For hundreds of years, Christian societies have cited the Holy Bible as an authoritative source of truth .[1] The culture of North America was founded on Christian principles, and the values of the holy scriptures continue to shape North American ideals to this day, despite the fact that many claim not to avow any allegiance to them religiously. From this long tradition of biblical reliance for morality has stemmed a deeply engrained practice of shrouding the notion of human sexuality in attitudes of negativity and taboo. Many who view the Bible as a universal code of ethics are in the habit of moralizing sexuality in a particularly exaggerated manner. [2] In this way, scripture is used to devalue the human body, debase human relationships, and sever a very important Christian connection with God. However, re-interpretation of these oft-quoted scriptures by modern biblical scholars reveals a joyful, spiritual sexuality present in the Bible, lost under hundreds of years’ worth of prejudice and institutional control. An examination of the arguments of these scholars will provide evidence to call the cultural condemnation of sexuality into question and provide a spiritual basis for why most individuals are prone to violating the “Western standard” for sexual behaviour.
Numerous influential religious thinkers have condemned human eroticism. Paul of Tarsus, whose role as a religious leader set the groundwork for Christian theology, took a decidedly negative stance toward sexual desire. He expressed the necessity for Christians to extinguish desire within themselves, including eros in the polluting complex of the sinful world (porneia) that threatens the sanctity of the church. This statement puts passionate desire in opposition to God. Paul condones the practice of intercourse within the bond of marriage, but only with the absence of sexual passion. [3] Paul’s separation between sexual and spiritual life, illustrated in the statement that “what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit,” would dominated Christian history for ages to come.[4]
 |
| "The Temptation of St. Hilarion," by Dominique Louis Papety, oil on canvas, c. 1843-1844 (Wallace Collection) |
Paul’s concept of intercourse bereft of sexual passion may seem impossible, or at least unusual, but he was not the only one to prescribe that scenario. Stoic philosophy emphasizes rationality as the natural human condition, professing the need for people to be free and self-sufficient. Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher, describes sexual love as an unfavourable state of disorder. Sexual desire, a force over which humans have little control, is one of many passions that need to be extirpated so that people may be free from self-inflicted emotional “slavery.” For this reason, Seneca agrees with Paul that humans should learn to have sex without feeling love, passion, or desire. It was important for Stoics to participate socially as good members of the human community, therefore marriage and children were encouraged, so long as people could procure them without suffering the corruption of passion. [5]
The reasoning behind this assertion is that all animals, including humans, share impulses; for example, hunger and reproduction. The Stoic argument is that impulse and desire are not the same thing. Instincts are unemotional and natural, but it is harmful and unnatural to become excessively involved in them, as in obsessive gluttony or lust.[6] What isn’t covered in Stoic philosophy is the special place accredited to humans as God’s creations in Christianity. The Christian context does not equate humanity with all the other animals, but ascribes to humans a unique connection with God that allows for a relationship between the body and the soul.
Ironically, the separation of mind and soul lies at the heart of Western Christianity and has carried over into the foundation of Protestant North American culture. The modern, industrial age has exacerbated the spiritual/physical disconnect by commodifying and dehumanizing sexuality as a product to be impersonally purchased and consumed through the industries of pornography and prostitution. However, the Bible can serve as a means to bridge the lost connection between our sexual and spiritual selves. [7]
Because the Christian church has associated sex with chaos, boundaries and strict regulations were put in place with the effect of confining human sexuality to a limited realm of practices and relationships. Laurie A. Jungling argues that it is when sexual desire is estranged from its potency and from the God who created it that it is abused and misused.[8] The institutional sexual reign has performed the disservice of dissociating human’s sexual passion as spirituality by inflicting them with undue judgement and shame.[9] Deuteronomy makes a clear and undeniable endorsement of human passion, proclaiming, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”[10] Contrary to traditional erotic suppression, the Bible calls people to live lives of erotic passion for God, for each other, and for all creation.
Converse to ascetic movements and branches such as Gnosticism that sought to deny and escape from the body in search of greater divine truths, the book of Genesis suggests that the human body is key to connecting with God. The very first story in the Bible indicates that the bodily flesh of humans is “very good” in the eyes of God.[11] In the story of Creation, “God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps the earth.”[12] God created human beings according to His own divine form so that they might exercise His authority and rule over the rest of the earth. In this way, the human body should not be regarded as corrupting or limiting human potential, but as representing the highest of powers.[13] The passage then describes how God created humans male and female, instructing them to further subdue and have dominion over the earth by populating it.[14] Not only does God share His power with humans by giving them His image with which to wield authority, but He also imparts to them His power of creation with the ability to reproduce. Sexual bodies are not a curse, but a great blessing through which we identify with God and carry out His work.
Genesis also makes a point of indicating that it was in creating humans male and female that they were made in His image. This suggests that there is something specifically related to gender and sexuality, maleness and femaleness, in which the nature of God is reflected. The prevailing view is that sexuality is a human characteristic that God transcends, but God directly models aspects of sexuality in creation. [15] God created the world out of an irrepressible desire to connect and communicate, and so He created the world. Humans’ sexual polarity results in the same intrinsic wish for contact and communication among ourselves. There is also evidence of God’s gendered duality within the Bible. The patriarchal culture of the ancient Near East which produced the Bible primarily depicts God as "the Father"—a male association that elicits sentiments of honour, gratitude and security. However, images in the books of Isaiah and Matthew depict God and Jesus metaphorically breastfeeding the people and protecting them like a hen gathering her chicks under her wings; God plays both mother and father to creation.[16] Because the gendered nature of God is divided among the males and females of creation, men and women come close to recreating the wholeness of His nature when they unite in sexual relationships.
In addition to connecting humans to God, sexuality plays an important role in connecting people to each other. Genesis 2 tells a more elaborate story of creation, in which God despaired over human loneliness and recognized that it was not good for the human to work in the garden of Eden alone. Thus, God created Eve for Adam, “a helper as his partner.”[17] It is interesting that the first human relationship was formed, not out of the need for humans to procreate, but of partners who shared a bodily connection (the woman having been built from Adam’s flesh and bone) “tilling and keeping” the earth together.[18] God breathed animated life into humans so that His passion would propel their spirits to do good work, and in sharing the passionate work of their lives with each other, the human relationship became sacred. This biblical tale draws a clear connection between bodily sexuality and the living of human life according to God’s plan. Thus, humans should not deny themselves passion, sexual or otherwise, but nourish and care for that of themselves and of others as a God-given gift.[19]
A noteworthy biblical book on the theme of spiritual and sexual connection is the Song of Solomon. The Song consists of a series of poems alternating between the voices of a male and female lover revelling in each other’s love and each other’s bodies. Counter to the traditional Christian ideal of married sexuality for reproductive purposes, the couple in the Song are not married, indicated by the woman’s reference to her brothers’ attempts to guard her virginity and the manner in which the two secretly meet outdoors.[20] The poems are rife with erotic imagery; the lovers celebrate each others’ sexual bodies, comparing their thighs, breasts, and lips in terms of fragrant spices, sweet fruit, and fertile landscapes.
More recently, scholars have begun to explore the possibility of the Song being at once sexual and spiritual, metaphorically carrying the reader close to an understanding of God’s love for the world. The female lover in the poem encounters danger and obstacles in pursuit of her erotic relationship; humans open themselves up to vulnerability in desire, risking suffering in the impulse to connect with another person, as Christ did in becoming human out of love for humainty.[22] This impulse can also describe the mystical search for God as an erotic impulse, driving individuals to remain faithful even in times of persecution. The notion of the Song as love between God and the church reinforces the claim that humans were made to love God above all others, but the metaphor suggests that it is this very love for God that impels people to love each other. The Song is not a story of sex and consummation so much as it is a story of desire; the lovers are craving a moment, a connection, that is just beyond their reach, and they spend the duration of the Song longing for it. This coincides with the human experience in which all the joys of the world are but glimpses of the joy of God’s kingdom, hinting at the greater reality for which we are all yearning.[23]
The themes of the Song support the idea of a positive sexuality apart from reproduction. The poem hints at elements of danger and risk in desire, but at no time discourages the reader from seeking it. A refrain is repeated, telling the audience not to “stir up or awaken love until it is ready,” but this is a warning to be prudent and take care with desire, not to avoid or reject it entirely.[24] The bond depicted is not of a man exerting power over his wife’s reproductive capacity, but a relationship of shared passion; the lovers repeat, “my beloved is mine and I am his,” “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,” revealing an unconventional ideal of equality for the ancient Near Eastern culture in which the book was composed.[25] Approbation of non-reproductive sexuality is also evident elsewhere in the Bible inasmuch as passages widely understood to condemn it may have been misconstrued. One particular biblical tale oft-quoted to support the theory of sexuality as intended solely for reproduction is that of Onan in Genesis. Onan was called to have sexual relations with his brother’s widow so that she might bear children. Instead of fulfilling this duty, Onan “spilled his semen on the ground” whenever he went to her, and for this failure, God put him to death.[26] The passage has been interpreted to mean that God punished Onan for abusing his sacred life-giving potential and has been used to denounce both masturbation and coitus interruptus as sinful.[27]
What this claim fails to take into account is the cultural context in which the Hebrew law broken by Onan was established. Ancient Near Eastern society had little to offer widows in terms of social security. The practice of patriarchal primogeniture meant that a woman needed a male heir to inherit her husband’s estate if she was to continue having a safe place to live and a means of subsistence. To ensure the economic viability and the preservation of the family’s good name, brothers-in-law were legally called to provide childless widows with progeny.[28] With this in mind, the spilling of Onan’s semen was not his error in and of itself, but the disruption of the social order involved in his refusal to perpetuate his brother’s lineage and provide the requisite security for the widow.
The argument denouncing sex for pleasure as counter to God’s design for humanity also often quotes the passage in the story of creation in which God instructs Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply.”[29] It is clear that in fulfilling God’s plan, humans are called to perpetuate their race, but nowhere in the Bible is this reproductive mandate named the exclusive function of sexuality.[30] Genesis 1 and 2 illustrate God calling humans to become one flesh, caring for and perpetuating the earth in fulfillment of a divine relationship. Thus, making love and making babies are both important elements of God’s plan.
Because God gave life to humanity by instilling them with the vitality of His life-giving breath, humans cannot and should not attempt to repress or deny themselves the experience of passion. God created humans in His image as gendered, sexual beings, making sexuality a very important part of our spiritual nature. Spirituality and sexuality are interconnected forces deep within us that prompt us to reach out for connections. Our inner passion will at times reach out to another human being who gives us joy, guiding us toward union with them; this is sexuality. This same inner passion also reaches outward, longing for communion with the infinite transcendence of God; this is achieved through spirituality and prayer. Both experiences involve incredible emotionality, devotion to the object of affection, and adoration for what we consider the perfections of the other.[31] Humans feel whole and complete in making these connections, while the partner, both God in prayer or the human in sexual relations, shares in the experience of exalted fulfillment. As God relates to His creation by connecting with us and giving us life, we relate to Him in turn by mirroring His divine passion by connecting with each other and giving life to each other through sexual union and reproduction.
God has blessed creation with the gift of freedom coupled with a divine faithfulness that promises never to consume or abandon what has been created.[32] By engaging in passionate relations based on free will and faithfulness to one another, the divine design of sexuality provides humans with the spiritual means to embrace ourselves, embrace each other, and ultimately, embrace God.
God has blessed creation with the gift of freedom coupled with a divine faithfulness that promises never to consume or abandon what has been created.[32] By engaging in passionate relations based on free will and faithfulness to one another, the divine design of sexuality provides humans with the spiritual means to embrace ourselves, embrace each other, and ultimately, embrace God.
[1] Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), xi.
[2] Harold J. Ellens, Sex in the Bible: A New Consideration, (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2006), 2-3.
[3] Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Saviour: Gender and Sexuality in Biblica Interpretation, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 66.
[4] Gal. 5:16-25. All biblical citations are NRSV.
[5] Ibid, 70.
[6] Ibid.
[7] David M Carr, The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Bible, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 7.
[8] Laurie A. Jungling, “Creation as God’s Call into Erotic Embodied Relationality,” The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity, ed. Margaret D. Kamitsuka, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 219.
[9] Carr, 8.
[10] Deut. 6:5.
[11] Gen. 1:30.
[12] Gen. 1:26; Carr, 26.
[13] Carr, 18-24.
[14] Gen. 1:27-28.
[15] Ellens, 16.
[16] Isa. 66: 11-13; Mt. 23: 37.
[17] Gen. 2:18.
[18] Carr, 33.
[19] Ibid, 37.
[20] Song 1: 6, 3: 2.
[21] Ellens, 40.
[22] Song 5:7.
[23] Carr, 147-149.
[24] Ibid, 121.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Gen. 38: 9-10.
[27] Coogan, 110.
[28] Ellens, 47.
[29] Gen. 1: 28.
[30] Ellens, 52.
[31] Ellens, 6.
[32] Jungling, 223-224.
No comments:
Post a Comment