Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 2): Fear Of Intimacy

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Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 1): Just Friends --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-1.html


Here I continue my series on Dan Brennan's needed book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions.  It might be helpful to read the first part before this one, as I am continuing where I left off.

Dan calls attention to how the actions of Jesus contradict the behaviors of some Christians:


"Jesus intentionally met with women.  He traveled with them, and shared intimate, private conversations with them.  In the presence of others, he pursued new social possibilities thought inappropriate by religious leaders." (25)


In John 4, we see an example of what Brennan refers to: Jesus conversing alone with the Samaritan woman, and conversing about theology in particular.  Despite social pressures against Jews mingling with Samaritans and men interacting with women like this, Jesus did not fear, avoid, or belittle the woman.  Luke 8:1-3 mentions that a group of women travelled with Jesus, at least some of them financially supporting Jesus with their own money--not using the income of men, but their own money.  Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, alone (gasp!!), after his resurrection (see John 20).  Jesus' treatment of women refutes modern evangelical nonsense claims, just as it refuted ancient nonsense claims, about how dangerous it is for men and women to interact as friends or alone, and it also shows that neither men nor women are less capable in theological pursuits than those of the other gender.  The actions of Jesus, even isolated from the moral teachings of Mosaic Law and the later stories of his followers, discredit phobia of the opposite gender.

It is this phobia that can convince some people to sacrifice innocent and desired intimacy for the sake of satisfying observers:


"'Audience' suspicions may generate widespread, though unwarranted and sinful gossip, thereby pressuring some well-meaning friends to avoid innocent outings or engage only in chaperoned interaction without close, public affection." (26)


Christians live for God, not for humans, and yet so many might succumb to fear and submit to the yoke of the extra-Biblical, contra-Biblical demands of others (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Perception does not necessarily amount to anything more than a distorted awareness of what reality actually is beyond the perception.  Where there is no sin, there is nothing wrong with doing as one pleases (1 John 3:4).  It is a testimony to the irrationality of my culture that its members sometimes even see affection in male-male (and female-female) friendships as sexual in some way.  Dan notes the fact that even same gender friendship is sometimes sexualized as follows:


"Long before public gay affection, many Protestant men felt uneasy about the virtue of desire and intimacy in personal friendships." (28)


Unfortunately, in my culture even deep friendship between men and men or women and women can be viewed as romantic or sexual.  The sexualization of friendship does not only touch relationships between men and women, as the stupidity of some people is too extensive.  Even so, these same gender friendships have been the historical norm, although Brennan claims that opposite gender friendships between Christians have existed in all eras of church history.  He says that Catholic named Paul Conner affirms that "there have been intimate, 'fulfilling and complimenting friendships between saintly men and women in every period of Christian history'" (28).  At this point in the book, Dan does not actually give an example of one of these friendships, but, if correct, he is pointing out something that it seems very few people ever know of or acknowledge.

Brennan then writes on how innocent desires can be suspected by Christians as a result of legalistic evangelical paranoia:


"What may be authentic, holy, healthy stirrings, and the longings of a man toward a woman (or a woman toward a man) in embodied friendship love may find opposition from evangelical communities, even if one's spouse welcomes the friendship." (30)


There are so many stupidities involved in culturally-conditioned spousal jealousy about opposite gender friendships.  First of all, there's the numerous fallacies in the wholly false idea that men and women who are not family cannot ever truly be friends that sometimes appears in this kind of jealousy.  Second, why the hell would a person voluntarily marry someone that he or she doesn't trust?  Third, there is nothing sinful about opposite gender friendships, regardless of the marital status of either party (and even regardless of whether or not sexual attraction is present), as Deuteronomy 4:2 and 1 John 3:4 prove, and the Bible is supportive of these friendships--for instance, see what Paul says about his close female friend named Persis in Romans 16:12.  There are so many errors simply in saying that men and women cannot be deeply intimate friends, and there are many more in saying cross-gender friendships are antithetical to or sinful according to Christianity.