Toward a Theology of Human Sexuality

I am increasingly impressed with the need for the Christian church to stop taking their cues from our current

(Western, American, Progressive) culture, and reclaim the high-ground of defining our terms and ideas.  We need to be deliberate about the church filling vocabulary and concepts with biblically-faithful truths for disciples and any other people we get to influence.  Only when we do, will we begin to make powerful disciples who have been dislodged from the drift of our culture's garbage barge and reconnected with the glory of a risen and present Savior.

I have offered several areas of engagement and reflection in the recent past, and I want to add another here: a theology of human sexuality.

More and more the drive of culture is to cheapen human sexuality, erase all barriers to sexual behavior, disconnect it from moral and biological realities, and turn it into (or back into) a bacchanalian free-for-all.  We all suffer when this happens.  Contrary to the propaganda, there is no freedom or personal fulfillment in border-less sexual behavior.  Teenagers (or any of us) are actually not like dogs in any significant way, and our sexual acts are not like those of animals in any significant way.  We do not free sexual expression by equating humans (especially young humans) with animals, rather we cheapen the human being.

So, to this end, I have a handful of initial thoughts which will hopefully lead to deeper reflection and a better understanding of how God created humans as sexual creatures.

Sexuality is a Gift of God's Creation

I do not speak of the sex act directly, but of sexuality - the quality of human relationships that joins us physically and spiritually.  It is the quality of our creaturely character that leads to the sex act, and it is a gift of God given to human beings by virtue of their being humans.  It is part of who we are, and it is a good thing.

Possibly the most useless teaching on human sexuality has been perpetrated on evangelical teens for decades - "Don't!"  I am in full agreement that teens should not engage in sexual behavior, but the lesson that is communicated through a completely negative concept leads to all kinds of shallow misunderstandings and frustrations in the future.  Instead of temporary behavior modification, what would teaching look like that highlights how it can be beautiful, productive, and God-honoring?  Is it possible that a positive message will be better for Christian disciples in the future?

Heterosexual, Monogamous, Life-Long Marriage is Where it Flourishes

Sexuality is intrinsically tied to gender, pleasure, and procreation.  As such, it is necessarily (and ironically) a communitarian act.  As such it matters how I use my sexuality, because it can create or destroy relationships.

We are Soulish Beings First

One of the greatest crimes perpetrated by an overly-sexualized culture is the theft of your soul - at least your knowledge and awareness of your soul.  And the elimination of a soul is the beginning of the animalization of the human person.  From there it is only a short stone's throw to equating human sexuality with animal sex.

Sexuality is a part of your soul and it affects the shape of your soul.  It cannot be wielded without moral and spiritual consequence.

Misused and Misunderstood Sexuality is the Root of Many Things We (Currently) Call Evil

The human sex slave-trade is the direct result of misused sexuality.  The perpetuation of the abortion industry, partial-birth abortion, the explosion of the number of single mothers, the commodification of the human body, the sexualization of childhood - all these and more are the direct and necessary results of bad ideas about human sexuality.  So, can we address the solutions to these problems through reclaiming a thoroughly Christian theology of human sexuality? Quite possibly.

These are nutshells of ideas, but I believe them to be important.  The church simply can't sit around letting our culture define our ideas for us and hope that Christians grow up to be like Christ.

Pastor - Go Ahead and Preach Christ

"...the only mission strategy which will encourage our congregations, usefully employ our clergy, enable history-changing and kingdom-of-God-anticipating ministry, and enable us to evangelize with any degree of faithfulness and power is the preaching that there is salvation in no other name.  To ministers let me say this as strongly as I can.  Preach Christ, preach Christ, preach Christ. Get out of your offices and get into you studies. Quit playing office manager and program director, quit staffing committees, and even right now recommit yourselves to what you were ordained to do, namely the ministry of Word and sacraments. Pick up good theology books again: hard books, classical texts, great theologians. Claim the energy and time to study for days and days at a time. Disappear for long hours because you are reading Athanasius on the person of Jesus Christ or Wesley on sanctification or Augustine on the Trinity or Calvin on the Christian life or Andrew Murray on the priesthood of Christ. Then you will have something to say that's worth hearing." Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, pg. 44

The Christian Church and Pastorate ought to take these kinds of challenges seriously.  Are many pastors and churches in a place from week to week where what is being communicated is really worth hearing, or is it a warmed-over version of pop-psychology and self-helpism?

My reaction to this section of Purves' book regards the need for the church to present a clear alternative to our culture's move to the social and moral left.  Right now our general drift is in the direction of progressive social reimagination, and all it really takes for the Christian message to stick out is for it to be proclaimed clearly.  But that simple step has a couple of prerequisites: clarity and courage.

Christian pastors need to be clear on what they believe, and not what the spirit of the age would like them to believe and proclaim from behind pulpits and in the public square.  It is the testimony of history, and is the testimony of our current state of affairs that the closer a church gets to the spirit of the age, the worse things go for the church.

Secondly, we need the courage to go ahead and stick out.  The Christian faith has always been on the side of truth, and the Church has always outlasted cultures that disliked and even persecuted them.  Don't let the secular left fool you - the arguments are on your side.  You don't need to emote to gather support for your cause.  You can present things like reality and knowledge.  And you have the Creator and Sustainer of all things going ahead of you.

Getting Easter Wrong

Though President Obama hasn't picked a church in D.C. to be his family's church, he does attend from time to time.  Yesterday, Easter, He visited Saint John's Episcopal Church to commemorate, well, it's hard to tell what was commemorated.

By the accounts of the sermon that was preached, I have a simple one-word assessment:

Pathetic.

The CNN Religion Blog's headline reads, "Obama hears hint of politics during Easter sermon," The Washington Post, "Obama attends Easter service; minister criticizes 'captains of the religious right'," and Newsmax is the most straightforward when they say, "Obama Pastor Bashes 'Religious Right' During Easter Sermon."

The sermon included only two real errors - its politics and its theology.  Other than that, I am sure it was wonderful.

The minister upbraided the religious and political right of wanting to send blacks to the back of the bus.  He accused those same people of wanting to look back to days of oppression and hatred.  In reality, he will not be able to name a single individual who actually wants to do that and his entire point of view here is dependent upon misguided emotion, not fact.

Theologically he stated that Easter is about the lesson of looking forward and not backward, about the "power of love not loveless power," and moving into more modern views on love and marriage.  Shame on him.  None of that is true of Easter.  This is a case of a political creature wantonly and unthinkingly imposing his personal preferences upon the Resurrection.

Quite frankly, don't call that a church service.  Let's call it what it was - political pandering blessed with a pulpit on a Sunday morning.

Don't call that service something that was delivered by a pastor.  Pastors ought to know better than to say those kinds of hateful and ignorant things under the guise of an Easter sermon.  And I am sure this kind of thing - and all sorts of silly things - was said hundreds of times over yesterday, which makes it all that more depressing.

The Church belongs to a power much greater than any nation, even the office of the President of the United States, and we lower ourselves when we pander this much.

Slippery Slopein' All The Way Down...

Don't let anyone tell you the "slippery slope" argument is invalid.  Especially when you are arguing that vice leads to more vice, or moral corruption leads to more moral corruption, the argument that, "It can only get worse," is not only valid, it is historically verifiable.

The latest case is of a Planned Parenthood representative before the Florida Legislature arguing for the right for them to perform "post birth abortions."  The hearing was about determining laws and regulations overseeing a situation in which a child is born alive when the mother intended to abort.  It happens more often than the pro-choice lobby would admit, so it is reasonable to figure out what is legally allowable in those situations.

But Planned Parenthood is now openly arguing for the right to kill a living baby out of the womb in a Doctor's office.

There are dozens of things wrong with this, but to begin with notice that the belief that abortion is an unlimited right (the position of Planned Parenthood) leads, naturally and logically, to infanticide.  There is no biological or ontological difference between a baby in the womb or outside of it.  So, if an institution's position is that the baby can be killed in the womb, there is no logical roadblock to the belief that it can be killed outside of the womb.

The rejoinder that the child was "intended to be aborted" is of no use here.  To begin with, intending murder does not morally allow us to finish the job if it is botched.  Secondly, what about a mother who comes in late in pregnancy, actually gives birth before the procedure (or gives birth before entering the abortion clinic), and then desires to have a "post-birth abortion"? There is no difference, and both are morally heinous.

What can be done?  Beyond whatever political involvement people can have, support and pray for organizations doing great good like Life Network.

Turns Out...It Really Happened

Craig A. Evans, N.T. Wright. Jesus, The Final Days: What Really Happened. ed. Troy A. Miller. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2009). 116 pages.

The three essays in this book were originally written as lectures for a symposium for pastors and scholars regarding several of the issues surrounding the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The book has edited the three essays for more popular consumption, though the average reader will still need to read a little slowly, and will happily learn several new things about the general topic of Easter.

To give away the ending, the authors believe that Jesus really was crucified, really died, really was buried, and really did rise from the dead physically.  The first two essays, written by Craig A. Evans, take a look at first century Jewish and Roman execution and burial practices.  The third, written by N. T. Wright, is a look at what the early church believed about Jesus' physical resurrection from the dead and argues for the conclusion that they believed he did, and, he really did.

Dr. Evans, a recognized and prolific New Testament scholar, tackles the question of whether the Gospel accounts of Jesus' trial, death, and burial are likely to have happened the way they are recorded by the Evangelists.  Combing through copious amounts of source materials regarding how Jewish and Roman culture and legal systems worked in the day, he builds a strong case for why Jesus was opposed by the Jewish authorities, the Passover pardon of Barabbas, the scourging, his death on the cross, and his burial in the tomb.  For the faithful, these seem to be simple and obvious details within the Easter story, but as Dr. Evans shows throughout, there are plenty of modern-day theories which attack each.  In the end, however, he shows that each theory which opposes these details has the burden of proof, and it is a heavy burden indeed.

Bishop Wright, possibly the leading living scholar on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, takes for his approach a kind of definition and explanation of the word "resurrection."  What was the Old Testament (and thus prevailing view in Jesus' culture) understanding of it?  Was the general, ancient view of resurrection something compatible with what became the Christian understanding? And finally, what was the Christian teaching regarding Jesus' resurrection?  He argues convincingly that the Christian view is a distinct departure from their Jewish heritage, the pagan cultures around them, and is shockingly stable and unified through the years.  The explanation for this break and persistent belief?  Jesus physically rose from the dead and became the Christ-follower's hope.

In the end, this volume tackles many of the details that we often either take for granted or don't even pay attention to when we come around to Easter.  The way the details are handled provide further support for the traditional Christian belief about the last days (and resurrection) of Jesus Christ, and make it harder for the skeptic to simply brush the whole story off as ancient and simplistic legend.

If this review was helpful, please say so on the Amazon page.

Putting Papal Possibilities in their Place

Mary Eberstadt nails it in this NPR interview.  She is able to speak to the nature of the Catholic and Christian church well, and deal with the persistent and even a little confused line of questioning that cannot believe that the Pope isn't going to accommodate Western, progressive sensibilities.

 

The progressive reaction to the new Pope had been nothing short of misguided and at times amusing.  As has been said a few times since the election of Pope Francis, the media expected a secular progressive to become Pope and were shocked that he was a Catholic.

 

As Eberstadt notes in the interview, the Pope's role is not about modernist sensibilities, or a culture that is accustomed to molding and shaping their elected officials and lifestyles.  The Christian faith is about Truth - "capital 'T' Truth" - as she put it.  Christian doctrine and moral teaching has been molded and shaped for us and handed down for centuries.  By contrast, secular progressivism is inherently about change and "progress." Toward what and to what end, there is no real answer.  And for what reasons there is no compelling argument. By its very nature progressivism is subject to public whim and political power.  And that is what frustrates and confuses progressives about the Catholic church and the Christian faith - it will not bend to modernizing whims just because some Americans think it should.  And even if the progressive point of view succeeds in lulling mainline Protestant denominations into a dogmatic slumber and eventual suicide, the Truth remains untouched by them. 

 

The modernist reaction has been a lot of sound and fury.  But it does not necessarily signify nothing.

 

It does signify the deepening cultural reality of individualist subjectivism and its odd consequences.  More and more, and in all kinds of arenas of life, people in Western culture have become accustomed to shaping reality to their whims. Consciously or unconsciously we treat fast food stands in the same ways we treat our politicians, careers, and our families.  The self is supreme, and the desires of the self are unchecked by any moral reflection or robust external authority system (like the Christian faith, even as represented in the Catholic church).  As a result, the typical modern is unable to understand that there is a reality to which they are responsible, and which will not change according to polling results.

 

Thankfully, the Vatican could not care less what nominal, progressive Catholics in the U.S. think it should do with the priesthood, marriage, or contraception.  Let us hope their courage rubs off on more evangelical and Protestant bodies.

Should Come As No Surprise...

In case you missed it, or didn't believe it the first dozen times you read about it, Rob Bell has officially come out in favor of "marriage equality," or the legitimization of homosexual marriage.  Bell has been a lightning-rod figure in Christian circles for several years now, drawing loving adoration from some circles of (typically young) Christians and ministers who see his point of view as a new way of talking about the faith, and stinging criticism from others who see in him the seeds and saplings of heresy.

Part of Bell's allure has been his ability to not answer every question.  He is able to take direct questions about doctrinal and moral matters and answer them in slippery ways which have kept him from being quoted as directly contradicting Christian orthodoxy - at least the majority of the time, and at least until now.

The Huffington Post reports, "This Sunday Rob Bell spoke at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral and openly endorsed marriage equality... In response to a question regarding same-sex marriage, Bell said, "I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs -- I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are."  So he is on record with both his conviction and his argument.

It should not surprise anyone who has read Bell and who has a grasp of Christian theology in the last 200 years that he has now openly contradicted clear teaching of Scripture and consistent teaching within the church for the last 2000 years.  When an individual drifts left-of-center with their theology, they necessarily begin to unmoor themselves from such things as Scripture and tradition and begin to wed themselves to the spirit of the age.  Bell is not nearly as concerned with doctrinal orthodoxy or truth (a topic he slides out from under later in the piece) as he is with acceptance from the latest fads among leftist elites.  And he will receive plenty of invitations to exclusive cocktail parties where grateful people will pat him on the back.

But the spirit of the age is a fickle and demanding deity.  What is in vogue today will become tomorrow's stepchild.  And this deity will not stop in its pressure for a self-proclaimed christian to accept one item in its buffet of political correctness.  It will demand all.  And it will eventually take all from Bell.

Though you will not be able to find the direct quote yet, it may not be long before Bell openly denies the uniqueness and divinity of Christ.  The spirit of our age can't swallow the Jesus of Christian orthodoxy, so, in time, neither will he.

And notice as well how weak his reason is for his decision, "I think the ship has sailed."  This isn't an out-of-context pull quote, it is the very spirit of the promotional video for his new book.  Traditional Christian beliefs are now like Oldsmobile cars - once useful but unable to keep up with social changes.

Don't let his gift of communication fool you - the power of the Christian faith is not in the multiplication of questions with no real answers, it is in faithfulness to Christ and the teaching once and for all delivered to the saints.

Sir Isaac Said What?

“…the true God is a living, intelligent, powerful Being…he governs all things, and knows all things that are done or can be done…He endures forever, and is everywhere present….As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.” Sir Isaac Newton, Principia

Newton, Sir Isaac. 1934, Principia. Translated by Florian Cajori. 2 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 543-47.

Our Senses and Prayer

I was recently struck by a poem written by Gerard Manley Hopkins I had not read before, The Habit of Perfection.  It was written early in his career and so several commentators do not see it as refined a work as his later poetry, but I find it of incredible value when viewed through the lens of prayer and interaction with God.  Hopkins was a devoted Christ-follower, so it is entirely appropriate to read his work with Christ and discipleship in view.

As a whole, the poem treats all our bodily senses ironically as means of interacting with God.  As a result it is good advice to the believer who is wondering how to pray.  The first stanza:

Elected Silence, sing to me

And beat upon by whorled ear,

Pipe me to pastures still and be

The music that I care to hear.

Here, we catch a glimpse into how to use our ears to better hear God - and we begin with the fact that our ears are battered with cacophony, and thus are tuned to hear all the wrong things.  We grow accustomed to the constant din of meaningless - or even worse, destructive - noise.  We learn to process meaninglessness because we listen to it all the time.

So the power of silence becomes the power of re-tuning our ears to hear "The music that I care to hear."  Ironically, in silence from the noise of this world we find another song, and this time it is a symphony instead of cacophony, and our ears become attuned to a different sound.  God is not in the whirlwind of advertising or the earthquake of 24/7 news and social media.  He can be heard, however, in a whisper.  But I can only hear a whisper in silence and when I am listening for that voice.

Silence takes time.  Most of us are unaccustomed to silence - many of us find it hard to find.  But we ought to cultivate it.  For the good of our minds and souls we should find ways to disconnect from the noise of the world around us and learn to listen for a different voice.  Take the Word of God with you into silence - not to be read, but held in your mind and heart.  God has spoken through his written Word and the more comfortable you are with that language, the better positioned you will be to hear his spoken Word.

The music of the other world is beautiful - beautiful and transformative.  Find it and your life may begin to sing it.