Christian Moral Teaching on Sex, Family and Life

Abstract

As we all know, traditional Christian teaching on many moral issues, but in particular on sex, family, and life is regarded by all non–religious and some religious believers as totally and evidently mistaken. Of the issues in this area, I shall take time to consider and only very briefly the issues of adultery, divorce, fornication, homosexual sexual acts, contraception, abortion, suicide and euthanasia, all which have been declared morally wrong by traditional Christian morality; and also, the traditional teaching that the husband is head of the family, and so wife and children have an obligation to obey him. My main concern will be with the general principles for determining whether and why traditional Christian teaching on these issues is correct, rather than with the particular solutions to each issue. In this paper I seek to analyse the general structure of any plausible defence of traditional views on these issues.