As promised, I am writing my thoughts on gender and sexuality in light of the world we live in today.
I have also realized that I hardly know enough to be writing on the subject. There is one main thing I have realized as I have been looking into this subject over the past few weeks.
The problems within the evangelical church with sexuality and gender are not the root problem. The bigger problem is that Christians have no idea how to interact within modern society. Yesterday I put up this video
Christians are behind the times in the sense that they still believe there is a scientific method. Lee Smolin, in the video above, admits that schools still teach the above model as if we can somehow prove our hypotheses right or wrong. Smolin’s view of science is quite different when he says, “Both the scientific and the democractic processes require reasoning from shared, but incomplete, evidence to limited, but ever expanding, consensus.” The rest of the world has moved away from the idea that there is a “right” and a “wrong.” Christians, whether they agree with this model or not, have to engage with these types of philosophies on a regular basis.
What has this to do with sexuality? Everything! Teens today define sexuality based on consensus. In the overused church metaphor, students are entering into quite serious relationships at very young ages and, oftentimes, Christian teens have been taught in church about “the one.” These teens begin thinking (somewhat inevitably) that this other person they have met is “the one” because they have been taught, mostly by the tradition of their faith communities, that they will “just know” when the right person comes along. All this speech of “the one” and “just knowing” provide horrible advice for teenagers who are often more prone to make decisions based on feelings. Knowing someone is “the one” or “feeling right” about the person or “just knowing” are often based on subjective feelings of rationalization.
Because these students live in a society of consensus, they and their partner move further and further down sexual lines until it becomes normal for them both to consent to sex on a regular basis. Our culture of consensus has led to sex becoming something that is defined first within ourselves and then in negotiation with our partner. Our larger communities have no say in our sex life. Our parents are left out of the picture, as are the leaders in our churches, and it becomes something individualistic between the two in the relationship.
What then is the key?
Perhaps it is the rebuilding of Christian community so that teens do not enter into an island of individualistic love which often ends for them in heartache.
After reading what Mark Driscoll said about Australia, I began thinking I should listen to his podcasts to make sure that I was not treating the guy unfairly. This week his sermon was a continuing series on ‘the song of songs’ coming to a portion of scripture known as ‘the dance of Mahanaim.’ It was a sermon on sexuality in the highly erotic biblical book.
I have to begin with the positives of the sermon. Ironically, the end of his sermon provided the strongest part of his sermon. He talked about how porn is destroying the marriage relationship, how men are sometimes too negative, and how performance and fear can sometimes get in the way of a healthy marriage. We do need to recognize that porn is destroying our nation and that the ‘performance’ being all important (as touted in most Hollywood sex scenes) sets an impossibly high standard.
But Driscoll also had an extremely high number of unnerving points in his sermon that made me squirm in my seat. Making the same mistakes as evangelical pastors (such as those who propogate the myth that Charles Darwin recanted on his death bed), he makes a blanket statement, supported with no ‘biblical’ evidence, saying “all men are visual.” It took me a total of five seconds to search on google to find a scientific study that disproved this pop myth social theory, but Driscoll used no scientific studies to back up his claim that “all men are visual.” What is more unnerving is that Driscoll, who is known for using the bible to back up his claims, cited no scripture either in support of his “fact” that men are visual. I am not a fan of proof-texting, but I would think that Driscoll would cite some scripture if he is going to make a claim on half of the human race.
He goes on to make the extremely sexist statement, informed by his “masculine” view on the world, that:
“Men are in a fight every minute of every day. Women don’t understand this.”
Perhaps some don’t, but most do. Most women are also in a struggle every minute of their lives. But this is not the main point. The main problem with saying this is it indirectly encourages sin. When Driscol uses the blanket word “men” and says “fight,” those men who may not feel the same way as Driscoll are now ostracized in his community. What’s more? Women feel that it is abnormal to struggle everyday with sexual issues. Driscoll is institutionalizing the sin that he hates by doing this. Some may think I am being extreme here, but there is a better way to deal with this topic:
Make this a human issue instead of a men’s issue.
Driscoll also keeps mentioning “lust” without defining it. The largest problem in discussing sexuality is the lack of terminology that pastors “assume” people already understand. Then they make analogies like Driscoll made in the sermon to explain Lust. He suggests that looking at a women and considering her beautiful is not lust, but looking back at her a second time is lust. He has just created the arbitrary sin of looking twice at a women. Thus we created men who are afraid to look at women………..
We have to come up with better terms for lust than this. I have many more qualms with the article, but I would first like to open up discussion here:
What is lust and why is it a sin? I’m hoping that people will be as specific as possible. This is a very important topic.
