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Sex Within the Created Order*
By Frederic C. Wood, Jr.

FROM time to time it falls to the clergy, and especially to those of us who are engaged in one way or another in work with college students, to speak definitively on the subject of sex. I must admit that I sometimes find myself resisting the implication in this that sex is somehow the special domain of the clergy. And I also find myself resisting the implication that sex is the only sphere in the life of college students to which our Gospel is really at all relevant. Likewise I find myself resisting a too facile equation between sex and morality, as if the only moral questions that really deserve our concern were limited to the question of sex.

Nonetheless, with these reservations, I accept the responsibility to speak on this topic gladly, because I am persuaded that this is an area of tremendous concern to students and to many others in our society today. And I am also persuaded that a biblical understanding of life-not simply of sex or of morals-but of life itself, offers some very simple insights into the nature of sexuality, insights which I fear are all too often overlooked.¹

I would emphasize then that what are offered here are insights and not rules. The Bible was not written to give us a set of rules. The Bible was written to reveal the nature of God and of humanity. From such a revealing, or revelation, men have traditionally attempted to derive codes of behavior and principles by which to make decisions in all of the areas of their everyday lives. If this revelation is relevant to other areas in which we make ethical decisions, such as civil rights or academic integrity, I would hope that

* The following is a sermon preached in the Haebler Memorial Chapel, Goucher College, Towson, Maryland, on Sunday, October 26, 1964. Dr. Wood's further commentary on the sermon appears in the footnotes.
¹ This is an important point for understanding the mood and the intention of the entire sermon. That intention was not to lay down or commend a new and more liberal "law" concerning sexual behavior, but rather to derive meaningful guidelines for the expression of our sexuality from the biblical understanding of human nature, including sexuality. In effect, this is simply an assertion of a point of view which maintains that any discussion of biblical ethics (including the ethical exhortations in Scripture itself) takes its point of departure from biblical anthropology.

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it is also relevant to this area of our decisions in relation to the expression of our sexuality.

For my text, I would like to focus your attention on the very simple story which was read to you just a few moments ago from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the story of the creation of man, the first so-called creation myth.² And you will recall that we read there that man (meaning the human animal) is created as male and female, that he is commanded by his creator to go out and fulfill his sexuality, to be fruitful and to multiply and to populate the earth, and that the creator looks upon all of what he has created and says that it is good. It is very, very good.

I

We might start with that last point as the first thing which the Bible has to say about sexuality. It is good. From the structure of the human organism as male and female to every conceivable act of sexual self-expression, sexuality itself is good.³ There is nothing bad or dirty or perverted about it. It is simply good.

Perhaps there is no need to labor this point with this audience. I sense that in recent years we have moved beyond the kind of Victorianism which was still very much of a factor on our campuses as recently as ten years ago when I was a student. At that time, sex was still pretty much of something to be discussed only in the backrooms of fraternity houses or to be swept quietly under the rug with a snicker. Now I sense a greater openness on the part of students to discussion and a facing-up to this area of their lives. For this reason, I would also hope that you are more open to the concrete implications of the goodness of sexuality for your sexual behavior.

The first implication of that goodness is a very simple and disarming one. It is that sex is fun.⁴ Perhaps that also needs no

² The biblical text should shed some light on the title of the sermon, to which reference is not made elsewhere in the sermon itself. The attempt here was to view human sexuality and the ethics appropriate to its expression within the context of the total created order, rather than as a separate compartment of life and experience.
³ What is being said here is that sexuality itself is essentially good, even where the form of sexual self-expression may be demonic or destructive. This is quite different from saying that every form of sexual expression is good. The issue here hangs on the philosophical and theological distinction between essence and existence. The sermon does not ignore the potential distortions and exploitations of sexuality in a fallen world. It simply reminds us that in spite of the fall, human nature (including sexuality) as a part of the created order is essentially good. This is contrary to the widespread assumption which appears to govern much ethical thinking in this area, notably that there is something particularly tainted and demonic about sexuality itself.
⁴ The statements that sex is fun, funny and natural are simply elaborations of the basic point concerning the goodness of sexuality. To some these seemed to be shockingly blunt

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editorializing with this congregation, but one of the things which it means is that indulgence in sexual activity is not a matter of obligation. And by that I mean to say that sex is not something which we are obliged to do or not to do. Because sex is fun, it is freely chosen. Because sex is fun, it is not to be understood as something which we owe to anyone, whether that obligation is understood in terms of a debt to be paid after a certain number of dates, or as conformity to the generalized expectations of a group. Sexual activity is, or ought to be, freely chosen.

Another corollary of the goodness of sexuality is that sex is not only fun; it is also funny. And by this I mean to emphasize not only the humor which attaches to sex (although that is also there, as witness the penchant which most of us have for off-color stories), but rather to emphasize the playful element involved in sexual activity. Like the play of a child, which is freely expressed and creative, sex is also playful. And this means that there are no laws attached to sex. I repeat: absolutely no laws.⁵ There is nothing which you ought to do, or ought not to do. There are no rules of the game, so to speak. And anyone who tells you there are may be guilty of mistaking social and cultural custom for divine sanction, or for what is sometimes popularly called natural law.

And this leads to the third implication of the goodness of sexuality, which is that sex is natural. This may seem self-evident to you, but what it means is that there is nothing special about sex. It is natural. It is not some special area of our lives divorced from all the rest. It is not for special people, at special times, or in special places, or even under special circumstances. It is natural. It is part of the created order of things.

Many of you, I am sure, are aware that the Roman Catholic

ways of elaborating what seemed to the preacher to be a rather self-evident point. These three statements were by far the most widely quoted in the extensive newspaper coverage which the sermon received, and were misread out of context by some to be ethical exhortations rather than descriptive statements. Some were therefore inclined to read mistakenly: "Sex is fun. Therefore go out and fulfill your sexual needs indiscriminately." That still others would want to take serious issue with the statements that sex is both enjoyable and humorous may indicate that the acknowledgment of this truism is needed in any serious discussion of the ethics of sex.
⁵ A good deal of perplexity has been aroused by the statement that "there are no laws attached to sex." It ought to be noted that this does not say what many have interpreted it to mean, i.e., that there are no laws which may be applied to sexual behavior. The statement is simply a reminder (1) of the relativity of specific moral injunctions regarding sex within the "sexual arrangements" prevailing in different cultures and (2) of the grounding of sexual ethics in the biblical revelation of the nature of love rather than in any natural function. This latter point is contrary to a "natural law" type of moral theology, and simply asserts that there are no laws which may be derived from sexuality itself.

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Church has reasoned from this naturalness of sex to a natural function-notably procreation (although those of you who have been reading the newspapers will also be aware that there is a good deal of turmoil within the Roman Church on this question today). This natural function has been used by the church as a sanction against premarital intercourse or the use of birth control. I wonder if such reasoning does not really finally deny the naturalness of sex, by making of it something which is only for special purposes or under special circumstances. Eating, for example, is also natural, and has the natural function of the nourishment and preservation of the organism. But most of my gourmet friends would be rather abashed if I told them that they should engage in eating only for those purposes.

If there is one implication of all these comments on the goodness of sexuality, perhaps it is that we ought not to take sex so seriously.⁶ I would have to say to you on the basis of my experience with college students that I am coming to think that one of the serious problems with sex and the college student today is that you all take sex too seriously. It is too often assumed to be some special, serious area of your lives, separated from the rest of your concerns; and the sexual act itself is assumed to be fraught with all kinds of special meaning and mystical significance. But if we really take seriously the naturalness and the humor of sex, perhaps there is a lesson here-that we all ought to relax and stop feeling guilty about our sexual activities, thoughts, and desires.⁷ And I mean this, whether those activities and thoughts are heterosexual, homosexual, or autosexual.⁸

⁶ The statement that we ought not to take sex so seriously is addressed to a context in which young people in particular appear to take their sexuality too seriously and to assume that it is some special and separate area of their lives, as elaborated in the statements which follow. This does not mean that one should not take seriously the ethical questions and issues raised by man's sexual nature. Indeed, the entire sermon may be viewed as a plea that the real moral issues attaching to sexual behavior be taken eminently seriously.
⁷ This statement about guilt has occasioned some concern from a theologically-trained audience. The context should make it clear that the reference here is not to that real sense of personal shortcomings and selfishness which is so closely allied to one's sense of responsibility, and which appears to be generally a constructive force in life. The reference is rather to an induced and distorted sense of guilt simply for being sexual creatures. Such a sense of guilt seems to be widespread among young people who seek counseling aid in this area, and is both unrealistic and unbiblical.
⁸ This reference to sexual activities other than the conventionally heterosexual does not constitute carte blanche approval for such activities, but is rather a reminder that any meaningful discussion of the ethics of sex cannot realistically be limited to the pros and cons of premarital intercourse. In context, it implicitly attacks the widespread assumption that homosexuality and masturbation are somehow in and of themselves evil, with little or no reference to the context in which such practices are indulged. Certainly the guilt occasioned by such activities frequently has little connection with the deeper issues of moral responsibility raised in the latter half of the sermon.

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II

The goodness of sexuality, however, is not all that the Bible has to say on the subject. If it were, there would be little difference on this subject between a believer and a hedonist, that is, someone whose only drive in life is to derive as much immediate pleasure from it as possible, generally without reference to others. But the Bible reminds us that sex is not only good. It is also creative. In our text for this morning we read that man is commanded to go out and fulfill his sexuality, to be fruitful, and to multiply.

There are at least two ways in which sex is creative.

The first and most obvious sense in which sex is creative is that that is the way in which babies are made. However obvious this may seem to you, I would warn you that it is a truth about heterosexual union which we can ignore only at our peril.

As many of you know, there has in recent times been a good deal of talk about the pill. And many have speculated upon the effect which reasonably ready access to a reasonably foolproof method of birth control will have upon sexual morality among our college students across the nation. Some have even hypothesized that we are in the midst of a sexual revolution. I believe that we may well be in the midst of such a revolution, but I wonder if ascribing it all to the pill really does justice to all of the issues which are involved in premarital sex. Statistically, from my own counseling and from that of others in similar work, I can well-nigh assure you that the availability of the pill has not removed the threat of pregnancy from our campuses. And beyond that, at a deeper level, I wonder if the control of fertility really comes to grips with all of the issues here. And I sense that students today are also aware that the control of fertility is not the final issue in decisions about premarital sex.

To say this and to cite statistics is not in any way to invoke the threat of pregnancy as some kind of moral sanction. The church has too often and for too long fallen into that trap, and today, with virtual control of fertility just around the corner; we are paying the price for our earlier moral shallowness. What I am concerned with, however, is to call each of you (regardless of your religious commitments) to take seriously the fact that heterosexual union is always at least potentially creative of another person-a person, not just some little baby who may be viewed as a nuisance or an un-

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fortunate inconvenience, but another person, for whom his creators are deeply and intimately responsible. And I would hasten to add that I call all men to take that fact seriously, whether or not they are married.

There is a second, equally important, although more subtle sense in which sex is creative. Sex is creative as a means of self-fulfillment and self-expression. To say this is to recognize sex as a mode of relationship, as a mode of that much-misunderstood phenomenon-love. Time magazine, in its treatment of the sexual revolution in America, recently commented perceptively:

The Victorians who talked a great deal about love, knew little about sex. Perhaps it is time that modern Americans, who know a great deal about sex, once again start talking about love.

[January 24, 1964, p. 59]

If sex is creative in the sense of being a means of interpersonal fulfillment, then perhaps we need to acknowledge that sex may have something to do with those relationships which we characterize as love relationships; that is, relationships which are marked by certain mutualities of respect, consideration, concern, and giving. The believer will find himself raising the question whether sex outside such a love relationship is not at least potentially destructive, rather than creative, and therefore less than fully sex.

I would hasten to add that to say this is in no way to draw a facile equation between the type of relationship which I have described and the institution of marriage. Marriage itself, as the public and open announcement and affirmation of one's interpersonal responsibilities, is no guarantee of a proper love relationship. What I am calling for here is simply sex within the context of the kind of relationship which marriage is intended to symbolize and to affirm.⁹

III

This leads to the final biblical insight into the nature of sexuality, which is that sex is interpersonal. You will recall from the text that man is created as male and female; and all of his social, interpersonal relationships are therefore marked by this basic distinction.

⁹ This statement briefly summarizes the central ethical appeal of the sermon. It is an expression of what has been called "contextual ethics," and suggests that a more viable and moral morality will replace the traditional "within marriage-yes; outside marriage-no" with the question of the meaning of the sexual act within the relationship of the partners. An attempt is then made to elaborate some of the basic issues of interpersonal responsibility in the section which follows.

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We are all either male or female; and sexual activity therefore always involves some kind of relationship with another person. And once again I would urge that this is true whether that activity is heterosexual, homosexual, or even autosexual (for even such activities almost inevitably involve the fantasy of or the desire for a relationship with another person).

If sex is deeply and inherently interpersonal, what is the biblical understanding of interpersonal relationships? It is simply that they are the very meat of life. Indeed, it is the interpersonal image that has been selected by the biblical writers as the basic analogy of the God-man relationship. God is understood as acting personally for his people in the Old Testament, and as acting in a person in the New Testament. And throughout the Bible he is understood as the God of love, which is itself a meaningless concept outside of the realm of interpersonal relationships.

The biblical understanding of such interpersonal relationships, be they God-to-man or man-to-man, is that if they are full they are responsible. This is the weight of the plea of such biblical theologians as Martin Buber that we relate to one another as persons rather than use one another as things. And this plea is relevant to any kind of interpersonal relationship, whether it is in bed, or playing tennis, or singing a duet. From a biblical point of view, to relate to another person is to assume some responsibility for that person. And the magnitude of the responsibility is directly proportionate to the depth of the relationship. Insofar as the sexual act generally (and perhaps even universally) purports to express a deep relationship, then it also entails a high degree of responsibility to one's partner in that act.

This insight into the relationship between personal responsibility and sex is at the base of the church's traditional tying of sexual intercourse to marriage, understood as the public assumption of these responsibilities. To say this is not to say that premarital intercourse is "bad" or dirty. Indeed, it can be very beautiful.¹⁰ But it is to suggest that premarital intercourse may be irresponsible, insofar as the two parties have not fully and openly assumed their responsibilities to one another.

¹⁰ The statement that premarital intercourse "can be very beautiful," however obvious it may seem to some, has evoked some of the most violent reactions to the sermon. In context, it merely reaffirms that the church's traditional injunctions against premarital intercourse, properly understood, arise out of the issues of social and interpersonal responsibility involved and do not pass any universal judgment on the creative, positive dimensions of the act itself.

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Well, I have not told you whether you should or you shouldn't-or even how far you should. And the reason is that I cannot. To do so would be to give you a new law, or some kind of new code of behavior (or perhaps even a reworking of an old one) by which you might then measure yourselves and decide whether or not you are the right kind of person, or perhaps even whether or not your behavior finds favor in the eyes of God (since some people think we clergy speak with such authority).¹¹ The good news of the Gospel which has been delivered to me is that we have been freed from such laws as evaluative codes of behavior-freed to act responsibly according to a higher law. If you will, this is the law of love. It is what a Christian means by the love which has been defined and acted out by Jesus Christ.

Insofar as you share a commitment to such a love (whether or not you identify it with a Christian label), and insofar as my remarks today have been compatible with the spirit of that love, I hope that you may have found in them some guidelines for your own expression of your sexuality.

Let us pray.

Give us grace, our Father, that in response to the gift of love we may act responsibly in love in all our doings. Amen.

¹¹ This refusal to give a new law, to spell out universal rules for the governing of sexual behavior, is consistent with the intention of the entire sermon. In effect, the congregation was being exhorted to take more seriously that radical freedom which is central to the Christian Gospel, and in that freedom to exercise true (rather than vicarious) moral responsibility in regard to their sexual behavior. As one perceptive student commented, "What you were asking for is much harder than simply living by the rules." Such a "new" morality is harder, but it is also more fully human and more consistent with the New Testament proclamation of grace. In this respect, it should not be surprising that the sermon has evoked the same kind of cries of "antinomian" that the morally conscientious proclamation and exercise of Christian freedom has called forth throughout the history of the church.
This emphasis on freedom in the exercise of our sexuality has occasioned a good deal of concern among some clergy and educators who responded that one should not speak of such freedom until he has first spoken of responsibility, as well as among those who feel that it is "dangerous" to speak of freedom at all to a college-age audience. Such criticism may overlook the fact that today's college students are eminently aware of the freedom they have (in sex as in other areas). If one speaks to them first of their responsibilities, and only then will tolerate freedom in a context circumscribed by the preacher's concept of responsibility, one will find that his audience will already have, so to speak, turned off their hearing aids before he ever gets to the second half of his sermon. Likewise, those who think that it is "dangerous" to speak of freedom to college-age people may not be fully aware that today's students consider it "dangerous" (and usually boring) to listen to one who does not demonstrate respect for their capacity for responsible behavior.
In this respect, the very structure of the sermon may now more clearly emerge. (1) Certain hard-nosed realities and truisms about human sexuality, realities for the most part already well-known by the audience, were joyfully acknowledged. (2) The real freedom which students experience in this area of their lives was also acknowledged, along with a deep respect for the capacity of the audience to exercise that freedom responsibly. (3) Against this background, and only against this background, the hearers of the sermon were exhorted to act responsibly in accordance with that norm of behavior which is central to the biblical proclamation.