The word "Chastity" is little used today in the Church, and even less in the world. This is a matter for regret!
What it used to mean - and still does mean - is a supreme God-pleasing standard for sexual relations. Regrettably, this standard seems to be universally regarded as too idealistic and/or not in touch with people's real lives and feelings.
Chastity (from the Latin "castitas", the quality or state of being chaste) has for centuries described the pure life, with particular reference to abstinence from unlawful, sexual intercourse. The unmarried and the married are both called to chastity. Thus fornication and adultery, and all forms of rape, are forbidden, being acts of impurity. Further, cohabitation and most forms of marriage after divorce fall within what Chastity has (traditionally) forbidden.
Using the modern expression of "orientation" it may be said that the call of chastity to those with a homosexual orientation is to an abstinence from "gay" sex.
The call to purity in general and sexual purity in particular is, of course, based upon many passages in the Gospels and Epistles where baptized Christians are called to purity of life in the church and in the world in imitation of Christ Jesus. And the purity that is being sought includes very definitely purity of mind and heart.
Let us hope and pray that this traditional Christian theme will influence the Primates in their discussions on October 15-16 and that they will not be too focused on one aspect of impurity, "gay" partnerships.
Today, there is a tendency amongst moral theologians to widen the meaning of Chastity and to free it from its traditional association with purity of sexual relations. Thus it is now said, "to be chaste is to be a person of integrity, true to self and to other persons, devoted to the love of God and neighbour in all things. The call to chastity is the call to receive, affirm, exercise and celebrate our ways of being human together, including sexual ways, so that respect, love, trust, mutuality and commitment towards ourselves and our neighbours will grow and abound in human community" (New Dictionary of Christian Ethics, IVP). There is nothing wrong with these sentiments, but if we go with this wide meaning we find that we do not have a word to replace "chastity" as a powerful, incisive word referring to sexual purity. Maybe this loss is what pleases many in the modern churches!
I vote to stay with the traditional meaning! I hope the Primates also do.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
No comments:
Post a Comment