The End of Sexual Identity

This book by Jenell Williams Paris looks at the issue of who we are, in the context of a world of people defining themselves as 'straight', 'gay', 'bi' etc. Here are some reviews worth looking at:

http://www.peter-ould.net/2011/06/16/the-end-of-sexual-identity-a-review/

http://tgcreviews.com/reviews/the-end-of-sexual-identity/

There is a really helpful quote in the second review above (written by Wesley Hill):

“The major problem with heterosexuality, and sexual identity in general,” Paris argues, “is that it is a social construct that provides a faulty pattern for understanding what it means to be human, linking desire to identity in a way that violates biblical themes.” Some might be inclined to think that Christian faith encourages only those self-identifying as “homosexual” to abandon their label, but Paris insists that the call to renunciation cuts in all directions. Heterosexuals should not negate homosexual identities while shoring up their own. Rather, every group that finds its identity in a particular configuration of sexual desire is summoned by the gospel to lay down this marker of personhood and take up the only one that really matters. What we need, according to Paris, is a “post-sexual identity church” in which “there’s no moral high ground for heterosexuals and no closet for homosexuals. There’s just people, each of whom is lover and loved.”

This reminds us of what Paul writes in Galatians 3:28. If we are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), then there is no need for us to find identity in labels like 'gay' or 'straight', 'single' or 'married', 'male' or 'female', 'Anglican' or 'Baptist'. If truly we find our security and worth in Christ, then we don't need to worry about living up to the expectations of ourselves of others: we are truly free from their burden. As Paul quotes in Acts 17:28, "For in him we live and move and have our being". That is freedom indeed.