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have any of you heard about sex in the way that it is described above--as a means of grace and salvation?

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I'm also going to be posting not just responses but also essay type posts. Is that ok? Formatting that is similar to what Greg has done on the ethics thread. And then we can go back and forth for however long it takes.

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For this reason I believe sex between two unmarried persons or sex between two homosexuals who genuinely love and care for one another, while not theologically "ideal," is still preferable or better than sex between a married couple which is manipulative, shallow, or victimizing in some way.

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Here’s what I’m thinking. It seems to me that there is a skip in logic here. I have heard this argument on these boards used in different ways by others especially on the homosexuality threads. I think you would be right if we draw this comparison. But it seems to me that the flaw in the logic is comparing a best case scenario with a worst case scenario and I don’t think you can do that. For example, take partners who want to adopt. Certainly there will be cases of healthy homes where homosexual couples can provide a better environment than say heterosexual homes where these couples cannot do the same, that is because they are abusive, etc. But it seems to me that the jump goes from pragmatism (if it works) to, “It must be right.” Or if it does not match the ideal but still produces good results then the ideal should be modified. It would be like saying that because a responsible loving single mother is better equipped to raise children than an irresponsible unloving couple, then single motherhood is, in general, JUST AS GOOD as a two-parent home. But in reality, no matter how you cut it, if you compare what an AVERAGE same-sex couple has to offer to what an AVERAGE opposite-sex couple has to offer, the opposite sex couple will win out. Why? Because they include both male and female, mother and father. It isn’t even so much their homosexuality that is the problem, for you can have roomates or friends that cannot give a child what a heterosexual couple can. The problem is their sameness. And it is this that I am wanting to explore a little more deeply at the moment.

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I think that God having created us "male" and "female" does have theological implications for sexuality and it's expressions, but I do not see this as the primary issue within sexuality, nor would I be in line totally with either the conservative or liberal positions on sexuality.

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I view sex as the expression of true trusting intimacy between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage as the "ideal." However, establishing an ideal does not give us an exacting guideline on how to judge all things that fall somewhere outside of that ideal. Because we live in a fallen world, this ideal is often not met because we are broken creatures. And, outside of outright abuse and rape, the fact that ideals are often not met in regards to sex and sexuality is not at the top of my list in terms of what I think are important Christian concerns.

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I see it as being the primary issue in sexuality. It would seem to me that if we move away from this design, this intent, this ideal, then we are actually in “defilement” just as we would be with the rest of the possible evil ways you put forth. But look at what has occurred here. You made a leap from our essential make up of male/female to the “sex act” or the expression of our sexuality. Basically you say:

1. The issue is not primarily with male/female formulation.
2. The sex act is…

These are two different things we are talking about here. I am wanting to explore the first part a little more. It seems to me that to be human is to be male or female. And to get away from this, whether through deviant expression of our sexuality is not only to not live according to the “ideal,” (I almost despise the word, "design" may be a better one) but to not be true to ourselves and to the divine reality. That is, that we are not reflecting the divine reality. And it is that that I see as being what the real issue is.

Again, I will try to address more of this in coming posts.

P.S. Stark, you gonna be leaving bus driving to drive truck? I have my CDL or in Canada they call it AZ. Let me know. Maybe we can do a “Christian Trucking Ministry!!”


Brandon
"Totalitarianism, whether in the civic or in the ecclesiastical realm, is unacceptable."--Richard Mouw: Consulting the Faithful

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Shenaya: I am just really curious about something. The picture of the breastfeeding mom is beautiful, but what does it have to do with a thread on sex?!! Breastfeeding is not a sexual thing. That confusion has caused moms to be arrested for breastfeeding in public, or for breastfeeding children that are deemed too "old" to be breastfed. Just curious?


Peace,
~Shenaya~

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Saturday, October 26, 2002


No Sex [Before Marriage], Please ... We're Christian
Miss America preaches a 2000-year-old message.
Chris Armstrong

   Erika Harold, Miss America 2003, has just emerged victorious
   from a very public struggle over sex. Erika, a professed
   Christian, announced after winning the title that she would be
   using her year in the spotlight to promote sexual abstinence
   for teenagers. For reasons best known to themselves, the Miss
   America pageant organizers in Atlantic City ordered her not to
   do so. Then, in the face of controversy, they reversed their
   decision but made Erika promise that she would couch her
   message in the more politically correct theme of "teen
   violence."

   One look at the multi-billion-dollar television industry upon
   which the Miss America pageant feeds should make clear the
   pageant promoters' difficulty. How many premarital and
   extramarital sex acts are shown or implied each year on
   American television programs? How many times does a message of
   abstinence make it onto the airwaves -- outside of Christian
   stations? Hmmm.

   Probably the most obvious and counter-cultural ethical
   position of Christians today -- one shared by the other
   "peoples of the Book," Jews and Muslims -- is the proscription
   against premarital sex.

   Abstinence has not had a higher-profile or more appropriate
   spokesperson in modern America than Erika Harold. But her
   message is rooted in the earliest history of the church. Not a
   single church father can be found who did not assume that
   Christians should remain chaste before marriage.

   In the early second century, the Roman governor Pliny
   questioned some ex-Christians, who reported that Christians
   met before dawn for a secret ritual that included an oath to
   refrain from moral no-nos, including sexual sins. The ritual
   so described is generally considered to have been baptism,
   which, as Justin Martyr described a few years later, did
   require the new Christian to make this kind of moral promise.

   Turning to such early church manuals as the Didache,
   Clement of Alexandria's Paidagogos, or the many
   disciplinary writings of Tertullian, we find sexual sins
   getting a lot of attention. Fornication (sex between unmarried
   people) and adultery (sex by married people with other
   partners) are condemned in the strongest terms, and
   discussions keep cropping up about whether newly baptized
   Christians should be required -- or at least urged -- to
   remain celibate, and about whether sex in marriage should be
   only for the purpose of conceiving children.

   Reading these discussions, you get the sense that "the sky
   hung low" for these people. That is, heaven was a nearby,
   almost tangible reality, where many natural physical functions
   would drop away into insignificance: no one would be married
   (Luke 20:34-36), be born, or die. In a church vividly aware
   that this was the place of which they were truly citizens, it
   was not a stretch to say that even God's command in Genesis to
   "be fruitful and multiply" was now suspended -- at least, for
   those carrying the good news of Christ's gospel to a world
   next door to death. Such messengers of heaven saw themselves
   as strangers and sojourners in a transitory, sin-besotted
   physical world. The anticipation of heaven was so powerful
   that it motivated some to begin living as the angels do --
   renouncing such physical pleasures as sexual intercourse.

   This heavenly-mindedness may help account for the fact that
   chastity -- or "virginity" as the early Christians often
   called it -- became a hallmark of spiritual greatness among
   the Christians. Neither the Jews nor the pagans had ever much
   linked spiritual perfection with sexual abstention.

   Another (but probably less influential) reason "virginity"
   became the badge of honor for many early Christians was that
   some of their Roman persecutors, in their attempts to give
   Christianity a bad name, accused the Christians of engaging in
   secret sex rituals in their meetings. As the second-century
   defender of the faith Justin Martyr wrote,

   "Either we do not marry except to rear children, or we refuse
   to marry and we exercise complete self-control. Further, to
   convince you that we do not have a secret rite or licentious
   sexual intercourse, one of us sent to Felix, the governor of
   Alexandria, asking him to permit a surgeon to take away his
   [the Christian's] testicles. For the surgeons there said that
   they were forbidden to do this without the permission of the
   governor. When Felix was not at all willing to sign [this
   permission], the youth remained by himself, and found his own
   and his associates' conscience sufficient" (First
   Apology, 29).

   In fact, the brilliant exegete Origen did have himself
   castrated. He wrote, "God has allowed us to marry wives,
   because not everyone is capable of the superior condition,
   which is to be absolutely pure" (Against Celsus, 8:55).

   There was another source, beyond heavenly-mindedness and
   defensive agendas, for such extreme practices and related
   teachings. This was the teaching of the Gnostic heretics.
   Gnostics considered the body -- and indeed all matter -- to be
   evil, created by a "demiurge" and not the good, redemptive God
   represented in Jesus. They therefore mandated total celibacy
   for their disciples.

   The early church father Clement of Alexandria was one of many
   who struggled against these Gnostics. He attacked a book by
   the Gnostic teacher Julius Cassianus, Concerning Self-
   Control or Concerning Eunuchry. Cassianus argued, "Let no
   one say that, since we have these parts so that the female
   body is arranged this way and the male that way, the one to
   receive, the other to implant, sexual intercourse is allowed
   by God. For if this equipment was from the God toward whom we
   hasten, he would not have said that eunuchs are blessed." He
   concluded that Jesus had come to "reform us and free us from
   error and from the intercourse of these appended and shameful
   parts." Such teachers, said Clement, "with words fair-sounding
   through self-control commit sacrilege against both the
   creation and the holy Creator" (Clement of Alexandria,
   Miscellanies 3.91- 92, 3.45).

   Clement and the other fathers followed the apostle Paul in
   counseling against such extreme sexual self-denial. Paul was
   well aware of the strong pull of human sexual desire and its
   tendency to lead fallible humans into immorality. In his first
   letter to the Corinthians, he responded to their slogan, "It
   is good for a man not to marry," by insisting that, though
   this might be good for those with the gift of celibacy, like
   himself, heroic chastity might easily provide opportunity for
   the devil. To "the unmarried and the widows," he said, "if
   they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is
   better to marry than to burn with passion" (1 Cor. 7:8-9).

   Paul's healthy respect for the human sex drive is reflected in
   his advice to married couples: "Do not deprive each other
   except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may
   devote yourselves to prayer." Why such carefulness? Paul
   returns, in the following sentence, to the primary theme of
   this whole passage -- the difficulty we humans have in keeping
   our sexual actions within godly boundaries: "Then come
   together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of
   your lack of self-control" (1 Cor. 7:1-5).

   Virtually all the church fathers affirmed marriage as a good
   (1 Tim. 4:3) and found at least some kind words to say about
   sexual intercourse within marriage. In this they joined the
   Jewish religious teachers, who praised marriage, repeating
   (from their male-centered perspective) the traditional saying
   "He who has no wife lives without joy, blessing, or good." But
   all considered premarital and extramarital sex immoral.

   *For further reading on this subject, see the material on
   sexuality in Wayne A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian
   Morality: The First Two Centuries (Yale, 1993) and Stuart
   G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church
   (SPCK, 1991).

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Could someone (Brandon? Al?) give me a succinct explanation of the logic involved in saying reproduction was NECESSARY for he salvation of humankind? I've never understood this.

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The explanation that the messiah had to come through the lineage of Eve doesn't explain a) why it took millions of people to get to Christ... Eve could have had the baby immediately, or b) why we are STILL reproducing. PLEASE don't give me a Pasted Excert or a LINK to go to... they're almost always too involved and time consuming for me to. Just a short explanation in your own words.

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Could someone (Brandon? Al?) give me a succinct explanation of the logic involved in saying reproduction was NECESSARY for he salvation of humankind? I've never understood this. I know the exegetical basis for the view, but never the logic.

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Again, I have to make this quick and not as thorough as I would like. I haven't been to bed yet. Had to sing in church this morning. Was 'bout to keel over during the praise portion. Sooo...I'm DEAD tired. At the moment, I don't have a response to your question other than that of the exegetical. I guess we could ask this same question about a lot of theological concerns. Like, why didn't the messiah come almost instaneously other than having to slaughter millions upon millions of animals? Why didn't salvation "just happen?" Why was there a process? Some questions as to the family unit being a means of salvation may provides hints in response to your questions (why are we still reproducing?). Maybe it won't.

Let me just reiterate that my purpose is not to give explanation to all these questions other than to say that this is what we read in the text. That sex is a means of procreation and therefore is not merely an instrument of evil but one of grace as well. I don't think you would have a problem with this.

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Also, too Brandon, I see your point in noting that sometimes the admission that some non-ideal situation (e.g. loving gay couple adopting) is better than another non-ideal situation (e.g. no available homes, or unloving heterosexual couple adopting) gets translated as all situations are equal (e.g. homosexual adoptions are just as okay as heterosexual adoptions). On the other hand, NOT making this admission condemns us to default to one non-ideal situation where as a different non-ideal situation may be preferrable.

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The point that Empiress was making was one where she pits a best case (homosexual) scenario against a worst case (heterosexual) scenario.

Now what you are saying is that if we don't admit this, (pitting the best against the worst) then we are left with two "non-ideal" situations where one (homosexual) will be preferrable to a heterosexual.

But this is in fact what I HAVE stated. That there ARE instances when the non-ideal (homosexual scenario) will be preferrable over another non-ideal (heterosexual scenario) if you contrast those two extremes. So, it seems to me, you are not really stating anything different here. But, let me just ask, what are we talking about here? We are talking about created beings who are both male and female through and through and if we don't pit the best against the worst (which seems illogical to me, it's not a good way to argue), then the preferrable is to have that which does not reflect sameness.

I don't see how we are left with two non-ideals other than what I said. Let's put it this way.

1. Good homosexual environment (best case, non-ideal, but preferrable to)
2. Bad heterosexual environment (worst case, also, non-ideal, not preferrable, obviously, in ANY case).

I agreed with this, most people probably would. But I also said:

3. Good homosexual environment (best case, non-ideal, not preferrable to
4. Good heterosexual environment (best case, ideal, preferrable).

I must confess, I don't see what the problem is here other than as I said and you seemed to agree that we don't equalize 3 with 4. You and I would both agree that 4 is preferrable to 3. 4 is preferrable to 1. But that is the same as saying it is preferrable to 3. Ultimately, equalize is just what our society wants to do. For now though, I don't want to concentrate so much on the distinction between ideal (design?, as in being male/female) and the sex act (doing) or as you say, distinctions Empiress made on "levels of non-ideal situations". I think we are getting a head of the game, as far as I would like. It would seem to me, that if we take the stance that yourself and others have taken here, you are actually using circular argumentation. I think part of the problem is the use of terms. Empiress seemed to move interchangably between "being" and "doing." We need to establish that there is a difference. I would also rather prefer to drop the term "ideal" and use the term "design." Male and female is not an ideal. It is what you ARE. It is YOU by design. You/we are only human as male and female. We don't strive to reach male and female. Some "thing" outside of us. Some expectation or ideal or what have you. And I would argue that there are some expressions of sexuality that are not in keeping with who you/we are as male/female. That they actually "defile" us (not to mention our relationship with God), therefore continuing to perpetuate the "non-ideal."

Lastly, I don't have a problem with distinctions between (being) and (doing). I, in fact argue for this. I am just preferring to concentrate on the (being) aspect for now.

Thanks Greg, this is something that is dear to my heart and I am sooo glad that you have provided this CVM forum. You have done the body of Christ a totally awesome service. Luv ya, bro.

P.S. For the record, I just want to say that I think the baby in the photo was being smothered.



Brandon
"Totalitarianism, whether in the civic or in the ecclesiastical realm, is unacceptable."--Richard Mouw: Consulting the Faithful

Edited by - BBBCanada on 10/27/2002 12:52:27 PM

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Now, here's the main thing: even if the Fall had never happened, the perfecting of God's Creation required the Incarnation. It is only through the Incarnation that man--and creation--could be sanctified (the orthodox term for this process is "deification"). St. Athanasius wrote, "God became man so that man might become god" (what a beautiful, chiasmic line). Note that this is "god" in lower case. The more one is sanctified--whether that one is a human, animal, plant or piece of matter--the more he/it is imbued with the "energies" of God--never His "essence."

Soooo, I would say that viewing a thing with the perspective "God created you" is continuous and inextricably linked with "God, by His incarnation, death and resurrection, is deifying you."

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Of course , if one is not included in the catagories of human, animal, plant or piece of matter that might be another matter.