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One of the best short texts on sexuality written by an Anglican is Rowan Williams’ “The Body’s Grace”. I highly commend it to you. I’ve honestly been trying to study progressive Christian sexual ethics for over a decade, and it’s hard to find good stuff on it. The closest I’ve found is the late UCC theologian Teddy Jennings’ The Ethics of Queer Sex: Principles and Improvisations, which takes a virtue ethics approach. Marika Rose reviewed it here (while not Anglican, she teaches at an Anglican university and often writes for an Anglican audience).

For general progressive Christian sexual ethics, I recommend Ted Jennings’ An Ethic of Queer Sex: Principles and Improvisations.

Of course, the mother of queer theology is Marcella Althaus-Reid, and her groundbreaking text, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics is wonderful, showing us how all theology is sexual theology, and reminding us to listen to the margins, which necessitates a post-colonial and anti-capitalist perspective. (And she’s clear that her project is liberative for straight people as well.)

Not explicitly Christian, but Michael Warner’s The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life is great at showing the problems with assimilationist sexual projects and what we all lose (gay and straight) with the loss of sexual publics.

I’ve been reading about this at an academic level for at least a decade. It’s a tough question! I feel like it will continue to evolve for the rest of my life. And that’s okay. It’s definitely informed not only by the Bible and my Christian tradition, but by my experiences in the LGBTQ community and our history. (Of course, straight people’s theology is informed by their experiences and histories too, even if they disavow it.)

One of the best sexual ethics texts I’ve encountered is the late UCC theologian Teddy Jennings’ An Ethic of Queer Sex: Principles and Improvisations, which was reviewed by Marika Rose here.

While less about constructive Christian sexual ethics and perhaps more about its history, I’d definitely recommend Mark Jordan’s The Ethics of Sex.

Of course, the mother of queer theology is Marcella Althaus-Reid, and she definitely reminds us to decolonize our theologies with respect to sex, especially in her Indecent Theology. This one is also less sexual ethics proper and is a bit advanced, but definitely important.

One new progressive text (I only found a little helpful, but others liked a lot) is Richard McCarthy’s Under the Bed of Heaven: Christian Eschatology and Sexual Ethics.

Really great point. This resonates highly with Linn Tonstad’s thesis in her Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics, which I highly recommend to everyone.

I love what you said: “Even if difference is allowed, the "norm" is presumed.” This is what a lot of queer theologians point out. There are really two different approaches to LGBTQ issues in theology: 1) use apologetics to include us in the structures and doctrines that already exist, and 2) allow queer people to use our lives and thought to transform the doctrines and structures that are harmful to us (and others!). A lot of Christians — including LGBT Christians — are okay with the former but not the latter. Many LGBT people with privilege don’t see any reason to revisit the beliefs and practices that don’t hurt them as much as other people.

But one of the mothers of queer theology, Marcella Althaus-Reid, reminds us that we can’t simply incorporate LGBT people into Christian theology without affecting other parts of it, because all theology is sexual. Especially one like Christianity which is based on Fathers and Sons and virgins and begetting and brides and bridegrooms, etc. If the logics behind our faith are still heterosexist and cissexist, then including LGBT people is just putting lipstick on a pig.

The context of worship is an important one. Siobhan Garrigan wrote a great article on Queer Worship a decade ago(!) that speaks to these concerns. I’ll quote her at length:

> How many times have you heard sermons in which the stories told are about LGBT people’s lives? If a sermon illustration is given about a couple, how often is it about a same-sex couple? How often are the complexities of relationships mentioned, the multiple, diverse and unexpected ways we love and are loved? How often have you heard stories told during sermons of a transgendered [sic] person’s journey, a lesbian’s coming-out process, a gay man’s adoption of a child, a teenager’s exploration of their sexuality or a queer family’s baptism? And I mean neither as a “special” illustration nor on the Sunday that coincides with the PRIDE parade in your town, but as happenstance, obvious, exemplars, just the way that stories from supposedly straightforward and recognizable heterosexual couples and their family lives pepper most sermons most weeks.

> [...]

>As you sing with the faithful in all times and all places, how often have you sang in terms that were not based on heterosexist binaries—father and mother, male and female? And are you invited to sing as “sopranos and altos/tenors and basses” or just as “women/men,” regardless of the voice God gave you? How is sexual diversity talked about and otherwise imaged in your worship? How do you recognize the one in every 2,000 babies born with “indeterminate” sex organs? How many prayers begin only, “Brothers and Sisters”? How many of the worship leader’s well-meaning remarks class people as “gay or straight,” as if they were the only options? How are bisexual people represented in your church, if at all? Are bisexual people mis-portrayed as “straight” if they are in a male-female relationship?

These are questions we still wrestle with today in progressive, LGBT-affirming churches. You already allude to making our liturgies more gender inclusive and expansive. Nominally gay- and trans-affirming priests at my progressive church still use “Brothers and sisters” to address the congregation as Garrigan cautions, instead of something inclusive like “Siblings” or “Friends” or something else. We should also be converting our bathrooms to being gender neutral. A church in my city famous for its LGBT activism built a new building with all gender neutral bathrooms. It’s possible.

I want to add that our struggle has to be intersectional too, so bathroom design isn’t just a queer issue but also a disability issue (and there’s a lot of overlap between those two populations!). Bathrooms need to be built e.g. with accessible stalls and room for a wheelchair’s turning radius. Our liturgies that say “Please stand” in the rubrics exclude the disabled people who can’t. Simply adding “...as able” is one way to address it. I welcome more.

And finally, there are issues on the ground in queer communities that the church hasn’t even started to touch. Same-sex marriage was not the finish line. It was one starting point. I’m glad to see progressive churches get behind the Equality Act here in the US, for example. They need to do more to stop the wildfire of anti-trans bills at the state level. Another example: since LGBT people on average receive worse healthcare, churches need to address healthcare as a queer issue. We’re overrepresented among the homeless; churches need to address it as a queer issue too.

Feel free to stop reading if you’re against discussing more radical or NSFW issues, but these are also at the core of queer lived experiences. Sex workers are more likely to be LGBT. FOSTA/SESTA has harmed a lot of sex workers, especially Black trans women. A church can’t say they’re following Jesus without caring about sex workers. I have queer friends who have done sex work. It’s not some external issue. And I imagine clergy are overwhelmingly unequipped to deal with issues of sexual ethics beyond the clobber verses. Poly relationships aren’t uncommon in queer circles. Clergy need to be able to pastorally respond to parishioners in them. What’s the deal with BDSM? I could go on. (One resource I’d recommend is the late Ted Jennings’ An Ethic of Queer Sex: Principles and Improvisations.)

For a more progressive book, I’d recommend Teddy Jennings’s An Ethic of Queer Sex: Principles and Improvisations or — with a slightly different methodology — Mark Jordan’s The Ethics of Sex.