Why Christians Think Sex And Marriage Are A Big Deal

One of the encouragements of the Bible is that, as much as is possible, Christians are to live at peace with all people. [1] It doesn’t always work – “as much as is possible” - but as someone who is called to be a peacemaker, [2] I feel the need to try to do just that in reference to a subject that is causing a lot of friction within the church and between the church and the surrounding culture.

I am going to offer a succinct presentation of why the church has historically drawn fairly specific boundaries around issues of sex, marriage and sexuality. I don’t expect everyone to agree. I simply ask that you attempt to understand the foundation which has shaped traditional Christian thought for centuries.

I don’t know if a better understanding will or even can bring about more peace in a diverse and tense world.

I just know I want to try.

If We Want To Be Taken Seriously

The list of people I know who are leaving the church or questioning their faith during the past several years is growing. The reason they give is consistent. It's not a growing doubt because of an intellectual struggle; they lose interest in Jesus because they have experienced the people of Jesus, and they begin to think, "If this is what Christian transformation into the image of Jesus looks like, I'm not interested."

Some of it is being around Christians who leave no room to wrestle with questions and doubts. Some of it is being publicly shamed by Christians on social media over standard disagreements that should never have escalated like they did. Some of it involves private confrontations characterized by harsh judgment rather than grace and truth. Some of it is the unequivocal  support by Christians of President Trump, who for them is a deeply confusing champion for evangelicals.

A lot of it is that, actually. President Trump seems to represent for virtually all of them the separation between what they thought Christians were supposed to support and applaud vs. what they apparently do. This is the new tension in the American evangelical church, particularly for those under the age of 30. This is not a mere reflection of my musings; this reflects what I have learned through numerous personal conversations and plenty of surveys.

If you argue that it's not there, you're wrong. If you argue that it's not fair, you may be right. The Trump-supporting evangelicals I know – at least the vast majority of them – are undeserving of most of the vitriol aimed at them. They are about as far from ‘deplorable’ as they can get. They constitute many people in my family, my church family, and my friends who love Jesus and love others, and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Yet, fair or unfair, the reality is that the public witness of the church in general has suffered a huge blow, and this is a matter that must be considered. There is a confusion in a watching world brought on by the perception of an unflinching embrace of a man whose history and many of his ongoing actions stand in sharp contrast to both the ethics and the people whom Christians have historically supported.

Toxic Men, Toxic Women, And The Toxic Cultures That Nourish Them

Gillette, in an oddly incongruous act of virtue signaling [1] - or, more generously, cause marketing -  has recently released a controversial ad about what has been called "toxic masculinity."  You can watch the video above; here is an (imperfect) script based on my notes from watching the video:

"Bullying, the #metoo movement, violence, pornography, sexual harassment... Is this the best a man can get? Is it? We can't hide from it. It has been going on far too long. We can't laugh it off. Making the same old excuses (group of men: "Boys will be boys..."). But something finally changed (female news anchor: "Allegations involving sexual assault and sexual harassment..."). And there will be no going back. Because we ... We believe in the best in men (Terry Crews: "Men need to hold other men accountable." Two other clips show guys stopping other guys from harassing/catcalling a woman).  To say the right thing. To act the right way. Some already are, in ways big and small. (Clips of men playing with daughters, connecting across racial lines, and stopping bullying). But some is not enough. Because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow."

There are a number of things worth addressing in this cultural moment, so here we go.

WE ARE APPARENTLY AGREEING THAT THERE ARE SOME CHARACTERISTICS THAT ARE MASCULINE VS. FEMININE

I think we have to in order to even have this discussion.  The Atlantic quotes a bunch of studies that  think so:

“In a 2008 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a group of international researchers compared data on gender and personality across 55 nations. Throughout the world, women tend to be more nurturing, risk averse and emotionally expressive, while men are usually more competitive, risk taking, and emotionally flat. But the most fascinating finding is this: Personality differences between men and women are the largest and most robust in the more prosperous, egalitarian, and educated societies. According to the authors, ‘Higher levels of human development—including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth—were the main nation-level predictors of sex difference variation across cultures.’" 

In other words, men and women are different. [2] This does not mean all men or women fit neatly into a particular mold. My wife and I are exhibits A and B of this. It's simply an acknowledgment of generally correlative characteristics that emerge in men and women. I know this is a hotly debated topic, but we can't even talk about something that is uniquely, toxically masculine (or feminine) without at least have some kind of foundation that acknowledges gendered differences. As a friend and fellow pastor/blogger noted:

"In order for us to rail against toxic masculinity we have to admit there is such a thing as healthy masculinity. Any bad is dependent upon the good. Any evil is a deprivation of the good or a violation of a good purpose. You must have a good purpose before you can violate it. Yes, masculinity exists, or else it couldn’t turn toxic."

WHAT IS TOXIC MASCULINITY, REALLY?

There is no universally accepted definition, but the explanations I found follow a general theme.

It's Time To Talk About The Purpose Of Sex

The more I see all the headlines stamped on our news feeds about #metoo moments, the more I am

convinced we as a society have lost sight of the purpose of sex. It's a generally true observation that if we don’t know what something is for, odds are pretty good we will use it in ways we shouldn’t.

Sex is not exempt from this reality. And considering how the scandals range from the church to Hollywood to Washington to schools, it’s clearly a struggle that permeates every aspect of our society.

So, sex and purpose. What could possible go wrong in this discussion? 

I don’t expect everyone reading this to agree with me, but I do ask that you give serious consideration to these thoughts – and then, if you wish to offer serious thoughts in agreement or opposition, feel free!

Consent Is Not Enough

Our culture needs to spend more time on two important questions that are increasingly being asked in the wake of the sex scandals rocking Hollywood and Washington, D.C.

First, is consent sufficient to grant moral goodness to any sexual act? After all, we don't simply assume that consent equates with morality or goodness other situations. Two people can agree to kill or cannibalize each other. The fact that they consented hardly makes it a good thing. One can certainly make a morally neutral act bad by coercion, but one can’t make a morally bad act acceptable simply by agreeing to have it done or by giving permission to do it. In terms of sexual activity, the goodness of an act can never include anything less than consent, but it must include more. Consent is necessary, but not sufficient.

Second, when is the one granting consent not actually granting consent? Think of the issue of minors engaging in sex with adults. If a minor is below the age of consent, the idea is that they are not even capable of consenting in any meaningful sense of the word, because they are not mature or rational enough to truly understand what they agreeing to do. That principle can be broadened:

• What if someone who was abused has had his or her perspective on sex so badly damaged that consent is not a reflection of an affirmative desire at all, but of broken resignation?
• I have read several articles (such as this one) and sobering books that take an in-depth look at the hook-up culture, especially how it exists on college campuses. If a woman gets drunk so that she can get over her natural inhibition or even dislike of what will eventually happen with someone she meets at a bar, is her consent really consent? She doesn’t really want to, but it’s how she believes the game must be played, so she numbs herself in order to say “yes.”
• If two adults consent to actions that are degrading, perhaps even dehumanizing, and which will be formative in them and those who watch (if it is porn), is mere consent sufficient to give it our stamp of approval? 
• What if two adults are in a relationship and one says, "Well, if you won't have sex with me (or if you won't have more sex), this relationship is over." If the partner fulfills the other one's wishes, is that truly consensual sex?

We must gain moral clarity on this. These questions matter not just for the individuals involved, but for the cultural mood that is created based on how we respond. Rather than give a prolonged essay on my view, I am offering a collection of excerpts from articles addressing this issue.

When Men Become Monsters

In an ideal ecosystem, everything has a particular role to play; there is a balance that is hopefully not disrupted by something that breaks the natural flow and harmony. In a broken ecosystem, something invasive is introduced that will brings harm. (I'm talking to you, zebra mussel.)

The Harvey Weinstein scandal is calling attention to a lot of important issues, so I want to be sure we don't overlook this one: we have a sexually broken moral ecosystem in the United States. While both men and women are are impacted, women are bearing the brunt in overwhelming numbers as morally monstrous men increasingly exert their power to use and abuse. How did we get here? What are the causes? What can we do to address it?

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First, we have to address the terrible social cost of pornography. Is there really any question that it fuels all kinds of terrible fallout for women and men? It fundamentally damaging how people view others. It’s ruining sex for millions of people; it’s leading to a rise in human trafficking; it’s creating a culture in which we begin to think of pornographic norms as if they were actual norms. Read up on how people who work with kids are noticing wildly changing norms for young girls who are being pressured to perform like porn stars by equally young boys who are being raised on porn. And if you are wondering if there are studies that confirm the link, the answer is yes. 

Yet in the midst of this damage we laud moral monsters like Hugh Hefner - well, not everyone did - who have done all they could to convince us that our current sexual ecosystem is the best of all possible worlds: Boys will be boys, and women will be bunnies. When men say ‘hop,’ women should be happy to do so naked on the grounds of a castle that puts Neverland's scandalous rumors to shame. It’s all so very normal and good and healthy.

The March For (At Least Some Of) Science

“In a way, the worldview of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.” (George Orwell, 1984)

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The March For Science, according to various news article I have read, was focused on the value of evidence-based science, an enterprise that is apparently under fire. I suspect this is mostly a political broadside against President Trump, specifically when it comes to global warming,vaccines, and alternative theories to evolution.

Now, I am a fan of both science and evidence. Though the march is largely symbolic and baldly political, I don’t think anyone actually thinks the theoretical framework of the march is problematic (“Boo evidence and science! Stop learning stuff!"). However, the march seemed to me to be somewhat naive and far too narrowly focused.

Men, Women, And The Line Between Objectification and Empowerment

I'm about to wander into a minefield.

I want to offer a man’s perspective about whether or not women's attempts at empowering women actually do or don’t empower them in the most meaningful sense of the word - at least based on how men perceive or experience this quest. Just what everyone was hoping for, right? A man talking about women's empowerment. I just ask that you bear with me. I am increasingly convinced that unless we build a bridge between how men and women understand this issue we will not make necessary progress as a culture.

I will not be building the entire bridge with this article. Not even close. At best, I am offering a supporting strut by attempting to explain how men view this issue for the sake of clarity and truth. I want to live in a world where everyone is granted intrinsic value as human beings, a world where justice and peace rule the day. That's my goal, and I hope these thoughts contribute to that end. 

Let's tiptoe through this.

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We live in a visual culture, a world in which the medium is often just as impactful as the message. Content, said media analyst Marshall McLuhan, cannot easily be separated from form.  In addition to just being a visual culture, we are increasingly a pornified culture. The statistics are sobering to say the least. Thanks to the internet, we have access to pornography in ways that are unprecedented in the history of the world. The vast majority of consumers are men. 70% of men ages 18-24 visit porn sites in a typical month. Why? Because nature or nature’s God (depending on your worldview) has wired men to be visually stimulated. I don’t think this is a debated issue. Men are turned on by sight.  Psychology Today quoted several researchers who have noted, “Men’s brains are designed to objectify females.” They talk about the unwilled connection between a man's brains and his genitals that begins with a sensitivity to visual cues. "Men’s brains scrutinize the details of arousing visuals with the kind of concentration jewelers apply to the cut of a diamond.”

Psychosexual Obesity And The Dating Apocalypse

Vanity Fair's "Tinder and the Dawn of the 'Dating Apocalypse'" is a must-read for those who are wondering where our culture is heading in terms of dating, sex and marriage. It's not an easy read, and it's R-rated graphic. I recommend it only because it is brutally honest about trending sexual behavior in the United States.

It's also helpful that it's not from, say, the Family Research Council. I have nothing against them, but we expect conservative or Christian groups to write about the ripple effect of unboundaried sex. It's not often a source such as Vanity Fair writes a story that, while not taking a stance about what people should do, clearly shows why so many people who are conservative or traditional in areas involving sex have legitimate reasons for being concerned about certain social trends.

I'm just going to highlight some excerpts. You can click on the link to go to the full article (which, once again, I recommend with great caution).

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It’s a balmy night in Manhattan’s financial district, and at a sports bar called Stout, everyone is Tindering… At a booth in the back, three handsome twentysomething guys in button-downs are having beers. They are Dan, Alex, and Marty… 

“Guys view everything as a competition,” he elaborates with his deep, reassuring voice. “Who’s slept with the best, hottest girls?” With these dating apps, he says, “you’re always sort of prowling. You could talk to two or three girls at a bar and pick the best one, or you can swipe a couple hundred people a day—the sample size is so much larger. It’s setting up two or three Tinder dates a week and, chances are, sleeping with all of them, so you could rack up 100 girls you’ve slept with in a year.” He says that he himself has slept with five different women he met on Tinder—“Tinderellas,” the guys call them—in the last eight days. 

And yet a lack of an intimate knowledge of his potential sex partners never presents him with an obstacle to physical intimacy, Alex says. Alex, his friends agree, is a Tinder King, a young man of such deft “text game”—“That’s the ability to actually convince someone to do something over text,” Marty explains—that he is able to entice young women into his bed on the basis of a few text exchanges, while letting them know up front he is not interested in having a relationship.

50 Shades of Longing

50 Shades of Grey has been been something of a cultural phenomenon recently. If you are unfamiliar with it, here's an excerpt from an insightful piece by Terrell Clemomons at Salvo that establishes both the basic premise of the story and a crucial question that is well worth asking:

Dubbed "Mommy porn" because of all the women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s reading it, 50 Shades of Grey has sold more than 100 million copies after only three years in print, having outpaced Harry Potter to become the fastest-selling paperback of all time. 

The story centers on the bizarre relationship between Ana, a naïve 21-year-old virgin, and Christian, an intense, 27-year-old self-made billionaire. They're attracted at first sight, but before getting involved sexually, Christian wants Ana to sign a written consent form for a BDSM (bondage, dominance, submission, masochism) arrangement. He presents her with a multi-page document outlining the terms by which he will completely dominate her and she will fully submit. "The Submissive shall accept whippings, floggings, spankings, canings, paddlings, or any other discipline the Dominant should decide to administer, without hesitation, inquiry, or complaint." This is a shocking new concept to Ana, but Christian has had fifteen such contractual relationships before. 

Ana never signs, but she effectively becomes number sixteen anyway. There are multiple trysts in Christian's "playroom," which Ana calls the Red Room of Pain, and Christian's hyper-controlling personality drives the whole affair. Ana would like more of a romance with some conventional boyfriend-girlfriend affection, but Christian says he doesn't know any other way to have a relationship. "Because I'm fifty shades of f***ed up." 

This is no doubt true, but he's not the only one. The question thinking people should be asking is, What is the appeal here? Why are millions of grown women—both independent, modern, and secular ones and married, conservative, and religious ones—reading this, presumably identifying with a timid girl who willingly becomes a controlling sadist's sexual plaything?  -  - "Desperately Disconnected: 50 Shades of Grey & the Longings of the Female Heart"

What, indeed, is the appeal? Clemmons goes on to highlight a study done by Dannah Gresh, a sexuality expert, and Dr. Juli Slattery, a clinical psychologist specializing in women and intimacy. Slattery read the series and, based on her own response as she read, noted five desires of a woman's heart that the books address. Gresh consulted publisher guidelines for erotica and interviewed women who read a lot of popular erotica to create a list of five common characteristics in the genre. Though done independently, their lists matched. Here is what they found (and I am paraphrasing):

Here Comes the Bloom: A Review of Aprilynne Pike's "Wings"

“Every little girl wishes she was actually a princess or a faerie or a mermaid or something. Especially girls who don’t know who their real mothers are.”

As a faerie embedded in the human world when she was just a baby, Laurel lives unobtrusively among her friends and with her adoptive parents. Then one day she begins to bloom – did I mention she’s a plant, a type of faerie, and she didn’t know it?

She tries to hide her wing-like flowers, but they are part of who she is. As they open, so does reality. She discovers a formerly hidden world around her filled with other faeries, trolls who want to kill her, gorgeous mythic warriors who like her, and a reality that defies explanation.  

Her boyfriend David’s a great guy, but he soon discovers a reality about Laurel that may be a problem: she has no pulse. Even worse, she has not heart. And the trolls are coming after him too.

Lapsing into Chaos

     German social philosopher Arnold Gehlen talked about two parts of society: the foreground and the background. The foreground is the area of life in which people willingly and freely make choices.  The background is the area in which people automatically fulfill certain societal or communal expectations.

• When Kobe Bryant shoots, his form is background – he’s practiced that shot release ten thousand times, so he doesn’t have to figure out each time where his elbow should be.  His decision when to shoot, however, is foreground.
• When I leave my house, I wear clothes (background), but I choose to wear Ohio State colors (foreground).
• I buy presents at Christmas (background), but choose gifts to match the recipients (foreground).
• At a blinking red light, I stop (background), and I choose to go when there is an appropriate break in traffic (foreground).  

Modernity moves the background to the foreground.  In other words, it takes what we accept as normative and makes it subjective. Before, people went about their daily routine without too much reflection (self-aware choice) on particular issues, as the background institutions in society brought predictability and normalized structure to their lives. Not any more.

Modernity has given the power and heightened the desire of choice.  People have increasingly rejected the power of tradition and institutions and have begun to find their own way through life.

Since modernity has brought about an increasing amount of foreground reflection, we increasingly reject the power of institutions and embrace what Gehlen called secondary institutions, which “offer entire packages of beliefs, norms, and identities to individuals.”

If this is true, it would explain the rise of radical environmentalist and animal rights movements, the increasing polarization in politics, the increased belief in the sacredness of artistic expression, and the monomaniacal fixation on sports among middle and high school families (ever spent a weekend at a travel league soccer tournament?).

All of these things have their place, of course, but not as replacement background institutions which guide and shape every area of life. Based on my past 15 years of working with youth as a pastor and teacher, I believe there are three huge background shifts effecting American culture.

Bitterblue: Fighting for Truth in a Kingdom of Lies

In an attempt to enter into and better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping my kids and the rest of today's youth, I submit the latest review of trending books, films, and TV shows effecting a primarily YA audience. My goal is not to critique the art form as much as look at how the story reflects and shapes  the readers' worldview.

There will be spoilers.
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Kristin Cashore's recently released Bitterblue, the sequel to Graceling, premiered at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List. If early reviews and previous successes are any indication, the list of accolades will be impressive – and deservedly so. Ms. Kashore is a gifted writer who spends years honing her books, and it shows.

THE BASIC PREMISE


The story takes place approximately 10 years after Graceling ends. Bitterblue, once rescued from certain doom by Katsa and Po, now rules a kingdom still reeling from what Bitterlblue calls “the rape of her mind” by her maniacal father, the former king. He had subjected the realm to unspeakable cruelty with a Grace (a gift) that made people believe the lies he told to cover up his fixation with torture and murder. Many people disappeared when he was alive; many more still hide very dark secrets even though he is long gone.

Though the people are beginning to recover emotionally, physically, and economically, the new queen faces a daunting task. Overwhelmed by responsibilities and immersed in paperwork, Bitterblue passes her days isolated from not only her kingdom but also the servants in the castle. When she finally realizes that this isolation is orchestrated rather than incidental, and that her father’s legacy still rules from the grave, she determines to find out the truth of her father’s lingering influence for herself.

Bitterblue begins to leave the castle, slipping at night “ into a world of stories and lies.” A series of furtive campaigns into the city giver her an unfiltered view of the kingdom. The underground rebellion she finds slowly reveals what she must do to break the nation free from her father’s lingering horrors.

But her father was not the only one with a capacity for deceit, and Bitterblue has a lot to learn about what it means to rule – and live - with truth, justice, and integrity. Secretive advisors and lying friends may surround her, but some secrets are best kept hidden, and the deception of friends may sometimes be a gift. Bitterblue has no Graces, but she has heart, determination, and a longing for truth. Will that be enough?

Bumper Sticker Logic

 While driving through town today, I pulled up behind a car sporting the following bumper sticker: "My sh**** attitude is none of your f****** business."  Except there were no asterisks, and now it was my business.  In fact, it was the business of everybody who pulled up behind that particular car.  It immediately became my business because it's the kind of publicly displayed message that makes my 12-year-old look away with embarrassment as he reads it, and makes me hope my 6-year-old in the back seat doesn't use that sentence to work on his phonics.

 My initial annoyance at the lack of social grace was momentary, but I became increasingly bothered by the bad thinking.  The bumper sticker makes no sense. The slogan is just a condensed way of saying, "I am going to make you pay attention to something that is none of your business, and then get angry and swear at you because you don't ignore my passive aggressive obnoxiousness."

I am convinced we have become a society that ponders serious issues without much more than bumper sticker depth. Unfortunately, the supporting evidence is everywhere.
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"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."  This one tops my list, because so many other equally foolish statements find confirmation here.  Does this mean the expense tabs, the debt, the compromises of morality, the memories, and the hotel towels all actually, truly stay there?  The Hangover was a morally bankrupt movie, but even Hollywood had the decency to show a little bit of a ripple effect.

 The Vegas slogan is a brilliant ad campaign - who wouldn't want a free pass on anything they do for a couple days?  The problem is, it's just not true.  What would happen if a plaintiff said to the judge, "You know, what happened in my car while I was driving drunk should stay in the car."  Or if a skydiver kept muttering, "What happens in the air stays in the air."  Uh, no.  What happens anywhere happens in real life; it matters. There are no free passes.
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"What happens in the privacy of my bedroom is nobody's business," and its close cousin, "Keep the government out of my bedroom." 
  
Let's be honest. What we are really saying is this: "I want to live in a nation where everybody agrees that any sexual action in which we (specifically 'I') engage in privately is okay, and won't have any effect outside of the moment."  But that's not true.