Sex is certainly sacred in the Christian worldview. That claim itself sparks little controversy, if any. But dig deeper and many Christians draw false and illogical conclusions from this fact, conclusions that hurt people. At the root of many misunderstandings about sexuality one can often find either worship or fear of it--both of which are utterly inadequate reactions to the nature of sexuality. And sexuality encompasses far more than just sex; sex is only an activity people can engage in with their bodies but sexuality encompasses all the mental, emotional, personal, and existential aspects of being a sexual being. Someone can experience sexuality and what it means to be a sexual being without ever having sex. One is but a subset within the other. And sex is indeed sacred--but let me explain some things that do not follow from this. I want to summarize why sex is not ultimately taboo topic, sexual legalism is erroneous, sex is not everything and not in everything, and why it is nothing to either worship or fear.
Sex is sacred, but there is no logical or Biblical reason to make open discussion about sexuality and sexual issues and morality taboo. This is actually very stupid because pretending like these discussion topics are taboo intentionally creates an environment that allows and perhaps even encourages assumptions, errors, and questions regarding sexuality to go undetected and therefore unidentified and, as a result, unaddressed. No, the Bible does not prohibit talk about these matters. And why would it? Sexual feelings and desires are objectively good in themselves (apart from forms of these desires which are explicitly defined as sinful by Scripture and what follows purely logically from its contents) according to accurate Christian theology and the Bible never treats sexuality as a taboo subject or says to not talk about it in public, in church, in mixed company, and so on. Indeed, it is rather open about discussing sexuality, as I suspect many more people would be if they feared ignorance and error more than petty social judgments made against them for doing something that doesn't meet the approval of people's arbitrary, subjective, trivial emotional preferences.
Sex is sacred, but sexual legalism is still built on fallacies and contra-Biblical principles. Out of an admirable desire to emphasize a Biblical truth, some Christians resort to very unbiblical measures to do so. They impose arbitrary extra-Biblical rules on others that are not grounded in reality. God has revealed what is defined as sexual immorality and has commanded us to not add to his revelation (Deuteronomy 4:2), yet both permissible sexual and nonsexual behaviors get targeted by sexual legalists [1]. Behaviors that are not sinful in themselves, like masturbation [2], and that are not even sexual in themselves, like admiring nudity (whether in art or real life), are claimed to be evil or dangerous by those who straw man the concepts and know little of either reason or Scripture. All the emotional appeals, appeals to tradition, appeals to popularity, non sequiturs, circular reasoning, and question-begging of every sexual legalist will not change that things that are not morally wrong are not morally wrong.
Sex is sacred, but it is not everything. And it is not in everything. Not everyone needs to get married, and not everyone elevates sex to a status where everything else revolves around it. I'm tired of the bullshit legalism that implicitly teaches this. After all, it is no wonder that Christians who see everything, or even many things, as involving an actual or likely sexual component begin to fear sexuality and unleash a legion of non sequiturs and extra-Biblical idiotic beliefs--that men and women can't or shouldn't be friends, that they shouldn't be alone together (unless married), that they shouldn't look at or admire each other, that the human body is wicked and sinful, that people want to sleep with every attractive member of the opposite gender they see, and so forth. These Christians may begin to hallucinate imaginary ways that sexuality motivates nonsexual acts and see it everywhere. In truth, the only thing that is objectively sexual is a sex act. Nothing else is sexual by default--but that doesn't keep American culture and some American churches, unfortunately, from sexualizing just about every damn thing. Really, life is objectively more difficult and confining when you try to avoid reality by coming up with this nonsense.
Sex is sacred, but it is not something to worship or fear. Sex is a created thing; it is not the uncaused cause and thus not God. Sex was created by God to be pleasurable and of great spiritual significance, and thus it is not something to fear. People who worship or fear sexuality may find themselves exhausted and drained by the way that their attitudes towards it simply do not align with the nature of sexuality itself. The highest function of sexuality is to help illustrate something more. Sexuality is one of many things that can remind humans of their mental/spiritual side. The intimacy and desires associated with sexuality are but, in a sense, spiritual foreplay for far greater pleasures to come. The sacredness of sex does not render sex in particular or sexuality in general something that needs to be feared or worshipped.
I hope that society and the church as a whole will come to the point where they understand each of these things. The sacredness of something does not mean that a thing has to be judged as indecent for conversation, as appearing everywhere, or as an object of fright.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/sexual-legalism.html
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/myths-about-masturbation.html
No comments:
Post a Comment