‘If the church were Christian’ – 9
If the church were Christian, writes Phillip Gulley, ‘It would care more about love and less about sex.’
The church, apparently, is obsessed with sex. It frowns on sex outside marriage, divorce, dancing and (especially) homosexuality. Indeed, it finds the whole subject distasteful.
This anxiety about sex probably has two causes: Victorian mores and ‘the apostle Paul’s obvious aversion to marriage’. Contrast Paul’s ‘sour assessment of intimacy’ with the delight and joy of the Song of Solomon.
And why are so many Christians so fearful and hostile about the issue of homosexuality? Where is the logic and grace? Why do we treat these people so harshly that we make their disclosure of their orientation almost impossible?
So, again, with the issue divorce. Even if a woman finds herself married to an abusive and controlling husband, the church will reject her if she files for divorce.
The church simply is not a credible witness in this area:-
‘The horrific abuse of children by priests, the elevation of lifelong celibacy as a spiritual virtue, the all-too-predictable sexual recklessness of prominent evangelicals, and the continued insistence that homosexuals can be “cured,” reveal an understanding of sexuality that is both immature and uninformed. The church’s failure to develop, model, and articulate a healthy perception of sex confirms the suspicion of many modern people that the church is not a credible witness to the reality of life.’
If the church is to recover a healthy attitude towards sex, then it needs to reconsider ‘the myths that inform our tradition’. The Adam and Eve story is wrong to teach that nudity is a source of shame. Jesus went out of his way to extend grace to the sexually suspect. But the early church deemed it impossible for Jesus himself to have been conceived in the usual way, and so came to the incredible conclusion that his mother must have been a virgin.
It is time for the church to move away from its preoccupation with archaic sexual codes and towards an ethic of live. The old morality simply does not work. Divorce rates are at least as high amongst conservative Christians as they are amongst others. And then, if evangelical Christians divorce, they often suffer rejection from their faith communities, rather than receiving care and support.
So what might a Christian couple do? They
‘could join a church that values mutual love over slavish obedience to a sexual ethos so rigid even the most scrupulous persons will eventually run afoul of it. That community could help the couple discern what it means to love, could help them embrace a sexuality that is at once gracious, mature, and life enriching, not to mention enjoyable. That community would care less whether the couple were straight or gay and would care more about faithfulness and mutual support. If that couple did divorce, it could help them navigate the territory of grief and loss, assist their growth in self-awareness, and equip them to engage in future relationships more thoughtfully.’
Gulley notes that while he would not advocate ‘an uncritical acceptance of any and all forms of sexual expressions’, the church need to grow up in this regard. If it fails to do so,
‘Sexual intimacy will continue to be a taboo topic; abuse will remain part and parcel of the church experience for some of our women, youth, and children; gay people will continue to be spurned, divorced people will be rejected, and those faithful couples who don’t believe a formal church ceremony can make their bond any deeper will continue to be less valued. In the end, the only people comfortable in such a church will be the emotionally and sexually repressed. People searching for fullness of life and joy, for a relevant and reasonable faith, will look elsewhere, probably to those spiritual movements whose worldviews have advanced beyond puberty.’
Response
I note, with Michael Kruger, that Gulley’s approach is rather familiar. It tells people what they want to hear: that their questionable behaviour is not only OK, but is actually morally superior to that of those nasty evangelical curtain-twitchers.
1. Tout the moral virtues of those in sexual sin
Gulley presents us with a story of an elderly couple, both of whose spouses have died, who are living together because they can’t afford to get married. They are kind and loving people. So (concludes Gulley) how can it be wrong for them to cohabit?
Observe Gulley’s strategy: Not for the first time, he takes the mildest example of ‘sin’, and opposes it with the harshest example of bigotry, and he thinks he’s made his point. I think that this is manipulative; cynical, even.
And, in any case, a wrong isn’t made right when nice people do it.
2. Insist that God has bigger things to worry about
This is to trivialise God’s holy character, at to set ourselves up in his place, as arbiters of what is important, and what is unimportant. It is not the God of the Bible, who, as Kruger says,
‘talks a good bit about sexual activity and sexual sin. And that’s not just because God is prudish and “old school,” but because sexual sin hits at the heart of our humanity. It also hits against the way marriage reflects the union of Christ and his church.’
3. Claim that wrong behaviour can lead to good outcomes
Gulley argues that cohabitation (in the example he gives at the beginning of this chapter) must be OK, because it solves problems such as loneliness. The end justifies the means. Consequentialism rules. Except that even Gulley wouldn’t apply it to every situation: presumably, he doesn’t think that the need to pay my mortgage justifies my robbing a bank.
What Gulley does not mention (neither does Kruger) is that the ‘good’ outcomes of wrong behaviour are at best temporary, and at worst delusory. The breakdown of the doctrine of marriage as a life-long partnership between a man and a woman, and the best (and only) setting for sexual intimacy) has been leading to unspeakably bad outcomes for men, women, and children in all kinds of ways. On these, Gulley is silent.
4. Portray those who hold other views as mean-spirited and cruel
Every good story needs a villain or two, and Gulley’s has plenty, in the form of traditionalist Christians – especially evangelicals. He seems to have no concept that their views can be held without undue bitterness or anger. It is they, not those they love to criticise and condemn, who have the problem. Completely missing from Gulley’s account is the idea that sin harms people, and that to confront sin may, in fact, be a most loving thing to do.
5. Insist that Jesus is on your side
Gulley pits Jesus against the ‘traditionalists’. So we are reminded of how accepting Jesus was of the sinful woman who anointed him. What he fails to mention, however, is that the woman came to him in penitence, and what she received was not mere acceptance, but forgiveness (Luke 7:47!
There is another serious problem, not mentioned by Michael Kruger. It is this. Time and again, Gulley seeks to privilege the teaching of Jesus over that of the rest of the Bible (in this chapter, over the teaching of early Genesis about the ‘shame’ of nakedness, and the teaching of Paul about the benefits of singleness). But even in this regard Gulley is painfully selective.
‘Remember [he writes in a footnote] that the sexual code described in the New Testament (Matthew 5:28–29) holds equally guilty those who desire sexual activity with a woman and those who achieve it. It further advises those who look upon a woman with lust to pluck out their eyes rather than risk the fires of hell.’
But this is a reference to the teaching of Jesus himself! In fact, if Gulley were to pay a little more attention to the broad sweep of Jesus’ teaching, then he would refrain from presenting it as if it were a clone of his own.
Gulley, Philip. If the Church Were Christian. HarperOne. Kindle Edition. Chapter 9.