Culture wars about sexuality: A theological proposal for dialogue

Abstract

Since the 1960s, "orthodox Christians" and "emancipatory liberals" (ideal types for the sake of argument) have fought culture wars about the identity of the public domain, in particular in formerly Christian nations such as the United States and the Netherlands. Sexuality has proven one of the prominent battlegrounds. This contribution advocates the need for a genuine dialogue between both groups. It is shown how both are, in fact, interrelated, having developed from the same Christian narrative in Western history. Therefore, despite their clashes, they could profit from each other's insights. The Christian tradition provided the "social imaginary" that fueled the sexual revolution, as becomes clear in such characteristics as individual freedom (that could transcend "natural" boundaries), desacralized sexuality, and connecting sex to relational self-realization. Retrieving these connections could shed light on some contemporary deadlocks, such as sexual freedom ending up in new inequalities, commercialization, and renewed sacralization. On the other hand, despite their departure from traditional moralities, late modern "emancipatory liberals" drew some consequences from this shared tradition that "orthodox Christians" themselves tended to neglect (e.g., relativization of bourgeois marriage as standard and openness for varieties of male and female that do not fit ruling gender norms).