Okay, I am reading this book for my Sex Ed class called Sexuality and the Sacred.
Individuality can become an ethical principle in two ways. Philosophically speaking, it may become so by a recognition that my individuality is intelligible only as an expression of the principle which renders every other human being an individual, too. This principle was already being expressed in antiquity in the Golden Rule; respect for my individuality implies respect for that of others. As such, it enters into Christian ethica, but it is by no means the crowning element in them. It could not, for example, have generated the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross or the witness of the martyrs, which require the further principles of love, faith and hope for their understanding. On the other hand, individuality can also become an ethical principle in the form of individualism - an idolatry of the self, which treats the self as its own end. Such individualism has been a pervasive ethical influence in the modern West, enshrined in certain forms of capitalist ideology as the image of the "self made" person - that is a person who has chosen to forget the role others played in their fashioning and rise and who regards with interest only those people and things that contribute to their own agrandizement. This individualism, like idolatry, is utterly inconsistant with the Gospel. - Countryman, in Sexuality and the Sacred p.39I think I like this. It bears some more thinking. Countryman has some useful thinking on sex and cultural interpretations of scriptures. He will probably be too much of an historical relativist for some, but his challenges to us are good. Without attempting to ressurect a culture 2000 years past, why not ask how the Gospel speaks now and would transform current ethos. Interesting, not the first time I have encountered it, but it is dern near conservative in this volume of sex talk. Who knew Countryman was conservative?! Posted by tripp at March 29, 2004 10:49 AM