On March 13th, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) published a draft of a “Social Statement on Human Sexuality” and asked for responses. The draft is available at: http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney/draft/draftstatement.pdf. My response to the draft is below. My response is best understood in conjunction with the draft, but I think that my comments are understandable by themselves.
I hope you will read the draft and my response and provide your own responses to me, to the ELCA, or to me and the ELCA. Thanks.
A Response to the ELCA’s Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality
This response comes from an individual.
Overall Rating
1. How well does the Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality provide a useful and adequate framework to help this church discern what it means to live faithfully with our neighbors in the increasing complex sphere of human sexuality?
1 - Not Very Well (I checked this option.)
2
3
4
5 - Very Well
General Comment:
Overall, the draft continues the traditional church practice of demanding sexual renunciation of many of its members, specifically those not in a heterosexual marriage. As a result, it reinforces the heterosexual domination system by privileging heterosexuals. Thus, the draft does not proclaim the Gospel.
2. How helpful is each sub-section in Section II in explaining how Lutherans approach ethics?
I did not find the rating system helpful.
What if anything is a specific strength of Section II?
The draft recognizes that those participating in sexual activity should be responsible.
3. How helpful is each sub-section in Section III at interpreting why Lutherans regard our sexuality as one of the contributing blessings of God's good creation while acknowledging the complexities and difficulties that people experience in the sexual dimension of their lives?
I did not find the rating system helpful.
What, if anything, would you hope to see added to Section III?
An acknowledgement at least that sex is not always so fraught, solemn, frightening, and exalted as this section would have us believe. Although sex can certainly lead to all the miseries that are cataloged in this section, sex can also be pleasurable, fun, silly, frivolous, and romantic. Sex is not as grim as the draft would have it.
How helpful is each sub-section in Section IV in exploring matters of sexuality and relationships?
I did not find the rating system helpful.
What, if anything, would you hope to see added to Section IV?
Line 773 states that “Children are targets of sexual bullying, destructive language, and vicious humor.” This statement does not go on to point out that many bullied children are gay or perceived to be gay. Bullies justify their bullying by calling upon heterosexual privilege, as in “Queers deserve to be beaten up.” Persons in authority, such as teachers, principals, school boards, and legislators, often participate in or are afraid to go against the implicit heterosexual privilege in the community. Therefore, they do not work to stop bullying. Because the draft endorses heterosexual privilege, it also shies away from the truth that gay children are often the targets of bullies. The draft aids and abets gay bullying.
Line 797 indicates that violent and degrading pornography is a threat to children and adults. It should be obvious that it is the violence and degradation in such pornography that has potential for harm, because violence and degradation are usually harmful. Whether sexually explicit images and writing that are not violent and degrading are harmful is much less certain. Sexually explicit material that shows care and concern for people of the same sex can, in my opinion, be very helpful, particularly to gay people who are told that homosexuality is unacceptable. This, of course, has been the traditional Christian message for centuries, as expressed pithily by Fred Phelps: “God hates fags.” The church’s constant emphasis on “purity” has made many a gay child hate his sexuality and try to hide it and change it. With the advent of the internet and the sexually explicit material available there, children can see and experience a different perspective on their homosexuality. They can learn that it is not bad and sinful as the church has taught, but good, beautiful, and life-affirming. I say: “Thank God for the sexually explicit material on the Internet.” Such material is a way of envisioning the future when people are not hounded and ostracized because they don’t conform to the church’s version of “purity.” I wish that as a 13 year old boy in 1947, I could have seen on a computer men making love. If I had, I wouldn’t have felt so alone, abandoned, and evil. Even now the disapproval of sex coming from the churches, as in this draft, is a good part of the reason that sexually explicit material is watched “obsessively and in secret” (lines 799 and 801). Society is obsessed with sex because it is forbidden and church people are the principle forbidders. As long as the churches have an influence in society and use that influence to make people feel “impure” about their sex lives, people’s interest in sex will be obsessive and secret. The draft should encourage a view of sex that is neither so exalted that no one could ever have “good” sex nor so base that anyone who has sex outside of heterosexual marriage is branded as a sinner. Sex feels good, which is why people have sex and why they should have sex. There is enough misery in the world; sex can be a way of finding some happiness in a messy world. That said, not every sexual encounter is a sacred union, nor does it need to be. Likewise, not every sexual encounter is bestial exploitation. In fact, the litany of miseries in the draft has very little to do with sex, but rather the exploitation that is possible when sex is seen to be bad by the watchdogs of society. Someone is always available to make money on perceived sin.
Line 814 indicates that sex education should emphasize responsibility, mutuality, and abstinence. Responsibility and mutuality are, of course, are necessary in any sexual or for that matter, nonsexual, encounter, but abstinence may be more of a problem than a solution for sexual issues. Here is an excerpt from “Students of Virginity” in the March 30, 2008 issue of the “New York Times” magazine that shows that abstinence is not a sex-free zone, nor necessarily a way for people to exercise responsibility and mutuality:
“Millions of teenagers have since pledged to remain sexually abstinent until marriage, mainly on the grounds that premarital sex is sin.
At the same time, Congress and the Bush administration have directed hundreds of millions of dollars toward abstinence-only education in the public middle schools and high schools — classes that have been roundly criticized for blurring the line between science and religion. A 2004 report issued by Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, found that 11 of 13 abstinence curriculums that his government-reform committee examined were rife with scientific errors and false and misleading information about the risks of sexual activity. Many states are now rejecting federal financing for such classes, on evidence that they fail to limit sexual behavior or reduce teen pregnancy.
In a follow-up study to a 1995 national survey of close to 12,000 students in grades 7 through 12, two sociologists, Peter Bearman at Columbia University and Hannah Brückner at Yale, found that while those who took virginity pledges preserved their technical virginity about 18 months longer than teenagers who didn’t pledge, they were six times more likely to engage in oral sex than virgins who hadn’t taken a pledge. They were also much less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Disease rates between those who pledged and those who didn’t were actually similar. The authors, who published their findings in 2005, concluded that the emphasis on premarital abstinence was insufficient to fend off disease and ‘collides with the realities of adolescents’ and young adults’ lives.’”
My guess is that the writers of the draft were pressured by the right to include the mention of abstinence.
5. How helpful is each sub-section in Section V in understanding matters of sexuality related to life in society?
I did not find the rating system helpful.
6. How well does the Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality balance the need to speak to issues in intimate personal relationships with the need to address social issues that are broader and structural?
1 - Not Very Well (I checked this option.)
2
3
4
5 - Very Well
7. How well does the Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality helpfully address the needs and questions of all people in this church?
1 - Not Very Well (I checked this option.)
2
3
4
5 - Very Well
8. The proposed social statement on human sexuality will have a series of implementing resolutions. Such resolutions provide an opportunity to commit the church to the development of additional resources or programs relevant to the concerns of the social statement. Please list up to three topics you think it would be essential to include among the implementing resolutions for this social statement.
Resolved: Sexual renunciation, as advocated in the ELCA’s Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality, is a form of works-righteousness.
9. If there is anything else you particularly want to share with the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality, please use the space below:
The ELCA’s Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality is cowardly, cynical, and political.
First, the draft is cowardly because it is not the long-hoped-for announcement of a new sex ethic for the church. Instead, the draft attempts to reinforce the old, failed, discredited sex ethic that, probably more than any other single factor, causes people to leave the church. The old sex ethic would require people not in heterosexual marriage to renounce sex. This approach to sex is profoundly non-Lutheran. We Lutherans say that we cannot win God’s approval by what we do; God loves us unreservedly. However, the history of the church, including the Lutheran church, shows that there is one work traditionally required for acceptance into the church family: sexual renunciation, which is often encoded in Christian scripture, liturgy, and hymns as: “purity.” The flip side of purity, in this view, is fornication and impurity. St. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, denounces fornication and impurity without defining either (Galatians 5: 19). The draft quotes Paul’s angry words without any interpretation, stating that St. Paul writes that fornication and impurity shred the bonds of trust (Line 1222).
The draft asks no questions about this passage, such as: What was happening in Galatia that led Paul to write these words? Or: Why was Paul so hostile to sex? In contrast to Paul, Webster’s dictionary defines fornication as “consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other.” This seems quite nonjudgmental, particularly the “consensual” part, but it hardly seems to fit with Paul’s condemnatory tone.
One website, “Liberated Christians” (http://www.libchrist.com), takes a different approach toward Paul and “fornication,” suggesting that “I Corinthians 6:9 badly mistranslates ‘porneia’ as fornication. English translations use ‘fornication’ for Paul's original Greek word ‘porneia,’ which means to sell and refers to slaves bought and sold for cultic prostitution. In Corinth, farmers would visit the temple priestesses who represented the fertility gods. By having sex with these prostitutes, the farmers believed that their fields would be more fertile. This wasn’t simply going to prostitutes, but pagan cultic worship. So, perhaps fornication in the Bible is not “consensual sex,” but religious sex with gods (or their representatives) who are not the God of Abraham.
The traditional Christian message has not considered possibilities like this, rather, as in the draft, it has condemned any sex, in thought, word, or deed, outside heterosexual marriage as sinful. Augustine went further, claiming that even within heterosexual marriage, sex was sinful if not entered into with the intention of procreation. The idea that fornication might refer to idolatry is lost on most Christians, and, because of this, church teaching, reinforced in the draft, states that in order to be good Christians, acceptable Christians, church people should renounce sex outside of heterosexual marriage. They have been asked, since the church began, to perform this work, this obviously very difficult work, to be good Christians and, it follows, to gain salvation.
Where did this emphasis on sexual renunciation in the church come from? In “The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity” (1988), Peter Brown traces the development of the thinking and practice of men and women in late antiquity, starting with Paul and concluding with Augustine, as they defined and sought sanctity. The result of their frequently very strenuous efforts at ascetic renunciation was that it moved to the center of Christian life early in the church’s history. Brown shows that the church, from its early period right into the Middle Ages, opted to make sex and contact with sex one of the main benchmarks of the hierarchy of the Christian life. Celibacy for men and virginity for women took on great importance.
We church people live with this works-righteousness (the idea that our works will save us) even today. Although celibacy and chastity for men have always been important, it is women’s virginity that is emblematic of sexual renunciation. It is only a translator’s slip that has given us Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a virgin. Isaiah 7:14, the passage in the Hebrew Bible that speaks of the mother of a deliverer like Jesus, uses the words, “a young woman” not “virgin.” However “virgin” was the word chosen in the Greek translation, and virginity very early in the church became the ideal state for all. Of course, the cult of virginity brings the concept of purity to its fullest flower (to use a sexually fraught metaphor). The Virgin Mary is revered not so much for her role as the mother of Jesus, but as an exemplar of virginity and, thus, purity. Mary becomes the exemplar of virginity, rather than, as in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the servant of God, who, while noting her lowliness, is quite assertive, presenting a quite liberal, if not socialist, vision of a world where the poor are fed while the rich are pulled from their thrones of privilege. This is not the traditional virgin, meek and mild, but a strong woman with a radical program for social change.
Virginity, or, more precisely, what it implies, is the curse of Christianity, making us, as sexual beings, always guilty and never “pure” enough. Rather than being guilty about our sexuality, we should embrace it, and learn how to be responsible sexual people. The draft is cowardly in that it embraces renunciation and works righteousness, giving no guidance on how all of us, not just married heterosexuals, can be both actively sexual and responsible.
Second, the draft is cowardly because it does not abide by the second great commandment that the draft cites as foundational (line 8). The draft refuses to go where the Gospel is always leading us: To the conviction that God loves all creation and, in response, we are lead by the Spirit to love all people without partiality (Acts 10:34). Instead, the draft implies that God is partial to heterosexuals, blessing their marriages (line 1005), but not those of same-sex couples (line 1117). The draft claims that the church does not have consensus regarding same-gender relationships (line 1117). Without this consensus, the draft refuses to proclaim the Gospel: God calls for fairness and equality for all people and this should be without regard to their sexual orientation. Instead the writers of the draft, politically and cynically, have put their fingers in the air to determine which way the wind is blowing, and, lo and behold, they have discovered that the right wing is blowing to keep marriage for heterosexuals only, thus attempting to maintain and strengthen the heterosexual hegemony build into traditional society. The possibility of gay marriage challenges this hegemony, eliciting strong, often violent, reactions against those who name and oppose heterosexual privilege. The draft upholds heterosexualism when it merely recognizes controversy without providing leadership toward a position of sexual and marriage equality.
The plight of the Anglican Communion today should be instructive for Lutherans. Archbishop Rowan Williams has consistently tried to placate the Communion’s right wing by shunning gays, notably Bishop Gene Robinson. If, at Robinson’s election, Williams had welcomed him as a fellow bishop, a message would have been sent to the right that gays are not to be made scapegoats in the church to “satisfy the crowd” (Mark 15:15). Now that openly gay people are being shunned in the Anglican Communion, violence and hatred against gays have been released because they are seen as convenient scapegoats. For example, in 2006, Nigerian Archbishop, Peter J. Akinola supported a proposed Draconian law in Nigeria that would have effectively banned the "promotion" of homosexuality - punishing violators with up to five years imprisonment. (Wayne Besen: 365Gay.com, 2008).
So, for the ELCA to deny gays church marriage because popular opinion seems to be against it, is to fall into the same trap as the Anglicans have. Homosexuals in the ELCA may not marry in the church because some in the church might object. The draft appeases these objectors in a manner similar to Williams’ appeasement.
It wouldn’t work, because the point of Christ’s passion is that his scapegoating is called out and pointed to as wrong. That is why Christians “proclaim the Lord's death until he comes” at communion (I Corinthians 11:26): To proclaim publicly that scapegoating is wrong and God wants people to stop it. Christians should be saying: “Don’t satisfy the crowd, don’t throw the crowd another scapegoat in an attempt to avoid controversy, but proclaim the Gospel that God loves all people equally.
Thirdly, the draft is cowardly because, by privileging heterosexuals, it makes it harder for homosexuals to embrace their sexuality in the face of social hostility. This cowardice has real life consequences, particularly among gay youth. The Rev. Dr. Janet L. Parker of Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ has provided evidence concerning the hardships faced by gay youth. On June 10, 2007, she wrote that: “Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children account for up to 40% of the youth living in homeless shelters and foster homes in our nation’s cities. Gay, lesbian and bisexual youth are three times more likely than heterosexual youth to attempt suicide. Queer youth are much more likely to run away, end up as teen prostitutes, attempt suicide and suffer beatings and abuse inside and outside of their homes than heterosexual youth.” (http://www.rockspringcongucc.org/html/sermons.html). In the face of these findings, the draft goes along with heterosexualism making the lives of gay people harder than they need to be.
Because there is no consensus, the draft takes the easy way out and satisfies the crowd. The draft accomplishes nothing but the reinforcement of the status quo. It provides no leadership; it does not proclaim the Gospel.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Understanding Resurrection
Below is an article from yesterday's "New York Times" about resurrection. Next Sunday, March 23rd, is, in the Western Church, Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection.
Beliefs
Resurrection Is Often Misunderstood by Christians and Jews
By PETER STEINFELS
Published in the "New York Times" on March 15, 2008
As Christians in most of the world approach the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, it is startling to find three distinguished scholars, all known for scrupulous attention to theological tradition and biblical sources, agreeing that the very idea of resurrection is widely and badly misunderstood.
Misunderstood not just by those whose contemporary sensibilities restrain them from saying much more about resurrection than that it symbolizes some vague (and probably temporary) victory of life over death. But also misunderstood by many devout believers who consider themselves thoroughly faithful to traditional religious teachings.
Kevin J. Madigan is a Roman Catholic who teaches Christian history at Harvard Divinity School. Jon D. Levenson, a colleague at Harvard, is a Jew who teaches Jewish studies. Together they have written “Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews.”
The book, which will be published next month by Yale University Press, argues that the idea that God will raise the dead to life at the end of time is central to both Jewish and Christian traditions.
N. T. Wright is a noted New Testament scholar who has continued to churn out academic and popular works, even after moving from Oxford in 2003 to become the Anglican bishop of Durham. Last month he published “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church” (HarperOne).
These two books are different in tone and agenda. Professors Madigan and Levenson are particularly interested in countering the assumption that resurrection is solely a Christian belief, rather than one deeply rooted in the Judaism from which Jesus emerged. Bishop Wright has written a more popular and pastoral book, with practical proposals for church renewal.
But both books converge in challenging several widespread notions. Resurrection, they maintain, does not simply mean going to heaven or life after death.
Resurrection is not a belief that divides an other-worldly Christianity from a this-worldly Judaism.
Nor is resurrection something that refers only — or even primarily — to the individual’s survival after death.
Instead, both books emphasize that in classic Jewish and Christian teachings, resurrection refers to a collective resurrection of people and renewal of all creation at the end of time.
Resurrection was linked to the expectation of judgment and a final triumph of justice. This was the idea of resurrection that had evolved as Jews returned from exile and struggled under foreign domination in the period before Jesus. It was this idea of resurrection that Christians had in mind when they declared that what occurred on Easter was the “first fruits” of what was to come.
If there is a key to the convergence among these authors, it lies, first of all, in their insistence on the bodily and communal character of resurrection, a view that has long competed with a Hellenistic philosophical and especially Platonic dualism, in which an individual disembodied intellect or spirit could be saved from its corruptible and corrupting body.
Even as great a Jewish sage as Maimonides seemed to be tempted in this direction, and Bishop Wright sees the legacy of this dualism in the storehouse of Christian images, from Dante to classic hymns, in which souls shorn of bodies find their final destiny in a heavenly region quite elsewhere than on earth.
This Hellenistic dualism had earlier reached its apogee in Gnosticism, which almost always taught the incompatibility of spirit and matter and sought salvation in the shucking off of the material body. Professor Madigan, Professor Levenson and Bishop Wright view the anti-Gnostic stances of early church fathers and rabbinic sages alike as a proper defense of their traditions’ core beliefs and not, as recently argued, a tactic in religious power politics.
Unlike Gnosticism, Judaism and Christianity, in different ways, held to the goodness of creation and the flawed nature of humans. This equips both traditions, in these writers’ opinions, to avoid the illusion that humans can build a perfect world on their own while yet instilling in humans the confidence that the good they do will finally be affirmed and completed by the God of Resurrection.
Both these books build on their authors’ previous works. In “Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel” (Yale University Press, 2006), Professor Levenson argued that belief in resurrection was much more deeply rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish tradition than many Jews today realized.
Five years ago, Bishop Wright, whose important contributions to the scholarly debate over the historical Jesus have emphasized Jesus’ place within Judaism’s expectations for a divine restoration of Israel, published “The Resurrection of the Son of God” (Fortress).
Although both books emphasize resurrection as the final expression of divine power, vindicating those faithful to God’s promises and regenerating all creation, neither is indifferent to the question of the immediate destinies of the departed.
Professors Madigan and Levenson do not think that their explanation of resurrection entails “a disbelief in the immortality of some aspect of the person or in the notion that the departed righteous even now enjoy a blissful communion with God.” And though Bishop Wright can be rather impatient with much of the talk of “souls” and “immortality” and “heaven” thoroughly embedded in Christian prayer and ritual, he has no problem when heaven as a “postmortem destination” is seen as a “temporary stage on the way to eventual resurrection of the body.”
This eventual resurrection, he writes, is not “life after death” so much as “life after life after death.”
Beliefs
Resurrection Is Often Misunderstood by Christians and Jews
By PETER STEINFELS
Published in the "New York Times" on March 15, 2008
As Christians in most of the world approach the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, it is startling to find three distinguished scholars, all known for scrupulous attention to theological tradition and biblical sources, agreeing that the very idea of resurrection is widely and badly misunderstood.
Misunderstood not just by those whose contemporary sensibilities restrain them from saying much more about resurrection than that it symbolizes some vague (and probably temporary) victory of life over death. But also misunderstood by many devout believers who consider themselves thoroughly faithful to traditional religious teachings.
Kevin J. Madigan is a Roman Catholic who teaches Christian history at Harvard Divinity School. Jon D. Levenson, a colleague at Harvard, is a Jew who teaches Jewish studies. Together they have written “Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews.”
The book, which will be published next month by Yale University Press, argues that the idea that God will raise the dead to life at the end of time is central to both Jewish and Christian traditions.
N. T. Wright is a noted New Testament scholar who has continued to churn out academic and popular works, even after moving from Oxford in 2003 to become the Anglican bishop of Durham. Last month he published “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church” (HarperOne).
These two books are different in tone and agenda. Professors Madigan and Levenson are particularly interested in countering the assumption that resurrection is solely a Christian belief, rather than one deeply rooted in the Judaism from which Jesus emerged. Bishop Wright has written a more popular and pastoral book, with practical proposals for church renewal.
But both books converge in challenging several widespread notions. Resurrection, they maintain, does not simply mean going to heaven or life after death.
Resurrection is not a belief that divides an other-worldly Christianity from a this-worldly Judaism.
Nor is resurrection something that refers only — or even primarily — to the individual’s survival after death.
Instead, both books emphasize that in classic Jewish and Christian teachings, resurrection refers to a collective resurrection of people and renewal of all creation at the end of time.
Resurrection was linked to the expectation of judgment and a final triumph of justice. This was the idea of resurrection that had evolved as Jews returned from exile and struggled under foreign domination in the period before Jesus. It was this idea of resurrection that Christians had in mind when they declared that what occurred on Easter was the “first fruits” of what was to come.
If there is a key to the convergence among these authors, it lies, first of all, in their insistence on the bodily and communal character of resurrection, a view that has long competed with a Hellenistic philosophical and especially Platonic dualism, in which an individual disembodied intellect or spirit could be saved from its corruptible and corrupting body.
Even as great a Jewish sage as Maimonides seemed to be tempted in this direction, and Bishop Wright sees the legacy of this dualism in the storehouse of Christian images, from Dante to classic hymns, in which souls shorn of bodies find their final destiny in a heavenly region quite elsewhere than on earth.
This Hellenistic dualism had earlier reached its apogee in Gnosticism, which almost always taught the incompatibility of spirit and matter and sought salvation in the shucking off of the material body. Professor Madigan, Professor Levenson and Bishop Wright view the anti-Gnostic stances of early church fathers and rabbinic sages alike as a proper defense of their traditions’ core beliefs and not, as recently argued, a tactic in religious power politics.
Unlike Gnosticism, Judaism and Christianity, in different ways, held to the goodness of creation and the flawed nature of humans. This equips both traditions, in these writers’ opinions, to avoid the illusion that humans can build a perfect world on their own while yet instilling in humans the confidence that the good they do will finally be affirmed and completed by the God of Resurrection.
Both these books build on their authors’ previous works. In “Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel” (Yale University Press, 2006), Professor Levenson argued that belief in resurrection was much more deeply rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish tradition than many Jews today realized.
Five years ago, Bishop Wright, whose important contributions to the scholarly debate over the historical Jesus have emphasized Jesus’ place within Judaism’s expectations for a divine restoration of Israel, published “The Resurrection of the Son of God” (Fortress).
Although both books emphasize resurrection as the final expression of divine power, vindicating those faithful to God’s promises and regenerating all creation, neither is indifferent to the question of the immediate destinies of the departed.
Professors Madigan and Levenson do not think that their explanation of resurrection entails “a disbelief in the immortality of some aspect of the person or in the notion that the departed righteous even now enjoy a blissful communion with God.” And though Bishop Wright can be rather impatient with much of the talk of “souls” and “immortality” and “heaven” thoroughly embedded in Christian prayer and ritual, he has no problem when heaven as a “postmortem destination” is seen as a “temporary stage on the way to eventual resurrection of the body.”
This eventual resurrection, he writes, is not “life after death” so much as “life after life after death.”
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Why Sex is Important
One response to Gov. Spitzer’s sex scandal is, “It’s just sex. Why is it so important?” Well, it is just sex, and it’s important, because sex is important in our culture way beyond its role as one of our basic, and perhaps strongest, appetites. Often, sex is also a surrogate for our deepest, unconscious, unexamined emotions. This is, of course, Freud 101, but what is usually not recognized is the church’s complicity in keeping sex and the related emotions unexamined. For 2000 years, the church has been urging the renunciation of sex in favor of “purity.” For example, in Galatians 5:19-21, Paul lists “the works of the flesh,” which he links to death. The first three are fornication, impurity, and licentiousness. Thus, unsanctioned sexual activity takes pride of place in his list of vices which continues with apparently nonsexual activities, such as idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, and anger among others. Paul here seems to imply that the sexual sins lead right to all the other vices. Although all these are bad, the sexual ones may be at the root of the others, leading ultimately to separation from the Spirit.
Whether this interpretation of Paul is correct, the church has certainly acted as if it were. Peter Brown in his book, “The Body and Society” has documented that the church, from Paul right into the Middle Ages, opted to make sex and contact with sex one of the main benchmarks of the hierarchy of the Christian life. Celibacy for men and virginity for women took on great importance. Even today, as the Spitzer scandal demonstrates, there is zero tolerance in our culture for sex outside of the culturally permitted norms.
Now, this is not to say that sex should be or can be without consequences. The power of the sex drive militates against this idea, because sex without mature and conscious internal control can lead to some or all the nonsexual sins Paul deplores. However, instead of urging mature self-control in sex, the church; and, by extension, “Christian Civilization, has demanded that we “just say no” to sex.
But renunciation does not eliminate the appetite for sex or sexual activity. Instead, it makes guilty hypocrites of essentially everyone who tries, and generally fails, not to feel sexual, think about sex, or have sex. Of course, hypocrisy frequently leads to denial, deception, and lying, as in Gov. Spitzer’s case. Apparently, illicit sex was for him the response to a sex drive, which he couldn’t resist but which he thought he could handle. It seems as if renunciation did not work for him. How much better for him – and for us – if our culture could have allowed him to deal effectively with the issues represented by his unsanctioned sexual feelings.
Whether this interpretation of Paul is correct, the church has certainly acted as if it were. Peter Brown in his book, “The Body and Society” has documented that the church, from Paul right into the Middle Ages, opted to make sex and contact with sex one of the main benchmarks of the hierarchy of the Christian life. Celibacy for men and virginity for women took on great importance. Even today, as the Spitzer scandal demonstrates, there is zero tolerance in our culture for sex outside of the culturally permitted norms.
Now, this is not to say that sex should be or can be without consequences. The power of the sex drive militates against this idea, because sex without mature and conscious internal control can lead to some or all the nonsexual sins Paul deplores. However, instead of urging mature self-control in sex, the church; and, by extension, “Christian Civilization, has demanded that we “just say no” to sex.
But renunciation does not eliminate the appetite for sex or sexual activity. Instead, it makes guilty hypocrites of essentially everyone who tries, and generally fails, not to feel sexual, think about sex, or have sex. Of course, hypocrisy frequently leads to denial, deception, and lying, as in Gov. Spitzer’s case. Apparently, illicit sex was for him the response to a sex drive, which he couldn’t resist but which he thought he could handle. It seems as if renunciation did not work for him. How much better for him – and for us – if our culture could have allowed him to deal effectively with the issues represented by his unsanctioned sexual feelings.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Metropolitan Fails Lincoln Kirstein: An Open letter to Philippe de Montebello
I’ve just come back from the Metropolitan Museum’s presentation on Lincoln Kirstein very disappointed. This ad hoc, unscripted, uninformative program gave no insights into the source of Kirstein’s genius.
The executor of Kirstein’s literary estate told us nothing about Kirstein’s writing, nor did he read anything by Kirstein. Instead, he suggested a vague and unconvincing relationship between some quotes from T.S. Eliot and Kirstein.
The Met’s curator of photography showed two photos of Kirstein by Walker Evans and many pictures by Evans with the excuse that Kirstein was Evan’s patron. Why not read a letter from Kirstein to Evans illustrating this relationship?
The comments from Violette Verdy and Peter Martins were more about Balanchine than Kirstein. The most we got was that he ate tuna fish.
Besides being slapdash and unprofessional, the evening avoided completely a central aspect of Kirstein’s life: his homosexuality. Why hide this central feature of his life? When people talk and write about Balanchine they never fail to mention his many wives and affairs. This is not prurient prying, but an important key to his personality and his genius. Has not Martin Duberman in his new biography of Kirstein shown us that his sexuality was a major source of his passion? Although married, Kirstein never hid his homosexual life. How much better would the evening have been if someone who had researched Kirstein’s life, such as Duberman, had spoken? As it was, the only information we got was from the handout which was fine as far as it went, sketching his role in the New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet, but without much depth.
The best part of the program was the dancing. Unlike the panel, the student dancers were poised, expressive, and professional. They gave the evening what pleasure there was to be had in this unfortunate exercise.
The executor of Kirstein’s literary estate told us nothing about Kirstein’s writing, nor did he read anything by Kirstein. Instead, he suggested a vague and unconvincing relationship between some quotes from T.S. Eliot and Kirstein.
The Met’s curator of photography showed two photos of Kirstein by Walker Evans and many pictures by Evans with the excuse that Kirstein was Evan’s patron. Why not read a letter from Kirstein to Evans illustrating this relationship?
The comments from Violette Verdy and Peter Martins were more about Balanchine than Kirstein. The most we got was that he ate tuna fish.
Besides being slapdash and unprofessional, the evening avoided completely a central aspect of Kirstein’s life: his homosexuality. Why hide this central feature of his life? When people talk and write about Balanchine they never fail to mention his many wives and affairs. This is not prurient prying, but an important key to his personality and his genius. Has not Martin Duberman in his new biography of Kirstein shown us that his sexuality was a major source of his passion? Although married, Kirstein never hid his homosexual life. How much better would the evening have been if someone who had researched Kirstein’s life, such as Duberman, had spoken? As it was, the only information we got was from the handout which was fine as far as it went, sketching his role in the New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet, but without much depth.
The best part of the program was the dancing. Unlike the panel, the student dancers were poised, expressive, and professional. They gave the evening what pleasure there was to be had in this unfortunate exercise.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Save Us from Weak Resignation
One of my favorite hymns is “God of Grace and God of Glory.” The music is the great Welch tune, “Cwm Rhondda” by John Hughes, and the words are by Harry Emerson Fosdick. In the fifth and last verse, he writes: “Save us from weak resignation, To the evils we deplore.”
As the war drags on and the deaths and misery keep mounting, this verse is a desperate cry for us not to sink into apathy and go shopping. With the Republicans supporting Bush and the Democrats unwilling to confront him and persist in demanding an end to the bloodshed, most people have moved on, actively willing the war out of mind. In his column of Sunday, September 16th, Frank Rich highlights our indifference to this intractable conflict. Thirty years ago, when Gen. William Westmoreland urged staying the course in Vietnam, all three networks pre-empted their midday programming for his appearance. When Gen. Petraeus gave his recent testimony on Iraq, no network interrupted a soap opera for his testimony. Rich points out that America can not win a war abandoned by its own citizens. The evaporation of that support was ratified by voters last November. For that, they were rewarded with the "surge." Now their mood has turned darker. Americans have not merely abandoned the war; they don't want to hear anything that might remind them of it or of war in general. Television programs and movies about our wars are ratings disasters and box office poison. The public has changed the channel. They don't want to see American troops dying in Iraq or Afghanistan, because they ask, “What can be done?” Now, writes Rich, our America, unlike Vietnam-era America, is more often resigned than angry.
Most Americans may have given up trying to end the war, but under their resignation, anger still lurks. This past week, when the Senate voted to censure MoveOn for its ad denouncing Gen. Petraeus, MoveOn reported the biggest outpouring of donations ever, ensuring more ads against the war.
So resignation is probably our attempt to forget, hide, or tamp down our anger. This is not likely to be helpful and may cause harm. As Harry Emerson Fosdick writes in his great hymn, we should not yield to resignation, but let our conscious and therefore focused anger be the weapon we wield against this terrible war. Write your members of congress, join protests, contribute money to causes that work to stop the war. Above all pray that your resignation be replaced with the determination to end this and all wars.
As the war drags on and the deaths and misery keep mounting, this verse is a desperate cry for us not to sink into apathy and go shopping. With the Republicans supporting Bush and the Democrats unwilling to confront him and persist in demanding an end to the bloodshed, most people have moved on, actively willing the war out of mind. In his column of Sunday, September 16th, Frank Rich highlights our indifference to this intractable conflict. Thirty years ago, when Gen. William Westmoreland urged staying the course in Vietnam, all three networks pre-empted their midday programming for his appearance. When Gen. Petraeus gave his recent testimony on Iraq, no network interrupted a soap opera for his testimony. Rich points out that America can not win a war abandoned by its own citizens. The evaporation of that support was ratified by voters last November. For that, they were rewarded with the "surge." Now their mood has turned darker. Americans have not merely abandoned the war; they don't want to hear anything that might remind them of it or of war in general. Television programs and movies about our wars are ratings disasters and box office poison. The public has changed the channel. They don't want to see American troops dying in Iraq or Afghanistan, because they ask, “What can be done?” Now, writes Rich, our America, unlike Vietnam-era America, is more often resigned than angry.
Most Americans may have given up trying to end the war, but under their resignation, anger still lurks. This past week, when the Senate voted to censure MoveOn for its ad denouncing Gen. Petraeus, MoveOn reported the biggest outpouring of donations ever, ensuring more ads against the war.
So resignation is probably our attempt to forget, hide, or tamp down our anger. This is not likely to be helpful and may cause harm. As Harry Emerson Fosdick writes in his great hymn, we should not yield to resignation, but let our conscious and therefore focused anger be the weapon we wield against this terrible war. Write your members of congress, join protests, contribute money to causes that work to stop the war. Above all pray that your resignation be replaced with the determination to end this and all wars.
Friday, September 21, 2007
A Prayer on Yom Kippur
In the Jewish Mosaic E-News on Sept. 21 (www.jewishmosaic.org), Rabbi Steve Greenberg writes about the Yom Kippur dilemma. He writes:
Every Yom Kippur, gay Jews who attend services are faced with a dilemma. In the afternoon service the portion from Leviticus delineating the sexual prohibitions is read in most traditional synagogues. The whole of chapter 18 is read. It is a list of sexual violations from incest, to adultery, from sex with a menstruant woman, to bestiality and of course sex between men. And with a male you shall not lie the lyings of a woman, it is an abomination. How are we supposed to respond to this public humiliation?
For nearly two thousand years gay Jews, and particularly gay men, have had to listen to their lives debased on the holiest day of the year, their sexual relations demonized with the word toeva, abomination. It’s no wonder that many liberal synagogues have rejected this tradition and have replaced it various other readings.
However, despite the difficulty, there is good reason for communities to sustain the traditional reading. Repressing difficult texts is a lot like repressing feelings; they inevitably resurface and often in much more destructive ways. It seems better to me that we read Leviticus 18 and deal with it than deny or ignore it. Moreover, reading the text in shul on Yom Kippur makes us present in a powerful, if challenging way. With acknowledgement, it can become a call to greater empathy, understanding. We can use it to bring to communal memory the countless people throughout the ages, who, on the most holy day of the year, had no voice in the face the most devastating misrepresentation of their hearts. And lastly, it can serve as an impetus for learning and reinterpretation of the biblical and rabbinic texts that should no longer be a cause of self-loathing or exclusion.
Toward this end I wrote this prayer along with my friend Danny Wohl to accompany the afternoon Torah service on Yom Kippur. It is printed below for communities to use and where that is not possible, for individuals to use privately. With wishes for a Yom Kippur that helps us all to overcome the obstacles in our way toward greater authenticity, generosity of spirit and aliveness and may Jewish communities everywhere come soon to embrace their gay and lesbian sons and daughters.
Prayer to accompany the Torah reading of Leviticus 18 on Yom Kippur Afternoon
by Rabbi Steven Greenberg and Danny Wohl
Master of the Universe
On this Yom Kippur,
As the noonday sun descends,
We open up your sacred scroll,
And read with awe its words of wisdom.
Troubled, we share our meditations withYou.
In the beginning You created us in your image,
Breathed into a pure body opposing desires,
The human was created, lonely and alone.
When You repaired the flaw, transformed it by love
Your creations rejoiced, their longings fulfilled.
Flesh of Flesh, bone of bone,
One made two and two made one.
But You have also kindled the storms of our passion,
How, brazen and reckless, we slake our thirst.
We are overwhelmed by a sea of desire.
Only the bonds of covenant restrain the torrent,
Setting boundaries that cannot be breached.
You call us to read on this sacred day
The verses that ban the uncovering of nakedness.
The sins committed in the embrace of families
That trample innocence and humiliate with touch,
The degrading coercions that cry out unheard,
The breach of trust and the betrayal of loved ones
Fill the land with violence from within.
Shield of Abraham and Defender of Sarah,
Grant safety and security to those who have suffered abuse.
Send them peace of mind and soothe their spirits
As they turn to you for healing on this Day of Awe.
Master of the Universe, to Whom all secrets are known,
As the reading closes and “abhorence” is spoken
Women and men, in every congregation
Hear the words “Thou shalt not lie” and weep
In the back rows of synagogues,
Outcast and broken.
On this Day of Judgment, please God remember
The myriad souls, who from the beginning
Found in their hearts a fierce inclination,
A mighty love, toward members of their own sex.
Remember O Lord their paralyzing fear.
The unspeakable longing, the shaming embrace,
Accusing them with the full force of Law
Of perversions that could only be remedied by death.
Remember throughout history the thousands upon thousands,
Who consumed by self-hatred and the scorn of others,
Were cast out as outrage, or suffered unseen.
Not one dared imagine that they were not cursed
But blessed by the One, Who revels in difference.
And I further observed the tears of the oppressed
With none to comfort them.
And I saw the power of their oppressors
With none to comfort them. (Ecclesiastes 4:1)
Master of the universe, Creator of humankind
Are the oppressors of your children,
The verses themselves or those who interpret them?
What tragedies do we inflict when we drive away
Beloved daughters, beloved sons?
Our scholars once knew how to look in the book
To create new worlds in both awe and in love.
Open their eyes to the marvels and wonders,
The ways to expand and deepen your Torah
and draw down among us your spirit from above.
Where there is no comfort for the maligned and oppressed,
Then be Thou their comfort, their strength and fortress.
Bless us with peace in the midst of our differences.
Grant understanding and courage to our Sages,
Wipe away shame from the hearts of your children
And give hope to all for both wholeness and love.
Every Yom Kippur, gay Jews who attend services are faced with a dilemma. In the afternoon service the portion from Leviticus delineating the sexual prohibitions is read in most traditional synagogues. The whole of chapter 18 is read. It is a list of sexual violations from incest, to adultery, from sex with a menstruant woman, to bestiality and of course sex between men. And with a male you shall not lie the lyings of a woman, it is an abomination. How are we supposed to respond to this public humiliation?
For nearly two thousand years gay Jews, and particularly gay men, have had to listen to their lives debased on the holiest day of the year, their sexual relations demonized with the word toeva, abomination. It’s no wonder that many liberal synagogues have rejected this tradition and have replaced it various other readings.
However, despite the difficulty, there is good reason for communities to sustain the traditional reading. Repressing difficult texts is a lot like repressing feelings; they inevitably resurface and often in much more destructive ways. It seems better to me that we read Leviticus 18 and deal with it than deny or ignore it. Moreover, reading the text in shul on Yom Kippur makes us present in a powerful, if challenging way. With acknowledgement, it can become a call to greater empathy, understanding. We can use it to bring to communal memory the countless people throughout the ages, who, on the most holy day of the year, had no voice in the face the most devastating misrepresentation of their hearts. And lastly, it can serve as an impetus for learning and reinterpretation of the biblical and rabbinic texts that should no longer be a cause of self-loathing or exclusion.
Toward this end I wrote this prayer along with my friend Danny Wohl to accompany the afternoon Torah service on Yom Kippur. It is printed below for communities to use and where that is not possible, for individuals to use privately. With wishes for a Yom Kippur that helps us all to overcome the obstacles in our way toward greater authenticity, generosity of spirit and aliveness and may Jewish communities everywhere come soon to embrace their gay and lesbian sons and daughters.
Prayer to accompany the Torah reading of Leviticus 18 on Yom Kippur Afternoon
by Rabbi Steven Greenberg and Danny Wohl
Master of the Universe
On this Yom Kippur,
As the noonday sun descends,
We open up your sacred scroll,
And read with awe its words of wisdom.
Troubled, we share our meditations withYou.
In the beginning You created us in your image,
Breathed into a pure body opposing desires,
The human was created, lonely and alone.
When You repaired the flaw, transformed it by love
Your creations rejoiced, their longings fulfilled.
Flesh of Flesh, bone of bone,
One made two and two made one.
But You have also kindled the storms of our passion,
How, brazen and reckless, we slake our thirst.
We are overwhelmed by a sea of desire.
Only the bonds of covenant restrain the torrent,
Setting boundaries that cannot be breached.
You call us to read on this sacred day
The verses that ban the uncovering of nakedness.
The sins committed in the embrace of families
That trample innocence and humiliate with touch,
The degrading coercions that cry out unheard,
The breach of trust and the betrayal of loved ones
Fill the land with violence from within.
Shield of Abraham and Defender of Sarah,
Grant safety and security to those who have suffered abuse.
Send them peace of mind and soothe their spirits
As they turn to you for healing on this Day of Awe.
Master of the Universe, to Whom all secrets are known,
As the reading closes and “abhorence” is spoken
Women and men, in every congregation
Hear the words “Thou shalt not lie” and weep
In the back rows of synagogues,
Outcast and broken.
On this Day of Judgment, please God remember
The myriad souls, who from the beginning
Found in their hearts a fierce inclination,
A mighty love, toward members of their own sex.
Remember O Lord their paralyzing fear.
The unspeakable longing, the shaming embrace,
Accusing them with the full force of Law
Of perversions that could only be remedied by death.
Remember throughout history the thousands upon thousands,
Who consumed by self-hatred and the scorn of others,
Were cast out as outrage, or suffered unseen.
Not one dared imagine that they were not cursed
But blessed by the One, Who revels in difference.
And I further observed the tears of the oppressed
With none to comfort them.
And I saw the power of their oppressors
With none to comfort them. (Ecclesiastes 4:1)
Master of the universe, Creator of humankind
Are the oppressors of your children,
The verses themselves or those who interpret them?
What tragedies do we inflict when we drive away
Beloved daughters, beloved sons?
Our scholars once knew how to look in the book
To create new worlds in both awe and in love.
Open their eyes to the marvels and wonders,
The ways to expand and deepen your Torah
and draw down among us your spirit from above.
Where there is no comfort for the maligned and oppressed,
Then be Thou their comfort, their strength and fortress.
Bless us with peace in the midst of our differences.
Grant understanding and courage to our Sages,
Wipe away shame from the hearts of your children
And give hope to all for both wholeness and love.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Curse of Virginity
Lutherans (of whom I am one) teach justification by faith, not works. We say that we cannot win God’s approval by what we do; God loves us unreservedly. However, the history of the church, including the Lutheran church, shows that there is one work traditionally required for acceptance into the church family. This is sexual renunciation, which is often encoded in Christian scripture, liturgy, and hymns as: “purity.” The flip side of purity is fornication and adultery. This summer in the Lutheran Church, the epistles read in the liturgy have kept up the drumbeat condemning both, and St. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians links fornication to impurity without defining either. Webster’s dictionary defines fornication as “consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other.” This seems quite nonjudgmental, particularly the “consensual” part.
However, Googling “fornication + Bible” produces, for the most part, very different results. Most sites point out how forcefully many Bible passages condemn fornication and how we fornicators are going straight to hell if we don’t repent. I found only one site that takes a different approach: “Liberated Christians” (http://www.libchrist.com), which writes of fornication: “I Cor 6:9 badly mistranslates "porneia" as fornication. Corinth was a wide-open port city. People there could get sex any way they wanted it. Where our English translations read 'fornication', Paul's original Greek word was 'porneia' which means to sell and refers to slaves bought and sold for cultic prostitution. What was happening in the Temples of Corinth was farmers were visiting the temple priestesses who represented the fertility Gods. By having sex with these prostitutes they believed their fields would be more fertile. It didn't even have to do with going to prostitutes, but pagan cultic worship.” So, perhaps fornication in the Bible is not “consensual sex,” but religious sex with gods (or their representatives) who are not the God of Abraham.
Adultery, of course, is a sin. It is defined in Webster’s as: “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband.” However, “Liberated Christians” has an interesting slant on adultery, writing: “The Jews understood ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ very differently than Church tradition. It only applied to men if they had intercourse with someone else's wife, but it was allowable for a married man to have intercourse with a single woman. Adultery was the sin of "trespassing" on a man's property. Until marriage women were the property of their fathers. After marriage they became the property of their husbands.” So, in this light, adultery is more about property than about sex.
Christian preachers (at least those I listen to) probably know all too well how “impurity, fornication or adultery” have been used in the past to shame their listeners and to attempt to control their sex lives. Preachers these days rarely use these words. They may speak about “broken relationships,” but they steer clear of Paul’s harsh language, leaving us pew sitters to figure out as best we can what to make of these words in scripture. The traditional Christian message has been (and, as most of the sites on Google attest, still is) that any sex, in thought, word, or deed, outside marriage is sinful. Augustine went further, claiming that even within marriage, sex was sinful if not entered into with the intention of procreation. The ideas that fornication might refer to idolatry or that adultery might be about property rights are lost on most Christians. So in order to be a good Christians, acceptable Christians, church people were directed to renounce sex. Thus, they have been asked since the church began to perform this work, this obviously very difficult work, to be good Christians and, it follows, to gain salvation.
Where did this emphasis on sexual renunciation in the church come from? In “The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity” (1988), Peter Brown traces the development of the thinking and practice of men and women in late antiquity, starting with Paul and concluding with Augustine, as they defined and sought sanctity. The result of their frequently very strenuous efforts at ascetic renunciation was that it moved to the center of Christian life early in the church’s history. Brown shows that the church, from its early period right into the Middle Ages, opted to make sex and contact with sex one of the main benchmarks of the hierarchy of the Christian life. Celibacy for men and virginity for women took on great importance.
We church people live with this works righteousness (the idea that our works will save us) even today. Although celibacy and chastity for men have always been important, it is women’s virginity that is emblematic of sexual renunciation. It is only a translator’s slip that has given us Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a virgin. Isaiah 7:14, the passage in the Hebrew Bible that speaks of the mother of a deliverer like Jesus, uses the words, “a young woman” not “virgin.” However “virgin” was the word chosen in the Greek translation, and virginity very early in the church became the ideal state for all. Of course, the cult of virginity brings the concept of purity to its fullest flower (If I may be allowed this sexually fraught metaphor). The Virgin Mary is revered not so much for her role as the mother of Jesus, but as an exemplar of virginity and, thus, purity. In high Mariology, Mary is conceived without sin, leads a sinless (think sexless) life, remains always a virgin, and as befits her special status was assumed into heaven without dying, a feat that not even Jesus could manage. Mary becomes the exemplar of virginity, rather than, as in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the servant of God, who, while noting her lowliness, is quite assertive, presenting a quite liberal, if not socialist, vision of a world where the poor are fed while the rich are pulled from their thrones of privilege. This is not the traditional virgin, meek and mild, but a strong woman with a radical program for social change.
So, I believe, virginity, or, more precisely, what it implies, is the curse of Christianity, making us, as sexual beings, always guilty and never “pure” enough. I think that, rather than being guilty about our sexuality, we should embrace it, and learn how to be responsible sexual people. What’s involved in this, is the subject of an upcoming blog entry.
However, Googling “fornication + Bible” produces, for the most part, very different results. Most sites point out how forcefully many Bible passages condemn fornication and how we fornicators are going straight to hell if we don’t repent. I found only one site that takes a different approach: “Liberated Christians” (http://www.libchrist.com), which writes of fornication: “I Cor 6:9 badly mistranslates "porneia" as fornication. Corinth was a wide-open port city. People there could get sex any way they wanted it. Where our English translations read 'fornication', Paul's original Greek word was 'porneia' which means to sell and refers to slaves bought and sold for cultic prostitution. What was happening in the Temples of Corinth was farmers were visiting the temple priestesses who represented the fertility Gods. By having sex with these prostitutes they believed their fields would be more fertile. It didn't even have to do with going to prostitutes, but pagan cultic worship.” So, perhaps fornication in the Bible is not “consensual sex,” but religious sex with gods (or their representatives) who are not the God of Abraham.
Adultery, of course, is a sin. It is defined in Webster’s as: “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband.” However, “Liberated Christians” has an interesting slant on adultery, writing: “The Jews understood ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ very differently than Church tradition. It only applied to men if they had intercourse with someone else's wife, but it was allowable for a married man to have intercourse with a single woman. Adultery was the sin of "trespassing" on a man's property. Until marriage women were the property of their fathers. After marriage they became the property of their husbands.” So, in this light, adultery is more about property than about sex.
Christian preachers (at least those I listen to) probably know all too well how “impurity, fornication or adultery” have been used in the past to shame their listeners and to attempt to control their sex lives. Preachers these days rarely use these words. They may speak about “broken relationships,” but they steer clear of Paul’s harsh language, leaving us pew sitters to figure out as best we can what to make of these words in scripture. The traditional Christian message has been (and, as most of the sites on Google attest, still is) that any sex, in thought, word, or deed, outside marriage is sinful. Augustine went further, claiming that even within marriage, sex was sinful if not entered into with the intention of procreation. The ideas that fornication might refer to idolatry or that adultery might be about property rights are lost on most Christians. So in order to be a good Christians, acceptable Christians, church people were directed to renounce sex. Thus, they have been asked since the church began to perform this work, this obviously very difficult work, to be good Christians and, it follows, to gain salvation.
Where did this emphasis on sexual renunciation in the church come from? In “The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity” (1988), Peter Brown traces the development of the thinking and practice of men and women in late antiquity, starting with Paul and concluding with Augustine, as they defined and sought sanctity. The result of their frequently very strenuous efforts at ascetic renunciation was that it moved to the center of Christian life early in the church’s history. Brown shows that the church, from its early period right into the Middle Ages, opted to make sex and contact with sex one of the main benchmarks of the hierarchy of the Christian life. Celibacy for men and virginity for women took on great importance.
We church people live with this works righteousness (the idea that our works will save us) even today. Although celibacy and chastity for men have always been important, it is women’s virginity that is emblematic of sexual renunciation. It is only a translator’s slip that has given us Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a virgin. Isaiah 7:14, the passage in the Hebrew Bible that speaks of the mother of a deliverer like Jesus, uses the words, “a young woman” not “virgin.” However “virgin” was the word chosen in the Greek translation, and virginity very early in the church became the ideal state for all. Of course, the cult of virginity brings the concept of purity to its fullest flower (If I may be allowed this sexually fraught metaphor). The Virgin Mary is revered not so much for her role as the mother of Jesus, but as an exemplar of virginity and, thus, purity. In high Mariology, Mary is conceived without sin, leads a sinless (think sexless) life, remains always a virgin, and as befits her special status was assumed into heaven without dying, a feat that not even Jesus could manage. Mary becomes the exemplar of virginity, rather than, as in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the servant of God, who, while noting her lowliness, is quite assertive, presenting a quite liberal, if not socialist, vision of a world where the poor are fed while the rich are pulled from their thrones of privilege. This is not the traditional virgin, meek and mild, but a strong woman with a radical program for social change.
So, I believe, virginity, or, more precisely, what it implies, is the curse of Christianity, making us, as sexual beings, always guilty and never “pure” enough. I think that, rather than being guilty about our sexuality, we should embrace it, and learn how to be responsible sexual people. What’s involved in this, is the subject of an upcoming blog entry.
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