Sex Difference in Christian Theology by DeFranza Megan K.;

Author:DeFranza, Megan K.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: 2015-05-08T12:24:28+00:00

The Binary Model in Stanley Grenz’s Evangelical Theology

In his earlier work, Sexual Ethics, Stanley Grenz’s theological reflection on the nature of human sexuality is similar to John Paul II’s in that its scope is limited by his attention to heterosexual ethics, thus assuming the male/female binary model. In his later work, The Social God and the Relational Self, as well as his summary essay, “The Social God and the Relational Self: Toward a Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei ” (published the year of his untimely death), wherein he had the opportunity to look beyond the sexual, he does not. Rather, he expands the heterosexual model to argue that sexuality (i.e., the heterosexual drive toward marital bonding) provides the basis for all human relationality, including human relation to God (spirituality), and the bonded ecclesial community. This latter emphasis, on the place of sexuality, will be explored in the next chapter. In this chapter we must focus on his construal of male and female, rather than the nature of their bond.

For Grenz, heterosexual (marital) bonding is not the final form of the imago Dei. It is the foundational form. Grenz reads the development of the imago Dei in three canonical moves: (1) From a creation-­centered anthropology beginning with Adam and Eve, who are made “in [God’s] image and according to [God’s] likeness” (Gen. 1:26 NRSV); (2) to a christocentric anthropology identifying Jesus Christ as the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15 NRSV) and “the exact representation of [God’s] being” (Heb. 1:3 NIV). But he does not stop there. (3) From here Grenz argues that the Scriptures teach us that “God’s intention is that those who are in Christ participate in his destiny and thereby replicate his glorious image.”33 “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29 NIV). Commenting on this verse, Grenz writes,

The climax of the verse comes in the subordinate clause that follows, “that he might be the firstborn,” which expresses the Christological intent of God’s foreordination, namely, the pre-­eminence of Christ among those who participate in the eschatological resurrection. . . . Consequently, humankind created in the imago Dei is none other than the new humanity conformed to the imago Christi, and the telos toward which the Old Testament creation narrative points is the eschatological community of glorified saints.34

Given his larger vision of the imago Dei as the eschatological body of Christ, it might appear pedantic to focus on his construal of masculinity and femininity. Nevertheless, I believe that the way in which Grenz extends heterosexuality as the basis for all human relations, even eschatological relations of the bonded, ecclesial community, justifies a more careful look at the basis of his project.

In chapter 1 of his Sexual Ethics: An Evangelical Perspective, he argues that sexuality (i.e., sex differentiation with its [assumed] corresponding gender distinctions) is essential to the human person. Where John Paul II used the term “constitutive,” Grenz uses “essential,” but both argue that sex, gender, and sexuality are not mere attributes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.