Meaning of Sex, The: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life - eBook
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Meaning of Sex, The: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life - eBook  -     By: Dennis P. Hollinger

Meaning of Sex, The: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life - eBook

Baker Academic / 2009 / ePub

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Stock No: WW12518EB

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Product Description

Our culture is sex-crazed. That is no secret. But our culture is also deeply confused about sex and sexual ethics, often sending conflicting messages-at times promoting an "anything goes" attitude while in other ways seeking to impose limits on sexual behavior. Unfortunately, Christians seem equally confused, and the church has tended to respond with simplistic answers. The reason for this confusion is that the meaning of sex has been largely lost.

Dennis Hollinger argues that there is indeed an inherent, God-given meaning to sex. This meaning provides a framework for a biblical sexual ethic that adequately addresses contemporary moral issues. Written primarily as a textbook for Christian college and seminary courses in ethics and human sexuality, The Meaning of Sex provides a good balance between theological reflection and engaging discussion of the practical issues Christians (especially students) are facing. Part one lays the groundwork, discussing ethical theories and the competing worldviews that shape various approaches to sexual morality. The Christian worldview of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation is then applied to sex, followed by an exploration of the God-designed purposes for sex. Part two delves into critical issues: premarital sex, sex within marriage, homosexuality, reproductive technologies,and faithful living in a sex-obsessed world.

Product Information

Title: Meaning of Sex, The: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life - eBook
By: Dennis P. Hollinger
Format: DRM Protected ePub
Vendor: Baker Academic
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 9781441204295
ISBN-13: 9781441204295
Stock No: WW12518EB

Publisher's Description

Our culture is not only sex-crazed but also deeply confused about sex and sexual ethics. Unfortunately, Christians seem equally confused, and the church has tended to respond with simplistic answers. The reason for this confusion is that the meaning of sex has been largely lost.

Dennis Hollinger argues that there is indeed a God-given meaning to sex. This meaning, found in the Christian worldview, provides a framework for a biblical sexual ethic that adequately addresses the many contemporary moral issues. The Meaning of Sex provides a good balance between accessible theology and engaging discussion of the practical issues Christians are facing, including premarital sex, sex within marriage, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, and faithful living in a sex-obsessed world.

Author Bio

Dennis P. Hollinger (PhD, Drew University) is president and Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and is a former pastor. He is the author of numerous articles and the author or series coeditor of several books, including Choosing the Good and Head, Heart, and Hands: Bringing Together Christian Thought, Passion, and Action.

Author Bio

Dennis P. Hollinger (PhD, Drew University) is president and professor of Christian ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a former pastor. He is the author of numerous articles and the author or series coeditor of several books, including Choosing the Good and Heart and Hands.

Editorial Reviews

Is there any inherent meaning in sexuality, or does sex simply mean whatever we intend it to mean in the moment? Dennis Hollinger, president of Gordan-Conwell Theological Seminary, insists that there is meaning in sexuality—several meanings, in fact, which guide Christian thought and practice.

Hollinger writes for the academy, seminarians, pastors, and church leaders modeling the best kind of evangelical scholarship: the primacy of Scripture; careful engagement with other Christian perspectives, other religions and worldviews, science, and media; and a pastoral heart. According to Hollinger, it is this loving God who has created humans as sexual beings and established sex as a good gift for humankind. But he is far from naïve about the goods and dangers of sex:"[S]ex is a powerful force in life that can shatter dreams, destroy families, kill people, and break cultures apart. But it can also be a good and beautiful ingredient in building happy marriages, stable homes, secure individuals, and virtuous communities" (19).

Hollinger's is a refreshingly balanced voice: As good as sex can be, "Sexual intercourse is not the ultimate meaning in life, and it is not essential to our humanness, though it is a necessary part of married life" (76). "[L]ife without sexual intimacy and marriage is not a deficient life. Rather, life without intimacy with God in Christ is deficient" (15).

While he believes that non-Christians can recognize portions of the meaning of sex, full understanding is "found in the Christian worldview assumptions about marriage, the human body, and the purposes of the gift," which are "the consummation of marriage, procreation, expression of love, and pleasure" (14). This "meaning finds its fulfillment in the marriage of a man and a woman" (14-15).

Academics will appreciate his careful overview of ethical theory and theological frameworks in chapters 1 and 2. A wider audience will benefit from chapter 3, which lays down a specifically Christian worldview and ties sex and sexuality to the creation of humans in the image of God. Chapter 4 unpacks the four purposes of sex named above, while chapters 5 and 6 apply these purposes to differing contexts—unmarried and married sexuality. Issues such as pornography, masturbation, and extramarital sex are dealt with in chapters attending to particular contexts.

Hollinger is critical of Christian teaching that argues for chastity using scare tactics or that overplays the sexual pleasure factor in Christian marriages, even while he presents these dangers and statistics (127, 136). He insists that Christians need a holistic approach to sex in order to swim upstream in our "Sex-Crazed World" (ch. 9). This can be found in Christian theology, worldview, spirituality, and churches that embody the former and reach out in love, forgiveness, accountability, and community (226-35).

Attentive to the issues facing Christians in America today, Hollinger devotes an entire chapter to the "Challenge of Homosexuality." Every reader will benefit from his compassionate and nuanced discussion. While he maintains his commitment to sex within marriage and marriage as the union of a man and a woman, he is careful to differentiate between Christian ethics, pastoral care, and public policy. 

There is much to praise in The Meaning of Sex, but a few criticisms remain. The first is his omission of the ethics of divorce and remarriage. While he allocates all of chapter 8 to explore the ethics of reproductive technologies, in his section on fidelity within marriage, divorce and remarriage are not even given a paragraph. Given his insistence that the wellbeing of society and of children are undermined by the multiple parents that result from some reproductive technologies, readers would have benefited from his thoughtful wrestling with the challenges of divorce and remarriage.

A bigger problem is the way the author conflates sex, gender, and sexuality. In this, Hollinger follows Stanley Grenz, who reads "our emotional, social, and spiritual selves" through the lens of sexuality (16). Unfortunately, both theologians fail to account for significant differences in the emotional, social, and spiritual lives within each sex, both within a particular culture and between cultures. The conflation of sexuality with emotionality, sociality, and spirituality risks unnecessary problems.1

One particular problem of great concern to egalitarian readers is the fact that not all men share the same outlook on the world; neither do all women. While Hollinger is right to point out that "brain-imaging technologies show difference in the responses of women and men to external stimulations of all sorts, even though brain responses upon gender lines frequently do not seem to represent gender differences in behavior" (74); it is also true that few, if any, individuals correspond to the modal male pattern or the modal female pattern. Variation within each sex is great, with males and females near the top and bottom of the distributions for every characteristic . . . In fact, although most of us appear to be either clearly male or clearly female, we are each complex mosaics of male and female characteristics.2

In spite of this, CBE supporters will be glad to read that Hollinger insists that sexual difference should not be interpreted as functional difference. He rejects gender-based role divisions in home, church, and society. Many will be encouraged by his insistence upon the egalitarian nature of marriage and his warnings against power-relations between the sexes (147).

In all, The Meaning of Sex is a welcome resource on sexual ethics, supplying wise pastoral counsel for a "sex-crazed world."
---Megan K. DeFranza
---Used with permission from Christians for Biblical Equality

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