Thread by @CandiceBenbow

When folks ask me to promote projects/initiatives grounded in celibacy, I wonder if they've ever read anything I've written. LOL!

#RedLipTheology is not Calvinism with a splash of Ruby Woo.

My resistance to celibacy is as theological as it is feminist. #DoYouTho

When I study the scriptures and look at the examples of leadership and holy boldness that we lift up as exemplar, I remain unconvinced that God deems sex before marriage or outside of covenant as sinful. There are too many examples where that behavior was blessed and sanctioned.

Most of our construction of sexual outside of marriage as sinful comes from Paul and I want us to have some very serious conversations about who Paul was. First and foremost, Paul was zealot. When have they ever made sense?! LOL

Paul was out here literally killing Christians, got saved and did what most new converts do: he went to the extreme with it. Yall remember when you first got saved and everything but church and gospel was sinful? That's Paul. LOL

Add to this that, while/as a zealot, he became a moral authority for the very people he once hunted and, as Christians began to establish themselves in communities, his thoughts and opinions became rule, law and doctrine.

Yes, Paul had a name change and underwent a radical transformation but be very clear: Paul's articulation of faith was always rooted in his desire (and inability) to escape his best. At best, Paul's religious fundamentalism was contrition. At worst, it was arrogance.

This doesn't mean he wasn't striving to be his best self and live a life in/of gratitude for salvation. I believe he was.

For me, though, it means that I must read Paul- not as authoritative but through the lens of grace as someone who was trying to overcome a very dark past.

Paul's understanding of the flesh (the body) as sinful grounds so much our understanding of ourselves. I wholly reject the idea that the flesh/the body is demonic/sinful. My flesh is how God intended I show up in the world. It is divine.

The rejection of ideology that frames the body as sinful invites you to rethink intimacy and pleasure from a space rooted in God's intention that Creation flourish. Intimacy and pleasure feed parts of me and sustain my life. Anything *life*giving is of God. I believe that.

Now, the fact that people read this as sexual irresponsibility has everything to do with the fact that critical thinking is a lost art and a sexually autonomous Black woman threatens the construction of absolutely everything.

If you believe God has called you to abstinence and celibacy, go forth and flourish. Seriously.

As for me and my house, we will not restrict the ways God extends an invitation to experience communion, pleasure, joy, fulfillment and sacred touch.