I want to thank everyone who jumped into the conversation on the first leg of this series (More Sex, Part 1). Your comments there have helped inform my own, and kept me from making more blunders than those that remain!
The goal in these posts is to answer the question: “Why does sex have to occur within marriage to be considered ethically ‘good’”?
As I answer this question, I have Barth on the brain, and his reflections on the theological precursors to answering questions in particular. And so I want to say at the outset that this is a self-consciously Christian endeavor. And, this is an attempt to describe something like a Christian theology of sex.
Because this is an attempt to describe something like a Christian theology of sex, what I say here will inevitably sound idealistic and unattainable. Whenever we make claims or articulate God’s vision for God’s world, even if we were to articulate a divine purpose with full perfection, we will only be able to see this as our reality as though reflected back through a dim and cloudy mirror.
Articulating a theology of sex, I find myself compelled to walk the line of cultural relevance without necessarily saying something that will ring true with people’s experience–in part because the Christian vision of sex will always not only affirm who we are and what we’ve done but also highlight the ways that we have failed and stand in need of forgiveness, and therefore call us to God to receive both forgiveness and healing.
That dynamic of bringing all areas of our lives under the sway of the resurrected Christ for freedom, healing, forgiveness, and purification, is part of the larger narrative to which that part of us that is sexual belongs.
So I fully anticipate that some of you will respond to what I’m laying out here with something along the lines of, “But the sex I had while married communicated none of those things to me, whereas the sex I’ve had outside of marriage often was those things.” Even sex (or not sex) is a matter of faith and hope in addition to love, and so we will not see or experience clearly everything that might typify sex in a fully redeemed world.
Why, then, sex only within a marriage relationship?
Because at its best, sex is a physical expression of an enduring social, emotional, economic, familial oneness, all of which express the love, faithfulness, hope, and self-control that are the fruit of the Spirit, the embodiment of Christ’s cruciform love for us, and God’s gift as the lavishly faithful God of His/Her people.
I will unpack that paragraph in future episodes.
For now, here is why I have put the matter in this way:
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1. I believe that who the Spirit is making us determines the imperatives for the people of God in a way that our natural desires and inclinations does not. Our calling is to make straight the line between our eschatological, perfect future and our mixed-up, less-than-perfect present.
2. I believe that the idealism, if you would call it that, of faithfulness and self control, as inseparable aspects of the fruit of the Spirit, too often sit on the sidelines in discussions of healthy Christian sex.
3. I believe that the determining story for Christian virtue is the story of Christ-crucified, and that this narrative speaks strongly to both sexual abstinence and to selfless sexual practice.
4. I believe that physical, sexual oneness is one aspect of a holistically healthy relationship that reflects this narrative across all of its dynamics–and at its best tells this story to our partner, (re)creating and affirming the life-long oneness we have promised to each other.
5. I believe that both in the disciplined, patient waiting for a spouse and in the cultivating of sexual fidelity within the marriage relationship we are imitating the God who faithfully endures and waits and persists with God’s people and cultivates a relationship of persistent fidelity even in the face of our persistent wandering.
Storying sex is about much more than listing what’s right and wrong; it’s figuring out how our sex is cast in the narrative that, in all its parts, intends to tell the story of the saving righteousness of God. This is the outline of why I think that is best done in the marriage covenant. I’ll work out more in the next post.
If you haven’t already read it, Rodney Clapp’s “Families At the Crossroads” is a great book to read. What he says very much compliments what you’re saying, as well as shows another facet of what fidelity is about. He confronts our consumer culture and its destructiveness towards all types of relationships, including marriage. He also gives dignity to celibates, giving them an important place in the body of Christ, rather than perpetuating the common attitude that celibate people aren’t part of a family and are not realizing their full potential as humans. He turns those destructive assumptions on their head and seems to reveal the loving heart of God towards celibates. Perhaps his point that I want to emphasize most here is that we cannot approach sex as consumers and expect it to be life giving, for that very approach is life extracting. Sex is, as you say, made to mirror the faithfulness and self-giving of God.
Great start Daniel! Look forward to the rest. LOve the phrase “storying sex” – thanks,
Peace,
Lee
Your 5th and 6th paragraphs sound like Barth … (grins).
Daniel, this is honestly some of the best stuff I have read on this subject – and in such concise (albeit dense) form. Thank you.
Andy
I feel very much out of my league in this forum, but this subject is something I have been wondering about as the generation has rolled over and I see that the present generation of Xn young people are not actually living by these absolutes… well many of them are not, some pretend to be but aren’t and few really are. Todays ‘moral’ young people seem to be dealing fairly well with ‘serial monogamy’ and marrying only when they are happy they have found the ‘right’ one… which is closer to 30 than 20, and they seem to (there are a lot of ‘seem tos’) suffer few ill effects.
This shift has been shaped by other social changes. The ‘accepted’ age for marriage has been rising; singles expect to experience/possess/advance more travel/wealth/career before marrying, it makes sense that one is unlikely to make a good choice of a life-partner much before 30 yrs of age, and yet young people are clearly very sexually driven from their teens. In short there is a serious disjunct between the onset of great sexual interest/need and the likely age of marriage. There is also a serious disjunct between what we advocate for Xn YP and what is actually going on. This has the potential to separate people from their Xn faith and commitment.
I have a lot of Qs that arise out of this conundrum. Being essentially of a pragmatic mindset, I would like to hear opinions on how/whether this decade of their lives can possibly not be lost in public denial/deception and their holistic spirituality only recovered when they are ‘safely’ married. I don’t hear anyone advocating teen marriages again… so what’s the *realistic* alternative?
Because at its best, sex is a physical expression of an enduring social, emotional, economic, familial oneness, all of which express the love, faithfulness, hope, and self-control that are the fruit of the Spirit, the embodiment of Christ’s cruciform love for us, and God’s gift as the lavishly faithful God of His/Her people.
This I take to be your key paragraph and I find nothing here that makes Marriage central to your sexual ethic. I can see how marriage would be a good thing based on the reasons above, but not how marriage would be an obligatory thing, which you have said it is. Lets take each adjective in turn.
Enduring. Without a contract a relationship can be enduring, and the presence of a contract does little to guarantee longevity not only because of divorce but because none of us knows the span of our lives. I know at least 4 homosexual couples who cannot marry because it is illegal in their state and have been faithfully in relationship for over a decade (three decades in one case). I know this is only anecdotal evidence, but I don’t need to prove that it is common place, only that it is possible for relationships to be enduring without marriage.
Emotional. I don’t know anyone who would argue that marriage makes the emotional connection superior. Only patience and hard work can improve that emotional connection. Plenty of old married couples live as little better than roommates.
Economic. Legally I suppose there are economic ramifications to marriage that there aren’t to other relationships, but what does the law have to do with shaping our theology? People may be economically entwined without being married.
Familial Oneness. Here I think scripture deeply problematizes your argument because it is FULL of examples of people becoming family without contracts or blood ties. Rahab. Hagar. Even Jesus is adopted by Joseph (which in Luke is the only way he comes into the line of David). Jesus calls his disciples his family and at times seems to reject the primacy of his own family by blood. Adoption is a key theme in scripture. My own family has long brought strays and weirdos into our extended clan – couch-surfers who are as much our family as anyone genetically related to us. Familial connection can and does occur in sexual relationships without marriage.
Expressive of Love, Faithfulness, Hope and Self-Control… surely all of these things are possible in an unmarried sexual relationship?
Embodying Christ’s cruciform love. What about marriage makes it exclusively able to turn sex into something other-centered, self-sacrificial, and gracious? Furthermore, Christ’s grace is profligate, raining on righteous and sinner alike. Wouldn’t we expect sexual expression modeled on Christ’s grace to defy social conventions and boundaries and to raise up the disgraced and unclean? I’m not arguing for promiscuity here, but isn’t it odd to think of sexual expression as being Christ-like and then to imagine it restricted by rigid boundaries of purity?
Embodying God’s lavish love of his/her people. Who are you Israel? Aren’t you like the Ethiopians to me? Didn’t God send Jonah to Ninevah? God’s love of Israel is certainly lavish, but hardly monogamous. Again it seems strange to say that our sexual expression is modeled on God’s love of Israel and then to say that it is bound within marriage when God’s love of Israel moves out to all the nations.
I agree with you in all of what you say is good about sex. I even agree that all of this is possible in marriage, but don’t agree that marriage is what makes it possible or that it would be impossible in other relationships. I think you start with your conclusion and reason from there instead of looking around to see that many people are experiencing love and grace in sexual relationships that confound your expectations.