William Loader is a Professorial Research Fellow of the Australian Research Council, based at Murdoch University, Australia. His recent publications include: Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition; The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament; and Jesus' Attitude towards the Law: A Study of the Gospels.

Communities of faith regularly turn to texts written two millennia ago to explore their questions about sexuality. This book introduces readers to the key passages that must be examined when trying to understand what the New Testament says about sexual ethics.

William Loader

Cover

About the authors

Title page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

1. Engaging the far and the near: where to begin

2. ‘With a man as with a woman’

3. Model marriage and the household

4. Adultery, attitude and disorder

5. Divorce and remarriage

6. Has sex a future? The question of celibacy

7. Conclusion: ‘sex on the brain’? Love and hope

Notes

Bibliography

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One of the two issues predicted by many people to split the Church of England is the homosexual issue. Whether it is gay marriage, or homosexual bishops the battle lines have been drawn and the Listening Process on Human Sexuality that reported to the last Lambeth Conference has had little effect. One of the problems with the homosexuality debate is that it takes the gay issue out of the wider context of human sexuality. This is true in both the theological and secular settings. Humans are sexual creatures so if we want to look at the argument about sexuality we need to look at the wider context.  
William Loader's book is one of the first books I have come across that attempts to do that. Rather than being about homosexuality in the Bible it is about sexuality in the Bible. Loader explores the deep symbolism of sex as worship (that when Israel worships other gods Yahweh accuses Israel of adultery and that the church is referred to as the Bride of Christ) and how this relates to the issue and teaching of sexual purity. Loader also puts the teaching in the context of surrounding cultures from the Babylonians and Philistines to the Greeks and Romans, and their sexual behaviour.  
Where Loader does fail is mainly in his reliance on texts by pro-gay revisionists or so called “accepting evangelicals”. The major author on homosexuality from a traditional conservative perspective Loader quotes is Robert Gagnon ignoring the works by Schmidt, De Young, Webb and Wold amongst others. Loader also fails, by only using texts that use sexual imagery to pick up wider points of behaviour. Despite these criticisms Loader's book is a refreshing look at the spiritual issues of sexuality and the wider issue of sexuality in general.

Sexuality in the New Testament

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Sexuality in the New Testament

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Communities of faith regularly turn to texts written two millennia ago to explore their questions about sexuality. This book introduces readers to the key passages that must be examined when trying to understand what the New Testament says about sexual ethics.

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