SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : The Clown-Free Bible Study Zone
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  
From: S. maltophilia4/29/2025 11:28:45 PM
   of 2100
 
A New Book Challenges the Church’s Reputation on Sex
Mainstream Christianity’s attitudes about sex have always been complicated—and its institutions might even be able to evolve.

.....In the early Church, divergences between Christian theology and Roman law created anxieties about the role of women—for example, the power that widows, whom the nascent Church encouraged not to remarry, might wield. Around the first century C.E., a few churches attempted to restrict women’s movements and political activities. Still, ordinary women were able to negotiate some power for themselves. MacCulloch suggests that, for female believers and mystics, abstaining from sex was a means of exerting agency in a world that wanted to marry them off. He delights in chronicling examples of such figures, many of whom were denounced as heretics for their bizarre epiphanies. (One medieval Viennese celibate described herself “swallowing the foreskin of Christ” in a vision.)

But no one proved to be entirely safe from the threat of sexual panic. The fourth-century theologian Jerome argued that even sex within marriage could be contaminated, such that (in MacCulloch’s words) “a man who loves his...

theatlantic.com
Report TOU ViolationShare This Post
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  

HomeMailHotSubjectMarksPeopleMarksKeepersSettings
Terms Of UseContact UsCopyright/IP PolicyPrivacy PolicyAbout UsFAQAdvertise on SI
© 2025 Knight Sac Media.  Data provided by Twelve Data, Alpha Vantage, and CityFALCON News