Sex Summer 1995

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Perhaps the most frustrating feature of discussions in early Christian sources about marriage and sexuality is that they regularly take the form of "Yes, but." The speaker or author acknowledges these as God-given goods and then invariably introduces some qualification that calls the acknowledgment into question. For example: sexual relations within marriage are good but only for the purposes of procreation. Or, family life is to be honored but it must not become our first priority.

Over the years, the church has often adopted this pattern of affirmation-qualification without sustaining the understanding of the Christian life that lay behind it. As a result, ancient formulations that once served to illuminate the place of sexuality, marriage, and family in the Christian life now have the effect of obscuring it. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many Christians today respond to these formulations with bafflement or even disgust.

But in an era where the place of sexuality, marriage, and family in the church is ever more contested, we must be willing to take a new look at these issues through the lens of the early church, as reflected in the discussions and writings of Jesus, Paul, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. The teachings of Jesus and Paul are, of course, foundational. Those of Tertullian and Clement help us to see how the church built on that foundation. While theirs were hardly the only early Christian voices raised on these issues, the "Yes, but . . ." that we hear from them has proved enormously influential in shaping the church's discourse about marriage, sexuality, and family life throughout much of its history. This is why we must revisit the reasons why the early Christian pattern of "Yes, but..." came ...

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