A Survey of Sex and Celibacy in Religion

A Survey of Sex and Celibacy in Religion PDF Author: T. Clifton Longworth
Publisher: Book Tree
ISBN: 9781585092352
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Why was sex so important in early religions? Why have there been so many sexual scandals with priests? How and why did the practice of celibacy begin? Is being celibate psychologically helpful to monks, nuns, and others who must practice it? This book examines the role of sex in religion from the earliest known time of pre-Christian cults up into the modern day. It is the only book we know of that approaches the problem of sex and celibacy in religion in such a complete and thorough way. It describes an age-old struggle being waged by religious representatives between their own natural state of human sexuality and its complete suppression in the name of God.

A Survey of Sex and Celibacy in Religion

A Survey of Sex and Celibacy in Religion PDF Author: T. Clifton Longworth
Publisher: Book Tree
ISBN: 9781585092352
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why was sex so important in early religions? Why have there been so many sexual scandals with priests? How and why did the practice of celibacy begin? Is being celibate psychologically helpful to monks, nuns, and others who must practice it? This book examines the role of sex in religion from the earliest known time of pre-Christian cults up into the modern day. It is the only book we know of that approaches the problem of sex and celibacy in religion in such a complete and thorough way. It describes an age-old struggle being waged by religious representatives between their own natural state of human sexuality and its complete suppression in the name of God.

Costly Obedience

Costly Obedience PDF Author: Mark A. Yarhouse
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310521424
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Though we often hear about the "gay problem" today, there is an even deeper problem in the church today--one that we often overlook. The call to follow Christ is a call to costly obedience for all, not just for gay Christians. Far too often, the church has elevated homosexuality above other sins and required a costly obedience from gays that it is unwilling to demand of others. And yet, the answer is not to weaken the demands of obedience. Instead, gay Christians who make the difficult choice to align their lives with the biblical view of sexuality are a gift to the church, reminding all of us that spiritual growth and maturity is costly. There is a price to pay in following Christ and devoting our lives to the call of the gospel, and it is one that we all must pay--gay and straight Christians alike. Through the stories and struggles of gay Christians who are reorienting their lives around the costly obedience required to follow Christ, Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets call the church to reorient as well, leaving behind the casual morality that is widespread today to pursue the path of radical discipleship. Unlike any other book on homosexuality and the church, this is a call to examine your life and consider what God is asking you to lay down to take up your cross and follow him.

Gay and Catholic

Gay and Catholic PDF Author: Eve Tushnet
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 1594715432
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Winner of a 2015 Catholic Press Award: Gender Issues Category (First Place). In this first book from an openly lesbian and celibate Catholic, widely published writer and blogger Eve Tushnet recounts her spiritual and intellectual journey from liberal atheism to faithful Catholicism and shows how gay Catholics can love and be loved while adhering to Church teaching. Eve Tushnet was among the unlikeliest of converts. The only child of two atheist academics, Tushnet was a typical Yale undergraduate until the day she went out to poke fun at a gathering of philosophical debaters, who happened also to be Catholic. Instead of enjoying mocking what she termed the “zoo animals,” she found herself engaged in intellectual conversation with them and, in a move that surprised even her, she soon converted to Catholicism. Already self-identifying as a lesbian, Tushnet searched for a third way in the seeming two-option system available to gay Catholics: reject Church teaching on homosexuality or reject the truth of your sexuality. Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith is the fruit of Tushnet’s searching: what she learned in studying Christian history and theology and her articulation of how gay Catholics can pour their love and need for connection into friendships, community, service, and artistic creation.

Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe

Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe PDF Author: James A. Brundage
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226077896
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 714

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Book Description
This monumental study of medieval law and sexual conduct explores the origin and develpment of the Christian church's sex law and the systems of belief upon which that law rested. Focusing on the Church's own legal system of canon law, James A. Brundage offers a comprehensive history of legal doctrines–covering the millennium from A.D. 500 to 1500–concerning a wide variety of sexual behavior, including marital sex, adultery, homosexuality, concubinage, prostitution, masturbation, and incest. His survey makes strikingly clear how the system of sexual control in a world we have half-forgotten has shaped the world in which we live today. The regulation of marriage and divorce as we know it today, together with the outlawing of bigamy and polygamy and the imposition of criminal sanctions on such activities as sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, and bestiality, are all based in large measure upon ideas and beliefs about sexual morality that became law in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages. "Brundage's book is consistently learned, enormously useful, and frequently entertaining. It is the best we have on the relationships between theological norms, legal principles, and sexual practice."—Peter Iver Kaufman, Church History

The Inner Voice of Love

The Inner Voice of Love PDF Author: Henri J. M. Nouwen
Publisher: Image
ISBN: 0307768775
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
A classic, personal work of self-examination from the bestselling author of The Return of the Prodigal Son, hailed as “one of the world’s greatest spiritual writers” by Christianity Today This is Henri Nouwen’s secret journal. It was written during the most difficult period of his life, when he suddenly lost his self-esteem, his energy to live and work, his sense of being loved—even his hope in God. Although he experienced excruciating anguish and despair, he was still able to keep a journal in which he wrote a daily spiritual imperative to himself that emerged from his conversations with friends and supporters. For more than eight years, Nouwen felt that his journal was too raw and private to share with others. Instead, he published The Return of the Prodigal Son to express some of the insights gained during his mental and spiritual crisis. But then friends asked him, “Why keep your anguish hidden from the many people who have been nurtured by your writing? Wouldn’t it be a consolation to know about the fierce inner battle that lies underneath your spiritual insights?” For the countless men and women who live through the pain of broken relationships or suffer from the loss of a loved one, this book about the inner voice of love offers new courage, new hope, and even new life.

Sex, Priests, and Power

Sex, Priests, and Power PDF Author: A. W. Richard Sipe
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780876307694
Category : Celibacy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Richard Sipe examines the continuing sexual crisis facing the Catholic Church today. Has the storm of publicity and controversy caused the church to acknowledge any of the accusations? Will the church accept statistical evidence or alter the way it trains its clergy? How has it come to grips with reforming or retraining abusers? Has it acknowledged the spread of AIDS among its ranks? Why does the church oppress women and react with hostility and fear towards them? Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis addresses these and other questions.

Sex and Culture

Sex and Culture PDF Author: Joseph Daniel Unwin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description


A History of Celibacy

A History of Celibacy PDF Author: Elizabeth Abbott
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684849437
Category : Celibacy
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
What causes people to give up sex? Abbott's provocative and entertaining exploration of celibacy through the ages debunks traditional notions about celibacy--a practice that reveals much about human sexual desires and drives.

Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes

Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes PDF Author: Thomas P. Doyle
Publisher: Bonus Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1566252652
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy is not a new phenomenon. Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes reveals in shocking detail a deep-seated problem that spans the Church's history.

Forbidden Fruit

Forbidden Fruit PDF Author: Mark D. Regnerus
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199744947
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Americans remain deeply ambivalent about teenage sexuality. Many presume that such uneasiness is rooted in religion. But how exactly does religion contribute to the formation of teenagers' sexual values and actions? What difference, if any, does religion make in adolescents' sexual attitudes and behaviors? Are abstinence pledges effective? What does it mean to be "emotionally ready" for sex? Who expresses regrets about their sexual activity and why? Tackling these and other questions, Forbidden Fruit tells the definitive story of the sexual values and practices of American teenagers, paying particular attention to how participating in organized religion shapes sexual decision-making. Merging analyses of three national surveys with stories drawn from interviews with over 250 teenagers across America, Mark Regnerus reviews how young people learn-and what they know-about sex from their parents, schools, peers and other sources. He examines what experiences teens profess to have had, and how they make sense of these experiences in light of their own identities as religious, moral, and responsible persons. Religion can and does matter, Regnerus finds, but religious claims are often swamped by other compelling sexual scripts. Particularly interesting is the emergence of what Regnerus calls a new middle class sexual morality which has little to do with a desire for virginity but nevertheless shuns intercourse in order to avoid risks associated with pregnancy and STDs. And strikingly, evangelical teens aren't less sexually active than their non-evangelical counterparts, they just tend to feel guiltier about it. In fact, Regnerus finds that few religious teens have internalized or are even able to articulate the sexual ethic taught by their denominations. The only-and largely ineffective-sexual message most religious teens are getting is, "Don't do it until you're married." Ultimately, Regnerus concludes, religion may influence adolescent sexual behavior, but it rarely motivates sexual decision making.