Coming soon to a church near you: Erotic Justice

The Anglican Church of Canada tirelessly proclaims its gospel of social justice. In reality, however, the Canadian Anglican Church is rapidly progressing – or regressing, depending on one’s perspective – from social justice to erotic justice. The term has not been adopted by any Anglican dioceses yet but – it’s coming. I expect the Diocese of New Westminster will be the first with its lapdog, Niagara, eagerly following.

Marvin M. Ellison, a gay Professor of Christian Ethics at Bangor Theological Seminary, has written a number of books on the subject, one of which is entitled Erotic Justice. In the book, he argues that sexual expression should be liberated from “frameworks of control” like marriage: eroticism is a good in and of itself. Sexuality, he says, has become intertwined with ableism (yes there is such a thing), racism, sexism and heterosexism. It’s all Christianity’s fault, of course, so because of its “sex-negativity and moralistic, controlling bent with respect to sexual expression, traditional Christian teachings must be critiqued”

Well, you get the picture: sex with anyone or anything in any combination is intrinsically good. When I was growing up in the 60s I remember this concept well; except it wasn’t tarted up with bogus theological justifications. We called it screwing around.