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To be fair, no major Christian church teaches that enjoying sex is a sin. The Roman Catholic Church does teach that contraception is sinful. No major Protestan
by dancek 8y ago
To be fair, no major Christian church teaches that enjoying sex is a sin.
The Roman Catholic Church does teach that contraception is sinful. No major Protestant church does.
- _jal 8y agoTrue, but in the US, they mostly all lay on the neuroticism about sex pretty heavily.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoLust is considered one of the deadly sins. I'm not sure where the line between "lust" and "acceptable desire" is, and I suspect most Christians aren't either - although marriage and procreation usually seem to be involved somewhere. There are far more unconditionally sex-positive religions.
- harimau777 8y agoFrom a theological perspective (which may be different from the social norms that a given church teaches) I think the answer would be that it is bad if it is outside of marriage, not done in love (e.g. objectifying someone), or if it becomes more important to someone than God (which would be considered idolatry).
- state_less 8y agoIt is bad... It is good... Why is it okay to treat people with such heavy handed authoritarianism. I wish more explanation was given.
- minkzilla 8y agoThere is, at least in the Catholic tradition, explanations for pretty much every teaching. From the doctors of the church (the most famous being Augustine), papal encyclicals, and ecumenicla councils. It is all very philosophically and scientifically grounded. You might disagree with the reasoning or a base assumption (natural law) but there are explanations. Normally it has to do with how your action effects yourself and others. In this case objectifying someone causes you to perhaps treat them poorly and prevents you from seeing the inherent dignity in them as a person. I’m not making a comment on this vs. violence because I think that’s a much more cultural thing in America and I haven’t looked into the Church’s stance on portrayal of violence, if it has one.
- gottebp 8y agoMost Christians fail to live up to their own theology, however the thing itself is beautiful. In Catholic terms, lust is precisely the desire to have or use the other apart from love. In theological terms an 'evil' is always a privation -- a lack of good and in this case a lack of love. It is a reduction or removal of some vital piece. Just as a healthy garden has many necessary parts: soil, light, water, protection, seed, etc. healthy sex should have all of the following: Love, stability (via Marriage), openness to the possibility of creating life, be unitive psychologically and spiritually, desire the good of the other above self, pleasure, and a sacred character. Lust undoes most of that leaving only pleasure intact. Lust is about taking. Love is about giving. Appetite placed above the good of the other is disordered (ie: an improper ordering of priorities).
- WaltPurvis 8y agoEvery major Christian church teaches that enjoying sex outside of marriage is a sin and furthermore teach that it's sinful to direct your sexual desire toward anyone (or anything) other than your husband or wife. They shame the expression and even the feeling of sexual desire that doesn't fall within those bounds, teaching that the sex drive is something to be "controlled" or completely squelched until/unless you're able to express it within the bounds of marriage.
- marcus_holmes 8y agoI went to an Anglican Sunday school as a kid, and was definitely taught that sex outside marriage was a sin, that sex purely for enjoyment was a sin, and that God invented sex purely and only to make babies.