Pacifism In No Way Means 'Passive'
Theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas have, more out of necessity than desire, waded through treacherous ground to arrive at “just war” theories that stand up to Christian scrutiny.
Morality Archives
January 16, 2007 3:42 PM
Comments (18)February 8, 2007 9:50 AM
Save the Earth for God's Sake
"Look out the window," I tell my students each fall in my Women's Spirituality class. "See that beautiful tree? If you believed that God was immanent in the world, if the world was God's body, would it give you pause about chopping it down? Would you think twice about tearing at the grass when you are bored, if you believed that somehow with that tiny act, you were tearing at the fabric of the divine?”
February 20, 2007 10:04 AM
Religious Teachings on Sex Can Throw Young Into Crisis
It’s not that some religions regard sex as sacred while others regard it as sinful, since most of the world’s religions—Christianity included—understand sex as a gift from God, if it occurs within marriage.
March 6, 2007 11:17 AM
Love is Blind, or Should Be
What I believe about gay marriage and gay clergy—that anyone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) should have the same access to these opportunities (and all others, for that matter) as straight people—owes nothing to the Catholic tradition in which I was raised. These beliefs grew out of my liberal political persuasion and my friendships with members of the LBGT community.
December 4, 2007 9:41 AM
The Real Sex Scandal: Youth Leading the Youth
While America frets about the bedroom activities of its leaders, many young adults across the country and across traditions agonize--most often in silence--about navigating romance and sex in a way that doesn't leave them alienated, even rejected, by their faith. Once a child hits puberty, and sometimes even well before, she is often slammed with the (mostly) don'ts of her tradition's teachings about sex, often in a form that is much like chicken soup (so thin as to lack any nourishment at all), and often in a way that if she learns anything about her current sexual predicament, the takeaway involves how she stands to lose everything--her relationship with God, her standing in her community, the respect of a future spouse--if she should commit sexual transgressions before marriage.
Or if she doesn't receive such extensive scare tactics, sometimes adult "mentors" feel a simple Nike-esque "Don't do it" suffices. (That was about all I got as a Catholic young adult.)
For the most part, a young person can either take it or leave it when it comes to teachings on sex by their religious tradition--and more often than not, they face "leaving it," or at least "compartmentalizing it," if they want their faith lives to weather the storm of adolescence, college, and often a decade or more afterward.
So debating whether or not sex outside of marriage is "OK" in the face of a few particular scandals seems disingenuous to me, beside the point even, when the vast majority of our youth are faced with navigating the waters of sex outside of marriage without much if any of the real heavy-lifting of this difficult task done with the help of adults in their community.
