Moral Theology and the Challenge of AIDS

Kevin T. Kelly, Geoffrey Chapman, 1998.

Contents

	Introduction	viii
1.	Hearing the Challenge of the AIDS Pandemic: a Moral Theologian Tells His Story	1
	Women and HIV/AIDS	4
	The ‘Pro-Women’ Challenge to the Church and to Christian Sexual Ethics	8
	Widening the Agenda: the Need for a Renewed Sexual	11
	Ethics Listening to Experience	13
2.	New Directions? Why Do We Need ‘New Directions’ in Sexual Ethics?	22
	A Process in which Change Is Transforming rather than Deforming	24
	Understanding Ourselves as Historical, Social and Cultural Persons	27
	Social Construction and Natural Law	29
	The Challenge of Gender Analysis	34
3.	Christian Sexual Ethics and Injustice against Women – a Case of Collusion? -The Roots of Injustice against Women Lie Deep in History	40
	A Sign of Hope: the ‘Pro-Women’ Teaching of Pope John Paul II	46
	The Pope and Gender: How Complimentary to Women Is Ontological Complementarity?	50
	The Experience of Women	54
	Collusion with Injustice against Women?	58
4.	Sexual Ethics — Denying the Good News to Gay Men and Lesbian Women? -The Link between Patriarchy and Homophobia	64
	The Dissimilarity of Lesbian and Gay Experience	65
	A Disturbing Question: Does the Christian Stance on Homosexuality Help to Spread HIV/AIDS?	66
	Learning from Experience	68
	Finding the Appropriate Theological Language for the Experience of Gays and Lesbians	72
	-1. The language of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’	72
	-2. The language of God’s word in the Bible	74
	Towards a Gay and Lesbian Theology and Spirituality: Woundedness and Healing	79
	A ‘Time of AIDS’ – a Time for Positive Living and Positive Thinking	88
	The Gospel as ‘Good News’ for Gays and Lesbians	91
5.	What the Churches Are Saying -Church Statements: Listening to an Ongoing Conversation	96
	The Conversation Begins: Birth Control – Disagreeing about the Relevance of the Human Context for Moral Evaluation	99
	Widening the Agenda of the Conversation: Giving More Importance to Relationship – a Quaker View of Sex	109
	Marriage Breakdown: a Church of England Contribution	113
	A Roman Catholic Contribution – Vatican II	115
	The Joy of Married Sexual Love: a Methodist Contribution	116
	Two Contributions about Homosexual Relationships	118
	-1. The Church of England	119
	-2. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America	121
	The Church of England and Cohabitation: Introducing ‘Diversity of Lifestyle’ as a New Topic in the Conversation	123
	Two Contributions Drawing Together the Many Threads of the Conversation	127
	.-1. The Church of Scotland	127
	-2. The Presbyterian Church (USA)	130
	Conclusion	134
6.	Towards a Sexual Ethics in a Time of AIDS	137
	Some Foundational Beliefs for a Christian Sexual Ethics for Today
	1. The Full and Equal Dignity of Women	139
	2. Human Freedom	141
	3. Friendship, Intimacy and Love	146
	4. The Goodness of the Human Body, Sexuality and Sensual Joy	153
	5. The Giftedness of Human Life	162
	6. The Uniqueness of the Human Person and Respect for Personal Conscience	168
	–1. To your own self be true	169
	–2. Respect for conscience	171
	–3. The uniqueness of each person’s story of moral growth	174
7.	Sexuality and Sin Sex Is Not Sinful: It Is a Gift of God	177
	Patriarchy as Sexual Sin – and the Sexual Sin of Collusion in Patriarchy	178
	‘Doing the Best One Can’ in Sexual Ethics	181
	Sexual Sin and Sexual Sins	183
	Is It Right to Engage in Casual and Uncommitted Sex?	184
8.	Living Positively in a Time of AIDS Living Positively with AIDS: a Lesson from Uganda	188
	Is the Church Living Positively with AIDS? Yes, but. . .	192
	-1. Compulsory HIV testing of candidates for the priesthood or the religious life?	194
	-2. Condom use and HIV prevention	196
	Epilogue: A Time of AIDS — a Time of Grace? A Time of AIDS’	207
	A Time of Grace: AIDS – a Window of Opportunity for Our Global Society?	210
	Bibliography	214