Beauty, Order, and Mystery: A Christian Vision of Human Sexuality PDF
Preview Beauty, Order, and Mystery: A Christian Vision of Human Sexuality
B E A U T Y, O R D E R , A N D M Y S T E R Y A C H R I S T IA N V I S ION of H U MA N S E X UAL I T Y EDITED BY GE RA L D H I E STA N D & T ODD W I L S ON InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 ivpress.com [email protected] ©2017 by Gerald L. Hiestand and Todd A. Wilson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press. InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Cover design: David Fassett Interior design: Beth McGill Image: Scene from Dante’s Paolo: Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres at Musee des Beaux-Arts, Angers, France / Bridgeman Images ISBN 978-0-8308-8988-4 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-5385-4 (print) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hiestand, Gerald, 1974- editor. | Wilson, Todd A., 1976- editor. Title: Beauty, order, and mystery : a Christian vision of human sexuality / edited by Gerald L. Hiestand and Todd Wilson. Description: Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, [2017] | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017033989 (print) | LCCN 2017035976 (ebook) | ISBN 9780830889884 (eBook) | ISBN 9780830853854 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780830889884 (digital) Subjects: LCSH: Sex—Religious aspects—Christianity—Congresses. Classification: LCC BT708 (ebook) | LCC BT708 .B434 2017 (print) | DDC 233/.5—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033989 To Jill and Katie Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Need for a Christian Vision of Human Sexuality 1 Todd Wilson and Gerald Hiestand Part One: A Theological Vision for Sexuality 1 Mere Sexuality 7 Todd Wilson 2 Embodied from Creation Through Redemption: Placing Gender and Sexuality in Theological Context 21 Beth Felker Jones 3 How Should Gay Christians Love? 31 Wesley Hill 4 Sexuality and the Church: How Pastoral Ministry Shapes a Theology of Sexuality 45 Jeremy Treat 5 Continuing the Task 59 Richard Mouw Part Two: The Beauty and Brokenness of Sexuality 6 Cutting the Fruit While Watering the Root: Selfies, Sexuality, and the Sensibilities of the American Church 73 Daniel J. Brendsel 7 The Transgender Test 87 Denny Burk 8 Put Pain like That Beyond My Power: A Christocentric Theodicy with Respect to the Inequality of Male and Female Power 101 Gerald Hiestand 9 Bent Sexuality and the Pastor 119 Joel Willitts 10 The Wounded It Heals: Gender Dysphoria and the Resurrection of the Body 135 Matthew Mason Part Three: Biblical and Historical Reflections on Gender and Sexuality 11 Imaging Glory: 1 Corinthians 11, Gender, and Bodies at Worship 151 Amy Peeler 12 Thomas Aquinas on Sexual Ethics 165 Matthew Levering 13 One Soul in Two Bodies: Icons of Sergius and Bacchus Then and Now 181 Matthew J. Milliner 14 What Makes Sex Beautiful? Marriage, Aesthetics, and the Image of God in Genesis 1–2 and Revelation 21–22 197 Matt O’Reilly List of Contributors 213 Name Index 217 Subject Index 219 Scripture Index 225 Praise for Beauty, Order, and Mystery 227 About the Editors 228 Center for Pastor Theologians 229 More Titles from InterVarsity Press 230 IVP Academic Textbook Selector 231 Acknowledgments N o book comes into being without the help of many hands. This is perhaps especially true with an edited volume. As such, the con- tributors to this volume have justly earned pride of place in our acknowledg- ments. The topics of sexuality and gender are fraught with difficulty on the left and the right. Our contributors are to be commended for having managed to communicate the wisdom of the church in the spirit of Aristotle’s golden mean. The essays in this volume are both gracious and clear, winsome and firm, pastoral and theological. We are grateful to partner with such an excellent group of ecclesial theologians. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Center for Pastor Theologians, the or- ganizer of the conference from which the papers of this book are drawn. The Center has served as a catalyst for our work and has been a repository of wisdom and counsel on all things pastoral and theological. The theological leadership of the Center—John Yates, Michael LeFebvre, John Isch, Jeremy Mann, and Zach Wagner—deserves our gratitude and bear a measure of responsibility for any blessing this book brings to the church. Special thanks are owed to Zach especially for his labor in indexing this volume. Likewise, we are profoundly grateful for Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Illinois, the congregation where we are privileged to minister. Calvary has graciously served as the host home for the CPT for the better part of a decade, and it is not an understatement to say that the CPT would not be what it is without Calvary’s partnership and support. We are thankful for IVP Academic and their commitment to the ecclesial theology project and the CPT’s vision of the pastor theologian. We are es- pecially thankful for our editor David McNutt whose enthusiastic partici- pation in the production of this book has gone a long way toward making it a reality. x Acknowledgments We are deeply grateful for the partnership of the CPT’s four senior theo- logical mentors: Scott Haffemann, Doug Sweeney, Paul House, and Kevin Vanhoozer. Their commitment to the CPT’s mission, contribution to the Fellowships, and friendship and encouragement to the two of us has been an important catalyst for the CPT project and its associated publications. And finally, to our families, and most especially our wives (to whom this book is dedicated), we remain ever grateful. Their patient endurance in the midst of our already busy schedules is a gift that we do not take lightly. May the Lord pay them back tenfold what they have given to us! Introduction The Need for a Christian Vision of Human Sexuality TODD WILSON AND GERALD HIESTAND T he Center for Pastor Theologians is an organization dedicated to assisting pastor theologians in the study and written production of biblical and theological scholarship for the ecclesial renewal of theology and the theological renewal of the church. In other words, we’re committed to the audacious task of trying to resurrect the vision of the pastor theologian in our day.1 Why? Because we believe passionately, as we like to say, in a “third way”—a way of being a pastor and doing ministry that stands in between the important work of the academic theologian, on the one hand, and the indispensable work of the local church pastor, on the other hand. Our hope, and indeed our prayer, is for the recovery of the ecclesial theologian, one who combines great theological learning with deep spiritual urgency and a care for souls—all for the good of the church. The Center has a number of exciting initiatives that enable us to promote this vision and pursue our calling.2 One of our key program elements is 1For our attempt at a fuller-scale articulation of this vision, see Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson, The Pastor Theologian: Resurrecting an Ancient Vision (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015). 2For more on the Center for Pastor Theologians, see pastortheologians.com.
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