Entries in this series:
Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 1): Just Friends --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-1.html
Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 2): Fear Of Intimacy --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-2.html
Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 3): The Romantic Myth --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-3.html
Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 4): Nonromantic Oneness --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-4.html
In this part of my series on Dan Brennan's book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions, I will cover Brennan's focus on how Christian ideas--and rationality--reject Freudian interpretations of human behaviors and impulses as often or primarily sexual, as well as the kinds of relationships self-identifying Christians once condemned as unnatural. Dan affirms that it is a travesty for Christians to succumb to the fallacies of Freud:
"Yet, the story of Christ must not allow Freud to have the final word on sexuality and friendship." (42)
That this statement is controversial in some circles is a testament to the stupidity of some Christians. Jesus, the one who came so that the truth might set us free (John 8:32), can emancipate us from unbiblical ideas about both friendship and sexuality, which have unfortunately permeated some churches. His own interactions with women help demonstrate the asinine nature of the paranoia some Christians display towards the opposite gender. Some Christian leaders tell us to be like Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), and rightly so, only to rebuke or caution people who then do just that! If only men and women as a whole would see each other as the metaphysical equals (Genesis 1:26-27) and beings with multifaceted personhood that they are, they would cease to relate to each other out of suspicion, fear, misunderstanding, stereotyping, and irrationality. They would relate to each other in peace and in truth. What a blessing that would be! A Freudian understanding of sexuality is riddled with fallacies and errors, whether or not Christianity is true.
It remains true, despite the absorption of Freudian beliefs into the worldviews of some, that practically all behaviors and longings in themselves have nothing to do with sex or sexuality:
"Not all attraction is romanticized, not all beauty is romanticized, not all yearning for another is romanticized, not all physical pleasure is romanticized, and not all extraordinary closeness is romanticized." (45)
There is absolutely nothing sexual about beauty, the human body, admiration of beauty, emotional closeness, and relational attraction. A society of rationalists would have no problem acknowledging this regularly, but America is not a society based on genuine rationalism, and one way that this lack of rationality manifests is in how some Americans view and act towards sexuality. Expecting sexuality to appear out of every relational crevice, every encounter with non-family members of the opposite gender, or every aesthetic judgment that a man or woman is beautiful is entirely fallacious. Once someone recognizes this, then he or she can appreciate the opposite gender friendships of his or her spouse for the gifts they are:
"If it is possible in mutual delight, in mutual empowerment, in mutual desire to love each other distinctively in a Christian marriage, then a husband or wife might see a rich, meaningful, affectionate, and intimate love in cross-sex friendship as a gift from God and something morally excellent and beautiful for the sake of their spouse, community, and the kingdom." (46)
Ironically, if a married person has an intimate, thriving friendship with someone of the opposite gender, he or she likely has a healthier marriage than someone who doesn't. After all, if a husband and wife reject fallacies, abhor legalism, and rightly understand reality, their welcoming of the other's opposite gender friendships communicates trust and peace within the marriage. Spouses who deny their partners opposite gender friendships almost certainly have two problems in many cases: 1) they likely have difficulty recognizing the whole personhood of the opposite gender, possibly projecting their own insecurities and moral problems into how they see their partners, and 2) they likely do not have a relationship with each other that is as deep as it should be.
Brennan compares how some Christians perceive opposite gender friendships to how some Christians--or perhaps "Christians"--used to perceive interracial marriages:
"For hundreds of years, interracial marriages held something in common with some popular perceptions of transmarital cross-sex friendships: they were socially inappropriate relationships deemed unbiblical and against the nature of the created order as the community understood it." (49)
Of course, these are the arbitrary, fallacious beliefs of irrational cultures; there is nothing less than acceptable about interracial dating, interracial marriage, or opposite gender friendships. Anytime someone tells you that God condemns some practice that the Bible never condemns, simply draw that person's attention to Deuteronomy 4:2, Romans 7:7, and 1 John 3:4. Brennan goes on to explain how the 1800s and 1900s saw opposition to interracial romantic relationships in the name of God's alleged natural order. To say that God prohibits or is disgusted by men and women of different ethnicities dating and marrying each other is heresy. Likewise, it is asinine to think that God prohibits or discourages male-female friendships. As modern Christians know, attitudes against interracial marriages are not favored by the American church at this point in time, highlighting how purely subjective (and purely contra-Biblical) the outrage against them was to begin with:
"It is rare now for Christian institutions in America to forbid interracial dating or marriage. What seemed unnatural to the culture for generations is now accepted by many contemporary Christians as good." (51)
This shifting set of ethical views is the inevitable result of Christians not being theonomists. When they do not derive their moral framework purely from the Bible (conscience and social consensus are purely arbitrary and fallacious grounds for moral beliefs anyway), they often inescapably violate the Bible's command to not add to its commands (Deuteronomy 4:2) and thus foster epistemologically unsound moral beliefs, false guilt, and relativistic lifestyles. Yahweh never opposed things like interracial marriage or opposite gender friendships because they do not contradict his nature, and there is no moral standard beyond his nature. These things display beautiful attributes of God's character, like love, to all who observe them. After all, God loves people regardless of their race and gender, and thus humans are obligated to do the same (Ephesians 5:1). Where there is no law, there is no sin (1 John 3:4), and where there is no sin people are free to do whatever they desire.
Tradition-based gender expectations can condition people against or away from opposite gender friendships, such as by encouraging men and women to occupy separate social spheres:
"This traditional view of normative gender roles in homes no churches pushes many people into stories of conventional conformity when it comes to women and gender issues . . . In the 1950's, for example, women were urged to stay at home rather than work outside the home . . ." (52)
Sexist social structures like the 1950's workplace largely meant that men and women were not in personal relationships with each other outside of brother-sister, child-parent, or husband-wife relationships. This gender segregation is not supported by Scripture. A consequence of it is that men and women who pursued non-romantic/sexual relationships outside of social norms were viewed with suspicion. In such a world, women who became friends with men other than their husbands, and vice versa, are called out as destructive influences:
"In this traditional model, women are perceived as threatening the stability of the family if they form and nurture a transmarital, paired cross-gender friendship." (52)
Interestingly, I've noticed a strong correlation (I did not say causal relationship) between people in my life being complementarian and having some degree of fear of the opposite gender [1], as evidenced by the way that they avoid, warn against, or distrustingly view the opposite gender. Complementarianism in the lives of those around me has often nurtured legalism (of course, complementarianism itself without any add-ons is entirely legalism) that hinders the relationships of the people in question with members of the opposite gender, and this is hugely problematic.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/fear-byproduct-of-complementarian.html
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