I found the discussions of neuro - science and sexually transmitted diseases more distracting than helpful and missed a clear statement that sex can be an expression of true love - the gift of the whole self - in the
midst of a sinful world.
The result is that on the peace issue, we come to sound like those fundamentalist churches that call people
out of a sinful world to a holy place of painless.
Theology often expresses what Rosemary Radford Ruether calls masculine values, like the
concept of a sinful world, rather than the goodness of creation.
The
structure of a sinful world, and the remaining causal efficacy of a sinful self, form a hostile environment for Christ - like living.
He has outgrown this position, for the most part, but he still analyzes the operation of the image of God in man as the contrast between the original righteousness of man before he acts (the act of creative self - transcendence, what he calls «perfection before the act»), and the «fallen» state of man within the
ambiguities of our sinful world.
God is determined to see a living organism flourish and grow on the ravaged
landscape of a sinful world, until it can become a source of healing for all the nations (Rev. 22:2).