The topic of sex may be popular among students on college campuses, but it isn’t necessarily a topic found in collegiate ministry settings.

However, the Rev. Heather Godsey believes the topics of sex, sexuality, and spirituality need to be a part of collegiate ministry.

Godsey spoke in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Nov. 10 at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ second Collegiate Ministries Conference, “Making Connections in Times of Change.”

An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a program director for the Wesley Foundation at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Godsey said the results of college life and its ‘hookup culture’ make the need for discussions of sex and sexuality all the greater.

The ‘hookup culture’ involves more than having connections to get tickets to the best show in town. The ‘hookup culture’ is one of casual sex or sex used to gain advantage, Godsey said.

“You go to the club and get very, very drunk. That way you don’t have to claim responsibility,” she said, and the subsequent sexual encounter doesn’t amount to “a relationship with this person.”

Speaking of her own college experience, Godsey said, “Oh, my God, I lived that.”

By her senior year Godsey suffered from depression and agoraphobia. She wanted to remove herself from all social situations. “I decided I was just going to write my papers and apply to graduate school,” she said.

She had been using the ‘hookup culture’ to provide a sense of power to her on campus. What she later learned in seminary was that her use of power was a cry for intimacy that the ‘hookup culture’ didn’t provide.

Failure to make sexuality a part of the spirituality discussion in campus ministry can inhibit the development of relationship skills among college students, she said.

“We don’t necessarily address these issues as a Christian community,” Godsey said. However, she’s doing her best to be a springboard for the discussion.

In February 2010 Chalice Press will publish a book, co-edited by Godsey and the Rev. Lara Blackwood Pickrel, titled “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!: Young Adults Speak out about Sexuality and Christian Spirituality.”

The publisher’s promotional material notes that the book “addresses issues of love, sexuality, and embodiment from the perspectives of young adults who work for or are involved with the church.” The book, according to the publisher, also examines the “history of the church’s struggle with human sexuality from a fresh perspective.”

Godsey provided several keys to opening the discussion of human sexuality and Christian spirituality.

She said, “Jesus was a body – not only divinity but humanity too.” And she pointed out that “bodies are created good; the shame came with the fall.” Godsey, too, said there is “sexuality in all God created. It is a part of what God has given us.”

Using the Latin phrase Imago Dei, the concept that human beings are created in God’s image, Godsey said, “If I have to look at you as a child of God, I’m less likely to use you.”

In the forthcoming book, Godsey’s essay, “Hook up Jesus: Spirituality and Collegiate Sexuality,” the relevance of being created in the image of God, sexuality in God’s creation, and Jesus’ humanity are “anchor points from which to begin building a Christian collegiate sexual ethic that can successfully repudiate hookup culture without forcing students into an untenable purity paradigm.”

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