Sweet Necessities: Food, Sex, and Saint Augustine

Central to Augustine's understanding of rightly ordered sexuality is his belief that the pleasure of the act should not be separated from its good (procreation). It is useful to observe that he reasons in a similar way about eating: that the pleasure of eating should not be separated from its good (nourishment). Inadequacies in his understanding of the purpose of food and eating may be instructive when we think about inadequacies in his understanding of sex. If there is more to food than he imagines, the same may be true of sex. Correcting for such inadequacies may also help correct for the (inadvertent) way in which his understanding of the purpose of sex may seem to legitimize technologies of assisted reproduction.     

Changes in Religiosity Among Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Emerging Adults

Highly religious Americans are relatively likely to oppose lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) rights and many churches are unwelcoming to sexual minorities, which may lead LGB Americans to retreat from religion. To assess this possibility, we investigate trajectories of religious change for sexual minorities and other emerging adults. We use two longitudinal data sources (National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and the National Study of Youth and Religion) to explore how sexuality predicts the likelihood of decreasing religiosity in emerging adulthood. Results show that three different operationalizations of sexual minority status—attraction, behavior, and identity—are each strongly and consistently associated with disaffiliating from religion and declines in religious service attendance. On the other hand, sexual minority status has inconsistent and relatively small associations with changes in prayer. We conclude by discussing how these results further understanding of religion, sexual identity, and the current generation of emerging adults.     

Some reflections on the unique time of Nachträglichkeit in theory and clinical practice

Of the various forms that the matter of time assumes in analysis, Nachträglichkeit represents Freud’s first intuition on the subject. The focus of this article is directed toward the specific temporal dimension that the concept of Nachträglichkeit expresses, and how that dimension, which overturns linear time, is expressed in clinical work. The concept of Nachträglichkeit is approached from a theoretical point of view, tracing back the role and development that this notion has had in psychoanalytic Freudian and post‐Freudian thinking. The goal of this article is to demonstrate how Nachträglichkeit represents the unique temporal movement of the analytic session and the characteristic positioning of the mind of the analyst at work. Three clinical examples are presented. The analytic scene is formulated as occurring in two times, and through the working through that takes place, patients can recover the enigmatic ‘remainder’, which is consequently traumatic and which has compulsively accompanied them through the various times of their existence. Nachträglichkeit, as a non‐linear temporality, introduces a unique dimension into the clinical work that influences listening to and interpretation of the material. The recognition of that (trauma, infantile sexuality, non‐linear temporality) has consequences for the analyst’s way of working in session and on the interpretation of clinical material, as I will try to show through my theoretical exposition and clinical examples.     

QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THEOLOGY: JOHN POLKINGHORNE ON THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

Abstract Thought experimentation is part of accepted scientific practice, and this makes it surprising that philosophers of science did not seriously engage with it for a very long time. The situation changed in the 1990s, resulting in a highly intriguing debate over thought experiments. Initially, the discussion focused mostly on thought experiments in physics, philosophy, and mathematics. Other disciplines have since become the subject of interest. Yet, nothing substantial has been said about the role of thought experiments in nonphilosophical theology. This paper discusses the role of thought experiments in Christian theology in comparison to their role in quantum physics, as mentioned by John Polkinghorne in Quantum Physics and Theology. We first look briefly at the history of the inquiry into thought experiments and then at Polkinghorne's remarks about the role of thought experimentation in quantum physics and Christian eschatology. To determine the actual importance of thought experiments in Christian theology a number of new examples are introduced in a third step. In the light of these examples, in a fourth step, we address the question of what it is that explains the cognitive efficacy of thought experiments in quantum physics and Christian theology.     

Gendered Purity and Embodied Sexual Flourishing: Moral Agency,Development, and Prudence

Current popular accounts of sexual morality for adolescents based simply on purity or self-determination cannot adequately anchor a Christian sexual ethic, although positions based on both notions hope to facilitate sexual health among young females. Here I critique both popular Christian purity movements and a popular feminist critique of these purity movements (based upon self-determination) and suggest the virtue of prudence as a corrective. Situated within the Catholic theological tradition, prudence (practical wisdom) acknowledges the process of human moral and sexual development and is robust enough to negotiate the concrete complexities of sexual activity and the social realities in which such activity takes place. Further, it honours an embodied sense of female sexual self-determination: females as moral agents directed towards sexual flourishing.     

God-language in Public and Private Prayer: A Place for Integrating Gender,Sexuality and Faith

Abstract

Drawing on feminist liturgical critiques of prayer, Audre Lorde's notion of the erotic and Carter Heyward's relational theology, amongst other feminist, Womanist, Black and queer sources, this article proposes that prayer via gendered and erotic images of God and Christ may be a site for the integration of gender, sexuality and faith — not only in the life of the individual but in the wider body politic. The notion of integration is problematized alongside heteropatriarchal practices of prayer, and an eschatological understanding of prayer and identity offered. The article argues for prayer which engages with a multiplicity of embodied, erotic and queer images of God (and particularly Christ), as necessary to the complex work of personal and political integration with which prayer is charged as well as gesturing towards the fullness and mystery of God who both inhabits and transcends the limitations of metaphorical discourse about the divine.     

Gender and Sexuality in the Pastoral Encounter

Abstract

At the ‘Embodied Ministry: Gender, Sexuality and Formation’ conference at which the articles in this special issue were delivered, three people in active ministry in different denominations — United Reformed Church, Metropolitan Community Church and Roman Catholic — were invited to take part in a panel discussion on gender and sexuality in the pastoral encounter. Their remarks were originally delivered in this conversational context. Martin Pendergast chaired this panel discussion.     

Polish students’ attitudes towards sexuality

The following article contains an analysis of medicine and pedagogy students’ attitudes towards sexuality. These attitudes were studied with the use of a scale of author’s own construction. The scale was used to determine: (1) the nature of respondents’ attitudes towards individual aspects of sexuality including several criteria: quality of life, health, acceptability, and morality; and (2) respondents’ preferences of normative regulations of sexual behaviours. It was found that the respondents accept love as relatively the most important aspect for the quality of life, and sex education (seen as a moral aspect). Students also give positive scores to physical aspects of sexuality, yet the scores are lower. Natural contraception in all its aspects is evaluated positively, whereas artificial contraception is evaluated ambiguously, similarly to masturbation and homosexuality. The fundamental norm in regulating sexual behaviour is the welfare of other human beings, the least important are the teachings of the Church.     

Church and choices: a qualitative exploration of lived sexual values in young adult women

This qualitative research article discusses three crucial encounters in the sexuality education experiences of young adult women who were raised Catholic by drawing from the analyzed interview data of 15 such women. Using the framework of lived theologies, the author argues that understanding the impact of these encounters helps theological scholars better understand the way that young adults from religious backgrounds make decisions about relationships and sexuality. The young adult women interviewed for this research highlight a defensive posture in sexual decision-making that reflects poor preparation for the realities of relationships and a lack of opportunities to clarify and specify their own sexual values prior to these occasions.     

Sexual freedoms

Women—still—experience different forms of sexism in their daily lives. After the sixteenth‐century Protestant proclamation of the blessings of motherhood and women's bodies, and the women's sexual liberation movement of the 1960s, women's real freedoms and rights with their bodies, including sexual relations and procreation, are still being negotiated. Violence against women's bodies, including sex trafficking, relates to both the lack of appropriate education and fundamentally distorted views of humanity. Considering Luther's teaching on women as imago Dei, and attending theologically to the issues pertaining to misogyny—such as reforming the traditionally male‐centered God‐language and challenging the culture's implicit permission for ongoing violence against women—are some of the concrete steps that can be taken. Given the revelations with the #MeToo movement, the ELCA's 2018 draft on the Social Statement on Gender and Justice is timely.