The Sexual Divide: Sex and Christianity, Part 2

July 18, 2011 by Tim Muldoon

Continued from Page 1

This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called "woman," for out of "her man" this one has been taken. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. (Gen. 2: 23-24)

The message is this: "Look, God made both men and women. We're painfully aware of how different we are, and yet even in spite of that difference there's something we share that makes us unlike any other animals. We are human beings together, and together we can build a good world."

The creation stories end with a compelling line: "The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame" (Gen. 2: 25). The task of the good society, the Priestly writers suggest to us, is for men and women to see each other not as competitors, but cooperators: to leverage sexual desire toward reconciliation, in order to inoculate the society against the potential violence that explodes from unrestrained sex.

Read more from Tim Muldoon's series on Sex and Christianity.

Part 1: Sex and Christianity
Part 3: Two Sexual Myths
Part 4: My Kind of Feminism
Part 5: Why Are Catholics Obsessed With Sex?

Page: 2 of 2

7/18/2011 4:00:00 AM

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About Tim Muldoon

Tim Muldoon holds a Ph.D. in Catholic systematic theology and is an award-winning author and Catholic theologian of the new evangelization.

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