Porneia – Part 3: Sex and sensibility

Earlier, I wrote about the kind of stigma wrongfully attached to unwed parents. I also wrote about the Bible’s teachings on “fornication”.

In the latter post, I made the point that Christian obsession with sexual sin is arguably more prurient than puritan. But I also explained how “fornication” (as used in the Bible) is almost unquestionably a reference to prostitution and promiscuity, not sex itself. As it turns out, the Bible doesn’t actually ever call premarital sex a sin.

But does that mean all sex is okay?

This true-color image is an actual photograph of the surface of Venus, taken in 1982 by the Soviet Venera 13 lander. Image courtesy NASA.

Porneia – Part 2: Providential Prurience

Earlier, I wrote about the hypocrisy of treating an unmarried couple differently in order to signify disapproval for premarital sex. Here’s the Facebook quote that spawned it all:

“Shacking up and having a baby is not ‘cute’. Speak plainly and biblically about the soul-damning seriousness of fornication.”

I pointed out before that stigmatizing a family or relationship based on its origins is a hypocritical justification of prejudice, not some elevated level of holiness and biblical virtue. But I’d also like to focus on the second sentence, referencing the “soul-damning seriousness” of “fornication”.