on sexuaity

“The most enduring form of distorted sexuality is its decontextualisation from other aspects of life, and hence from the wholeness of personal responsibility, so that it ceases to be a part of an encounter between two whole human persons and therefore to be anything really personal at all. A purely sexual encounter is lived as though the genitals have a life independent from the rest of the person, capable of making their own peculiar commitments and of ignoring those made by the rest of the person. Rather, sexual relations should conform to the dialogical pattern of mutual whole-person orientation, in which case they would take place ‘only in the totality and context of the life of each of the partners including the whole sphere of their encounter and co-existence’.” (Primary source: The Call to Personhood by Alistair McFadyn, 36-37. In quote: Barth Church Dogmatics, 3.1)

“Further, becoming ‘one flesh’ denotes neither sexual intercourse nor its product (Seth), but human existence as a whole under the aspect of corporality. It is the dialogical form of relatedness which is normative for marriage, as for all relations and so for all sexuality, not marrage and heterosexuality which are normative for our understanding and practice of dialogue.” (38)