Christianity and Sexuality
Being a Christian or believing in Christianity influences human behavior. It leads to having good personal values and beliefs. Some of the individual values that one learns as a believer in Christianity are love between oneself, unselfishness, generosity, and many others. As a believer, it also helps me believe in some good cultural values like sex before marriage which is a sin before God and my own body. It means that by having sex prior to the wedding, I become unclean in the eyes of God.
As a believer, some values do not go along with Christianity which means I do not have trust in them; LGBT is one of them. However, some members of my family believe in it, which is against Christianity and moral values. Sex or marriage between people of the same gender is unacceptable. That is why God created a man and a woman (Murray et al., 2017). According to the Bible, homosexuality is a sin, and people responsible for such an act should be put to death.
I come from a family with a strong belief in Christianity, meaning I was raised in a Christian tradition. Both of my parents go to church, and they also believe in the same values. As a family, we feel free to give to those who do not have, we show love for one another, and many other good deeds to exploit our personal beliefs—having a family with the same opinions as mine helps since we are free to talk to each other, hence strengthening our thoughts.
Sex Before Marriage
Before I got married, I had lived with my first husband for six months, and as a Christian believer, I was going against what I believed in. Since I supported purity and sex before marriage, living with my spouse for six months before we made our vows made me feel guilty. As a Christian, I think that there is life after death which means that I will be accountable for the sins I did of fornication and premature sex. I became impure because, essentially, as a woman who believes in God, my body is supposed to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, sex is legal after marriage. Thus, I had sinned against God by living with my first husband for six months before getting married. I was so guilty that I knew that is against God’s will, and we will account for the sins committed after death. As a Christian, it is also immoral to have sex before marriage; as the Bible counts, it is adultery. Additionally, Christianity mainly emphasizes monogamy, and I have been married more than once to different husbands, which is against what a Christian should do.
In the Bible, God created a man in his way after he created a woman from the man’s rib as He saw the man was lonely and needed companionship. He then told them to reproduce and fill the world. The Bible highly condemns homosexuality; for instance, Leviticus 18, 22 says that “do not practice homosexuality is a detestable sin” (Van Seters, 2021). Therefore, as a Christian, I do not believe a man can marry another man or a woman marries another woman.
I do not believe in homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender because these acts lead one astray from being close to God. Christian parents have raised me, and my moral values should be upright in my society. As I cannot practice any of these acts sexually, my interactions with other people will be smooth in the community. I will not interfere with anyone as there is no way I can influence a person to commit these acts.
Human Sexuality
In the book of Genesis, God made a man and a woman. He accorded them the authority to rule on this world and fill the earth. So when it comes to human Sexuality, to me, it is all about a man and a woman who, when they get married, can start a family and have children. According to the Bible, a man should be the head of the family, and a woman should fully submit to their husband. The book of Corinthians 1, chapter 7 says that it is good for each man to have his wife and husband have her husband. It means that one should seek only one partner and share his lifetime (Crooks & Baur, 2017). The Bible clearly says that a man shall live with his father and mother and join his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
Development of Personal Sexuality
As a firm believer in good morals and a religious person, I find this topic quite difficult to relate to or talk about. Most people might speak freely about it because they have explored that part of themselves, but I have not. They believe in sexual purity and not engaging in any activities that would suggest otherwise. Thus, all my life, I have strived to ensure that I keep myself pure as my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I had had a couple of times when I failed as a person, but I did not explore personal Sexuality. Thus, I find the topic challenging to talk about because there is not much to tell. It is also an intimate thing that should not be taken lightly, with sex being a sacred thing to every person with a spouse.
Sexuality counseling involves understanding all forms of Sexuality and seeing from the patient’s perspective. However, as a Christian, I know what should not be done regarding Sexuality. I also know that I am supposed to preach what I believe in, just as Christ did. Thus, I can advise people of other sexualities from a Christian perspective without forcing them to join Christianity. Instead, I can tell them the values they should possess as far as Sexuality is involved according to what the Bible teaches.
I understand that not everyone shares my values, as my extended family believes in LGBT. What I have taken from this reflection is that I do not share sexual values with everyone. Thus, the metrics that I judge Sexuality with might not apply to everyone. With that knowledge, I will not look at patients as sinners but rather as ordinary people. I will use critical thinking and real-life experiences to judge rather than using knowledge of Christianity alone.
AAMFT teaches about sexual intimacy between people in a marriage. It is a code of ethics that leads people who are married should ensure that they are intimate with each other and just with each other (Crooks & Baur, 2017). It also teaches that people have a right to be sexually satisfied in their marriage. Still, they should not objectify one another, as doing this will take away the real meaning of marriage. This code of ethics teaches that people should have more trust in marriages in society, and they should trust that marriage works.
References
Crooks, R. L. & Baur, K. (2017). Our sexuality, (13th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Murray, C., Pope, A., & Willis, B. (2017). Sexuality counseling: Theory, research, and practice. Sage Publications.
Van Seters, J. (2021). The Edited Bible. Penn State University Press.