Declaration on bible, sexuality and gender

In the middle of the many shades of green produced by October's rain, and with the radiating sun for company, we met in San Jose, 26 women and 17 men, some very young and others not so young, to reflect on human sexuality under the light of the Bible and theology. We have been touched in our bodies, our souls and our thoughts. We will not be able to see, experience nor think about sexuality in quite the same ways as when we arrived.

As a group we wish to declare the following:

1. Although sexuality is a controversial issue, it has been approached in different contexts in respect to diversity. Discussion on sexuality is important, and we recognize the effort that the WCC and CLAI are making to encourage this discussion in different parts of the world.

2. Our bodies speak, and they have a history and memory of that history. The body is the mirror through which we see ourselves and we see others. It is necessary to promote reconciliation with the body, taking into account our strengths and weaknesses. Also, we must learn to value, to love and to be more sensitive to our bodies. We must learn to glorify God with our bodies. We exist as sexual bodies; God made us sexual, man and woman, not opposed but in mutuality.

3. Our bodies are often treated with injustice. Some bodies think they are superior to others. The bodies are immersed in a binary, discriminatory and polar reality.

4. Men and women are different but not unequal. Gender differences do not require social inequality, yet in reality and actually it is so. We reject any inequality.

5. The society teaches and assigns identities to men and women that create much pain and promote violence. These assigned identities produce social inequalities. We must recognize the injustice that has promoted the assigned, and unequal, relationship. Therefore we must look for our own identities.

6. The redemption of the body begins by a process of appropriation in search of becoming independent people, free and responsible. Privacy is bound not only to sexuality but also to any relationship.

7. Sexuality is a taboo. It is a challenge to produce changes towards gender justice while preserving the precious gift of sexuality.

8. In several texts of the Old Testament, sexuality is only related to procreation. A paradox exists because God created women with their sexuality, but the laws declare them impure. For example, because of menstruation. In general, biblical legislation favours the men.

9. We must seriously re-read the Bible taking into account the historical, cultural and economic background of the epoch, and not only the literal sense of the text.

10. The proposal of Jesus does not have anything to do with a hegemonic patriarchal theological construction, nor with the vertical structure of the churches that appeared much later. A more complete and integral sexuality is outside the dominant hegemonic structures.

11. The interpretation of biblical truths on equality, mutuality and wholeness has been distorted through history, giving preference to the Greek concept of dichotomy and to a discriminating and vertical theological construction created by the fathers of the church. The Gnostic movement introduced its tentacles between the Christian groups imposing the binary conception.

12. The biblical message of Jesus must be recovered in order to release people from oppression. The attitude of Jesus opposing gender inequality is revolutionary, because he considered the body and soul as a single being. For that reason the redemption that Jesus proposes is based on the integrity of human being.

13. The current social and ecclesial systems distort our concept of sexuality. Sexuality, as we live it at the present time, does not correspond to the project of Jesus. We will be able to experience a holistic sexuality only if we break with cultural models. The old and new paradigms are learned through life experience. We must make changes in theological paradigms and re-read the Bible.

14. Sexuality has a social and political dimension. Sexuality exists within a chain of situations; for example, in a racist society, first it is necessary to deconstruct racism. To speak of sexuality requires that we speak of justice. Like a theological act, sexuality leads us to practice an integral justice. For example, in some churches people speak of equality and sexual dignity, but when leaving the temple they do not worry if all people have enough to eat and a place to live with dignity.

15. It is imperative to promote learning processes to enlighten people on the enormous campaign of disinformation that is promoted by electronic mass media, like the Internet. We think that human sexuality is a sacred gift, and it is not to be marketed nor does it have a price.

16. It is important to be facilitators, to transmit the lessons on sexuality learned in seminaries with a methodology that allows learning based on present knowledge or on a felt necessity. Knowledge involves all dimensions of the human being, in an educational process of learning within a flexible structure.