What now?

The real issue is faith. If I say "I believe in one god" what does that mean? What is "believe in"? I used to believe in Santa Claus - but I don't any more. I used to believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and I don't any more.

Where are the lines between belief in Christ and the donnybrook of warring traditions in the churches? Can one believe in Christ without all this stuff? Does one need all this stuff at all? And yes - this touches on sex. Are the cultural taboos of the Ancient Hebrews "revealed of God" or are they just more of the traditions of men?

Alexander Schmemann says (in For the Life of the World? or maybe in something else?) that a marriage is not "permission to have sex." He never gets around to saying what *is* permission to have sex. For the protestants it is exactly that - a blessing to have sex and procreate. If a marriage is a mystery that makes a "little Church" then so is Adelphopoiesis: the issues is the *sex* part. And you know, most people have no imagination bcause for them sex boils down to "insert tab A into slot B" and when they think of gays they thing "OMG no! Not Slot C!" They have no imagination at all - and a total failure of understanding of the unative aspects of sex in all it's many forms: the unitive sex of cuddling in front of the TV, of holding hands in the car or in a theatre, the sex of casually leaning against each other in the grocery store.

And yet, if we're not careful, we loose all of these in the name of those who *Still* read "marriage" as permission to have sex.

And anytime sex happens - even leaning up against someone in the store - children happen. All truly unitive sex is procreative as well: something grows, something new is born, some new level of care and responsibility is developed. Failure to understand that is a failure to celebrate the Divine Gift of Sex that God gave us.

How can we move our warped, primitive understanding of sex to a more understood and understanding place - and still remain faithful to our Christ? We've learned to live with all other forms of science, in a way. Some of us even celebrate clearly the antecedents of our modern understanding of sex - accepting evolution and Freudianism in forms. So what causes them to draw a line in the sand saying "nope, not this! Anything but this!" If we are willing to ignore our faith in some things why do we still have faith in others?