a quick take on sex and religion
Two genius minds come together to save the broken lass, something happens, curses fly, and two schools of thought birth. This is a simplified plot of the recent A Dangerous Method, the movie telling of Jung, Freud, and the woman who came between them.[1] I will not spoil the plot here, but was intrigued by one of the scenes in which Kiera Knightley’s character (based on psychiatrist Sabina Spielrein) discussed her take on sex. Sex, she argued, was about death as much as it was life. In the act two individuals ‘kill’ their individual identities as they join into one communal new creation. The joy within the act comes from this dying to self, and becoming alive to this new creation.
All this talk got me thinking about the Christian Church.[2] What Sabina described could just as easily been the experience of the mystical ‘union’ with Christ as explained by the desert fathers and following; or well, many an Evangelical leaving a heightened worship experience. This is what got me thinking: perhaps there is a link between the two activities. We, in the Evangelical Church, have always looked upon the marriage ceremony as a mirror into God.[3] Perhaps the marriage bed also presents a mirror into the sacred as well.
If this is true, then both sides of the current culture wars have some ‘plaining to do. The sexual act is a lot more sacred than the “free love” movement grants it as being; and the Christian experience is a lot more secular than many conservatives give it credit for being. Here, sex becomes far more than some pleasurable act of fitness, boredom-killing, or animalistic affair. Here, the Christian life becomes far more pungent, earthy, and casual. It might also explain why both sides are so adamantly opposed to one another. Nobody does war like family, and nobody shares animosity like two people just like one another yet scared to death of being like one another.
Perhaps a new pairing: the over-Churched and the over-Sexed getting together, talking about their needs and desires, discovering they’re not so different, and learning from each other how to improve their lives. Couldn’t work, could it?
[1] The movie is a hard ‘R’ not so much for profanity (there’s some f-bombs), or violence (there’s none, well, in the conventional sense), but for the frank dialogue about the world’s oldest pleasurable activity / vice along with a few scenes showing the mischief of two main characters (warning: Knightley is reported to have resorted to vodka shots to fortify her nerves around one scene). If sex is a trigger you may want to pass.
[2] Messed up, I know. But I will say Speilrein’s thought is not so far off the teaching of Moses as collected in the Genesis 2 re-telling of the creation story.
[3] For the record, I would see this as a positive theological reason to be concerned about civil unions, and I wish more Evangelicals would default to this line of reasoning rather than some expressed or repressed emotional or psychological dissonance with LGBT people.
Make Love; Not War (on Gays and / or Marriage)
I am a Christian. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God and authoritative for the life of the believer. As far as possible I try to understand the ethics of scripture and apply them to my own life (sometimes better than others). There are real consequences to that decision and impulse. Nowhere is that impulse more problematic for me than the matter of sexual ethics. I am a single, thirty-something male (heterosexual if you most know) living in a culture and society awash with sex. Sex explodes everywhere around me (on my phone, my computer, my TV, my magazines, my books, my music, etc…). Yet as a Christian I believe in some particular boundaries to this act (which I also believe to be a God-ordained and yes, highly pleasureable activity), and I am paying a high price to maintain them within my own domain ( I am the king of my castle, the master of my domain). You might say as a single man I pay a higher price than any of the married Christian men I often hear whining about our current sex-satiated culture.
That said my heart pumps out a variety of feelings about the recent doings of the North Carolina voters. I bleed for my friends and loved ones within the LGBT community; even as empathize with the frustration of my brothers and sisters who use the phrase ” war on marriage.” It all seems a little too surreal. The same people aghast when it is asserted that taxes and regulations are valid are willing to allow that same government into the confines of what Church Father Origen called the most sacred of spaces: the bedroom. The maxim “You can judge my bedroom actions, but stay away from my wallet” seems well strange. It is no wonder that non-Christians think we Christians are a repressed and sex-starved lot.
For me this whole thing boils down to Augustine. Yes, I know, a sex-obsessed man with serious mommy issues is a strange person to bring into this debate (but then again in the graph above I referenced a eunuch). Augustine wrote what for me (and many others) has been the defining document on the relationship of church and state: The City of God.
[ed. note- I have not read this work in full but have read parts and many an essay or work discussing the text. If my analysis is off, let me know, please]In this work he argued that within our world there are two cities: the city of God and the city of Man. The city of God is the community of the church and the city of man exists in the surrounding community. Each community has a set group of members and each community was created for a set course of actions. The city of God exists for moral instruction and to usher the members of larger community into the presence of God. The city of man exists to protect and defend all the members of a given society. Any given society works best when the two cities exist in interdependence, each accomplishing its own goals and each staying out of the way of the other.
This separate but equal arrangement is harder in practice than in theory, but I believe it to be our best understanding and our way forward. Here the church is responsible for the evangelization of the surrounding city, the discipling of its voluntary membership, and the worshiping of God. This is important because moral authority can never be demanded, it can only ever be given. A member of the larger society sees something of value in the church, joins its community, and slowly is reformed in the image of its God. That member offers himself or herself as a willing sacrifice, a free will offering to their Lord, and that Lord honors the sacrifice by moving within that officiant’s life. This is the way of it, the Lord offers Himself and His way making each member of society response-able to answer that call to fellowship. A powerful Lord could demand, could force His creations to follow as a designer might his automated robots; yet our Lord is also a loving Father who desires righteous relationship and not just righteousness.
There are many who have tried to have righteousness outside of relationship, but these groups never end well. When the God-man Jesus Christ walked the earth, there were many such bodies operating within his confines, and two of these groups received comment from him. “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” He warned his followers. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness,” he warned these men. Here were men intend on using every mean available to see that every member of their society toed the moral line they proposed all should follow (and of which they repeatedly failed). No infraction was too small to escape their notice. They were righteous in actions as they saw themselves at war with the pagan degradation of the surrounding Roman society.
Yet here was this self-appointed Messiah eating with tax-collectors, drinking with prostitutes, and celebrating without thought for how it might look to others. Here was your Messiah, a drunkard on a first-name basis with the local hookers, and on the invite list of all the wrong people. Once they grabbed a loose and wayward woman in the middle of her brazen sinfulness, dragged her before this prophet, and demanded that he treat her like God would. He forgave her, and invited her into the community.
Think about if you were that woman whose posse would you rather join. The legal eagles who had passed legislation forbidding her brazen act, and were now demanding she pay the penalty for her slutty ways. Or the soft spoken man who picked her off the ground and offered a graceful entrance into a new community where she would be loved, accepted, and encouraged to grow in grace and stature.
We can make demands up-front, and insist that others who have not come to the same opinions as us live according to our rules, and our standards. We can enforce our beliefs with the sword. We can yell, scream, and shout. We can take the power of the city of man and use it to crush all those not as enlightened as us. We can win the culture battles, and vanquish our foes in the courts of man. All the short-term gains can boost our esteem, and fill our heads; but in the long run all we really will accomplish is the creation of a people determined to one day have our heads.
Or we can stand humbly in our little corner of the street, and say to the hungry ” have some food for your bellies.” And say to the thirsty “have some water for your parched throat.” We can say to the prisoner “let me remove your chains.” We can say to the orphan “find a home with us.” We can say to the widow “here, have a shoulder to cry upon.” We can lift our eyes to the skies and praise our God for his mercy and grace, and we can be purveyors of that mercy and grace within the community. We can become known for our love of all people, and our desire for everyone to find joy and peace. We can own our own lives. We can look to our teachings and apply them ourselves. We can become the agents of change we are looking for. And if we do this, and do it well we will be creating a communal space that attracts, a space that invites, a space that welcomes. People will come from the farthest corners of the world to find the joy and peace we have to offer. And as they join us, they will meet our God, and He will begin the long work of transforming their lives, renewing their minds, and writing his law upon their hearts. Marriages will be saved. Lives renewed. Our community reformed.
Or we can continue to talk of wars. We can continue to make enemies. We can win some battles. We can lose the war. Marriages ruined. Lives destroyed. Our communities desolate.
We can be the good news of great joy in a world of chaos and disorder. Or we can be the agents of chaos adding to the disorder. The choice is ours.
Unsanitary Links: Love and Lent | The Christian Century
“I saw him in the parking lot with her. I think he wanted to get caught,” my mom’s hushed voice bleeds with betrayal. Unlike most gossip, this conversation doesn’t have the quality of a listener, hungry for salacious trivialities. The whole house feels on edge, as I sit on the couch in an adjoining room, straining to hear.
I’m fifteen years old. I missed church that Sunday morning, but I’m catching up with what happened in the service through my mom’s one-sided phone conversations. The instant mom hangs up the phone it rings again. She’s in a t-shirt and shorts, walking back and forth with bare feet on the cork kitchen tile, reciting assorted facts and collecting others.
KEEP READING: Love and Lent | The Christian Century.
Why Young Women Keep Making Strip Tease Videos (and Why Guys Keep Sharing Them
BY Hugo Schwyzer on Jezebel
From the sad and infamous “Am I Ugly” tween YouTube trend to webcam striptease videos, young women today are more visually vulnerable than ever before. While for decades teen girls have been pressured to live up to an unattainable standard of beauty, that obligation to show off and look good has never been so constant. Technology is invading the traditional refuge of the bedroom, turning what was once an entirely private space into a makeshift production studio.
KEEP READING @
Why Young Women Keep Making Striptease Videos, and Why Guys Keep Sharing Them
Jacksonville association seeks resignation of church with sex-offender preacher – Florida Baptist Witness
Interesting debate. While I believe in God’s forgiveness and the ability for lives to change, I also believe in wise decision making. In this case we have a guy who has left 9 churches due to allegations of sexual improprieties, and just recently finished a jail term for one offense. Does he need to be in the church community to receive God’s healing, sure. But not knowing all the specifics may I say this seems someone better placed under church discipline [personally I would allow him to attend my church, but only with 2 male members staying with him at all times he was at church events, as well as, his understanding that he stay away from any females in attendance. I would also demand that he be in counseling. Any infraction of the above stated rules would mean that he was asked to not come back to church, and that I would seek out and advise the pastor of any church he went after mine] than any type of leadership [I would say he had disqualified himself for a long time].
A Religion for Males, Females, None of the Above, or All of the Above
Help me out here: God is male, female, none of the above, or all of the above; and the church is female, male, none of the above, or all of the above. As we have that settled we can therefore assert that the church needs to be more male, female, none of the above, or all of the above. Careful how you answer the above questions as they may prove you are a sexist, hierarchical, misogynistic, dictatorial jerk; or a weak, limp-wristed, liberal, Kenyan anticolonial- socialist, antinominial[1] heretical, Rob Bell-loving cultural sycophant. Or none of the above. Or all of the above. Regardless of how we answer, we should be prepared to go to our separate corners, and come out swinging with any or all of the bad words we know. Or none of the above. Or all of the above.
The fact of the matter is this: of all these options perhaps we ought to choice all of the above with a healthy dosing of none of the above. The Scriptures we love and the Traditions we have established tend to be multi-vocal[2] on the topic (as they often tend to be on all the ‘important’ topics). Yes, God has chosen to reveal Himself[3] as Father, Son, and Spirit. Yes, He at times seems to like the fellas, promoting them to positions of authority within His Kingdom.[4] He often talks about Himself in decidedly masculine language, and at times seems to act of the man playbook for dealing with issues.[5] Last he commanded women to take a lesser role in the church and family (because women are weaker and need to be protected).[6]
But there are more verses at play here. God also reveals more feminine characteristics to ‘himself.’ He refers to ‘his’ relationship with Israelas one in which he feeds them much like a mom does a baby. When Christ looks down on Jerusalem, ‘He’ says that ‘his father’ longs to collect ‘his’ straying people just as a mother hen collects her chicks. The picture gets even murkier when one studies the life of the early church. As Scot McKnight has so aptly illustrated in his little ebook, Junia is Not Alone, women played very important roles in the early church (even if some medieval and modern theologians would like to argue otherwise). This is not surprising because if one really studies the Gospels one can see that women played an important role in Christ’s ministry as well. In fact one might contrast the simple faith and good works of Mary, Martha, and Mary Magdalene (the real scriptural one) with the bumbling cluelessness of the menfolk called Apostles. It goes beyond the pericope of Scripture. Celsus, who penned the earliest extent criticism of the ‘Christians,’[7] stated that this strange new religion brought by the Jews to the Gentiles was a religion of ‘women, children, and criminals.’ Granted some mockery was definitely in play, but in all mockery there is an element of truth. The early Christianity was one that valued nurture and care in a world that valued strength and dominance. As sociologist Rodney Stark and historian Peter Brown have argued elsewhere the early Church succeeded because of this stance. In a world of hard truth, the church showed the value of soft power, i.e. the ability to change the hearts and mind through cultural interaction.
Just last week I was reading a text on leadership for a leadership training program within my local church. In a section entitled “The Leader and the Heart of a Father” I came across the following paragraph, which was discussing 1 Thess. 2:17:
“In the New Testament Greek, a ‘nurse’ nourishes children to the point of fattening them, cherishing them with choice foods. This word denotes a mother who nurses her children before they are weaned. It describes the mother would would [sic] take the most anxious and tender care of her little ones (italics mine).”[8]
Great passage, right, seems to be proving our point that in Christ there is room for both culturally learned maleness and femaleness. Yet the author went on:
“This is the true picture of the ‘nursing’ father, in the masculine sense, as it relates to the apostle Paul and to every leader.”[9]
To my credit I resisted the urge to write ‘WTF,’ in the margins;[10] but I did add a big “female is OK” inscription.[11] Unfortunately this type of conflagration passes as biblical scholarship in many churches. We harp on the masculine passages, and then we at best subconsciously convert, or at worst attempt to explain away these passages. In close reading of scripture finds this verse in the first chapter (which are important and to be taken ultra-literally):
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
The repetition is meant to highlight something important. The church has long taught that to be human is to be in someway like God. In this way to truly understand God one must understand his creation; and to understand his creation, one must understand him. The one is like the other. The one reveals the other. Yet this is often where we stop. Yet the passage goes on and tells us something else. Namely that both male and female are created in God’s image. This means that in God there is what it means to be truly male. It also means that in God there is what it truly means to be female. And perhaps even vice versa. Funny, how we want the first several verses of Genesis 1 to be accepted as literal, but suddenly backpedal like Champ Bailey when it comes to this verse. It is here that we might begin to understand the dialectical synthesis upon which the church should be grounded. The Church is called to be both male and female in ecclesial unity just as their triune God stands as three persons in divine unity. When we understand this truth we are ready to exist as he has called as to be. Males and females united in love and acceptance mutually submitted to each other, and mutually being reformed into His image, according to His likeness. Here we understand what it means to love as Christ loves.
Yet this is only our starting point. It is here that we might listen to the great mystical tradition as illustrated by St. John of Damascus or Pseudo-Dionysius both of whom argued that no human can truly understand or comprehend God in his Fullness or Completeness. We all stand before him like Moses on Mt Sinai. God tells us he will reveal himself, but only if we promise to stand in a cave with our eyes focused on the dark shadows, and our backs to his passing. Even as we see his reflection in the shadows, we cannot explain or comprehend all that we see. And so in this sense God is none of the above. He is God. He is not male as we suppose it to be. He is not female as we suppose it to be. He is beyond all our feeble attempts at social construction. When we understand this truth we are ready to take on the stance of humility. Here we can go forth boldly, knowing that while all attempts to interact carry the stench of failure, but are destined to be accepted by Him and credited as faith. And as he accepts and loves so we accept and love. And in this we find our better natures. Male. Female. Both. And. Not at all.
[1] I think I misspelled that one but unfortunately spell-check is no help in the popular Evangelical slur department.
[2] Thank you Christian Smith.
[3] There I said it.
[4] The 12 apostles = Jewish men; regardless of what 13th Apostle Rufus or Sir Leigh Teabing would say.
[5] At least as how we define manliness and / or what type of behavior modern man wants to excuse. God is dangerous, like a man. He takes risks, like a man. He hammers nails, fishes, and possibly drinks, like a man. And if you believe Nikos Kazantzakis, he desired to ‘marry that,’ like a man.
[6] O.K. so there is debate on this one. O.K. I don’t buy this one for a variety of reasons. See 10 Lies the Church Tells Women by J. Grady Lee or Different But Equal by Derek Morphew for excellent scriptural analyses on the main verses in question.
[7] While his actual manuscripts have yet to be recovered, thanks to the 1st century Church Father Origen, we have a good chunk of it recorded in the apologetic work Contra Celsus.
[8] No references is coming in order to protect the guilty. We’re not here to name names.
[9] Sigh, reference withheld. See above note.
[10] I would be opening and reading from it in a church setting.
[11] This may have been more dangerous for my standing. After all, all the cool pastors are revered for being able to throw a choice derogatory out from time to time; but only effeminate liberals would see something praiseworthy in a women (I mean other than her abilities to produce offspring, cook, and clean).
Parental Warning: Today we are talking about sex and freedom…
The interwebs have been awash in comments, criticisms, and support of Mark Driscoll‘s[1] new book on sex, Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together. Truthfully I have not read this title yet, so I will refrain from a critique. Instead I want to gab a bit about a recent publicity bit for the piece. The Driscolls appeared on Dr. Drew’s show, here is the entire interview as linked on Pagea Blog. I’m not a fan of Drew or the type of show he runs with a panel of mostly uninformed people asking a “guest” a series of unconnected, poorly constructed questions which are then glossed over without actually allowing either the “guest” or the “panelists” to actually deal with the topic at hand. What this type of show usually boils down to is a group of people competing for the glibbest commentary (though it should be noted glib here is never synonymous with wit).
What struck me with this interview, perhaps because of the absolute dearth of intelligent comments, was the repeated mantra of
“You can’t call this sin because I want to do it.”
I really do think that if we Christians were at all on our game theologically, this line of thinking would do no damage to us whatsoever. Were I on this panel, I would say “kill me now,” but after the desires to off myself, I would perhaps say, “our point exactly.” Paul put it this way:
“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! 18I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.”
Sin is not a choice. It is not something freely chosen from a list of equally viable actions. No one sits down and says,
“You know what I have this list of things I can do, and from this list I am going to choose the sinful action.”
I really prefer the songwriter Charlie Peacock’s take on sin:
“Sin is a cancer / Not just some thing you do / It’s in you minister / It’s in me too”
There is nothing free about sin, either in the doing or the consequences of having done it. We in the church know this, but we still get these blank looks as the world talks about being “born this way.” I listen to the world, and think you understand sin better than anyone in my church. Perhaps a large part of our current stupidity comes from the Republican captivity of the Evangelical church. It has been decided that rhetoric about “a war on the family” will get people to the polls to vote (in record numbers); but any discussion about the actual sins that are damaging our families will lose votes so this is not actually done.[2]
Here is how we are applied this faulty and perhaps cynically-calculated language. Sin is a choice we make, and homosexuality is a sin; therefore homosexuality is a choice people make. Of course we want homosexuality to be a choice; because if it is not a choice, then what kind of bastards are we to say, “I know you can’t stop doing this, but you have to stop.” This would not keep people coming to the polls or the pews. This would just make your audience and friends that much more mad.
But this is the essential hermeneutical problem of believing the Bible. Rarely if ever does the Bible give into cheap, easy sentimentality. On face value the statement that sin is ingrained deeply in our psyches seems like a hard word, a nasty, brutal truth. In fact this reality leads the apostle Paul, as quoted above, to lament:
“Oh, wretched man that I am who can save me from myself.”
To be part of this world is to be in bondage, bound to commit the same wrong actions again, again, again, and again. It would seem that the current Michael Fassbender movie Shame stands as a dramatic statement of this pernicious side to sex.[3] Or if one prefers music I much enjoy Frightened Rabbit’s Keep Yourself Warm or EMA’s California. Each of these works in their own ways point to the inherent emptiness of modern sexual expression. As EMA says “they tried to tell me sex was free.” But the sad truth of modern times is that nothing, not even sex, is truly free or even truly something we do because of choice. All of our lives seem bound to a host of intendent issues and problems. Yesterday I watched (Ok, listened) to two people argue. It started simple, but the issues at hand in both persons showed themselves and the situation got real quickly. This is the reality that none of us seems able to comment to audible statement.
Yet this is the point at which I love Christianity, it is why I keep coming back day after day. Christ came to set us free. He came to set us free from this SSDD[4] syndrome. As scripture tells us,
“For freedom Christ has set us free.”
It is only in Christ that humanity truly finds freedom, the freedom to be who we really and truly are. In Christ we find the safe space to deal with ourselves. In Christ we find the ability to be the best persons we can be. As we allow ourselves to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, we become the best versions of ourselves, ones that are truly free to act as we really desire. This is the paradoxically liberating good news of the Gospel. To be really free, we must lay down our illusions of freedom and selfhood to gain true freedom and selfdom. Even as Driscoll does seem to argue, the freedom to express ourselves as sexual beings delighting in the beauty of sex.
[1] Ok so his wife is listed as an author as well, and I as a good egalitarian would usually be all for putting her name out there; but I am not entirely sure that having her name on the book is anything more than a publicity stunt. This hierarchical complementatorian couple when seen in public usually has Mark doing all the talking and Grace sitting there like a bump on a log. Besides this was not a true mention just a name check and his is the more recognizable name.
[2] This analysis works for megachurch culture as well. We can get people really excited and coming to our church, by using “us versus them” tactics. We can encourage attendance and fill seats by pumping up the rehetoric; but we lose people when accusing them of being sinful; so we avoid those topics except in the most generic, bland descriptions (or by attacking sins with which people in the seats are not professing trouble).
[3] I say “seem” because here I am going on the critical journalism about said movie. The strong sexual content of the film means that I will not be viewing it, no matter how much Fassbender’s performance is praised. I can handle sexual humor, but have no desire to watch other humans engage in the act (even in playacting). Call me a prude if you must.
[4] Same Shit, Different Day.
Love / Hate Unsanitary