Posted on 08/17/2019 4:59:30 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality is Nancy Pearcey’s timely attempt to defend traditional Christian morality against a surging secular tide. In seven chapters, Pearcey takes on the most contentious issues of our time—abortion, euthanasia, sexual morality, marriage, transgenderism—and exposes the dualistic framework behind them, a fractured view of reality that splits personhood from embodiment, intimacy from sex, the body from the self, gender from biological sex, the moral order from the natural order. These ideologies, she argues, depend upon a “devastatingly reductive view of the body,” a body with only instrumental value and no intrinsic dignity or meaning.
Pearcey is evangelical in her outlook but ecumenical in her tastes. She draws on scripture, tradition, and a breadth of contemporary Christian leaders—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—to present the possibility of a unified Christian understanding of human anthropology and dignity.
This book is meant not to persuade secularists but to galvanize and catechize believers...It is not enough for churches to teach the biblical rules of behavior as so many “dos and don’ts.” … They need to explain why a secular worldview is ultimately dehumanizing and unfulfilling. And they must make a persuasive case that biblical morality is both rationally compelling and personally attractive—that it expresses a higher, more positive view of the human person than any competing morality.
Love Thy Body insists that Christians, especially evangelicals, must recover the beauty and coherence of a teleological worldview. In this way, the book forms a much-needed bridge between Catholic theology of the body and evangelicalism. Yet the book exhibits a subtle but unresolved ambiguity regarding the telos of sex.
Though Pearcey criticizes hormonal contraception on health grounds, she resists a theological critique—even though such a critique would seem to arise from the very worldview she wishes to inculcate...
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
This whole new world is so crazy that only maybe a year ago on FR did someone point out to me that gender and sex were different things.
I dont mind sharing my ignorance :)
But it seems the whole gender thing exists only to make kooky categories.
I dont remember the word when I was young or maybe I just forgot
There was no difference between the two when you were young, you’re not that much younger than me. Those concepts may have been out there, then, but they were OUT THERE, and very few were paying attention to them.
Gender referred to Latin languages and plants. Linguistic activists, for the wrongful purpose that you mentioned, started using it decades ago to refer to people.
In the past, we wrote or spoke about the female or male sex when discussing human beings—not gender.
tel·e·o·log·i·cal
PHILOSOPHY
relating to or involving the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise. "teleological narratives of progress"
THEOLOGY
relating to the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world. "a teleological view of nature"
One of the first things a cult does is change the meaning of words.
” 3. (Gram.) A classification of nouns, primarily according to
sex; and secondarily according to some fancied or imputed
quality associated with sex.
[1913 Webster]
Gender is a grammatical distinction and applies to
words only. Sex is natural distinction and applies
to living objects. —R. Morris.
[1913 Webster]”
“someone point out to me that gender and sex were different things“
Someone was wrong.
I don’t even RECALL the word trans-anything until I started going to clubs in Manhattan!
OK now you’ve gone past my IQ threshold :)
You and a select few will be able to take it from here.
I was 2nd or 3rd smartest in my grade school. Then top 200 in my high school, then top 2000 in my college... :)
LoL I posted that because I didn’t know what ‘teleological’ meant either! :)
Essentially the author is saying that:
- A holistic, Christian understanding of sex and sexuality shouldn’t boil down to a legal set of rules.
- Rather, Christians should be inspired by a robust and positive view of sex that runs counter to the world’s shallow biological and psychological rationales.
Find a good woman.
Court her. Dine her. Get to know her
Ask her to marry you
Have a nice ceremony
Have babies
Love Live. Enjoy !
C. S. Lewis contrasts sex and gender within the narrative of his Space Trilogy, written 70+ years ago:
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
As a Biology major, I once had a vivid experience.
We were examining a female fetal pig. The TA got to the genitalia, and one asked what the clitoris was for. The TA, a newlywed, blushed, and said it was for the same thing as in a human female.
The class, secular, and hedonistic, erupted with cries, “That’s gross!” and the like.
I, the only Christian, and likely one of the few virgins, was the only one neither embarassed nor disgusted by God’s Creation.
I never forgot that lesson on the dehumanizing effect of secular hedonism.
HOW DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW THESE THINGS!!
At least 3 times a day on FR I get to feel like an illiterate!!
But thank you.
I have heard he is one of the good guys when it comes to writers and their views.
Those bullet points I could grasp :)
Yeah the West equates sex now with a large hit of dopamine in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures.
It certainly can be fun but it is a LOT more to Christians than the equivalent of a line of coke.
Only now at 51 do I look back and realize how special it is.
The consequences of casual sex or not limited to catching physical diseases.
If kissing is a gun, then sex is a nuclear weapon.
I might put that on a bumper sticker :)
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