Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990 TAG: 9003143291
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by BOB FISHBURN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There is a high-pitched battle going on between "traditionalists" and "liberals" - surprise! - over sexual ethics. This jam-packed book by an Episcopal clergyman who lives in Roanoke is an interesting, provocative case for the liberal view.
Lawrence, with years of clinical experience in counseling, particularly in hospitals and jails, is firmly in the "personalist" camp, made popular by James Nelson and others. The personalists believe, among other things, that the requisite levels of love, trust, care, and fidelity can be and ought to be present in all intimate relations, including extramarital and temporary ones.
Lawrence gives that viewpoint an historical underpining, claiming that it is firmly rooted in the Hebraic (Biblical) tradition on sex - that sex is good "in and of itself, requiring no extrinsic justification" (his quote). His path to his conclusion is that the abandonment of this Hebrais tradition has led to a pinched view of sex (the "poisoning" of Eros) is amply footnoted, occasionally startling and anything but dull.
His historical romp leads to his "new" basis for sex ethics, which he calls an ethics of "carnal reciprocity," essentially the "personalist" ethics with some new twists. His clinical experience lends a certain respectability to his conclusions; but there is something missing at the core of his ethical construction, something that Stanley Hauerwas, the famous Duke theologian, pointed out: It seems that, for Lawrence and other "personalists," responsible adultery is a matter of preparing yourself and your spouse for "the Big Event." (I paraphrase.)
For Lawrence, sex, at any age, is a monumental obligation. If you want a look at the traditionalist view - sex as awesome responsibility - you could do worse than read Hauerwas' "Community of Character."
by CNB