marriage

Ambiguity and [Un]healthy Sexuality in the World and in the Church [3]

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PART 3: UNHEALTHY SEXUALITY IN THE WORLD

Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights (triptych), c.1515

“The World” here is defined in contradistinction to “the Church.” The fundamental difference for present purposes is that the Church recognizes the authority of God’s commandments respecting sex while the World follows its desires regardless of God’s commandments. People do not divide neatly in the World and the Church, but at the same time the distinction is more than theoretical. I am sure that there are atheists who eschew sexual whateverism and, for their own reasons, promote faithfulness within loving dual gendered marriage as the only ethical expression of sexuality; but I cannot think of a single person I actually know who fits this category today. The vast majority of those who remain unmoved by the sexual and ideological revolutions of the last century are the religious–and most major religions (including at least Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Judaism) have historically spoken with virtual unanimity on the subject. Buddhism, of course, considers liberation from all desire and attachment the ultimate goal, and it therefore has perhaps an even less permissive stance towards sexuality than the other major religions.

While the nearly unanimous consensus of the world’s major religions is so strong an argument in favor of traditional sexual morality as to be, in my judgment, very nearly conclusive, I do not insist on traditional sexual morality for present purposes. What I insist on is that people must attempt to comply with a moral and philosophical system that is dictated by reason and conscience and not by desire. Desire must bow to Right (“as God gives us to see the right”), not Right to Desire. To the extent that a rigorous and conscientious atheist regulates his sexuality by the morality that seems to him correct and yet denies the authority of God’s purported commandments, he is outside the Church but also outside the World. Continue reading →

AMBIGUITY AND [UN]HEALTHY SEXUALITY IN THE WORLD AND IN THE CHURCH [2]

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PART 2: WHAT IS A HEALTHY SEXUALITY?

monument, statue, horse, sculpture, london, art, illustration, roman, lance, chariot, force, tunic, greatness, run away

Plato’s Republic gives what I think is a true pattern of “healthy” humanity, although I disagree with him on certain details. The true pattern is that each part fits within a harmonious whole and plays its proper role. For him, this means that the belly (symbolic of the lower passions such as hunger and sex) and the heart (symbolic of the higher passions like ambition and patriotism) are both under the direction and control of the mind, the seat of pure reason, which itself serves the Good.

Strongly influenced by Plato, Augustine holds out a similar pattern: our loves must be correctly ordered, with love of God most dominant and everything else falling into order below that.

Plato and Augustine both depend on some highest entity as an ordering principle: reason/the Good or love of God. Here, if I want to say anything that will apply to both the “Church” and the “World,” irrespective of one’s worldview, I cannot assume any consensus about what that highest entity is. For the health of the full person, we do, in my opinion, require higher commitments than mere desire to inform and order our lives. For purposes of this essay, I will simply posit that whatever the ordering principle or set of principles, our sexuality should fit within the whole as a contributing and harmonious part. That does not mean that there can be no remainder after subtracting out sexuality’s contribution to the ordering principle. But the remainder, if any, must not sabotage the ordering principle. Thus, healthy sexuality entails a moral system that regulates sexuality. Continue reading →

How Can Dunking A Body In Water Save A Soul?

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I recently wrote a three-part series of posts (Part One linked here) on the Atonement of Jesus Christ in which I used some alternate metaphors to attempt to render acceptable to reason what seems like an absurd doctrine at the core of Christianity: that Jesus saved mankind and satisfied justice by taking our sins on himself. I would now like to address what is perhaps the next strangest doctrine, situated immediately next to the core: that baptism (a ritual dunking of the body) is not only a useful and instructive rite but actually essential for full participation in Jesus’s sacrifice and a necessary precondition for entering God’s kingdom–that it is, in a word, a salvific ordinance. The call of Christianity can be summed up as follows: Jesus has atoned for our sins; therefore repent and be baptised. The only part of the call that makes intuitive sense to a contemporary mind is the “repent” portion. Of course we should stop doing bad things and do good things. But what does the suffering of God or a dunk in water have to do with it? Continue reading →

Amy Barrett’s Confirmation And The State Of The Union

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I am personally thrilled with Amy Barrett as the newest Supreme Court Justice, though far from thrilled by the process by which she became such (including the Republican-controlled Senate’s procedural hypocrisy in deferring Garland’s hearing but rushing Barrett’s). But amid the discouraging signs of the politicization of the Supreme Court confirmation process, the decline of political discourse in general, and the nation’s increasing polarization, I read one article that I found very encouraging: a self-proclaimed liberal writer who personally knew Justice Barrett back in her days as a clerk for Scalia and who, though anticipating that he will disagree with many of her opinions, is glad that the court is getting a brilliant legal thinker who is also a good person. The nation deeply needs this kind of capacity to recognize goodness and merit in people who are on “the other side,” and I want to recognize and honor that when I see it. Continue reading →

A Modified Theory of the Atonement: The Human Condition

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Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28722516@N02/3277796079/

The Human Condition In One Sad Story

If the Atonement was the completion of a task necessary for man’s reconciliation with God and with his fellow man, then we need to first understand the nature of the breach that the Atonement was meant to heal. If the “good news” of the Gospel is salvation through Christ, we need to comprehend what he saves us from before we can speculate about what metaphor best expresses how he accomplished it. 

My cousin saw a young man from his high school walking on the side of the road, and he felt he should pull over. My cousin was a successful scholar, athlete, and member of the student government, well-liked and looked up to by many of his peers. This young man was at the opposite end of the popularity spectrum. He was occasionally bullied and constantly given reason to understand, through subtle exclusions and other signs familiar to most of the high school population, that he was not “cool” or “successful.” My cousin, for his part, had tried to be nice to this young man, as to everyone else, by such simple kindnesses as saying hi with a smile before class started. My cousin thought he seemed dejected and wanted to offer a ride, but then thought, “I hardly know this guy. It would be weird for me to offer him a ride. Besides, I will already be up late doing my homework.” So he ignored the generous impulse and kept on driving. He got to school the next day and found out that the young man had died the evening before by suicide. Continue reading →

Why Multiculturalism Fails As A Primary Lens For Viewing Culture

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Image credit: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heart-of-darkness-joseph-conrad/1100239706#/

There are several reasons that I am an attorney instead of an English professor (my original plan). A relatively minor reason that I don’t usually mention is the dominance of multiculturalism in the academy as a lens for talking about and judging literature and culture generally.

What I mean by “multiculturalism” is a particular kind of intense focus on race, gender, class, nationality, sexuality, and other categories that might make a person a minority, and the ways in which cultures construct and deploy these categories (generally in ways that disadvantage the minority). Anyone who has studied English literature at today’s universities should understand what I mean. But so should anybody familiar with the rhetoric of certain liberal politicians, some of whom (for instance) have recently assumed it unnecessary to make any substantial explanation of why they deem it deeply wrong for Joe Biden to have had collegial relationships with segregationist senators. Continue reading →