inner man. (Davidson) In other words, the purpose of these writings to define what it means to be a man in terms of sexuality. It may seem obvious, but men and women were...
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...Gender, Sexuality, and religious identity * Gender - what society expect male and female bodies to be doing (jobs, relationship, etc are appropriate) * Are culture with should nurture and men shouldn’t be very emotional * Sex is the biological features which distinctly separates males and females * In some cultures there are more than 2 sexes * In western cultures we like procreation * Sexuality – has do with your sex and gender and how you interact with others * Why does Christianity tie so closely to heterosexual relationships? The Jewish people didn’t let others join their religion so the only way they were going to increase the population is by having their own kids with a women. Men need to trust themselves as to who their offspring is and women can only have kids with one man * Homosexuals were not accepted * Masturbation was not accepted * You could not pull out while having sex * All of this was the worry of wasting the mans seed * Christians basically took this idea from Judaism * The fact that our sexuality is an identity is a modern thing * World religions are religions have a patriotically system and heterosexual system * EG. In catholic churches the priest are called “father”, and God is called the “holy father” * Mainstream – supports patriotically system * Marginal – does not support it * Confirmatory – those who accept the social systems around * Challenging – challenge social systems ...
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...Psalms and Wisdom Literature 28 January 2010 Sex’s Purpose Like any good essay on theology it’s always good to start at the beginning, the creation narrative. In our Judeo-Christian understanding God, at his creating the earth and everything in it, created also man and woman. He created them in his very image, thus imparting to us many of his “spiritual” attributes with the life of His breath noted in Genesis 2. God then commissioned His people to procreate saying, “Be fruitful and multiply” (referring then to their natural ability to participate in the act of sexual intercourse. However, the concept of their sex was more than just the act but also their being created together out of one and as one. After reading through this story and several other references I’ve come to the conclusion that sex is NOT intercourse but an expression of relationship. Brueggemann supports this noting that the Old Testament considers “sexual relations [as] the most intimate, treasured, costly, and demanding of all relationships.” (194) Sex is an expression of love, and love is the root of any relationship. When sex becomes removed from love, a relationship becomes diminished. My exploration into sex has resulted in me seeking an understanding of right relationship, knowing how sex fits into it. Our being image-bearers of God was a striking feature as I started my research and what it implies for our “sexuality”. In the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, the topic of sex opens with a comparison...
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...The Theology of Sexuality Ashlee Mason Liberty University Abstract Sex and Marriage There are many excerpts from the Bible that speak on what sex is supposed to entail. Sex is God’s gift to men and women who come together in the commitment of marriage. * Hebrews 13:4, NIV. "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure." * I Corinthians 7:3,4, NIV says, "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife." * I Corinthians 7:5, TLB. "So do not refuse these rights to each other. The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from the rights of marriage for a limited time, so that they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterwards, they should come together again so that Satan won't be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control." In the aforementioned passages it is implied that the union of marriage should be honored by all and not just the two that are married. It is also implied that once man and woman are married their body then becomes something that is shared so to deny one’s spouse of their marital duties on a consistent basis that is not agreed upon by both husband and wife leaves them susceptible to temptations outside of their marriage. Forbidden Sex When interpreting...
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...REFLECTION PAPER IN THEOLOGY 12: MAN AND MORALITY SUBMITTED BY: CALIMAG, MARRIELL B. AAT-2A SUBMITTED TO: SIR ANTHONY MERENCIANO Moral theology is a term used by the Roman Catholic Church to describe the study of God from a perspective of how man must live in order to attain the presence or favour of God. While dogmatic theology deals with the teaching or official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, moral theology deals with the goal of life and how it is achieved. So, the goal or purpose of moral theology is, simply stated, to determine how man should live. Moral theology examines such things as freedom, conscience, love, responsibility, and law. Moral theology seeks to set forth general principles to help individuals make the right decisions and deal with the details of everyday living in a way that is in accordance with the Church’s dogmatic theology. Moral theology is essentially the Roman Catholic equivalent to what Protestants usually refer to as Christian Ethics. Moral theology deals with the broad questions in life and attempts to define what it means to live as a Roman Catholic Christian. Moral theology addresses the different methods of moral discernment, the definitions of right and wrong, good and evil, sin and virtue, etc. Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are "good" (or right) and those that are "bad" (or wrong). It is based on human existence that refers to human experience. Human existence...
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...TYNDALE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY marriage: a case for biblical monogamy maxwell nana addi research methods November 25, 2014 Introduction The earliest relationships among humans were certainly those between men and women, who came together and produced children. In the earliest days, such a relationship began to be called “marriage.” In the Judeo-Christian tradition, based on the book of Genesis, marriage began in the garden of Eden when God made one woman, Eve, out of one man, Adam. Marriage has been explained differently by various cultures throughout history as to whether or not it should be monogamous or polygamous. Scholars explain this in different ways. W. Schmidt’s theory asserts that marriage began as monogamy and decayed into polygamy later on. The opposite thesis of this theory is that of J.J. Bachofen. Bachofen argued that marriage began as a random selection of a partner subsequently leading to polygamy and group marriages. From group marriages, marriage moved to monogamy. These two views show the two different poles of understanding about the origin of marriage: as either monogamous or polygamous. On the other hand, Köstenberger and Jones argue that placing too much premium on the freedom of man has led to a decay in the understanding of marriage. They state that “many hail the decline of the biblical-traditional model of marriage and the family and its replacement by new competing moralities as major progress.” This paper will focus on monogamy as the...
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...information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Nanzan University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Wed, 2 Apr 2014 10:26:21 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Studies30/3-4:315-338 Journalof Religious Japanese x 2003 Nanzan Institutefor Religionand Culture YAMAGUCHISatoko[JriMf- Christianityand Women in Japan After a brief introduction to the situation of Christian or church-going women in Japan, articleintroducesa feministtheologicalgroup,the Centhis ter for Feminist Theology and Ministryin Japan,as one of the diverse new feminist movements among Christianwomen and men. This Center was founded in 2000 for feminists doing theology in the particularcontext of Japanwhere only one percent of the population are Christians,where the churchhas been especiallycarefulto preservethe authenticChristian faithin the midst of a non-Christianculture, and where Christianwomen feel that they havebeen offeredonly...
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...I Am Not My Sexuality: Annotated Bibliography and Outline Unit 5 Course 5334 Annotated Bibliography Aldrich, R. (2004). Homosexuality and the city: an historical overview. Urban Studies, 41(9), 1719-1737. Aldrich gives a historical overview of the history of homosexuality. He goes back to the Roman times and discusses Sodom and Gomorrah and continues to the present day. He makes mention of how homosexuals left various cities to escape the traditional life constraints and went to other cities to begin transforming the city into much construction of the gay and lesbian culture. Bonilla, L & Porter, J (1990). A comparison of latino, black, and non-hispanic white attitudes toward homosexuality. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 12(4), 437-452. This article discusses Latinos, Blacks, and non Hispanic whites attitudes towards homosexuality. It has been researched that the Latino culture is more inclined than blacks and non whites to believe that homosexuality and the spread of AIDS are invariably related. This one assumption has the capacity to cause the rights of homosexuals to be restricted. Goldsmith, S. J. (2001). Oepipus or orestes? Homosexual men, their mothers, and other women revisited. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 49 (4), 1269-1287. The author of this article discusses gender roles and how they have an effect on the sexuality of men and women. He mentions when people sense femininity in a man it causes them to fear that man simply...
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...A review OF THE BOOK STRENGTHENING MARITAL INTIMACY BY RONALD E. HAWKINS TABLE OF CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRY 1 AUTHOR INFORMATION 1 SUMMARY 1 CONCRETE RESPONSES 3 REFLECTION 5 APPLICATION 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY 8 Bibliographical Entry Hawkins, Ronald E. Strengthening marital intimacy. Kearney NE: Morris, 1991. Author Information Ron Hawkins currently serves Liberty University as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Interim Provost. He has decades of experience in both higher education and in Christian counseling, having also served previously as a pastor and professor of counseling. SUMMARY In his book Strengthening Marital Intimacy, Ron Hawkins provides a useful, highly readable, and solidly biblical discussion of the importance of marital intimacy as well as ways for couples to strengthen that intimacy. The book is written for Christian couples aiming to improve their marriage and marital intimacy, though the book is written a notch higher than most mass-market/self-help type books, yet it remains more approachable/engageable than a dry merely academic volume. In presenting his ideas for improved marital intimacy, Hawkins delves deeply into Scripture as both the authority and guide for marriage; implicit in his presentation is that he is writing of traditional biblical marriage, not the more recent loosely defined forms of “marriage” or cohabitation. Hawkins’ initial chapter presents marriage as God’s...
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...and references contained in the title are illustrations of how power is expressed through normative discourse in Western capitalist society. The process of how an act once termed ‘sodomy’ became transformed into the term ‘homosexual’ is fundamental to the nature of power in general and to the mechanism of discourse specifically. Foucault draws our attention to domains of discourse that are characterised by establishing quantifiable knowledge as truth, which society affords positions of authority, such as the medical profession. This authoritative mechanism was an instrument that was applied to an existing system of sexual relation governance resulting in a control-dynamic between power, knowledge and sex. The medicalisation of sexuality through discourse spawned a categorisation of the individual as determined by their sexual identity in a process of transforming experience into knowledge, knowledge into truth, and truth into reality. Foucault’s reference to the ‘sexually peculiar’ draws our attention to the delineation between the procreative model of relationships and all other pleasure-centred sexual acts. The child-bearing relationship’s sexual activities were regulated and protected at the exclusion and vilification of all others. Through the 17th and 18th centuries the power of discourse shifted from the morality-regulation by the church to the industrial sensibilities of institutions such as the medical community. With a normal category of sexual behaviour...
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...Egyptian Creation Mythology Myths have emerged from around the world to explain certain phenomena of nature, various traditions & rituals and tales of epic journeys, which pass on, idealised in each telling. Creation myth is found in all cultures and tries to define the origin of the universe, usually based on each peoples understanding and beliefs. The biblical story of creation is well known, the story of one God creating Earth and human life, but one of the less understood creation stories is from the Egyptian Civilisation. Egyptian cosmogonies were distinctly unique and directed more towards explaining the order of the world, also known as Maat, rather than the actual creation of mankind. It focused on more important factors like sun rising each day and annual Nile flooding. It was believed that Egyptian life would continue its orderly progression irrespective of whether humans lived or died. Egyptian kings and queens were regarded as incarnations of the gods and provided order with the help from symbolic rites and rituals. Differing Egyptian cosmogonies can be found where each world was created in diverse means according to their understanding and beliefs of the universe. A similarity of these stories was the world beginning from chaotic, lifeless water, described as Nu or Nun , when for the ‘first occasion’ the sun rose from a mound in a period sometimes called ‘Zep Tepi’. This ‘first occasion’ is referred to as the appearance of sun-god Ra or the god of the newly-risen...
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...16 November 2011 Pre-Marital Sexuality in America In the Bible, we find instruction, along with real life experiences relating to sex and marriage. The Bible contains a lot of insight on intimate passion and how to please your husband or wife. To engage in sexual activity with your significant other in a covenant marriage is supposed to be a totalizing experience; it should be done in regards to not only reproduction, but also to the enjoyment of both people involved. When sexual intercourse is wholehearted in pleasing both yourself and your partner, and erotic emotion invades every part of your body and soul, we actually think about what we are doing and the person we are doing it with. This is a totalizing sexual experience. But there are plenty of married couples who do not have this experience. On the other hand, there are many unwed, Christian couples who do. If you do not need to be married to have a strong relationship with God, and if you do not need to be married to have a fulfilling sexual experience with your partner, why is pre-marital sex frowned upon? In December 2006, researchers from the Guttmacher Institute found through research that about 95% of America’s public population had already had sex before they were married. Out of that percentage, about 84% of them were unmarried Americans between the ages of 18-23 (Regnerus et al. 1). While most of these people have sexual relationships with their first loves at younger ages or involve themselves...
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...Amanda Whitley Ashley Morgan ENG 2003 D2 29 November 2015 Courtly Love – Annotated Bibliography Boase, Roger. The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love: A Critical Study of European Scholarship. Towota, New Jersey: Manchester UP, 1977. This rather compressed study covers an amazing variety of sources, taking up how numerous periods of literary scholars commented on courtly love, the various locations where courtly love arose in the medieval period (and why), and how the significance of courtly love itself has been understood across time, geography, and literary movements. Eventually, after surveying the field, Boase argues that courtly love appear on behalf of as a wide-reaching traditional trend, arising predominantly in a court-based Christian culture, influenced by predominantly Spanish (and relatedly, Arabic) concepts of love and relationships between men and women. He detects courtly love strictly in the fictive world of poetry, denying that any person actually meant to apply its principles to the ‘real-world’ – this element of ‘play’ recognized courtly love as an acceptable aristocratic manifestation of passion. Cherchi, Paolo. “The Ambiguity of Courtly Love in Andreas Capellanus’ Model.” Andreas and the Ambiguity of Courtly Love. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1994. 3-41. The emphasis in this chapter is on courtly love as it is conveyed by musicians – among the many poets and geographies to choose from. Troubadours focus on...
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...The woman is "in all things inferior to the man," said first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.[1] Rabbi Judah, a contemporary of Josephus, said "a man must pronounce three blessings each day: 'Blessed be the Lord who did not make me a heathen; blessed be he who did not make me a woman; blessed be he who did not make me an uneducated person.'"[2] Jewish Rabbis in the first century were encouraged not to teach or even to speak with women. Jewish wisdom literature tells us that "he that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will inherit Gehenna [hell]."[3] One reason for the avoidance of women was the belief that they could lead men astray: "From garments cometh a moth and from a woman the iniquities of a man" (Ecclus. 42:13). Indeed, men were often viewed as intrinsically better than women, for "better is the iniquity of a man than a woman doing a good turn" (Ecclus. 42:14).[4] In view of this low status of women, it is not surprising that they enjoyed few legal rights in Jewish society. Women were not even allowed to give evidence in a court of law. Moreover, according to the rabbinic school that followed Rabbi Hillel, a man could legally divorce his wife if she burned his dinner. It was in this oppressive context that Christianity was born. Many people - both men and women - have hailed Jesus as a feminist because of His elevation of women in a male-chauvinist society. Moreover, Paul's statement...
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