LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 328

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328

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

Introduction

It is necessary that the church. in its concern for the lives of
human beings created by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
should address itself to the issues of human sexuality and offer
guidance to all who seek to understand our identity as sexual
beings. Few characteristics so deepiy stampour selfhood as our
maleness and femaleness. In fact. itis quite impossible for us to
know ourselves as God's good creation without a recognition of
our identity as sexual beings. Nor is it possible to perceive this
identity rightly without remembering what Jesus Christ did to
redeem us from the power of sin and its effect on our lives as
sexual beings.

As we address the problems of human sexuality which
involve questions related to the meaning of human self-giving.
faithfulness in human relationships. and the relationship be-
tween men and women, we doso in the confidence that the Holy
Spirit helps us to use the gift of sexuality in ways pleasing toour
Creator. The Commission on Theology and Church Relations
therefore presents this report on human sexuality as prepared
by its Social Concerns Committee with the prayer that it will
assist the church in its consideration of this important aspect of
our lives.!

The purposes of this study will be (1) to place the order of
marriage within the larger framework of human sexuality as
God's creation: (2) to discuss the purposes or ends which
marriage serves, as these are taught in the Scriptures and
understood in the history of the church: and (3) to discuss. inthe
light of these purposes. certain problems or “issues” which must

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I. Man as Male and Female

Robert Farrar Capon has written:

Suppose I wrote a book called Ths Nerul Litt of a
Nun. Youknow what people would think. They would be
curious—or shocked. They would expect to find it either
a big joke or a compilation of a slightly prurient propa-
ganda. How many would be ahle to see that, on the real
meaning of the word serva/. itisa perfectly proper title?
Fora nun's life of course is utterly sexual. She thinks asa
woman, prays as a woman, reacts as a woman and
commits herself as a woman. No monk, no celibate, ever
embraced his life for her kind of reasons. He couldn't if
he wanted to. Of course she omits, as an offering to God.
one particular expression of her sexuality: but itis only
one out of a hundred. The sexual congress she does not
attend is not life's most important meeting, all the
marriage manuals to thé contrary notwithstanding.?

Capon’s point. made in fairly amusing fashion. is an important
one. A study of human sexuality from the standpoint of
Christian theology cannot begin with a discussion of marriage.
Rather, it must begin with the creation of man as male and
female. with what Kar! Barth called “being-in-fellow-
humanity.”?

This is. after all. where the Scriptures begin. “So God
created man in his own image. in the image of God he created
kim: male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27: italies
added}. The suggestion here is that it is impossible to come to
know the significance of our humanity without reference to the
sexual differentiation between male and female. To be human
simply ‘x to exist in this male-female duality.* Consequently. it

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inevitably engage the attention of those who think about human
sexuality. While the Commission recognizes that not all prob-
lems in the area of human sexuality are addressed in this report.
it is hoped that the affirmations stated at the end of the study
will provide guidance for Christians as they seek to order their
lives as sexual beings in ways which will honor both God and
their neighbor.

will be insufficient to say that God has created two kinds of
human beings. mate and female. Rather. we should say that God
has created human beings for fellowship and that the male-
female polarity is a basic form of this fellowship. To stress that
human beings are created for community as male and female
necessarily involves an equally firm insistence that they are
male or female.’ We are created not for life in isolation but for
community. a community which binds those who are different.
We are not simply “persons.” however important that claim
may on occasion be as a protest against inequities.

When the Scriptures dea! with human beings as man and
woman. created to realize not themselves but their fellowship as
a harmonious union of those who are different, they view man
and woman as embodied creatures. Men and women are not
mere persons who meet in a purely spiritual union. On the
contrary, the body has its own integrity. What we do in our
bodies is done by us; there is no inner. purely spiritual self which
remains untouched by our physical commitments (1 Cor. 6:18).
Weare. quite simply, created as embodied creatures: as male
and female. Thus we do not find in the other simply an image of
ourselves, an alter ego: rather. the fellowship for which we are
created is a fellowship of those who are different and who vet
are joined in a personal community of love.

There is a further reason why we must begin not with
marriage but with the creation of man as male and female. Not
every human being need enter the order of marriage (1 Cor.
7:1-7). Celibacy is also in accordance with the will of God.
Despite the justifiable polemic of the Reformers against the
view of medieval Christendom which institutionalized celibacy
asa way of life more acceptable to God than the marital union of
husband and wife. we cannot allow that polemic to determine
everything we say about the fellowship of man and woman. The
church today must certainly make clear to its people that
marriage is ordained by God and sanctified by Him and that.
indeed. the fellowship of man and woman is ordered toward the
physical union which stands at its center and is the most
intimate form of this fellowship. Nevertheless. the church must
also assure those who do not enter the order of marriage that
they also please God.

In genera: cf Harta. pp. i i4¢— isa