Sex Marriage and Christianity

First on the list of issues that I proposed to write about in my last post was sex and marriage. True to my word, this post will be an introduction to a series of posts that I'm working on which talk about these issues.

As a young man I have been naturally interested in the discussion of sex and marriage, and as I've grown older and more Christian I've become particularly interested in the sociology and ethics of sex.

The Family's doctrine of The Law of Love sparked special interest in me about three years ago while I was still in the Family and when I finally made an effort to understand it clearly.

For over a year I studied and wrestled with this doctrine trying to understand how it reconciled itself with the Bible. During that time I read the entire "Law of Love" series along with most of the other relevant TFI literature that I could get my hands on. I also studied the Bible and the biblical model for marriage and sex as well as some relevant non-TFI Christian books. I ultimately compiled my research in an 8000 word essay which will provide the material for the preceding series of posts.

Why bring it up?

Some of my friends who are in The Family may find my casual blogging about their inherently controversial doctrine to be unfair or uncharitable. Maybe some of you will say that an open blog is no place to talk about such sensitive issues. So at the risk of offending my friends or even personal family members why would I venture to raise such a discussion?

First, for whatever it's worth, I want to say that this is nothing personal. That is, I'm not actually interested in discussing the Family at present. My topic of discussion is sex, marriage, and society. With respect to this subject, by far the most interesting discussion available to me presently is about the Law of Love. But more importantly the Law of Love is the most important discussion available to me because of its potential effects on TFI culture as well as others.

Also, I disagree with the premise that religious doctrines are personal affairs. Christianity is a corporation in which I am a shareholder. There's a sense in which we are (or ought to be) held accountable to other Christians for the way in which we believe and act. Christianity isn't anyones personal religion and we're not at liberty to privately do with Christianity whatever pleases us. So although I'm no longer in The Family I still have an interest in the way that my religion and God are represented to people. Family doctrines as well as those from any other denomination are open for discussion and even criticism. This is the healthy, natural, and biblical approach to revelation and doctrine.

I also believe in freedom of inquiry and that it's good and necessary to encourage prudent followership in cohesive religious groups where good things like unity and camaraderie can lend to bad things like groupthink without the proper perspective. The proper perspective is that fair scrutiny of leadership is a healthy and godly thing. Only God deserves the unqualified trust of His people and so to give this kind of trust to men and women is wrong and idolatrous.

Having said all of that, I hope to have a cordial and fair discussion. I hope that anyone who disagrees with me wont feel too intimidated to share their views and arguments because I value contrary opinions. Lets remember that the truth ought to be the object of argument, so no matter how you view this issue there is a sense in which we are all on the same side.

The first post will be up in about a week so stay tuned.

P.S. Some of you have complained about my long winded posts. My heart breaks for those of you who can't sit still long enough to read a few paragraphs so I'll be providing narrations in mp3 format along with the posts in text.

"Truth springs from argument amongst friends." -David Hume