Two New Publications on Sexual Ethics

Two new publications of mine deal with issues related to sexual ethics.  One of these is an article entitled “Great Cloud of Moral Witness,” just published in Touchstone magazine.  In the article I develop an historical argument for the traditional Christian view of sex and marriage, noting that for nearly 2000 years no significant Christian theologian or biblical scholar defended the permissivist view on human sexual relations.  That is, for all of Christian history until just recently, all major Christian thinkers who addressed the subject have agreed that sexual relations are only appropriate within a marriage between one man and one woman.  I argue that for Christians this uniform consensus of scholarly opinion creates a strong presumption in favor of the traditional view and that those who nonetheless reject it display arrogance or ignorance (or perhaps some combination of both).

Another essay of mine, entitled “The Sexual Pluralist Revolution: Reasons to be Skeptical,” appears in the just-released volume Venus and Virtue, edited by Jerry Walls, Jeremy Neill, and David Baggett and published by Cascade Press.  (The germ of this piece was a W&F blog post in May 2014.  My Touchstone article, however, goes into some depth in highlighting major Christian theologians and biblical scholars who defended the traditional view.)

The Venus and Virtue book consists of sixteen chapters written by men and women from a variety of disciplines (e.g., theology, philosophy, biblical studies, psychology, counseling, youth ministry, etc.), each addressing a different aspect of the sexuality issue.  Section headings include “Biblical and Theological Foundations for Human Sexuality,” “Christian Sexuality for Singles,” “Christian Sexuality for Persons with Same-Sex Attraction,” and “Pastoral Wisdom for Christian Sexuality.”  I highly recommend this resource for pastors, young adult ministers, college professors, and Sunday school teachers.