On Mount Sinai, God was unequivocal: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Traditionally, most devout Christians have interpreted the Hebraic commandment to extend to all sexual relations outside marriage. Jesus even condemned lustful thoughts, saying that the man who indulged them had "already committed adultery in his heart." But in recent years, pressed both by changing sexual behavior and by liberal theologians, the churches have reluctantly come to grips with a "new morality" that questions whether any "sin"—including adultery or other nonmarital sex —is wrong in all circumstances.
The movement began in the 1960s with a group of writers who championed "contextual" or "situation" ethics. As defined in a widely read book by Episcopalian Joseph Fletcher, situation ethics holds that there are always circumstances in which absolute principles of behavior break down. The only valid ethical test, the argument goes, is what God's love demands in each particular situation.
Moral Tug of War. For the churches, the problem is that the more they try to bring their beliefs in line with this relativistic criterion, the more they run afoul of fundamental traditions and become involved in a moral tug of war with their conservative laymen. The controversy that may face the 10.8 millionmember United" Methodist Church is typical. Last month its Committee on Family Life issued a resolution implicitly condoning sex for single persons, homosexuals, and those living in unspecified "other styles of interpersonal relationship." The resolution cuts directly across the church's venerable Social Creed, which states that "sexual intercourse outside the bonds of matrimony is contrary to the will of God." The decision on whether to adopt the resolution as official teaching will be made by the church's General Conference in Atlanta next April. The conference must FARR,S also consider a new statement of social principles that will be proposed next month to replace the Creed—not only in order to accommodate any possible new line on sex, but also to grapple with developments on such perennial issues as pacifism, pornography, drinking, smoking, gambling, drugs, divorce and abortion.
Three other major Protestant groups last year produced documents that are at odds with traditional teaching on sex, and that have met mixed reactions from church memberships. Items:
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA is contemplating an 85-page booklet on Sex, Marriage and Family, written by 21 eminent churchmen. "Premarital and extramarital sexual intercourse may well be—and more frequently are than not—acts of sin," says the booklet. But it adds that these acts are sinful not because they are intrinsically wrong, but because they are often engaged in for selfish reasons by men and women who are sinful by nature. A church convention has urged Lutherans to study the booklet, while also passing a statement affirming that "sexual intercourse outside the context of marriage union is morally wrong."