16 June 2010What Surprised Me: Ancient & Medieval Prostitution By Lisa YardeProstitution has existed for so long that it's often call the world's oldest profession. The sale of sexual services is considered taboo in most societies, but this view was not always held in the past. One of the projects that I'm currently working on is The Rule of Love, about the origins of the Kama Sutra. How's that for an unusual historical? In fifth century India, my protagonist learns lessons of sensuality, life, and love at an exclusive brothel run by his aunt. The Kama Sutra is more than a manual of sexual positions. It teaches proper behavior, and instructs the reader on how attain fulfillment of every goal in life, including sexual ones. A large portion of the text discusses the role of prostitutes in society.  Centuries of Muslim leadership and the puritanical British Raj have influenced the modern India republic's conservative views of sensuality, but the country's past is very different. I was genuinely surprised by the unabashed view of prostitution the Kama Sutra takes. The sixth part of the Kama Sutra is devoted to their proper conduct; a how-to guide on the ways by which they could attract and keep lovers. The author considered prostitution a natural part of civilized society, which prevented marital affairs, with prostitutes providing their services for the general good. At the time of the Kama Sutra, prostitutes at every level played an important role in society, as its artisans and used their wealth to fund social and religious projects. The text notes, "Having temples and reservoirs built, setting up altars on raised platforms to Agni, the fire good, giving Brahmans herds of cows and covered vessels, arranging...offerings to the gods, bearing the expenses involved in the money they earn, this is the concern of high-ranking courtesans who reap large profits." The early Catholic Church struggled with the role of prostitutes. In the fourth century, St. Augustine, one of its most important figures, stated "If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust." He took the view that would influence society up through the Middle Ages, that prostitution was a necessary evil. Having had a mistress for most of his youth, St. Augustine understood the power of lust. Eight centuries later, his thoughts on prostitutes would influence the opinions of St. Thomas Aquinas. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas argued for the toleration of prostitutes in society, as in the state should allow fornication and prostitution for the sake of the common good. "Prostitution is like a sewer in a palace. Take away the sewer and you will fill the palace with pollution."  When I have written in medieval settings, the constant influence of the Church in my characters' lives placed constraints on their actions. It was strange to find that in an age typified by priests preaching sexual abstinence, even in marriage, St. Thomas Aquinas took a practical approach to prostitution: it was "...filthy and against the law of God," but that a prostitute should always be fairly paid for her services. "It is lawful for her to keep it and also to give it to charity even though it is acquired by an unlawful action...." But he also stipulated that prostitutes were bound to pay their tithes to the Church, "...only after the individuals in question have done penance." Brothels soon flourished in every major city. In Paris, le roi des ribauds (the king of the ribalds) regulated the services of the city's prostitutes. Queen Joanna of Avignon established a town brothel rather than allow wholesale prostitution to go unregulated. In twelfth century London, King Henry II brought the "stews" or public baths used for meeting prostitutes, under government regulation. The London streets where prostitutes could be found were known by names like, "Lovelane, Cokkeslane, Gropec*nt Lane, and Codpiece Alley." Later, the Bishop of Winchester owned most of the brothels that developed along Southwark, leading to "Winchester geese" as a common reference for the prostitutes there. Christianity and Sex |    |
NOTE TO THE READER: This is a resource publication containing quotations from various contemporary writers, scholars, theologians and clergy on the subject of Christianity and Sex. Although the author is a member of the missionary movement known as the Family, this article is not reflective of Family policy or doctrine..
It is our belief that sex, when practiced as God ordained, designed, and intended, is a pure, needful, and beautiful wonder of God's creation. The Family has a well-defined policy governing the sexual interaction of its members and restrictions in place to protect minors, articulated in our Charter. The Charter codifies limitations on age ranges of sexual interaction permitted to full-time Family disciples. As a fellowship active in over 100 countries, these limitations have been crafted bearing in mind the laws regulating sexual interaction in the majority of the countries around the world. These limitations are strictly enforced in the interest of the protection of Family minors (xx, 94).
PREFACE:
"They recognize each other by secret signs and marks; they fall in love almost before they are acquainted; everywhere they introduce a kind of religious lust, a promiscuous `brotherhood' and `sisterhood.'"[1] This is not some modern-day tabloid description of the Family, but a second century description of early Christians, who the Roman establishment considered to be a promiscuous sex cult which indulged in orgies at secret meetings.
Perhaps as an attempt by some conservative watchdogs of the faith and in reaction to a decadent Roman society, followers of the "golden rule" were increasingly taking a more "moral" stance. By the second century, Gnostic teachings [2] and strange apocryphal books and stories began to circulate among Christians.
These fictitious imitations of Scripture often highlighted sexual "purity" and virginity. One such fanciful story was The Acts of Paul and Thecla, which if nothing else reveals that anti-cult propaganda, mind-control fantasies and violent deprogramming attempts are at least as old as the second century.[3] The story's virtuous heroine, Thecla, was a young betrothed girl in Iconium, who upon hearing St. Paul preach became enthralled by his teachings on virginity. Her parents were outraged and "sexualized" her behavior. Paul is accused of casting a love spell on her and Thecla is accused of being controlled by him, because she is "so strangely troubled . . . like a spider at the window bound by his words [she] is dominated by a new desire and a fearful passion. . . ." As for St. Paul, they conclude, "Away with the sorcerer, for he has corrupted all our women."[4]
So eager were some zealous young Christians to prove the "purity" of their religious intent that at least one young man in Alexandria during the time of Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 100-165) petitioned the Augustal Prefect to allow himself to be castrated in order to prove to the pagans that indiscriminate sex with his "sisters" was not what Christianity was all about.[5]-7/30/2008However, the sex-cult impression must have been hard to eradicate for as late as A.D. 320, Emperor Licinius was promulgating laws that forbade Christian men and women (in the Eastern empire) from appearing in company together in their houses of prayer.[6]
By the fourth century, this persecuted love movement called Christianity was drastically transforming. Under Emperor Constantine, Christianity became firstly tolerated and later installed as the imperial religion of Rome (Edict of Milan, A.D. 313). Heavily influenced by sex-negative Gnostic teachings, fractured into rival Christian groups that hurled accusations of bizarre sex practices at each other [7], and becoming all too eager to distance themselves from any sign of sexual impropriety, the great separation of human sexuality and spirituality began in earnest in Christianity.
Part I of Christianity and Sex explores some of the historical, howbeit, not always scriptural, development of Orthodox Christian views on sex. Part II is a survey of current radical changes in thinking towards sex that are rocking Christianity.
GOD AND SEX
And God created . . . every living creature that moveth . . . and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply. . . . God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. . . . And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . . [So] in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. . . . And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good ( Genesis 1:21-26 ; 2:18 ; 1:27-31 ).
"Be fruitful and multiply!" "Reproduce!" was one of the first things God commanded the creatures of His glorious creation. And then again, after the great deluge, God reminded Noah and all that survived with him that they had an important job to do?reproduce!
Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth ( Genesis 8:17 ; 9:1 ).
Throughout history, God put His stamp of approval on human sexuality and reproduction. To Abraham and later to Jacob (Israel) He basically said, "I am God and I want you to reproduce!"
I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins ( Genesis 35:11 ; see also Genesis 12:1,2,7 ).
God has a point to make, He is above what currently is considered politically correct in many matters, even using the human sexual act to illustrate what He wants to say if need be. The prophet Hosea, for example, was commanded by God to go and marry a whore and have children by her. God certainly knew this would raise the eyebrows of some of the self-righteous, letter-of-the-law religious leaders in Israel, but having His prophet move in with a local prostitute provided God with an excellent opportunity to use the predictable reaction of the community to illustrate His own displeasure over their far worse acts of spiritual fornication and unfaithfulness to Him.
And the Lord said to Hosea [God's prophet], Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms. . . . So he [Hosea] went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son ( Hosea 1:2,3 ).
THE BIBLE IS NOT BASHFUL
Many passages of the Bible are unabashedly erotic, including the Song of Solomon, and various descriptions of the relationship between God and His "unfaithful" Church. Even the promised world of spiritual bliss to come for His saved children begins with rapturous ecstasies as our present bodies are transformed by God into Heavenly bodies. Then begins the marriage feast of the Lamb (Jesus) for all who believe in Him, His "Bride," who then enjoy ardent pleasures forever more at the right hand of God. (See Revelation 19 ; Psalm 16:11 .)
The Scriptures are rich in sexual stories, allusions and sexual terms, demonstrating that God is far from being a prude when it comes to sex, and that he doesn't mince His words. As a result, some sections of the Bible, such as the Song of Solomon, were virtually banned by fourth century celibates who feared they were just too hot.
THE X-RATED BIBLE
Some people are trying to have the Bible banned as too sexual and sexist for our times. The truth is that although the Bible is a sexy Book, it also contains much thorny commentary on the hypocrisy of humanity, which may be the real source of its unpopularity in certain circles. What modern writer, for example, would dare to describe the 600 B.C. city of Jerusalem the way God inspired the great prophet Ezekiel to describe it in chapter 16 of the Book of Ezekiel?
The chapter begins with a graphic description of God's involvement with Jerusalem, as a man involved with a woman, using explicitly sexual terms. At first she was just a filthy little abandoned baby that He took pity on, washed and beautified. Then, when she grows old enough and it "was the time of love" (verse 8), God makes love to her and showers her with presents. This ungrateful woman, however, runs away from God to become a whore, and a foolish one at that, who God says doesn't even have common sense enough to charge for her sexual services, but rather pays her lovers. To discipline her, God allows her enemies to strip her naked and abuse her. In the end God takes her back a more humble and submitted woman. This is not a piece of bizarre sex-cult literature, but an allegorical part of sacred Scripture revered by millions of Jews and Christians alike as the very Word of God.
IS SEX OF GOD OR OF THE DEVIL?
As already pointed out, God Himself created human sexuality and said it was "very good" and His first commandment to man and woman was to "be fruitful and multiply." Yet, it only took one sly serpent in the Garden of Eden to foist upon humanity one of the cruelest lies imaginable-that contrary to Scripture, which quotes God as saying, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him" and "Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth" ( Genesis 2:18 ; 1:28 ).-God had lied about sex, that sex was "very bad" and not "very good," that God's physical creation, the human body, was evil and shameful, and that it was not good for man and woman to dwell together, "to be fruitful and multiply."
Sexual pleasures, so the lie went, sprang like an evil forbidden fruit planted by the Devil himself in the garden of human goodness, and it had to be crushed, uprooted and cast out if the human soul hoped to escape the flames of Hell. Once the Devil, the "father of lies and of all that is false" ( John 8:44 , Amplified), had successfully planted his evil seeds of doubt about God, Creation, and human sexuality in the hearts and minds of humanity, the tragic wedge between spirituality and sexuality was in place.
Those who believed the lie and chose the anti-sexual body-rejecting path to perfection soon found the Biblical account of Adam and Eve frolicking naked and unashamed through the Garden ( Genesis 2:25 ) a rather embarrassing quirk in the religious record that needed to be explained away. Hence, Adam's expulsion from the Garden was taken to mean that he had been booted out for having had sex with Eve [8], who was portrayed as an evil sexual seductress who caused the curse to fall upon an otherwise perfect man. Sex, therefore, was to be viewed as part of the curse, the evil deed that got man into trouble; and woman was responsible.
THE GREAT COVER-UP BEGINS
The real sin in the Garden was Adam and Eve's succumbing to the Devil's temptation to disobey God and partake of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
After Adam and Eve sinned they became aware that they were naked and hid themselves even from God (see Genesis 3:8 ). Finding them hiding from Him and covering themselves, God asked them who told them they were naked and that it was wrong, and asked if they had eaten of the tree. (See Genesis 3:7,11 ). Therefore, logically, clothing and the first fig leaf cover-up should be viewed by Christians as the shameful and disgusting result of human sin, rebellion, deceit and disobedience to God. However, it has instead been embraced by many as the badge of honor, decency and wonderful "natural" modesty.
Sexually bound denominations within Christianity still defend their obsession with excessive prudery and their extreme, sex-negative attitudes by pointing out that God Himself endorsed this great human cover-up when He made humans their first set of clothes from animal skins. Men like Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Maximos the Confessor championed the case for covering up, teaching that these "garments of skin" (chitones) represented the animal-like nature that humanity took on as a result of the Fall, which included an acquired animal-like sexuality. What cure did they recommend for this awful animal affliction that could have been so easily avoided had God only created humans sexless? Virginity, of course! They argued that virginity was the original immortal incorruptible state of humankind and that we should all strive to stay virgins (see Sherrard, 1976: 5-7).
It is a fact that "unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them" ( Genesis 3:21 ), when they were about to leave the Garden. But let us not confuse God's love, patience, and temporary tolerance of certain behavior to be a sign of His own personal approval of sex-negative teachings.
God certainly did not make them "coats of skins" because He thought that they needed to cover up because their bodies were vile, evil, dirty, sensual, sinful devices. It was not true that He, God, had unfortunately and unwisely equipped their bodies with those terrible, secret, vile, sinful, sensual sexual parts, that coincidentally worked so wonderfully together and felt so good, but were too wicked to even be seen without suffering some great spiritual damage. More likely, God wrapped them up in warm animal skins for protection out of love and mercy, knowing how they were pathetically unprepared for the harsh new living conditions outside the Garden.
Dealing with the dissonance that erupts when human sexuality and spirituality are set at odds has plagued all religions, but Christianity in particular. Church history reveals that a very long and stormy battle has been fought over the question of body and spirit, sexuality and spirituality, pleasure and piety. When human sexuality became the enemy of spirituality, humankind was caught in a dualistic dilemma. They were forced to choose between pleasure now and pain forever, between passion and paradise. Wherever this dualistic dilemma has seized control of religious belief, people have been thrown out of sync with their own God-created sexuality and have as a result suffered great mental agonies tormented by guilt and have become hateful of their own bodies and sexuality.
MONASTIC MINDSET: SEX EQUALS SIN!
It is certainly legitimate to ask why sex was associated with sin for such a long time (Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1978).
The entrenchment of anti-sexual teachings in Christianity is actually not as traceable to the misinterpretations of the Bible as it is to the intentional anti-sexual teachings and writings of certain individuals. In the centuries following Jesus, a group of ascetics rose to positions of power and influence in the Church.
In the post-apostolic period Christian writers began expressing much more restrictive views of the role of sex in human life. . . . Church leaders needed to deal with the problems that sexual relations raised within the Christian community. There was a broad agreement that marital sex was acceptable, although a number of important writers sought to discourage sex among the devout. A few aberrant Christian groups taught that Christians were not subject to sexual restrictions and might have relations with anyone whom they pleased. Other doctrinal deviants wished to ban all sexual relations, even in marriage (Brundage, 1987: 74, 75).
Sad to say, the anti-sex lobby of "doctrinal deviants" gained the upper hand in the sex struggle, quickly labeling their sexually liberated brethren as heretics and "aberrants," much as they do to this very day. Some "deviants," as we will see, became so sexually uncomfortable with parts of the Bible that they virtually banned reading of them, fearing that the people would fall into sin from all those sinful sexual thoughts that might arise while reading suggestive selections of Scripture.
Reay Tannahill in her more recent revision of Sex in History, points out:
What the modern world still understands by "sin" stems not from the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, or from the tablets handed down from Sinai, but from the early sexual vicissitudes of a handful of men who lived in the twilight days of imperial Rome (Tannahill, 1992: 138).
Certain members of the church are quick to point out that the great "eunuch" for the Gospel's sake, Saint Paul's own personal preference was to remain unmarried, thinking it was good not to even touch a woman. However, he states in 1 Corinthians 7:12 and 25 that this was entirely his own opinion and not the Lord's. Jesus Himself showed no such qualms about touching women or being touched by even the most socially and sexually questionable of women, even in public ( Luke 7:37-39,44 ). Even this same sexually reserved Saint Paul warned of an approaching evil sexual downturn in Christianity:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth ( 1 Timothy 4:1-3 ).
HERMITS AND HERESIES
Marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled (Saint Paul, Hebrews 13:4 ).
In the first three hundred years of its existence, the Church placed few restrictions upon its clergy in regard to marriage. Celibacy was, as Paul indicated, a matter of choice (Thomas, 1986: 8).
Far from receiving the joys of human coitus with thanksgiving, certain "Founding Fathers," heavily influenced by Greek, Roman and Persian teachings and traditions, and pushing Saint Paul's personal preference for sexual abstinence to the limit, lashed out against all sex. Men like Tertullian [9] (c. 150-230), Saint Jerome [10] (331-420) and Saint Augustine (354-430) set their seal of approval to the doctrine that human sexuality was fundamentally detestable.
The ascetic monks of the fourth century made celibacy and suffering for the sake of greater spirituality very fashionable [11] and, as Philip Sherrard described in Christianity and Eros, they began teaching that "only through monastic celibacy can man recover that natural-and sexless-state for which [man] was originally created `in the image'" of God (Sherrard, 1976: 8).
Heaven became thought of as a sexless place, though by all New Testament eye-witness accounts, Jesus Himself seemed to have survived the transition to His new body with His manliness still plainly evident, and appropriately so for a bridegroom in waiting. The monastic mindset took the Scripture where Jesus said that men and women would not marry or be given in marriage in Heaven as a proof of celestial celibacy. However, far from proving that a sexless eternity awaits believers, it could just as well mean that Heaven will be more sexually liberal than most people presently imagine.
David Rice, a former priest, in his book, Shattered Vows, tells us that the early anti-sexual teachings and practices embraced by this rising celibate class of clerics were "steeped in gnosticism, one of the oldest and most persistent of all heresies, which sees the body as evil and only the spirit as good" (Rice, 1990: 139).
Robert T. Francoeur, a Catholic priest and a fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, is Professor of Human Embryology and Sexuality at Fairleigh Dickenson University and has written no less than twenty books on human sexuality. This very respected author and academic, in his essay The Religious Suppression of Eros, gives us the following summary of the sexual derailment of Christianity:
To understand the evolution from the early sex-affirming Hebraic culture to Christianity's persistent discomfort with sex and pleasure, we have to look at three interwoven threads: the dualistic cosmology of Plato [i.e. the soul and mind are at war with the body], the Stoic philosophy of early Greco-Roman culture [i.e., nothing should be done for the sake of pleasure], and the Persian Gnostic tradition [i.e., that demons created the world, sex and your body-in which your soul is trapped, and the key to salvation is to free the spirit from the bondage of the body by denying the flesh]. Within three centuries after Jesus, these influences combined to seduce Christian thinkers into a rampant rejection of human sexuality and sexual pleasure.
Many people forget that the pleasure-loving Greek society contained anti-sexual ascetic extremes as well. Even Epicurus, who loved good food, condemned sex, saying, "Sexual intercourse never benefited any man" (Davies, 1984: 176). Diogenes, a famous Greek cynic, lived in a washtub to shun the temptations of the flesh, and the Greek Stoics only permitted sex for procreation purposes. It was these and other ascetic forces, not the sensual expressions of Greek culture, that came to most affect Christianity.
Plato, though personally favorably inclined toward prostitutes, homosexuals and pedophilia, none-the-less taught in The Laws that the world would be a better place if all sex were "starved." Socrates and Plato both taught that all sexual activity was harmful to the health of the soul. Plato's teachings were revised in the third century, and Plotinus, the chief protagonist of this neo-Platonism, went far beyond Plato in denigrating sex, teaching that mystical ecstasies could be had through denying the body.
MARRIAGE, MISOGAMY AND SAINT AUGUSTINE
Saint Augustine, the leading theologian of the fourth century, embraced the faith on April 25, 387 along with his "illegitimate" son, leaving behind his wife and his second mistress. He had already split up from his first concubine, the mother of his son, after 17 years of living together. He turned his home in Hippo into a monastery, and as Bishop of Hippo, proceeded to make many literary contributions to Christianity. Unfortunately, his sexual views were sadly affected by the monastic temperament of the times, perhaps an over-compensation for the sexuality of his liberal youth.
It was Saint Augustine who, according to Nigel Davies in The Rampant God, "set the final seal on the anti-sexual bias of the Church" (Davies, 1984: 180). Before becoming a Christian, Saint Augustine had studied the works of Plotinus, and for eleven years was a member of the Manichaean sect, whose founder taught that Adam and Eve resulted from the Devil's children having sex, and procreation was just another evil part of the Prince of Darkness' creation.
Saint Augustine did, however, consider sex a necessary evil, though certainly not something to be enjoyed. He even thought it was permissible to take a second wife if the first was barren, and grudgingly admitted that Adam and Eve may have had sex in the Garden before their Fall, but theorized that it was a very cold dutiful mechanical act without passion. After daring to suggest that even if they did have sex in the Garden, he assures his readers that they certainly would not have enjoyed it.
Perish the thought, that there should have been any unregulated excitement, or any [excitement so great that they would ever] need to resist desire! (Augustine c. duas epist, Pelag. I 34, 17).
The somewhat moderating stance of an earlier theologian, Saint Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 - c. 200), may have helped temper Augustine's attack on sex, or simply reflected the change in attitude towards sex that had taken place in the Church. Clement, himself a celibate monk, taught that those who condemn sex within marriage set themselves against the teachings of the Gospels, and that marriage was conducive to the spiritual well-being of faithful Christians. Though, having sex for pleasure rather than procreation, "voluptuous joy" as he called it, he discouraged [12] (Brundage, 1987: 66,67).
Many contemporaries of Saint Augustine were equally cool towards human coitus, and therefore cold towards women in general. Some early monastics became so anti-sex that they all but declared God an unfit Creator, who obviously should have invented a better way of dealing with the problem of procreation. Arnobius (d. c. A.D. 317) called intercourse filthy and degrading, and stated that it would be blasphemous even to imagine that Jesus was "born of vile coitus and came into the light as a result of the spewing forth of senseless semen, a product of obscene gropings"[13] (Brundage, 1987: 64).
Methodius thought sex was "unseemly," and Ambrose, a "defilement." Saint John Chrysostom, the "golden-mouthed" orator of the fourth century, had little golden to say about the fair sex in general: "Among all savage beasts, none is found as harmful as woman."
Tertullian was so repulsed by sex he publicly renounced his own sexual relationship with his wife and taught that sexual intercourse drives out the Holy Spirit. Women, he declared, are "the devil's door: through them Satan creeps into men's hearts and minds and works his wiles for their spiritual destruction."[14] Saint Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century showed little improvement in attitude, saying that "Woman is defective and accidental . . . a male gone awry . . . the result of some weakness in the father's generative power" (cited in Rice, 1990: 138). A teaching common during that time taught that women and the lower half of men were created by the Devil.[15]
DESEXUALIZING AND CENSORING THE BIBLE
The antidote to this anti-sexual assault on Christianity would have been to return to the liberating light of God's Word, but that was not to be for some centuries. As the dark clouds of Gnostic heresy and body-hatred gathered within Christianity, human sexuality was no longer viewed as a beautiful blessing, a Song of Songs, a gift from God, but rather a cruel seducing curse which was dragging all humankind into the very flames of Hell.
Certain Scriptures became very troublesome because they plainly did not support this anti-sexual attitude. Hence the new anti-sex medieval world order found it expedient to limit Bible reading, in practice, removing the Bible from circulation, replacing it with long lists of rules and regulations, punishments and penance and anti-sexual explanations and new interpretations of God's Word.
A few early religious scholars became so ill-at-ease with the real Scriptural record that they decided to write their own scriptures. Some of these remain to this day and contain numerous anti-sex passages that degrade marriage as "a foul polluted way of life" or call it "an experiment of the serpent" or say that Jesus came "to destroy the [sexual] works of the female." Fortunately such writings as The Acts of Andrew, The Acts of John [16], etc., have ended up on the scrap heap and not in the New Testament.
Origen (c. 185-254), an early monastic but Greek philosopher at heart, became so unsettled by his own sexuality that it is said he castrated himself, to become a literal eunuch. However, by so doing he spoiled his chances for canonization due to concerns over certain rules in the Old Testament regarding emasculated men. Origen took particular sexual exception to the Song of Solomon, warning Christians, "Everyone who is not yet rid of the vexation of the flesh and blood and not ceased to feel passion of his bodily nature should refrain completely from reading this book" (cited by Francoeur).
Origen wanted to make sure that this highly erotic Biblical account of tempestuous lovemaking centering around Solomon, the king with 700 wives and 300 concubines ( 1 Kings 11:3 ), would be viewed by subsequent generations as purely allegorical. Rabbinic interpretations gave the Song symbolic meanings, but did not ignore the Song's literal message of human love and passion.
Saint Jerome was also bothered by this "tawdry tale" and taught that it was not really about sex with a lover, but about virgins who mortify the flesh. Other monastic minds taught that the woman in the Song represented Christ, and the two breasts mentioned were the Old and New Testaments.
Francoeur makes the following interesting observation about the Song of Solomon:
The history of Jewish and Christian responses to the Song of Songs is a microcosm of the evolution of Western culture from a sex-affirming Hebraic perspective to a sex-negative Christian one, ill-at-ease with eroticism, sensuality, passion, and pleasure.
THE REPRESSION OF EROS
Some of the most sexually repressive times and regimes in history are also marked by much Scripture illiteracy, either through repression, rejection or misrepresentation of the Word of God. Repressive and sex-negative church teachings soon made the Bible virtually a banned book to be locked away from the laity who might "misinterpret" certain Scriptures-in other words, who may realize while reading the Bible that something was wrong with Christendom. Davies explains:
A Dark Age followed, after which in the Middle Ages, Church control over mind and body was so absolute as to make the totalitarian tyrannies of our century seem almost tolerant. To question a mere syllable of Church dogma was to court death (Davies, 1984: 182).
Cut off from Scriptures by a ruling celibate clerical class, the laity soon fell prey to their doctrines. All manner of sexual myths were foisted upon the faithful, complete with terrifying tales of eternal torment to all who dared to deviate from the virgin ideal. The war between sexuality and spirituality had begun in earnest. Men and women found themselves forced to go contrary to creation and natural order, and fight their own "flesh" to save their souls.
Fourth century celibacy and ascetic madness, patterned more after pagan teachings than Jesus or the Bible, soon threatened to overthrow all Christendom. Brundage tells us:
As the Church became part of the mainstream of Roman life, it borrowed increasingly from the pagan world, from which it had formerly been almost totally estranged. In the process, both Christian institutions and thought were irrevocably altered. These developments also signaled the beginning of radical changes in the ways the authorities of both Church and government dealt with sexual matters (Brundage, 1987: 76).
By the eighth century an enormously strict system of sexual rules and penalties was firmly in place, covering every imaginable thought and action related to sex. Jesus, as the Merciful Intercessor, the joyful Messenger of God's love and forgiveness of all sins, as well as His free gift of Salvation through faith, were trodden underfoot by an emerging supposed sex-hating ascetic god who demanded complete sacrifice and much suffering from humanity. The message of damnation soon replaced the Good News that even the vilest of sinners could be forgiven and saved through Jesus. In fact, "it came to be held that only one person in a million could hope to reach Heaven" (Taylor, 1970: 69).
Sexual accounts in the Bible were twisted to fit the new non-sexual image of holiness. The mechanics of how Mary was impregnated by God and yet remained a virgin was most challenging for anti-sexualists to resolve. One popular explanation was that God or the Archangel Gabriel impregnated the Blessed Mary through her ear or windpipe using a special vapor (Taylor, 1970: 62). Some early paintings show the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descending with great speed carrying God's sperm in its bill. In one early carving, the semen came from God's mouth and entered a tube which led under Mary's skirts.
Of course, once she was pregnant they faced the task of figuring out how Jesus could be born without having to touch or pass through Mary's "parts of shame," explaining why some taught that Jesus emerged through Mary's breast or navel. Certain Gnostics insisted that Jesus had not been born of Mary at all but descended from Heaven fully formed, thus avoiding the whole question (Davies, 1984: 179).
New Testament references to the other children born to Mary after Jesus, were brushed off as being "relatives" and not literal brothers and sisters. (See Matthew 12:46 ; 13:55 ; Mark 3:31 ; Luke 8:19 ; John 2:12 ; Acts 1:14 .) Mother Mary could not be allowed to be seen as having been too "motherly," since she would have had to indulge in sex after Jesus was born in order to have other children, which if admitted, would have put marriage, sex and baby-making spiritually on par with celibacy. That simply could not be allowed.
The warm, colorful, people-loving Christ of Scripture, comfortable with His own body and the little pleasures of life, was replaced by a solitary suffering celibate who fought off sex as well as Satan. The soul-freeing, sin-forgiving significance of His death and resurrection was blurred by long lists of do's and don'ts, indulgences and sacred relics. The liberating message of Jesus, who came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly ( John 10:10 ), was greatly toned down. This joyful wine maker and wine drinker, this friend of sinners and harlots, this divine Man, who healed on the Sabbath and constantly confounded and challenged the religious rules and the showy deeds of the religious of His day, while being cared for by an entourage of worshipful and often wealthy women ( Luke 8:2,3 ), was not the exemplary ascetic figure envisioned by a celibate ecclesia.
CELIBATES SEIZE CONTROL OF CHRISTENDOM
As celibacy and anti-sexual teachings spread throughout Christianity, they quickly took on political dimensions as well as spiritual. A collector's copy of Buck's Dictionary (1838) under the topic "celibacy" comments appropriately:
Superstitious zeal for a sanctimonious appearance in the clergy seemed to have prompted [celibacy] at first; and crafty policy, armed with power, no doubt rivetted this clog [celibacy being referred to here as a piece of dirt] on the sacerdotal order in later periods of the Church (Buck, p. 81).
The Spanish provincial Synod of Eliberis (the Council of Elvira), in 305, enjoined bishops, priests, and deacons to separate from their wives. This ruling was disallowed by the Council of Nicaea, in 325. The counsel did not agree with the total banning of priests from marrying, deeming that honorable marriage was as truly chaste as the life of a celibate. However, in 385, Pope Siricius again commanded complete celibacy for bishops, priests, and deacons, and called for the separation of those who were married.
In A Handbook of Church History by Samuel G. Greene, we learn that:
False notions of Christian purity led in many instances to the voluntary separation of husband and wife. . . . Justinian was the first in the Eastern Empire to forbid married persons to be elected bishops. [Subdeacons could still have wives.] In the West, endeavours to enforce celibacy on all the clergy were made with indifferent success, until the days of Hildebrand (Gregory VII), in the Eleventh Century, by whom the law was made absolute. The East, on the contrary, while eventually (after the Synod of Trulla, A.D. 692) requiring celibacy in the bishop, not only permits, but encourages the marriage of the rest of the clergy (Greene, 1907: 229).
TIGHTENING THE CHASTITY BELT
Since little distinction was made between the policy of celibacy for the clergy and the sex lives of the laity, and since the celibate class controlled "the keys to the Kingdom," all sex was deemed as bad and only virginity was good.
During the fourth and fifth centuries Mary's popular appeal greatly increased, and her [lifelong] virginity became widely accepted, providing a still more secure basis, in the teaching of the Church, for its priests and later its nuns to accept compulsory celibacy. But there were married clergy, who in theory remained continent (Thomas, 1986: 9).
Building upon the Roman tradition of vestal virgins, female virginity under the celibates took on a new twist and nunneries spread. All virgins became viewed as being the "brides of Christ," therefore for anyone to take away a girl's virginity was a crime against Christ Himself. Virginity became viewed as so much superior to marriage that even for husband and wife to avoid sex and try to remain "just about virgins" was greatly encouraged. Saint Jerome said, "I praise marriage and wedlock, but I do so because they produce virgins for me" (Davies, 1984: 180). Presumably he meant virgins for the Church or for Christ and not literally just for himself!
The real "sin" of sex, however, was not so much the procreative act, loathsome as it was perceived to be. It was the experience of sexual pleasure that was the prime source of sin. Many took steps to make sure that even marital sex was limited to procreation purposes and was made as unenjoyable as possible; some even rigged up animal skin barriers with a hole cut in the rough hide that caused the maximum discomfort and allowed the minimum of body contact between a copulating couple. This device and others presumably reduced the amount of sin involved by reducing the amount of pleasure (Taylor, 1970: 51). Saint Paul was never so unkind. He insisted that men and women should not "defraud" each other of their sexual rights, seeing their bodies were needed by and belonged to each other ( 1 Corinthians 7:4,5 ).
A few Christian churches today still teach that sex is solely for the purpose of procreation and not for pleasure. Would they be so zealous, we wonder, if they realized that it's not the Bible they have to thank for this harsh approach to sexual joys, but heathen teachers and non-Christian philosophers like Seneca the Younger and Musonius Rufus, Stoic contemporaries of Jesus, and others- And it was the Greek Stoic Artemidorous, not "missionary" Christians, who first taught that the only morally acceptable position for intercourse was male-superior face-to-face (Francoeur: The Religious Suppression of Eros).
NON-MARITAL SEX
In modern times, several passages in the Bible are used as justification for condemning "fornication." However, "porneia," the word used in the Greek Bible, actually had many meanings such as whoremongering and excessive, illicit sex, and not simply casual sex between couples, as is pointed out by Brundage:
Several passages in the Gospels condemn porneia. This word carried a number of different meanings. At times porneia means prostitution, at other times it refers to non-marital sex in general.[17] It is difficult to be certain, for example, whether the term applied to premarital intercourse between persons betrothed to one another or, indeed, to any type of non-commercial, heterosexual relations of the kind conventionally labeled fornication. Since neither the Torah nor rabbinical teachers contemporary with Jesus prohibited intercourse between unmarried partners as a moral offense, perhaps porneia referred primarily to sex with prostitutes, adultery, and other promiscuous relationships [18] (Brundage 1987: 58).
Regarding sexual liberties which were taken by the early Church, we know that they did have some trouble with "wild fire" in certain quarters, as indicated by Saint Paul's rebuke to the Corinthians, where reports of fornication and incest were quite common:
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife ( 1 Corinthians 5:1 ).
Saint Paul subscribed marriage as a solution to such excesses:
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband ( 1 Corinthians 7:2 ).
Much of Paul's conservatism may be attributed not only to his strict Pharisaic background, but also to the fact that most of his Greek and Asian converts had come out of cultures in which male and female temple prostitution were noble professions. And, sexual excesses and orgies were a way of life amongst the pagans of the Near East. This is why many scholars interpret a number of New Testament references to "fornicators" to be specifically talking about "[male] temple prostitutes," not inclusive of all those who engage in sex with a partner to whom they are not married.
Paul's pronouncements regarding sex, as applied by sexually conservative Christians, come in direct conflict with the central theme of the Epistles. We believe that Jesus has delivered us from the old Mosaic laws and purity requirements, regarding sex between consenting adult men and women. For "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the [Mosaic] Law" ( Galatians 3:13 ), "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us [the old Law], which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross" (Colossians 2:14 ).
According to Aquinas, masturbation was a greater sin than fornication. The death of Judah's son, Onan, who "spilled his seed" (i.e., performed coitus interruptus) rather than willingly impregnate his widowed sister-in-law as custom required, is often mistakenly pointed out as the example of how displeasing to God masturbation must be.
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy [deceased] brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore He slew him ( Genesis 38:8-10 ).
Read in context, however, one quickly sees that what provoked God to slay Onan was his selfishness, greed and sexual withholding and refusing to sexually accommodate Tamar, his brother's widow, not wanting her to have any children to inherit part of the family property. In slaying Onan, God was intent that Tamar receive justice, but He also had another reason to be particularly concerned about her success in love-making; she was chosen to be an ancestor of Jesus. As a spicy epilogue, Tamar assisted God's purpose by posing as a prostitute, thereby luring Judah to fulfill his Godly duty ( Genesis 38:13-26 ).
SMOLDERING SEXUAL SUPPRESSION
The "Agapae," or "love feasts" of Early Christians, had for the first three centuries been a time when liberal contributions were made by the rich to the poor at a special gathering held for fun, feasting and fellowship. The Council of Carthage, in the year 397, repressed and solemnly condemned these "love feasts." Rev. Charles Buck described the demise of this quaint Christian custom:
The kind of charity, with which the ceremony used to end, was no longer given between different sexes; and it was expressly forbidden to have any beds or couches for the conveniency of those who should be disposed to eat more at ease. Notwithstanding these precautions, the abuses committed in them became so notorious, that the holding of them (at least in churches) was solemnly condemned at the Council of Carthage, in the year 397 (Buck, 1838: 16).
In spite of every new rule, restriction and "religious" precaution, human sexuality did not for one moment depart, it only smoldered, mutated or transformed, often into more "acceptable" forms of religious expression. As Taylor points out in Sex in History, "Sexual energy cannot be reduced or annihilated; if denied outlet in one form, it soon finds it in another" (Taylor, 1970: 300).
In a Washington Post interview, Rev. Richard D. Dobbins, an Ohio psychologist and pastoral counselor points out that the unhealthy suppression of sexual drive easily leads to deviant sexual behavior, and adds:
While the Bible takes a healthy view toward the body and sexuality, institutional religion tends to see those things as wicked and evil. Children are not taught how to think of their body. It is a dark, secret side of themselves (cited by Session Steps, 1988: 3, Section A).
All this suppressed sexuality soon manifested itself in the most appalling of practices. Shamefully, many of these practices were then elevated to the level of Christian piety and virtue: the weekly flagellation of penitents and priests stripped naked, self-mutilations, castrations, sexual fixations and obsessions-frequently involving Jesus or Mary, sadomasochistic behavior, witch-hunts, religious massacres, to touch on only a few.
Noted anthropologist Nigel Davies, in his book The Rampant God, comments on the sexual anguish endured by centuries of Christians robbed of normal sexual enjoyment:
No one can ever quantify the mental anguish inflicted upon Christian believers through the centuries, an anguish beyond comprehension of other people; accepting in their minds [as] divine truths that every fiber of their body impelled them to ignore, they were forever haunted by fear of the fires of hell and thereby even suffered the torments of the damned during their life on earth (Davies, 1984: 184).
GETTING CHRISTIAN SEXUALITY BACK ON TRACK
The glaring inconsistencies between the anti-sexual version of Christianity, and the Godly origins of sex and salvation as revealed in Scripture, fortunately were never successfully obliterated, even under the most unbridled of Gnostic attacks to overthrow the natural order of God-ordained human sexuality. Men and women of God throughout Church history have, under inspiration of Scripture, struggled to lift the cruel, unscriptural yoke of sexual repression off the shoulders of their fellow Christians.
Peter Abelard (1079-1142), one of the leading medieval theologians and the famous lover of Heloise, openly opposed this anti-sexual value system. Abelard wrote:
No natural pleasure of the flesh may be declared as sin, nor may one impute guilt when someone is delighted by pleasure where he must necessarily feel it. . . . From the first day of our creation when man lived without sin in paradise, sexual intercourse and good tasting foods were naturally bound up with pleasure. God himself had established nature in this way (cited by Robert T. Francoeur in his essay, The Religious Suppression of Eros).
Abelard's liberal views were not well received by at least one powerful priest. When Abelard's secret love affair was discovered with Heloise (a student he was tutoring, who was the niece of the Canon of the Cathedral of Notre Dame), Heloise's outraged clerical uncle, Fulbert, had him castrated.
Francoeur comments:
The tragic fate [of Abelard] reflected the choice Christians were forced to make between a life of the body [or] a life of the soul.
And he adds:
Because we live in a society that prefers a puritive work ethic over an ethic of love and compassion, it is risky indeed to assert pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, as a legitimate social goal.
The sexual outrage unleashed against Abelard by the furious priest Fulbert is not perceivably different from the sexual hostility that lashes out even today against men and women of God who sincerely question the unscriptural anti-sexual bias and burden placed on Christianity by an ascetic movement some sixteen centuries ago. What "fallen" priest or pastor being pilloried in the public media today for "sexual misconduct" with a woman does not long for this weight to be lifted at last.
MARTIN LUTHERTHE REFORMER!
Men like Martin Luther (1483-1546) were alerted by Scripture to the fact that the Good Ship Christianity, carrying its precious message of salvation by grace, had been seriously blown off course. Heartened by a renewed access to the Word of God, many men and women placed their lives in peril to repulse the tide of untruths that had swept not only human sexuality off course, but covered and confused the entire message of salvation by grace through Jesus Christ.
Luther, the one-time monk liberated by the Light of the true Gospel, burst out of his celibate cage, shook off his sexual shackles, married a nun and joyfully proceeded to be fruitful and multiply and fill his house with children. He rocked the Christian world when he proved by Scripture that human works, such as sexual abstinence, fasting, good works, body deprivations, self-effort, donating to the church, etcetera, could contribute nothing towards a man's salvation. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" ( Titus 3:5 ).
Men could only be saved by having faith in Jesus. Salvation can only be received as a free gift from God. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" ( Ephesians 2:8,9 ). When threatened and asked to recant his "heretical" teachings, Luther stood firmly on Scripture, proclaiming, "My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither right nor safe to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise."
ARE WE NOW ENTERING THE DAWNING OF A CHRISTIAN SEXUAL REFORMATION?
Downstream from the Reformation and the great awakening of Luther's time, teachings that saintliness can be had through personal piety, generosity, self-inflicted suffering and suppressed sexuality still persist in various forms throughout much of Christianity and secular society today. Happily, however, more and more Christians of all denominations are awakening to the terrible sexual "captivity" they have endured for too long. Even the most sexually-bound denominations have published "Christian" sex manuals which advocate the "open enjoyment of sex in the bedrooms of the born-again" (Davies, 1984: 183). And passages like the following from the Book of Proverbs, compiled and written by that wisest of Israel's king, Solomon, is helping more than a few find out that foreplay is fun:
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love ( Proverbs 5:19 ).
As Christendom finds itself buffeted and battered by increasingly violent storms portending the long-awaited Endtime and the promised return of Jesus, a great awakening is taking place. One of the fruits of this new awareness is that the sad results that anti-sexual extremes have had both on the Church and on humanity must now be undone. Even in the Roman Catholic Church, the anti-sexual teachings of sainted celibates are slowly being set aside. Many Christians are accepting the liberating love and salvation of Jesus and coming to accept their own human sexuality as a truly natural and God-ordained part of life, meant to be received with thanksgiving. "For every creature [creation] of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving" ( 1 Timothy 4:4 ).
God's Yes to Sexuality, the report of a working group appointed by the British Council of Churches, edited by Rachel Moss in 1981, reports:
Thankfully, the view that sees celibacy as somehow a more Christian or a more perfect way of living than marriage, or other partnerships, is less prevalent now (Moss, 1981: 147).
Given and received in mutual surrender and trust, sexual intercourse can heal hurt, mediate forgiveness, restore hope, and provoke laughter and a resilient attitude to life (ibid., p. 157).
Sex was created and instituted by God in the very beginning! God is the Author of genuine pleasure, genuine happiness, genuine fleshly satisfaction, even sex! "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made" ( John 1:3 ). Including your sexual organs, your body, and every part of you. If sex is a sin, then God is a sinner, because He made it and He created us to have it and enjoy it!
Sex was not the Devil's idea!-It was God's. And the Devil is its arch-enemy because it encourages the growth of the Kingdom of God! The Devil tries to take the credit for it, and then turns around and condemns you for enjoying it. God created sex, not Satan! God is the One Who made those sexual organs and every single nerve that feels so good! He's the One Who dreamed up sexual pleasures and bodily contact and God Himself created that marvelous final explosion called the orgasm!
God is the God of the body, the God of sex-He made your flesh in His image! `God created man in His Own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them'( Genesis 1:27 ). Praise God for sex! He created it!-by David Brandt Berg (compiled quotes, Daily Might 2:67).
A SEXUAL REFORMATION OR A DECADENT NEW DARK AGE?
Faced with a growing disparity between official policy and actual practices, Church policymakers have been increasingly forced to rule on issues unthinkable only a few decades back [19], having to accept or reject sexual teachings and practices that at best would divide and at worst alter or destroy their church as they knew it. Few denominations remained aloof from this battle, as evidenced by the volume of sex-related articles, public debate and open dissension and disagreement that can readily be found in many mainstream Christian publications and public forums.
The Voices of Dissent
Until the twentieth century, [much of] Christianity and much of the Western world in general have demonstrated for nearly 2,000 years an otherworldly, ascetic spirituality in which materiality, and especially sexuality, were suspicious, if not actually sinful. Present inroads on the tradition insist that:
1) Bodily experiences can reveal the divine.
2) Affectivity is as essential as rationality to true Christian love.
3) Christian love exists not to bind autonomous selves, but as the proper form of connection between beings who become human persons in relation.
4) The experience of body pleasure is important in creating the ability to trust and love others, including God (Gudorf, 1994: 217-218).
Sex-negative teachings have been blamed for driving many sincere and searching individuals away from Christian churches, wearying the faithful as well as the clergy with needless sexual concerns, shame, guilt, confusion, loneliness and frustration. Many church-originated sex-negative teachings are ignored, challenged, re-evaluated and even blamed for the growing apostasy and antipathy to Christianity in society. Christianity as an institution is now suffering in part for having accepted the Gnostic teachings that human sexuality is basically bad.
The churches have tried to tame our bodies and put us in pews(Rev. Matthew Fox cited by Wright, 1993: 209).
Matthew Fox is a Dominican priest, founder of the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality at Holy Names College in Oakland, California, and author of several books. For making such pronouncements, as quoted above, he was "officially silenced" in late 1988 by his church for a period of one year. Alluding to Martin Luther and others who spoke out for reform, Fox wryly commented: "The Roman Catholic Church's track record on silencing its most prophetic voices is not impressive!" (op. cit., 205).
Fox derided his church's obsession with sex, sin and celibacy, preferring to speak of God as a pleasure-seeker and Jesus as an earthly sensualist. When reading authors like Fox, it is important to understand the doctrines of the traditional church teachings that they lash out at. By directly linking "original sin" with sexual intercourse initiated by Eve under the influence of Satan, second to fourth century theologians opened the door to a dreadful attitude toward sex and women. These two agents, sex and women, became the chief culprits that cost humanity its immortality and to be cut off from God and brought the curse of disease, toil and death into the world. Logically then, if sex and woman were such evil devices of Satan, then presumably by renouncing them both, men (and women following the same example) might earn some measure of favor with God, and begin to undo the curse upon them (Brown, 1988: 86).
In his book, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Fox wrote :
If I were asked to name in one word the message I have received from my religion regarding sexuality I would answer regret. I believe that the Western church, following in the spirit of St. Augustine, basically regrets the fact that we are sexual, sensual creatures. "If only sexuality would go away," the message goes, "we could get on with important issues of faith."
The sooner the churches put distance between themselves and Augustine's . . . put-down of women and sexuality, the sooner original sin will find its proper and very minor role in theology (Fox, 1988: 163).
To the question, "Did Jesus have sex?" Fox responded:
[The sexual revolution of the sixties] did not stop at the monastery door. Some of the greatest monks and priests also had relationships. Remember that, except perhaps for John, all of the disciples of Jesus were married. And of course, Jesus Himself was certainly a fully sexual human being. . . . He was biologically developed as any other human being. He had energy, He had vitality, He had passion-that's all sexual energy. As to whom He made love with, or if He did, we don't know, but I feel this: because He was Jewish, I don't know how He could be celibate. Celibacy is not a part of Jewish tradition. . . . Obviously He knew a lot about women, and they were attracted to Him, not just sexually but politically (Fox cited by Wright, 1993: 214).
And what statement does this outspoken Dominican priest make about the celibate life?
I don't recommend to healthy young men that they go into the priesthood as it is currently constituted. You realize that celibacy was invented by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century because priests were illiterate and the church wanted to teach them to read [aided by the discipline of abstinence] (op. cit., 211).
Bringing Body And Spirit Back Together
In an article for East West published in 1990, called "Massaging the Spirit," writer Mirka Knaster, commenting from an Eastern religious perspective, observed that religious leaders from Catholic priests to Jewish rabbis were attempting to bring body and spirit back together again:
Our attitude toward the mind-body connection has come a long way in the last two decades, but resolving the body-spirit split has lagged. Acceptance is now growing, with the help of people like Fox and [Sister Rosalind] Gefre [a massage-promoting nun in the Order of St. Joseph of Carondelet], in mainstream religion. Catholic priests, sisters and brothers, Protestant ministers, Jewish rabbis, and lay persons with a theological background now openly support bodywork [massage] or are directly involved in it (Knaster, 1990: 50).
Father Theodore Tracey, a Jesuit involved in retreat work and spiritual guidance, is another example of a Christian exponent of a "body-positive" perspective of theology. In his 1987 essay in Weavings, a journal of the Christian spiritual life, Father Tracey referred to St. Paul's words that our bodies are in truth living temples of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19-20), and noted that our bodies as well as spirits are the foundation for salvation. The physical body is important enough that God chose to manifest Himself in human flesh through Jesus (ibid).
Fathers Tracey and Fox pointed out that accepting the teachings of the Greeks and others led to a distortion of the original Judeo-Christian attitude toward the body. Fox stated:
Jewish thinking takes for granted that the sensual is a blessing and that there is no [spiritual] life without it (ibid).
Holy Sex!
Georg Feuerstein, from an eastern religious perspective, noted in his book Enlightened Sexuality: Essays on Body-Positive Spirituality:
[Fox] envisions a renaissance of sexual mysticism, and in his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, he offers one of the finest commentaries on Solomon's Song of Songs, with a wholehearted endorsement of an erotic spirituality. . . . Fox is not alone in protesting an antiquated theology and moral teaching. There are a growing number of Christian notables who do not hide behind dogma but are considering, questioning, and voicing their opposition against current Church attitudes. Sexuality is now generally viewed as an area where genuine love and mutual delight can be expressed (Feuerstein, 1989: 8).
A number of respected religious writers have challenged the notion that Christianity and erotic sexuality are incompatible. They have also questioned the assumption that all Christians should regard sex as something evil and alien to the Christian way of life.
Sexual intimacy can be a means of grace, a resource for healing and transformation in our lives (Rebecca Parker, "Making Love as a Means of Grace: Women's Reflections," Open Hands, vol. 3, no. 3, Winter 1988: 9-12).
James B. Nelson, author of Between Two Gardens and Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology, adopted the perspective that sexuality is the base on which our capacity to enter into life-enhancing and life-enriching relationships is built. Through one's sexuality, he affirmed, one has the possibility to become what God wants them to be: fulfilled, integrated, sharing, and free recipients of divine love.
I was feeling unmistakably sexually aroused [during prayer]. My entire body was longing for the Divine (Nelson, Between Two Gardens: Reflections on Sexuality and Religious Experience, 1983: 4).
Sex Is Holy is the title of a thought-provoking book co-authored by respected Catholic writers Mary Rousseau and Father Charles Gallagher. The original impetus for the book came from a task force initiated by the American Catholic Bishops to study the questions of human intimacy, love and sexuality. Sex Is Holy is one of several serious publications done in the last decade by respectable theologians, writers and publishers. It apparently was well received by church membership and given excellent reviews by mainstream critics.
Dr. Mary Rousseau is a professor and mother as well as chairperson of a special committee established by the Catholic Philosophical Society. Father Charles Gallagher is the founder of Marriage Encounter, an ecumenic Christian program engaged in meeting concerns of Catholic couples. These two authors not only leaped courageously into the Christian sexual fray, but even lauded as uniquely Catholic the view that having sex is not only a way to closer human intimacy, but a way to greater intimacy with God:
The view of sex as a way to intimacy with other human beings, and into intimacy with the Father, Son and Spirit is a distinctively Catholic view (Rousseau and Gallagher, 1986: 112).(Emphasis added.)
"Touch Me! Feel Me! I'm A Christian."
History does not reveal the precise date that touch-phobia crept into Christianity, since it was more a process than a policy to begin with. However, in 397, when the "Agapae" love feasts seemed to be getting a little too "tactile" for the celibate rulers, the Council of Carthage made a decree severely limiting all show of physical intimacies in church-other than to kiss the priest (Taylor, 1970: 262). In earlier times, Christians had been known for their love, warm embracing and affectionate greetings. In recent years, Catholic and Protestant congregations alike have from time to time timidly tried to restore some sort of touch exchange during religious services.
Dallas Landrum, a Presbyterian interim pastor and massage therapist in Baltimore, Maryland, explains why some Christians are so slow to accept and enjoy one of the universal and fundamental pleasures of life, human touching:
Many conservative Christians are afraid of their bodies and touch of any kind, because they have never come to terms with their own sexuality! (Knaster, 1990: 50).[20]
Christine E. Gudorf, author of Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics, adds:
Sex is pleasurable in many different ways. Mere body touch is pleasurable. Another person's touch on our skin normally releases chemical compounds called endorphins, which function as pain-killing anesthetics. . . We actually seem to need the pleasure of touch. Infants denied physical touch do not thrive. They do not grow, do not eat or sleep well. They do not develop normally intellectually and emotionally. . . .[21] Elderly persons who are touched affectionately often retain their health and their alertness much longer, and complain of pain less than those deprived of touch.[22] The therapeutic aspect of touch is one reason for the popularity of massage (Gudorf, 1994: 103).
A number of negative views and misconceptions exist regarding the value of touching, and not just among Christians.
Throughout Western society, parents, teachers, doctors, child-care attendants, workmates, and even close friends often find themselves in "touch retreat." And new barriers to physical intimacy are being put up daily: frightening updates on the AIDS epidemic, the sexual polarization of society as male and female "take sides" in the "sex wars" of the nineties. Sadly, everyone loses-and children lose the most-as home life disintegrates and loving, warm reassuring teachers, pastors and parents are driven out of business.
Self-Stimulation: Sin Or Sacrament?
In 1969, Dr. William Masters told me about a survey of 200 celibates [Catholic priests], the results of which revealed that 198 of them reported having masturbated at least once during the previous year. Of the other two, Dr. Masters said, "I don't think they understood the question!" (Sipe, 1990: 139).
Christianity has come to many sexual crossroads, and the morality of masturbation is one frequently encountered. A quiet debate has raged for centuries for sexual autonomy in this intimately private area of life to gain free access rights to experience the pleasures of one's own body without reproach. Throughout Christendom one finds a complete range of opinions.
In Body, Sex, and Pleasure (1994), Gudorf stated::
While Christianity long taught masturbation as sinful, today many Christians are rethinking the grounds for that prohibition. . . . Nor do we understand the story of Onan in Genesis 38 to support an understanding of wasting seed. Onan died not because he wasted seed on the ground, but because, out of greed, he failed to fulfill Yahweh's will that he raise up a son to carry on his brother's name and lineage. [The argument that] masturbation encourages ipsation, an inward turning that cuts individuals off from others . . . [is not valid. Research shows that] virtually all males masturbate as youths, yet virtually all drift to partnered sex by adulthood.[23] Very low levels of adolescent masturbation are more linked to low levels of sexual interest, and thus to low incidence of partnered sex, than to higher levels of partnered sex[24] (op. cit., 104-105).
Sexological writer David A. Schulz and Catholic Dominic S. Raphael (writing under a pseudonym since masturbation for self pleasure is still officially forbidden by his church) in their article, "Christ and Tiresias: A Wider Focus on Masturbation," made several interesting observations and outlined the value and spiritual virtues of "self-pleasuring" (masturbating):
Western society as a whole suffers from a blind spot in the area of sexuality for which the issue of masturbation is symptomatic (Raphael cited in Feuerstein, 1989: 215).
Christian adolescents were traditionally traumatized by threats of impending woe ranging from pimples, to short life and insanity if their "self-abuse" persisted. Schulz warned that a negative conflict between church and self results when religion assumes a sex-negative repressive role:
To be told as an adolescent that one form of sexual pleasure over which one has some degree of control was inherently sinful was to place the immediate positive experience of pleasure in direct conflict with the Church's teaching. The individual loses, whatever conclusion is drawn. Either the Church is wrong because the experience feels so right, or the experience must be wrong in spite of the pleasure it provides (op. cit., 222).
Schulz and Raphael preferred to use the term "self-pleasuring" over the centuries-old pejorative "masturbation" which literally means "to defile by hand." Dominic Raphael not only very much approved of masturbation, but even contended that erotic delight can transmute genital orgasm into whole-body bliss resulting in better communion with God.
The more we accept the original blessing that we humans are alive with God's own life breath (Genesis 2:7), the more we will be ready for both the mystical experience and primal [self] sexuality-indeed for the possibility of mystical rapture through primal sexuality (op. cit., 233).
Schulz contended that:
Self-pleasuring is a genuine form of sexual liberation-a freeing of the human spirit for more creative, caring involvement in the world. As such, it is genuinely Christian-though not yet recognized as such (op. cit., 238).
Dominic Raphael added:
Because autosexuality remains a pivot of psychological oppression, it must be the concern of Christians whom Christ has set free and whom St. Paul alerts: "Stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." ( Galatians 5:1b ). And because autosexuality is the starting point, if we want "to connect the genitals to the heart, to bring sex and love together," it must be a concern of every religious person (op. cit., 238). (Emphasis added.)
Schulz and Raphael both affirmed that official church dogma regarding sexuality limps far behind actual practice. The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior (1993) confirmed this position, showing that 63 percent of Protestants, 67 percent of Catholics, 75 percent of the Jewish faith agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "Masturbation is a natural part of life and continues on in marriage." One-quarter of American men and one-tenth of American woman involved in the study either masturbated daily or several times weekly, 53 percent of the men compared to 25 percent of the women began during ages 11 to 13 (Janus, 1993: 243, 77).
Sex Is A Holy Sacrament
If there is any doubt that joyful sex should be an inherent part of Christian marital life, writers Rousseau and Gallagher certainly try to remove that doubt.
Love-making and falling in love-these are two especially clear moments of sacramental sex.
Sex should be to a couple what prayer is to a contemplative religious [person] or the Eucharist is to a priest (Rousseau and Gallagher, 1986: 46, 54).
These same authors also provide us with a very refreshing portrayal of how sex play is a reflection of God and the Holy Trinity. (In the Family, the Holy Spirit is thought of as female, which, in my thinking better reconciles this imagery.)
And so in love play we can get some glimpse of what God does all day. The three divine persons, Father, Son and Spirit, play-play in love. Our moments of play are the high points of our days, are they not? We play when our work is done, when there are no more needs to be met, no services to be performed, no tasks or duties to be done at least for a while. And so we simply relax and enjoy each other, enjoy the good that we see in each other, enjoy the life that we share with each other. And sexual ecstasy is a high point of play-more intense and vivid than any other kind. In our best sexual moments, all cares fall away, we gasp in realization of the person before us, we shriek in ecstasy at the realization that we two, wonderful as we are, belong to each other. That sexual moment, that moment of love play, deserves to be counted as one of our seven sacraments. It is most fitting, truly, right and just that sexual intimacy should be, a symbol-a causal symbol-of our intimacy with the three divine persons. Human love play is one clear and powerful way for human beings to take part in the love play of the Trinity (op. cit., 23).
Divine Orgasms
A number of Christians, Catholic and Protestant, have gone on record stating that loving sexual involvement with another person has the potential to transcend the physical act and become a spiritual union, even a holy sacrament. Rousseau and Gallagher assumed a sex-positive stance, hoping to help redirect their church's attitude towards sex and reassure their congregations that human sexuality and pleasure are all right after all.Rousseau and Gallagher, citing well-known psychologist Eric Berne's book Sex and Human Loving add:
As Catholics we can see a special value, a special reason for the Church to "put so much emphasis on sex." For the "Wow!" of orgasm is a "Wow!" to divine life. [25] Sex is a sacramental power, not just a human action. It is the power to cause God's own life in us, to draw us into the love play of the Trinity. An orgasm as the high point of sexual love is also one of love's most powerful divine moments (op. cit., 43-44).
Eros And Agape-How Different Are They?
Philip Sherrard, formerly Assistant Director of the British School of Athens, Lecturer in the History of the Orthodox Church at London University, in his book, Christianity and Eros, touches on the fact that Christian love involving sex and non-sexual Christian love are each a part of the love of God:
We tend to distinguish between the love of God and the love of one person for another-to distinguish between agape and eros-and to regard the second as a rather debasing form of the first and only indulged at the expense of the first. In a sexualized sacramental love there is no such distinction (Sherrard, 1976: 2).
Welsh-born writer and Anglican priest David Thomas, presents a spiritual view of sex not unlike that found in David Brandt Berg's writings. In his book, Partners with God: A Celebration of Human Sexuality, which serves as a manual used in sexual appreciation sessions, Thomas writes:
If sex is an expression of love, then Christians, above all people, should take a special delight in it. Unfortunately this is not the case. We need, rather, to develop attitudes that can make our sexuality the enriching thing of great beauty that it was intended to be. Used properly [our body] is a miracle of creation, an instrument of love. Its display can be a glorious psalm of praise to a wise and feeling Creator. The person who keeps a sexually alert body in tune with positive, loving thoughts and a soul open to the touch of God is in symphonic accord with creation and Creator alike. Only those who have understood the principle of sharing in the ways of love have discovered the quality of growth that has lifted their relationships to the very gates of heaven. Indeed, our lovemaking is intended to be a celebration of life, of joy, of compassion and of God. Our sexuality is a sharing in creation, designed for us from the beginning of measurable time. Because it is of God, it is best fulfilled when it reflects the nature of God-in giving, in caring, in nurturing. In that spirit, we can use our sexuality to fulfill our own existence and to enrich the being of those whose lives we touch. And in the same spirit, we can make our special love relationship a Christian joyful and erotic glimpse of God's creative presence. To love with generosity and understanding is to proclaim with our bodies the essence of Christ. Whether or not Jesus had any explicitly sexual experiences-and the mere suggestion is enough to rend many pious Christians apoplectic-there is no doubt in my mind that He enhanced other's perception of their sexuality. He didn't deny that gift of God, He heightened it (Thomas, 1986: 29, 33, 35, 39, 50, 57, 60, 90).
Even the "missionary position" is falling out of favor among Christians according to the Janus Report. Forty-percent of "very religious" people in the study indicated that they agree, even strongly agree, that "a large variety of sex techniques is a must for maximum pleasure." And 77 percent of "very religious" and 84 percent of "religious" people even rated "oral sex" as ranging from "all right to very normal" (Janus, 1993: 244, 245, 254).
Can Positive Sexuality Attract Members To The Churches?
Even sexual intercourse can turn into a ministry, a favor that one does for the other (Rousseau and Gallagher, 1986: 47).
Passionate couples, who become transformed from being strangers into being intimates, help all the rest of us strangers become each other's intimates, too. They do so by making Love credible, so that we can believe in it. And once we believe, we can begin to live it. Then all of us strangers begin to be each others intimates, and we are the Church (op. cit., 124).
Professor Rousseau and Father Gallagher put forth a position on Christian sexual expression that if taken beyond the context of marital sex, closely resembles David Brandt Berg's proposition of the divine role that sexual attraction can play in winning souls to the Kingdom of God:
Some parishes stand out for being progressive in their liturgy, others for being oriented toward social justice. But what if a parish were outstanding for the passion of its couples? If Catholics were known everywhere for sexual intimacy, the church would certainly not look like just one organization among many. She would be a clear light in the darkness of ordinary lives. Her light would so shine before men that people who never heard a professional missionary will be drawn to her-for the right reason. Converts haven't flocked to us because of our moral righteousness or our organizational genius. But converts would certainly flock to us if we showed in action the deeply incarnational truth that human sexuality is a genuine and powerful way to Holiness. When we say that sex is not evil, that it is quite permissible in certain circumstances, we take but one very tiny step in the right direction. We need to proclaim from the housetops that sex is Holy. The passion of couples is part of the church's inheritance, a pearl of great price, a light that should not be hidden under a bushel (op. cit., 131).
Rousseau and Gallagher further stated :
Now imagine another world, one in which Catholic couples were noted for their passion and intimacy, a passion which transfigured them into living symbols of the living flame of divine love-the gospel would seem relevant to everyday life because it would be relevant. People would fall over themselves to join such a church. Few people who know of Jesus question His goodness. What many do question though is His relevance to them and their daily lives. Sexual love is central to the lives of most people, but what they usually fear from the church are prohibitions and inhibitions on sexual love. And so their enthusiasm for the rest of the message is chilled. But if we, who know the power of sex to tenderize hearts, would celebrate that gift, the gospel would be relevant indeed. People would be drawn to the church like flies to honey (op. cit., 133-134).
Extra-Marital Sex
The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior, published in the US in 1993, was described as "the first broad-scale scientific national survey since Kinsey." The report revealed that forty-four percent of "very religious" people and fifty percent of "religious" people, and fifty-nine percent of "slightly religious" people admitted they had sex before marriage. "Very religious" people slightly outscored "religious" people fifty-seven percent to fifty-six percent in their personal agreement with the statement, "Sensually, I feel that sex is deliciously sensuous" (Janus, 1993: 252, 255). Another surprising discovery made by these scientists was in response to the question "I've had extramarital affairs." Thirty-one percent of people in the "very religious" category indicated they had at least one affair, whereas only twenty-six percent of those people who thought of themselves as simply "religious" said they had been involved in extra-marital sex. Forty-four percent of the "non-religious" responders admitted to extramarital sex (op. cit., 249).
It is said that the French reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564), was particularly preoccupied with adultery, and made references to it in almost every matter he discussed. G. Rattray Taylor, commenting on this characteristic in Sex in History, generalizes that "Since repression always stimulates what it sets out to repress, one is not surprised to learn that his [Calvin's] sister-in-law was taken in adultery in 1557 and that his daughter suffered a like fate five years later" (Taylor, 1970: 164).
It seems that Episcopalian Rev. Leo Booth could not agree more. In his book, When God Becomes a Drug: Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction and Abuse 1991), Booth points to Eric Fromm's theory that sexual taboos create sexual obsessiveness and perversions. He also notes:
Jimmy Swaggart preached some of his most scathing sermons against sex immediately following his liaisons with prostitutes (Booth, 1991: 72).
Although I do not agree with Rev. Leo Booth when he labels most Bible-quoting, Jesus-preaching Christians as being "God addicts," I can still agree with some of his views on sex and sexuality.
I believe that God created sex and made it pleasurable to us for a reason; not just to procreate, but as a means of physically expressing spiritual unity. To insist that it is dirty is an abuse of God's gift, and from that abuse springs more abuse: guilt, shame, humiliation, fear (op. cit., 75).
TRADITIONAL "MORALITY" A MYTH?
Historians point out that the prevailing marital pattern of Biblical times was not monogamy but polygamy. In fact, moral patterns ascribed to Bible times actually were never the way those who call us to reaffirm "traditional morality" refer to. Historian Phillip Freeman in his biography of the life of Saint Patrick, for example, affirms that in the days of early Christianity, new converts receiving baptisms were typically nude for the ceremony:
The baptism of the converts began when Patrick's assistant took a small caldron and began heating the water. When all was ready, the men and women disrobed and handed their clothes to waiting attendants. Some modern readers might be shocked that Patrick baptized adults in the nude, but this was a common practice and a tradition going back to the earliest days of Christianity-when a convert was born into a new life, it seemed fitting that he or she would be naked as a baby. A wonderful illustration of early baptism comes from a lead tank found at Walesby in Britain. On the panel is a naked woman flanked by two female attendants, with six males standing near as witnesses. Like the woman portrayed in the British scene, Patrick's converts would first face west to renounce the devil, then turn east to recite the creed an affirm their faith. Then they would stand trembling as Patrick poured the water over them and placed anointing oil on their foreheads as a symbol of their devotion to God. Saint Patrick of Ireland. (Freeman, 2004)
The Bible's view on relationships and sex is demonstrated in the passages which mention how the patriarch Abraham on two occasions in order to save his own life offered his wife Sarah, first to the Pharaoh (Genesis chapter 12) and later to King Abemelech (Genesis chapter 20). His son Isaac, following in his footsteps, later offered his wife Rebecca to the same or similarly named Philistine king (Genesis chapter 26).
Eric Fuchs, is a Swiss Protestant pastor. He was director of the Protestant Study Center in Geneva and then head of the ethics department of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. In his book, Sexual Desire and Love: Origins and History of the Christian Ethic of Sexuality and Marriage, he devotes almost ninety pages to a chapter entitled, "Christianity and Sexuality: An Ambiguous History." One point he makes is that some sexual conduct can be very harmful and hurtful. The Old Testament certainly does not hide these dangers. Improper sexual conduct led to murderous violence as told in the astonishing story of Judges chapters 19-21, where the inhabitants of Gibeah abused the concubine of the Levite from Ephraim. Since that incident transgressed the most sacred laws of hospitality, of heterosexuality and of respect for even the concubine of one's neighbor, it led to collective violence and destruction of almost the entire tribe of Benjamin.
Fortunately, the Old Testament also contains an abundance of beautiful examples of the creative use of human sexuality being wonderfully used for the good of God's people. As Eric Fuchs puts it:
The exemplary couples amongst the patriarchs demonstrate how sexuality, ordained as a benediction of God on life, becomes creative with regard to history and love (Fuchs, 1983).
There is the story of Esther who captured the heart of a heathen king and saved her people from destruction. Then there was Ruth, the Moabite widow who wooed the wealthy Boaz and became an ancestor of Jesus. And of course there was the stunning beauty of Abraham's half-sister and wife, Sarah, that more than once was used to save the life of that revered patriarch. Or the love of Joseph for Mary his young pregnant-by-another, wife to be, to cite a few examples.
Homosexuality
Christian churches in general are increasingly split over demands for official recognition and acceptance of homosexuality. However, for a large number of concerned Christians, the homosexual question remains "non-negotiable" in spite of the increase in homosexual acceptance [26] and growing support for this lifestyle in society. Politics and media promotion is not sufficient to overturn moral concerns that rise from Scriptural admonitions specifically opposing it (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 ; Romans 1:27).
The Family is considered somewhat liberal in certain sexual views, yet highly traditional in others as evidenced by the following view expressed by David Brandt Berg, founder of the Family:
You don't find the Bible condemning sex anywhere, only the wrong kind of sex. So what's the wrong kind of sex? Well, the Bible makes it very clear the wrong kind of sex is: "men with men doing that which is evil" ( Romans 1:27 ), homosexuality, sodomy, the misuse of women, the misuse of sexual organs, evil sex, perversion, masochism, unloving sex, sex that hurts somebody, sex without love. Sex in the wrong way, perverted sex, sex that hurts and damages and destroys the body, selfish sex! ( Letter no. 2475 , September, 1988).
The Law Of Love
Whatever position on the sexual spectrum other Christians may take, they likely can agree that
(1) Christianity is in for a very rough ride in the days ahead as society at large becomes increasingly decadent and anti-Christian; and
(2) that as Christians, we do need some guidelines to govern our sexual behavior, especially any that would be hurtful or harmful.
In his writings, David Brandt Berg has put forth a simple rule to govern sexual conduct amongst consenting adults, in fact all conduct. Based on the teachings of Jesus, this principle is referred to as the Law of Love. Simply put, this "Law" says that Jesus' commandment to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves should be the guiding principle in all our dealings with others. All other rules and laws should be subservient to-in fact fulfilled by-this one. This general Law of Love principle can be found in one form or another among the teachings of most Christian churches.
In October, 1993, the Department for Studies of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America issued a first draft of a proposed social statement entitled The Church and Human Sexuality: A Lutheran Perspective. The more controversial sexual aspects of the document received predictably mixed reactions from church members. That document, in my opinion, contained an excellent summary of what "love of neighbor" is all about, very much like the Family's Law of Love.
Paul also understood the Law to be completed in Christ ( Romans 10:4 ). Through Christ's redemption, we are made right with God and called to love the neighbor. All the commandments are summed up in "Love your neighbor as yourself." "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law" (Romans 13:8-10 ; see also Galatians 5:14). Love of neighbor takes precedence over purity concerns, since nothing is unclean of itself ( Romans 14:14 ; see also Mark 7:14-15). Christians are freed from the requirement to observe numerous cultic and purity laws. Instead, we are called to the more challenging task of discerning what it means to love God and the neighbor in particular situations (as Paul illustrates in Romans 14-15 and 1 Corinthians ). This discernment occurs as the Spirit works through the Gospel in the community of the baptized (The Church and Human Sexuality: A Lutheran Perspective, a draft proposal, 1993).
The Bible - Relic, Anti-Sex Handbook Or X-Rated Reading?
L. William Countryman prefaced his book Dirt, Greed and Sex with the following comment:
Controversy over sexual ethics have pervaded the Western world in our century, and the Bible has been an important factor in them. Some voices invoke its authority; others attack it as a baleful influence. Some hold that it lays down a clear-cut sexual ethic; others hear in it a multiplicity of messages not always in agreement with one another. Whichever may ultimately be right, we have at least learned that interpreters of Scripture do not all agree with one another and that people can invoke the Bible on behalf of a variety of contemporary ethical positions. Such a situation calls for a fresh and careful reading of the Scriptures. . . . I began looking into the Biblical texts on this subject [sex] with several quite definite presuppositions. . . . I expected to find no more than scattered and independent moral pronouncements on sexual issues. . . . [and] that the biblical authors as a whole were negative toward sex and regarded it as something to be avoided in general and indulged, reluctantly, only under narrowly defined circumstances. In both cases, I have found that close study of these texts has modified my understanding of the matter sharply and in directions that I could not have predicted (Countryman, 1988: 1).
Many Christians are tempted to abandon their confidence in the Bible because they don't see how it can or does apply to "real" life in our times. David Brandt Berg was firmly convinced that the Scriptures can be just as alive, joyful, liberating, meaningful and applicable in today's world as they have ever been, and that the universal principles set down in God's Word will most certainly survive this present troubled world. Part of the mission of the Family has been to help others rediscover that wonderful path to Jesus, joy and freedom that is laid down in the Scriptures.
Many liberal theologians suggest we now set aside our Bibles as antiquated artifacts, no longer needed in the present stage of human spirituality. The very liberal Bishop Spong is known for making some very strong pronouncements about the Bible's validity, or lack of it, in today's world. Still, although critical of anyone taking too literal an interpretation or application of Scripture-which he believes needs to be considered more in the context of the time in which they were written-he still admits that for Christianity to survive, somehow our perception of Scripture and our human sexuality need to be brought more into perceivable harmony, for a house divided against itself simply cannot stand.
I do believe that there is a spirit beneath the letter that brings the Bible forward in time with integrity. That spirit must be sought with diligence. Without it the Bible will not be for our times a source of life or a guide in the area of sexual ethics (attributed to Bishop Spong).
CONCLUSION
Are people finding sexual and spiritual fulfillment more attractive outside mainstream Christianity and finding themselves more and more in conflict with church teachings and traditions- Are they distancing themselves from what they perceive as aging Christian institutions?
Catholic priests McMahon and Campbel argue that for spirituality to be authentic and conducive to personal growth it must be firmly anchored in our bodily existence:
Our experience as two Catholic priest-psychologists active in ministry for nearly twenty-five years leads us to recognize that a significant number of those drifting away from institutional churches are responsible, mature, and developing adults. They are by no means self-indulgent individuals looking for an excuse to live a licentious life. In far too many instances, these are people who are profoundly concerned about spiritual matters, and who are totally undernourished by their church and therefore look elsewhere for resources to support growth (cited in Feuerstein, 1989: 55).
Dr. L. William Countryman in his book Dirt, Greed & Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today, carefully examines all the things he felt the sexual ethic of the New Testament seems to forbid. Still he does attempt to have us look at these in a whole new context. I will leave you with his well-balanced concluding remarks, made after a most exhaustive study of the matter.
The Bible takes sex more or less for granted and does not explicitly lay out a theology or philosophical understanding of it.
The New Testament's positive account of sex is that it is an integral part of the human person, particularly joining us to one another, and therefore has a right to be included in the spiritual transformation which follows upon our hearing of the gospel. The gospel, as it permeates every aspect of life, will and must permeate sexuality as well. If Christian teaching appears to flinch from sex, as something dirty or suspect, it is falsely Christian. . . . Sexuality, like every other aspect of human life, should be related to the center goal of that life, the reign of God.
Sex, therefore, is to be received with delight and thankfulness. It is a gift of God in creation which reflects for us the joy of God's self-giving in grace and the perfect openness of true human life in the age to come.
If I make satisfaction of sexual desire the overarching goal of my life, I have put the part in place of the whole and thereby lost perspective on its real value. . . . Sex is not the final goal of the creation.
The world begins in God's free act of creation and concludes in God's free act of grace-or rather in the rejoicing to which it gives rise. Prudery, narrowness, self-confident respectability will be no preparation for the life of the age of rejoicing. It is not surprising that Jesus alienated those who practiced such "virtues."
As marriage and family could not be the final goal for the first-century Christian, sexuality and self cannot be today. The Christian will find it very difficult to live in an intimate relation with one who does not understand or accept the kind of demands which God's calling makes. . . . The Christian must also retain a certain freedom to respond to God's call loyally in critical times.
The measure of a sexuality that accords with the New Testament is simply this: the degree to which it rejoices in the whole creation, in what is given to others as well as to each of us, while enabling us always to leave the final word to God, who is the Beginning and End of all things (Countryman, 1988: 265-267).
Sex is created and commanded by God for your enjoyment, unity, fellowship, procreation, and a type of His own relationship with us in the Spirit. God uses sex as a tool to keep man and woman together in beautiful harmony and having children and families and a happy, loving home. He wants you to have sex not only for your own physical enjoyment and satisfaction, but also to produce human beings, immortal souls for the Kingdom of God!
God in His wisdom has created this sexual union, this husband and wife relationship, this lover and loved intercourse to be a marvelous picture, an illustration in the physical of your spiritual relationship with Him and your union with your Heavenly Bridegroom. The sexual relationships and its fruits are symbolic of His own holy relationships with us, His Bride. He blessed it, empowered it, used it, and referred to it constantly throughout His Word as the greatest physical experience and relationship of man and woman with the most essential results: Procreation of the race!
Sex is the greatest proof of Love and God's existence, and the greatest loving experience that creates new life and new immortal souls for the Eternal Kingdom of God!-by David Brandt Berg (compiled quotes, Daily Might 2:196).
Bibliographic And Biographic References
Booth, Father Leo
When God Becomes a Drug: Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction and Abuse. Jeremy P. Thacher, Inc. Los Angeles, 1991. Father Leo Booth is the vicar of St. George Episcopal church in Hawthorne, California. He specializes in recovery-treatment programs, and is the author of Meditations for Compulsive People, Say Yes to Life, and Spirituality and Recovery. He lives in Long Beach, California.
Countryman, L. William
Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today. Fortress Press (USA), 1988.
L. William Countryman is Professor of New Testament at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California.
Feuerstein, Georg
Enlightened Sexuality: Essays on Body-Positive Spirituality. The Crossing Press, Freedom, California, 1989.
Georg Feuerstein has published a dozen books, including Structures of Consciousness, Integral Publishing, 1987. He did postgraduate research in Indian philosophy at old University of Durham, England. He is a recipient of awards from the British Academy, editor of Spectrum Review, and general editor of the Paragon Living Traditions series of dictionaries.
Fox, Matthew
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1988.
Fuchs, Eric
Sexual Desire and Love: Origins and History of the Christian Ethic of Sexuality and Marriage. New York: Seabury Press, 1983.
Eric Fuchs is a Swiss Protestant pastor. He has been director of the Protestant Study Center in Geneva and is now head of the ethics department of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. In his book, Sexual Desire and Love: Origins and History of the Christian Ethic of Sexuality and Marriage, he devotes almost ninety pages to a chapter entitled, "Christianity and Sexuality: An Ambiguous History."
Freeman, Philip
St. Patrick of Ireland. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004.
Philip Freeman is a professor of Classics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Gudorf, Christine E.
Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics. The Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 1994.
Janus, Samuel S., and Cythia L. Janus
The Janus Report: Sexual Behavior. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1993.
Dr. Samuel S. Janus is a respected researcher in human sexual behavior and related issues and the author of The Death of Innocence and A Sexual Profile of Men in Power. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Sexology, a Board-certified sex counselor, and a Fellow of the American Institute for Psycho-therapy and Psychoanalysis.
Dr. Cynthia Janus has written and lectured widely on subjects in radiology and obstetrics and gynecology. She was formerly an executive board member of The Women's Medical Association of New York City.
Knaster, Mirka
"Massaging the Spirit: Bodywork." East West Magazine, July, 1990, v20 p. 50(3) n7.
Moss, Rachel
God's Yes to Sexuality: The report of a working group appointed by the British Council of Churches. Collins Fount Paperbacks, London, 1981.
Nelson, James B.
Between Two Gardens: Reflections on Sexuality and Religious Experience. New York, Pilgrim Press, 1983.
Raphael, Dominic S.
Dominic Raphael is a widely published and pastorally active Roman Catholic author writing here under a pseudonym. He feels that both his church and society need healing ideas in the area of sexual ethics. He feels it best to avoid personal controversy and confrontation but to quietly promote objective discussions.
Rousseau, Dr. Mary and Father Charles Gallagher
Sex Is Holy. Element Books Limited, Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset, 1991.
Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University. Dr. Rousseau, is a mother and chairperson of a special committee established by the Catholic Philosophical Society.
Father Gallagher is the founder of Worldwide Marriage Encounter, an ecumenical Christian program engaged in the concerns of married couples.
Schulz, David A.
David Schulz is a part-time professor, Episcopal priest, wood sculptor, residing in California. He is the author of Human Sexuality: The Changing Family, and other books on human relationships. He has taught seminars on sexuality and sexual harassment.
Sherrard, Philip
Christianity and Eros: Essays on the Theme of Sex and Love. SPCK Holy Trinity Church, London, 1976.
Philip Sherrard, formerly Assistant Director of the British School at Athens, is Lecturer in the History of the Orthodox Church at London University. He is the author of many books and articles on Orthodox, Byzantine, and Greek themes.
Sipe, A.W. Richard
A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. Brunner/Mazel, Inc., New York, 1990.
Richard Sipe is an ordained Roman Catholic priest, now retired from the active ministry, who lives in Maryland, where he is a psychotherapist in private practice. He also lectures in family therapy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, where he has held an appointment since 1972.
Smali, Dwight Hervey
Christian: Celebrate Your Sexuality. Fleming H. Revell Company, New Jersey, 1974.
Dwight Smali is a member of the faculty at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.
Spong, John Shelby (Bishop)
Living in Sin?: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality. Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1989.
Taylor, G. Rattray
Sex in History: The Story of Society's Changing Attitudes to Sex Throughout the Ages. The Vanguard Press, Inc., New York, 1970.
Gordon Rattray Taylor brings his broad training in both biological and social sciences to bear on the subject of sex and its historical affect on people.
Thomas, Gordon
Desire and Denial: Celibacy and the Church. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1986.
Gordon Thomas is the author and co-author of twenty-four books. Total sales exceed thirty-four million copies in thirty-six countries. Four have been made into successful motion pictures. He has reported on the papacy since the closing months of Pope John XXIII's pontificate in 1963. He covered the election of Pope Paul VI and had several private audiences with the pontiff during his fifteen-year reign, which ended with his death in 1978. He commented on the thirty-three-day pontificate and funeral of Pope Paul's successor, the first Pope John Paul, and the end to the 455 years of Italian domination of the papacy with the emergence of Poland's Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II. He has continued to monitor the workings of the Vatican and the Church without interruption, co-authoring two best-sellers, Pontiff and The Year of Armageddon. Desire and Denial has been sold as a major film production.
Wright, Lawrence
Saints and Sinners. Alfred A. Knope, New York, 1993.
Lawrence Wright grew up in Dallas, graduated from Tulane University, and spent a year at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He has written two previous books, City children, Country Summer: A Story of Ghetto Children Among the Amish, and In the New World: Growing Up with America, 1960-1984. His articles have appeared in many places, including Texas Monthly, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Magazine. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He lives with his wife and two children in Austin, Texas.
References And Contributors
Brown, Peter
The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. Columbia University Press, New York, 1988.
Peter Brown, formerly Professor of Classics and History at the University of California, Berkeley, is now Rollins Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University. His books include Augustine of Hippo, a definitive biography of Saint Augustine; The World of Late Antiquity, The Making of Late Antiquity, The Cult of the Saints, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine, and Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity.
Brundage, James A.
Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1987.
James A. Brundage is the Ahmanson-Murphy Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas. He is the author of numerous books on medieval history, including The Crusades, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, and Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader.
Buck, Rev. Charles
A Theological Dictionary. Published from the last London edition by J.J. Woodward, 1838.
Davies, Nigel
The Rampant God: Eros Throughout the World. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1984.
Nigel Davis, of English origin and education, is a scholar of archaeology and anthropology who some years ago gave up the writing of scholarly works in favor of the popular audience. Since 1962 he has lived in Mexico City, which he has used as a base from which to study the history and culture of the ancient peoples of Central America. He holds a doctorate from London University and a master's degree from the National University of Mexico. He has written widely-as scientist, anthropologist, and historian-and his earlier works such as The Aztecs and Voyagers to the New World have become international best sellers. In 1980 the president of Mexico awarded Nigel Davis the prestigious and rarely conferred order of the Aguilla Azteca for his outstanding contributions to Mexican culture.
Feuerstein, George (ed.)
Enlightened Sexuality: Essays on Body-Positive Spirituality. The Crossing Press, Freedom, California, 1989.
George Feuerstein has published a dozen books including Structures of Consciousness, Integral Publishing, 1987. He did postgraduate research in Indian philosophy at old University of Durham, England. He is a recipient of awards from the British Academy, editor of Spectrum Review, and general editor of the Paragon Living Traditions series of dictionaries.
Foucault, Michel
The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction. Translated from the French by Robert Hurley, Penguin Books, 1978.
Francoeur, Robert T.
The Religious Suppression of Eros (published source unknown).
Father Robert Francoeur is a Catholic priest and Professor of Human Embryology and Sexuality at Fairleigh Dickenson University and a fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex.
Greene, Samuel G.
A Handbook of Church History. The Religious Tract Society, London, 1907.
Rev. Samuel Greene is now deceased.
Moss, Rachel (ed.)
God's Yes to Sexuality-Towards a Christian understanding of sex, sexism and sexuality. The report of a working group appointed by the British Council of Churches, Collins Fount Paperback, London, 1981.
Rachel Moss is a magistrate and a member of The Assembly of the British Council of Churches.
Pagels, Elaine
Adam, Eve and the Serpent. Random House, New York, 1988.
Elaine Pagels received her doctorate from Harvard University in 1970. She taught at Barnard College, where she chaired the Department of Religion, and Columbia University. Professor Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She is the author of The Gnostic Gospels, which won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis and The Gnostic Paul. Elaine Pagels notes that in the century following Christianity's rise under Constantine to become a respected institution, Christian teachings underwent a revolutionary change from a doctrine that celebrated human freedom to one that emphasized the universal bondage of original sin. Elaine Pagels is a mother and lives in New York city with her husband, Heinz Pagels, scientist and author.
Raphael, Dominic S.
Christ and Tiresias: A Wider Focus on Masturbation.
Dominic S. Raphael is widely published and pastorally active Roman Catholic author writing here under a pseudonym. Both Church and society need healing ideas in the area of sexual ethics. A pseudonym may help toward healing, by avoiding personal controversy and promoting objective discussion. At any rate, D.S.R. is in good company-Benjamin Franklin used no fewer than 57 different pseudonyms in the course of his life.
Rice, David
Shattered Vows: Priests Who Leave. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1990.
David Rice, born in Northern Ireland and educated by the Jesuits of Clongowes, the school made famous by James Joyce, was ordained a Dominican in 1958. He has worked as a journalist all his life, and was an editor and award-winning syndicated columnist in the United States during the 1970s. He returned to Ireland in 1980 to head the School of Journalism at Rathmines. He left the priesthood in 1977 to marry. He lives in Dublin.
Schulz, David A. and Raphael, Dominic S.
"Christ and Tiresias: A Wider Focus on Masturbation," published in Feuerstein's Enlightened Sexuality, 1989: 214-241.
David A. Schulz is a part-time professor, Episcopal priest, and wood sculptor residing in California. He is the author of Human Sexuality, The Changing Family, and other books on human relationships. He has taught seminars on sexuality and sexual harassment. His manuscript "Sacred Shrines and Thirsty Fishes: Celebrating Ordinary Lives" is nearing completion.
Session Steps, Laura
"Evangelicals: Ecstasy and Temptation-Bakker, Swaggart Falls Spur Discussion of Sex", The Washington Post, November 4, 1988: 3, Section A.
Laura Session Steps is a Washington Post staff writer.
Sherrard, Philip
Christianity and Eros: Essays on the Theme of Sex and Love. SPCK Holy Trinity Church, London, 1976.
Philip Sherrard, formerly Assistant Director of the British School at Athens, is Lecturer in the History of the Orthodox Church at London University. He is the author of many books and articles on Orthodox, Byzantine, and Greek themes.
Tannahill, Reay
Sex in History. Scarborough House/Publishers, revised and updated, 1992.
Reay Tannahill, as quoted by the London Times, has written a serious book that is a delight to read by placing her impeccable research within the context of the history of the relationship between the sexes and by abstaining from taking a moral stand.
Taylor, G. Rattray
Sex in History. The Vanguard Press, Inc., New York, 1970.
Gordon Rattray Taylor brings his broad training in both the biological and social sciences to bear on the subject of sex as it has historically effected people as people, rather than as statistics.
Thomas, Gordon
Desire and Denial: Celibacy and the Church. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1986.
Gordon Thomas is the author and co-author of twenty-four books. Total sales exceed thirty-four million copies in thirty-six countries. Four have been made into successful motion pictures. He has reported on the papacy since the closing months of Pope John XXIII's pontificate in 1963. He covered the election of Pope Paul VI and had several private audiences with the pontiff during his fifteen-year reign, which ended with his death in 1978. He commented on the thirty-three-day pontificate and funeral of Pope Paul's successor, the first Pope John Paul, and the end to the 455 years of Italian domination of the papacy with the emergence of Poland's Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II. He has continued to monitor the workings of the Vatican and the Church without interruption, co-authoring two best-sellers, Pontiff and The Year of Armageddon. Desire and Denial has been sold as a major film production.
Ward, Benedicta
The Desert Christian: The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1975.
Benedicta Ward is a Catholic nun in the order of the Sisters of the Love of God (S.L.G.), Oxford.
Notes:
Click on the number to return to the footnote location:
[1] Minucius Felix, Octavius 9, G. H. Rendall, trans., p. 337.
[2] Gnosticism refers to the belief system of a variety of heretical Judeo-Christian sects in the early centuries after Jesus, which stressed salvation through a secret gnosis, or "knowledge." The central theme of Gnosticism was that the physical world was entirely evil and therefore had to be rejected. They had great contempt for the human body, discouraged marriage, and rejected the teaching that Jesus had a physical body that was resurrected. Some Gnostics were very immoral since everything was evil anyway, only themselves being above it all. Others adopted very austere patterns of living and bodily mortification. Some taught that woman was created by the Devil, and to have children was to multiply the souls bound by the powers of darkness. St. Augustine had been a member of a Manichaean Gnostic sect that traced back to a Jewish-Christian baptist movement, the Elchasaites. In 1946 a cache of 13 Gnostic Coptic Codices was discovered near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. These contained 53 treatises that had been deposited about A.D. 400. Basically these are fictitious and apocryphal writings supposedly by Adam, Abraham, Zoroaster, Jesus, Philip, Thomas, John, and others.
[3] G. Poupon, "L'accusation de magie dans les Actes Aporyphes," In F. Bovon et al., eds., Les Actes Apocryphes, pp.71-93; see Brown, The Making of Later Antiquities, p.24.
[4] Acts of Paul and Thecla, New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 2, 10, p.356; 5, p.357.
[5] Justin, Apologia I, 29.2.
[6] Eusebuis, Life of Constantine, I.53, E.C. Richardson, trans., Library of the Nicene Fathers, I:497.
[7] W. Speyer, Zu Den Vorwrfen der Heiden gegen die Christen, (cited in Brown, 1988:140).
[8] Hildegard of Bingen in Germany was a great mystic Benedictine Abbess of the twelfth century (1098-1179), who interpreted the account of Adam's sin as a "failure of eros," proposing that Adam was banished from Eden for refusing to enjoy deeply enough the delights of the earth. In other words, that Adam lost his place because of sexual prudery. She wrote many books, but her principle work, Scivias, is an account of 26 visions with apocalyptic emphasis dealing with creation, redemption, and the church. She was investigated by the archbishop of Mainz and Pope Eugenius III and both gave her a favorable report.
[9] Tertullian was a Latin theologian who was in time won over by an ascetic "charismatic fundamentalist" sect started by Marcion Montanus. Tertullian, though married himself, considered sex shameful conduct and marveled at how a priest's blessing could transform this sinful act into semi-sanctified behavior. He was particularly revolted by widows and others who would remarry, equating the sin of such "filthy sensualists" to fornication, adultery and murder(Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis 9.1 and De monogamia 4.3, 10.7, 15.1, in CCL 2:1027, 1229, 1233, 1243, 1250, see also Brundage, 1987: 68). Saint Augustine spoke of marriage as "a medicine for immorality," since marriage took sex into the more "respectable" realm of procreation.
[10] Saint Jerome is the Biblical scholar who translated the Bible into the Latin Vulgate. He is often remembered for the years he spent among the hermits of Syria battling in his desert cell with visions of troupes of dancing nymphs come to seduce him. Saint Jerome's writings there-<M%1>after reflected that he considered sex most unclean, even adding that, "Anyone who has too passionate a love for his wife is an adulterer!"
Medieval theologian Peter Lombard (c. 1095-1169) reconfirmed this attitude in his apologetic De excusatione coitus: "Omnis ardentior amator propiae uxoris adulter est." (For a man to love his wife too ardently is a sin worse than adultery.) (Cited in Taylor, 1970: 52.)
[11] "In the fourth century, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia were the forcing ground for monasticism in its Christian expression; every form of monastic life was tried, every kind of experiment, every kind of extreme. Monasticism is of course older than Christianity, but this was the flowering of its Christian expression and in many ways it has never been suppressed. . . . The Syrian monks were great individualists and they deliberately imposed on themselves what is hardest for human beings to bear: they went naked and in chains, they lived unsettled lives, eating whatever they found in the woods. They chose to live at the limits of human nature, close to the animals, the angels, and the demons" (Ward, 1975: xv, xvii).
In the fifth and sixth century, St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-547), became the master of monastic "rule" makers-though his first efforts at hermit "reform" were met with an attempt to poison him. Typical of his deeds, this progenitor of the Benedictine Order, when tempted with thoughts about women, would throw himself into briars and nettles until his skin was badly torn and was bleeding profusely.
[12] Clement of Alexandria, Stomata 2.23, ed, 3.6.45; 3.12.80-81; 3.17.102-3.18.110, ed. Stahlin 2:188-94, 2:216-17, 232-33, 243-47, 3.57.1-3.60.4, 3.71.1-3.78.5, 3.96.1-3.99.4, 3.105.1-3.110.2; Paedagogus 2.83.1-2.115.5, ed. Stahlin 1:208-26. (Cited in Brundage, 1987: 66.)
"The majority of Christians . . . rejected the claim made by radical Christians that the sin of Adam and Eve was sexual-that the forbidden "fruit of the tree of knowledge" conveyed, above all, carnal knowledge. On the contrary, said Clemen of Alexandria (c. 180), conscious participation in procreation is "cooperation with God in the work of creation." Adam's sin was not sexual indulgence, but disobedience, thus Clement agreed with most of his Jewish and Christian contemporaries that the real theme of the story of Adam and Eve is moral freedom and moral responsibility" (cf. Pagels, 1988. xxiii).
[13] Arnobius, Adv. gentes 4.19, in PL 5:1039: "[Q]uod ex turpi concubitu creditis, atque ex seminis jactu ignorantem sidi ad lucem beneficiis obscoenitatis exisse." On Arnobius, see also Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, pp. 252-260 (cited by Brundage, 1987: 64).
[14] Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis 11.1, in CCL 2:1030-31, (cited by Brundage, 1987: 64).
[15] In the reign of Emperor Anastasius I (A.D. 491-518), about the year 494 a sect called Angelites had spread from the city of Alexandria. They were also called Severites, from Severus who was the head of the sect.
[16] Refer to Acts of Andrew, Vatican ms frag. v. (J 352); Acts of John, fragment (J 266); Eusebius Ecclesiastical History iv 29, etc. There have been several acts of the Apostles, such as the acts of Abdias, of Peter, of Paul, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Andrew, Saint Thomas, Saint Philip, and Saint Matthias; but they have been all proved to be spurious. The reference to Jesus coming to destroy the works of the female, i.e., sexual desire and procreation, are to be found in The Gospel of the Egyptians (9:63) and is cited by Rosemary Radford Ruther, p. 128, in Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology.
[17] Especially Matthew 15:19 and Mark 7:21. In Matthew 21:31-32, Luke 15:30, and probably in John 8:41, that reference is to intercourse with prostitutes. Bruce Malina, "Does `Porneia' Mean Fornication?", Novum Testamentum 14 (1972) 10-17, lists and analyses all occurrences of porneia in the New Testament. (Footnote from Brundage, 1987: 58.)
[18] Bruce Malina, "Does `Porneia' Mean Fornication?" p. 17; but cf. the very different conclusions of J. Jensen in an article entitled "Does `Porneia' Mean Fornication?" Novum Testamentum 20 (1978:161-84). (Footnotes from Brundage, 1987: 58.)
[19] On Tuesday, June 6, 1995, a Church of England report, the first major study of the family by Britain's state religion for 20 years, was made public by the Church's Board of Social Responsibility, chaired by Bishop Alan Moorage. The report said that, "Living in sin" should no longer be regarded as sinful and the phrase should be dropped given the number of people who now live together before getting married. It also warned against judgmental attitudes about cohabitation and fornication, the report estimated that four in five couples will live together before they marry by the year 2000. The report also said the Church should resist the temptation to look back to a "golden age of the family" and help people build strong, committed and faithful relationships. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, leader of the Church of England, welcomed the report as a "rich resource in a continuing process of debate and soul searching," but he said it was not the Church's authoritative teaching. The report's recommendations are likely to go before a decision-making general synod of the Church of England. (Reuters, London.)
[20] Sister Kristen, a Franciscan nun who is a masseuse at the Jesuit Renewal Center in Milford, Ohio, had her initial invitations to her Christian "Massage Parlor" thrown back in her face by frightened Christians. However, she and her fellow nuns persisted and now operate several massage centers. Sister Kristen says: "I think people are really hungry for the healing effects of touch" (Knaster, 1990: 50).
[21] B. Myers, "Mother-Infant Bonding: Status of This Critical-Period Hypothesis," Developmental Review 4, 1984: 240-274; Robert Crooks and Karla Baur, Our Sexuality, 303; Jessie Potter, "the Touch Film."
[22] S. Rice and J. Kelly, "Love and Intimacy Needs of the Elderly," Journal of Social Work and Human Sexuality 5, 1987: 89-96.
[23] Crooks and Baur, Our Sexuality, 480, 562-563.
[24] Citing author Margo Woods in Masturbation, Tantra, and Self Love, Burlingame, California: Down There Press, 1988: 102.
[25] We don't need a lot of words when we make love-four will do. These words are "please," "thank you," "ugh" and "wow!" The "wow!" is the one that counts, the one that all the others lead up to (Eric Berne, Sex and Human Loving).
[26] The Janus Report found that 22 percent of men and 17 percent of women in the study had had a homosexual experience. Of those, only 39 percent of the males (8.5 percent of the sample population) and 27 percent of the females (4.5 percent of the sample population) were actively involved in regular homosexual relations and only 4 percent of the men and 2 percent of the women polled actually considered themselves to be homosexuals. (Janus, 1993: 69,70).
2 bishops hid sex abuse of hundreds of children, Pennsylvania grand jury says
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane speaks about
the 147-page report on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese
was made public at a news conference, Tuesday, March 1, 2015 in Altoona,
Pa. Kane says none of the alleged criminal acts can be prosecuted
because some abusers have died, statutes of limitations have run their
course and victims are too traumatized to testify.
(J.D. Cavrich/Altoona Mirror via AP)
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The 147-page report issued Tuesday on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, home to nearly 100,000 Roman Catholics, was based partly on evidence from a secret diocesan archive opened through a search warrant over the summer.
In announcing the findings, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said the diocese's two previous bishops "placed their desire to avoid public scandal over the well-being of children."
No criminal charges are being filed in the case because some abusers have died, the statute of limitations has expired, or victims are too traumatized to testify, she said.
Of the victims, Kane said: "Their souls were killed as children. They weren't out playing baseball; they were trying to avoid priests."
The report was especially critical of Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986, died in 2005. Adamec, who succeeded him, retired in 2011.
Adamec cited possible self-incrimination in refusing to testify before the grand jury. But in a court filing, his attorney said the accusations against the 80-year-old Adamec are unfounded. He required 14 priests accused under his watch to undergo psychiatric evaluation, the filing said. Nine of them were suspended or removed from ministry, and the five who were reinstated never re-offended, his attorney wrote.
"Bishop Adamec's handling of abuse allegations has no similarity to other clergy abuse scandals," his attorney wrote.
The current bishop, Mark Bartchak, is not accused of any wrongdoing. He recently suspended a few priests named as alleged abusers in the report, though the grand jury said it remains "concerned the purge of predators is taking too long."
In a statement, Bartchak said: "I deeply regret any harm that has come to children."
The clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in 2002, when The Boston Globe reported that the Boston Archdiocese had transferred child-molesting priests from parish to parish to protect them. Similar scandals involving hundreds of offenders and victims have since erupted across the U.S. and beyond.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops estimates that American dioceses have paid nearly $4 billion since 1950 to settle claims with victims.
The Altoona-Johnstown report said that the abuse was committed in such places as campsites, confessionals, an orphanage and the cathedral, and that Hogan covered up allegations by transferring offending priests, including one who was sent to a school for boys.
One diocesan official under Hogan, Monsignor Philip Saylor, told the grand jury that church officials held such clout in the eight-county diocese that "the police and civil authorities would often defer to the diocese" when priests were accused of abuse, the report said. Saylor told the grand jury that the mayors of Altoona and Johnstown even consulted him on their choices for police chief in the 1980s.
"Politicians of Blair County were afraid of Monsignor Saylor, and he apparently persuaded the mayor to appoint me as the chief of police," former Altoona Police Chief Peter Starr testified.
The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a Catholic canon lawyer turned advocate for victims, said it was common for law enforcement in heavily Catholic areas to defer to the church in handling accusations against priests.
He said the number of victims and accused priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, which ranks in the bottom half of the list of the nearly 200 U.S. dioceses by Catholic population, did not surprise him: "I've seen dioceses the same size or smaller where you have significant numbers of perpetrators and victims."
The report said Adamec or his staff threatened some alleged victims with excommunication and generally worked harder to hide or settle allegations of abuse than to discipline the priests accused.
"The diocese will not apologize or take responsibility for its dark history," the report said.
In a practice seen in other dioceses, the bishop created a "payout chart" to help guide how much victims would receive from the church, the report said. Victims fondled over their clothes were to be paid $10,000 to $25,000; fondled under their clothes or subjected to masturbation, $15,000 to $40,000; subjected to forced oral sex, $25,000 to $75,000; subjected to forced sodomy or intercourse, $50,000 to $175,000.
Clergy abuse scandals are not new to the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.
The latest investigation began when Kane's office was asked to review the handling of abuse allegations at Bishop McCort Catholic High School against an athletic trainer, Franciscan Brother Stephen Baker, who worked there from 1992 to 2001. Baker killed himself in 2013 after abuse settlements with an Ohio diocese where he formerly worked were publicized.
Eighty-eight former McCort students settled claims against the diocese for $8 million in 2014, said Richard Serbin, an Altoona attorney whose been battling the diocese for decades.
A molestation lawsuit against since-defrocked priest Francis Luddy that went to trial in 1994 also exposed many of the problems outlined in the grand jury report. The case led to a verdict of more than $2 million in damages and an appeals court finding that Hogan's oversight of pedophile priests had been "outrageous."
"Hundreds of children probably could have been saved from a life of misery had they done something back then and, more importantly, a lot of these child predators could have been criminally prosecuted," Serbin said.
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