Abstract
This chapter analyzes and counters aspects of the Christian tradition that have tended to condemn sexual desire. Desire is part of God’s creation of humans. Hence, desire is good. Desire is not a yearning for something lacking but an impetus toward being in relation. The goal is to cultivate desire in relation with others. Sexual desire is part of this overarching desire, which should be nourished and celebrated. Beginning with a new definition of desire, this chapter articulates a positive conception of desire through the Bible, tradition, and theology.
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Notes
- 1.
Raymond Belliotti is the Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Fredonia.
- 2.
Deleuze was a French philosopher who lived from 1925 to 1995.
- 3.
Daniel Bell, Jr., a professor and ethicist, explains Deleuze’s understanding of desire: “Desire produces; it gives. It works. It creates. Desire is a positive force, an aleatory movement that neither destroys nor consumes but endlessly creates new connections with others, embraces difference and fosters a proliferation of relations between fluxes of desire” (Bell, 44).
- 4.
Lisa Isherwood is Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies and the Director of the Institute for Theological Partnerships at the University of Winchester, UK.
- 5.
“Dale Martin argues that Paul believed that the truly fulfilled human life is one in which all sexual desire is simply extinguished. … Will Deming counters this argument by noting that, for Paul , the goal was not the absence of desire but the ability to restrain an excess of desire – a problem addressed in other Stoic literature” (Brownson, 138).
- 6.
Bernard was a French abbot who lived from 1090 to 1153 CE.
References
Bell, Daniel. 2012. The Economy of Desire: Christianity and Capitalism in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Belliotti, Raymond. 1993. Good Sex: Perspectives on Sexual Ethics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Brownson, James. 2013. Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.
Isherwood, Lisa. 2008. Will You Slim for Him or Bake Cakes for the Queen of Heaven? In Controversies in Body Theology, ed. Marcella Althaus-Reid and Lisa Isherwood, 174–206. London: SCM Press.
Jensen, David. 2013. God, Desire, and a Theology of Human Sexuality. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Lorde, Audre. 2010. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. In Sexuality and the Sacred, ed. Marvin Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas, 73–77. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Thatcher, Adrian. 2011. Desiring. In God, Sex, and Gender: An Introduction, 57–75. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
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Cooper, T. (2018). Desire. In: A Christian Guide to Liberating Desire, Sex, Partnership, Work, and Reproduction. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70896-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70896-6_2
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