Living in Sin?: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality Book

To put a fine point on it: this book evidences Bishop John Shelby Spong at his best: being years ahead of his time - more than a full quarter-century in this case - in advocating for a spiritually evolved form of Christianity that is life-enhancing and -affirming for/to all.

In the spirit of full disclosure, this has to be the eighth or ninth book by Bishop Spong that I've read, so I'm both a fan and a follower. In my experience, his wisdom is deep both in terms of its profundity and its volume. This book is further evidence thereof.

A little bit of back story may be helpful: Ostensibly, this book is the Bishop's public response to a study on sexuality that was commissioned in his diocese (with his encouragement) back in the mid-1980s. Its purpose is to be thoughtful about how to evolve the Episcopal church's approach to sexuality generally and also specifically with respect to three groups of people: unmarried/pre-married (young) people, gay and lesbian (et. al.) people and post-married/divorced adults.

In some sense the study is a helpful pretext for the Bishop to suggest new approaches to some of the church's most alienating theological interpretations and the policies that resulted from them. Specifically, the Bishop considered the church's then-current approaches to pre-marital sex, homosexuality and post-marital sex anachronistic, ineffective and dehumanizing. Suffice it to say that, even as the Sexual Revolution of the 60s and 70s was cooling (in no small part due to the contagion of the AIDS epidemic of the 80s), very few people observed the celibacy that was the church's only prescription for the members of these three groups. In part, the Bishop felt compelled to address these issues because he has wanted to stem the ebb of the church's influence and clearly feels that the church should indeed play a role in helping people to address so cardinal a realm of their being/spiritual lives as their sexuality.

And he does a nice job of setting the context, explaining why and how the world has changed and, therefore, why and how the church's theology/policy/teaching has to evolve as well. In sum, he believes that an active sexual relationship can indeed be holy outside of marriage and elucidates some common sense and accessibly spiritual guidelines for this to be the case.

Which all sounds sort of "Duh!" to us now ... except that this book was published in 1988, over 25 years ago, when such humane and spirit-affirming wisdom was truly cutting edge (to put it nicely). Again, this book evidences the Bishop at his best: being years ahead of his time - more than a full quarter-century in this case - in advocating for a spiritually evolved form of Christianity that is life-enhancing and -affirming for/to all.

What's perhaps a touch sad - and revealing of us - is that the book also exposes the Bishop's naivete: one of his predictions at the time was that it would take a decade or so for his forward thinking to be widely accepted. As we know, we're just now beginning to grapple with these issues both spiritually and politically. The fact that gay marriage is not universally supported in either our churches or our society (and the laws that bind it) attests to just how revolutionary and important this work/book/evolved spirituality was and is....

So, it's truly groundbreaking spiritual work and worth a thoughtful and considered (as well as reverent) read. It's not perfect - there are a few patches in which the context is unnecessarily dense and/or the discussion is dated/clearly time-bound - but it's inspiring: to think that Bishop Spong was challenging us and the church to be so universally loving and inclusive over a quarter-century ago is both impressive and motivating. He was one of several voices crying out in the wilderness. It's great to see that he and his fellow visionaries have been proven correct and that we are beginning to celebrate our shared humanity in all of its forms, with or without the institutional church's blessing. That John Shelby Spong has goaded us and our churches to be more humane in our spirituality and our (practice of) religion is indeed his greatest legacy. Living in Sin will remind you of just how visionary he has been and is....