The Council of Jerusalem's decision in Acts 15 that non-Jewish Christians were not to be bound by the Jewish law almost created as many problems at it solved.
For centuries Jewish scholars had pored over the law, working out how it applied to every aspect of life, and every circumstance that could possibly be encountered. The Law brought security - people knew where they stood with God, what was acceptable and what was sinful. But without this certainty Christians had to re-create their morality, building on the principles of Jesus' teaching. Within the area of sexual ethics the Church faced a problem. Whereas Judaism had centred around a very high view of family, fruitfulness and covenant faithfulness, many of the religious groups to which the early Church found itself in opposition included sexual indulgence as part of their religious rituals. And so much early formulation of Christian dogma arose as a reaction to these groups, and the excesses of that context.
One of the most influential figures in the early Church, whose views remained dominant for well over a thousand years, and still hold great sway in many circles, was St. Augustine, himself a convert from one of these sects. His reactionary attitudes to everything that had characterised his previous lifestyle brought on a very low view of sexual pleasure. This disdain of sex included his horror of behaving like an animal and losing control of his "higher powers" of reason and logic. This is perhaps an indication of what happens when academics are left to write the rules based on that which they most respect in themselves!
In general the early rulings of the Church attempted to preserve the unity of the sexual act in the context of the procreative process. It is only within the last few centuries that we have discovered the necessity of both the sperm and ovum components of sexual reproduction. Christian theology however emerged from an understanding that the male alone carried the seed which was the potential embryo. The woman was little more than the nurturing "soil" into which this seed was to be implanted. Although both male and female were needed for the process, the man alone was viewed as the generative "disseminator" of the human race. This provider / nurturer status clearly has repercussions in role behaviour in the family unit.
In addition the guidelines of sexual practice were historically made by the "Church Fathers". It is not too difficult to surmise that any understanding of sex and sexuality enshrined in their theology and dogma has, at the very least, a male bias, and at the worst embodies the values of an oppressive patriarchy. In many ways the church's understanding of sexuality could thus be perceived as a ruthless embodiment of male power-seeking, awaiting for the redemptive revision of post-feminist theology as a source of justice in gender struggles.
A contemporary, Western re-thinking of Christianity and sexuality must take in some of the lessons that can be surmised from the inevitable short-sightedness of any culture of origin. Such principles as the preservation of the sanctity of all life, the covenanting of the marriage union, and opposition to homosexual activity can all be seen to have had, at their origin, the best intentions: a proclamation of the care of God for all humanity and a desire for justice for the weak and vulnerable. In a culture without a welfare system the emphasis on family unity was necessary for women or children who would find it almost impossible to survive if "dumped" by a man. And in a society which frequently saw men taking slaves or young boys for their sexual pleasure, the risk of exploitation called for a rejection of these practises. These principles, which Christians see as expressions of God's care for all humanity, must guide our own thinking and passions on these issues. The ideal of justice for all must
When looking for the truth in matters of justice it is unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore the widely accepted understandings of any marginalised or oppressed grouping. The voice of sexual justice is will be most clearly and appropriately heard from those who suffer from its injustice: women, gays & lesbians, young people who are recipients of adult exploitation ... It is only in feeling the pain of the oppressed that Jesus can begin to speak to us in words of justice. No sexual ethic can be written outwith that context that does not perpetuate the injustice. To simply search the Bible for proof-texts misunderstands the role of the Spirit in inspiration, and bypasses the Way of Jesus.
Accordingly we need to resist the legalism that has been put onto marriage. To simply say that a Christian view of sex is that you should wait until you're married does no justice either to the experiences of most people's sexuality, or the intention of early Christian writers, and serves no purpose in the protection of the vulnerable. We must approach the process "in reverse" - proclaiming first the nature of good relationships, the way we can love each other with our bodies, the way we can "hear" the language of touch and physically discipline ourselves accordingly, the way we can create the best communities for parenting children. We may then state that the notion of marriage is probably the best means of enshrining these values. In this way we move beyond institutional legalism to an ethic which remains faithful to our beliefs, and can be understood and accepted by those who may not share these beliefs.
First and foremost Christians must believe in "fair" sex. It is important that Christians form an understanding of this so that individuals are not left in a vacuum in which they look helplessly for some kind of prophetic voice. In this vacuum we may "buy in" to movements of justice which would not have at their heart the holistic sense of interconnectedness that the Christian proclamation of universal sinfulness and need of redemption has at its heart. The feminist cry that "all men are bastards" has a truth in it that Christians can happily hold to, in that we can agree with the polemic against male-domination and patriarchy, but at the end of the line we must proclaim that the answer is in forgiveness not in warfare. All men need to repent of their part in this. When someone behaves unjustly they also damage their own world and need confronting with love, not hate. This capacity to proclaim a doctrine of reconciliation in the face of oppression is the thing that must prevent us from jumping, wholesale, into one camp or another.
Christianity is about a community of interconnectedness and this must mean acceptance and dialogue with those fundamentally different from ourselves. Straight people and gay people cannot afford to identify themselves by their sexual orientation before they identify themselves by their humanity. Until that dialogue is happening in each of our lives we cannot be a community with anything great to proclaim to the those marginalised by their sexual identity. Most importantly, we cannot let those on the far right of Christianity be the voice of all Christians due to our confusion regarding issues of homo- or bi- sexuality. The way of Jesus involves us being open to people in their reflection of God's humanity, not in their preferred definition of themselves. This coming to terms with "otherness" is one of the things that our "fallen" nature precludes, and we can't conveniently call on it to re-enforce our own prejudices when the pain gets greatest!
We all know that the church falls far short on these matters. Most people in the church are scared of their sexuality because it has no recognisable place in community life. It will be in the liberations of touch, talk and tenderly received anger that the church stands out if we take on an agenda for sexual justice. In the words of Bernard Lynch, "We are all wounded in the groin". In offering confidences and places of safety to all people we can help them come to terms with the discomfort of their own sexuality, but only if we are creating those places for ourselves. Otherwise we will continue to dump our own hang-ups on another unsuspecting generation! In the words of Jim Wallace, "We have no more to offer than that which we have ourselves"