Kärleken till det samma? Om teologi och sexualitet

Abstract

This article is, first, a critical discussion of the heteronormativity of the Christian tradition and, second, a systematic-theological proposal on how to figure what could be called a more genuine conception of «heterosexuality» which includes sexual relationships between human beings of the same genital configuration as well as sexual relationships between human beings of different genital configurations. In the first part I discuss the history of concept of sodomy, with the help of the theologian Mark D. Jordan, and also try to show why this concept, as little as its younger relative «homosexuality», is not very fruitful when it comes to understanding sexual relationships from a theological perspective. I argue, further, that the eschatological horizon for sexuality has disappeared from the modern conception of bodies, and that the modern horizon of biological reproduction implies a theological deficit. The last part of my argument is that, theologically speaking, the horizon for any sexuality is a love for the other that does not reduce the other to the same, and, thus, sexual relationships between human beings of the same genital configuration could be seen as a way of loving the other as much as and in the same way as sexual relationships between human beings of different genital configurations. What we call «homosexuality» could be as «heterosexual» as «heterosexuality» and vice versa.