The Difference Christ Makes: Sex
By David Gushee, McAfee School of Theology, Atlanta, GA
Note: This article is adapted from the first of three lectures delivered at Missouri Baptist University, October 20-22, 2009.
When you get invited to give lectures to a college campus, you have to decide right away who you are speaking to—the president, the faculty, or the students. And you have to decide how you are going to speak: academic lecture, sermon, or something other than either one.
Well, with the blessing of your president, I am supposed to speak to you—to students. That’s great, because that’s what I most like to do anyway.
And as for how to speak to you—well, I think that I want to go for something more like a talk. Just you and me talking, as if we were sitting on the front porch on a Saturday afternoon. More specifically, it will be an intergenerational talk, because by now I am exactly one generation older than you guys. And it will be a talk that each time has three movements. I will begin with some kind of really honest description of what I think is going on in American culture in relation to some subject—the first one being sex. Then I will try to review with you what the Bible and the Christian tradition have said about that subject. Each time we will see an obvious gap between contemporary culture and historic faith. Finally I will offer some practical suggestions about “the Difference Christ Makes” or ought to make, for you in this area of life. In every case I will try to be totally honest and realistic and not hide behind any safe Christian platitudes or religious talk.
Sex and American Culture
America is a country largely liberated from an earlier conservatism, often called “prudishness,” about sex. This came about as a result of the conscious efforts of numerous social reformers during the 20th century, and especially the 1960s and 1970s, who believed that sex is one of life’s highest goods, that the repression of sexual desires was bad for people psychologically, that it was unrealistic to confine sex to marriage, and that it would be a very good thing to use birth control to disentangle sex from the risk of pregnancy.
Certain specific groups were especially committed to sexual liberation. Among these were women who led the feminist movement. Some of these leaders believed that our country’s sexual mores were especially repressive for women, taught women to fear sex rather than enjoy it, and saddled women with the risk of pregnancy when it could easily be avoided by regular and easy access to birth control.
Psychologists and psychiatrists were among those who were concerned that sexual repression wreaked havoc on people’s emotional lives. Sigmund Freud was merely the first of many when he attributed much personal and social misery to the repression of the sexual drive, in which people often felt guilt and little joy even in having sex in marriage.
Eventually a large community of Christian ministers, theologians, and moral thinkers argued for a rethinking of sex. They wanted it to be seen less as a means to an end—sex makes babies, babies are good, therefore sex must be at least OK—to instead viewing sex as an end in itself. This meant that sex should be viewed as a good gift from a God who must really want us to enjoy ourselves, and also that sex is good in the way it draws us closer to our sexual partner—it makes love grow between sexual partners and this is itself a good thing.
A very different group coalesced around the idea that breaking the sex and marriage connection was an important goal. Some favored the breaking of this connection because they were in favor of anything that weakened the hold of historic Christian values on a population that they sincerely hoped would become increasingly secular. A growing population of single and divorced people and their advocates increasingly argued that confining sex to marriage was an archaic, old fashioned idea in a society like ours in which marriage was declining. And it wasn’t long before the gay rights movement argued either for the legitimacy of sex outside of hetero marriage, or for inclusion in marriage for gays.
And of course there was the discovery of sex by the advertisers and businesses of America, who knew that sex sells. Loosening sexual morals would mean greater tolerance for selling products on the basis of what used to be called sex appeal. Eventually, the dramatic reshaping of American attitudes toward sex meant that sex itself, and not just sex appeal, could increasingly be sold on the open market—as with the marketing of thinly veiled or quite open sexual services on internet sites, like “sensual massage.”
Popular culture certainly got in on the act. In the 1950s, Elvis Presley was seen as shocking for his gyrating hips. By the 1970s, Donna Summer sure sounded like she was in the act of having sex as she moaned out “Love to Love You Baby.” Now even the “censored” versions of the rap songs my daughter sometimes likes to listen to communicate how much the singer would like to make love in the club, or alternatively, that he is into having sex, not into making love. Very little is left to the imagination concerning what the singers would like to do to the women hanging out in the club or the escalade with them, from what angles, and for how much money.
Some raw sociological facts have contributed to the apparent crash and burn of the sex within marriage morality still articulated by most Christian leaders. Probably the most important is that people keep delaying marriage. It was one thing to tell kids to just say no until they got married, as I did, at 22. That was excruciating enough, and I can tell you that the years between 13 and 22 were more or less insanity producing from the sexual frustration or sexual sin side, as far as I was concerned. But now with average ages of first marriage climbing to the mid to upper 20s, and with many people not marrying at all, our message that sex belongs within marriage is bumping up against hard demographic realities. The data clearly show that the number of people who have Just Said No drops with every year of life. The Christian who refrains from sex till the age of 26 or whatever is definitely in the minority.
Society likes to poke fun at that relatively small demographic of (generally Christian) abstainers. One favorite scenario is film or TV depictions of chastity or celibacy clubs, and then perhaps the hypocrisy and failures of those in them. This happened again this fall on the hilarious new show Glee, a family favorite despite its problems, in which the head of the Celibacy Club, Quinn, is now pregnant, and not even with her boyfriend’s baby. Great fun for all.
Speaking of unwanted pregnancy, the ‘60s sexual revolutionaries assured their contemporaries that looser sexual mores would not be a problem because of the magic of birth control, especially the pill. Every woman would just go on the pill, or every man would wear a condom, or both, and after that only those who wanted to get pregnant would ever have to get pregnant. But even now, 40 years later, half of all pregnancies are unintended—partly from birth control failures, and partly from failure to use birth control. And just under half of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion. This is almost universally recognized as bad, even by those who favor our current abortion laws, because of the recognition that an unwanted pregnancy creates a great and terrible crisis in especially a young woman’s life, and quite possibly for the man, for both families, and overall, for society.
So here as 2010 dawns America finds itself in what now feels like a cultural stalemate on these issues. We are not willing as a society to put the genie back in the bottle—we will be a sexually liberated and open society and people will be free to have sex with whoever they want, as long as there is consent and everyone is of age. Meanwhile, we will encourage young people to be responsible with their sexuality and to use birth control rather than risk pregnancy. We also warn young people about disease. Even though AIDS is not quite the problem here that it was a few decades ago, rates of other STDs like syphilis and Chlamydia are on the rise. Many unwanted pregnancies will occur—many of them will be dealt with through legalized abortion, which is ever more deeply entrenched.
People who love each other or even like each other a whole lot will be expected, and expect, to have sex, regardless of marital status. And many sad songs and movies will be written by and about people who got their hearts broken in sexual and romantic relationships that didn’t quite work out, as in the funny, sad, romantic comedy tragedy that we most enjoyed at our house this year, “500 Days of Summer.” Or for a somewhat older demographic: “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Sex is assumed; relationships are fragile; hearts are broken; then everyone tries again, scars and all, until they get lucky or give up.
Historic Christian Faith on Sexual Morality
And amidst that culture people will go to church and may hear something like this there. It will strike them as very odd: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits is outside his body, but the one who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Cor 6:18-20)
For Paul, as for Jesus, as for all writers and teachers in the New Testament, sexual immorality consists of any sexual activity outside of the male-female marriage relationship. Marriage is the only place where sexual contact is permissible. There it is not just permissible but required, because the spouses in consenting to marriage have renounced total personal autonomy over their own bodies. In marriage, the body is a gift each spouse offers to the other to meet each other’s needs for emotional and physical intimacy. It is also the context in which children are to be conceived, born, and raised.
But culture will ask the church, “What about all those broiling sexual desires that we have when we are at the stage of life in which we are not married?” Here Jesus and Paul will simply say: “Deal with it.” Either get married, or learn the techniques of “fleeing from sexual immorality.” Jesus talked about it under the astonishing language of gouging out the offending eye and cutting off the offending hand. This is hyperbole for running as far away from the source of sexual temptation as possible. Both Jesus and Paul (perhaps Jesus more than Paul) seem convinced that living without sexual intercourse is possible; maybe not easy, but possible. Self-control is one of the gifts of the Spirit and it is self-control that is needed here. In this sense sex outside of God’s will is not that different from numerous other appealing things we might like to do but should not, like stealing that nice car that someone left unlocked or giving in to a fit of rage when we are really, really angry.
But why? Why is sex such a big deal? Why not bend a little on this one?
The Bible offers a variety of explanations as to why this is, in fact, a legitimately big deal, at least for those who claim to be followers of Christ.
For Paul, if you look at the longer passage in 1 Corinthians 6, sexual sin violates the integrity not just of the individual’s body but of the body of Christ—of which the individual Christian is a member. If I as a Christian use my body for sexual sin, I am sinning against my own body, I am sinning against Christ, and I am also sinning against the body of Christ corporately—that is, my brothers and sisters who believe in Christ.
But this involves a sense of common identity and love for our fellow Christians that is quite elusive in our own individualistic society. It involves the ability to think—in the heat of the moment—that if I do this thing, I am sinning against everyone who bears the name of Christ, to whom I am related as a fellow member of the body of Christ.
That may seem like a stretch. But it fits a bit better with the contemporary scene if we listen to this other instruction from Paul. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother [or sister] or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish people for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject people but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.” (1 Thess 4:3-8)
So here we have the same call for the Christian person to be holy and self-controlled, and the same emphasis on the body being for God and not just for ourselves.
But what’s new is the emphasis on not wronging another person: Employ the gender-specific terms in this sentence that best fit your situation. For me, it would be: “That in this matter no one should wrong his sister or take advantage of her.” This means at least the following: what I do with my body sexually affects not only me, and not only all members of the body of Christ, but the specific human being who I am with. She is my sister (in Christ), and she is not to be wronged by my use of my body. And this really, really matters to Christ, who commands above all that we love people rather than harm them. (Paul goes on to say that directly.)
This is a very realistic warning. Because of the mysterious one-flesh nature of sex, and the self-revealing vulnerability of nakedness and intimacy, people become vulnerable to one another here in a way that does not occur anywhere else. Paul here says that to take advantage of someone’s naked vulnerability in sex is a grave wrong. How many movies, TV shows, and songs are about exactly that? Sometimes these are about men who give themselves away only to find that they have been used and abandoned; that was how 500 Days of Summer worked out. More often it is about women used up and abandoned, which was more often the theme of He’s Just Not That Into You, and seems more often like what happens in life.
The Difference Christ Makes
So here we have the first of our three great clashes that we will consider in these three lectures. American culture has abandoned the sexual ethic in which sex belongs only in a lifetime marriage, and has replaced it with either an ethic of sex is for fun, just be safe, or sex is for love, just be sure you really love and are loved. For those keeping score at home I call these the “mutual consent ethic,” and the “loving relationship ethic,” respectively.
Classic Christian sexual morality still teaches that sex belongs in marriage. Some Christian leaders and teachers have abandoned this ethic, but most, at least in our evangelical, Baptist, and official Catholic world—have not.
Christians today—you, personally, my students, my children—have to decide whether you will go with the contemporary American ethic in one of its two forms or the classic Christian sexual ethic.
I do not know what you will choose. I know that I chose the classic Christian sexual ethic. But I can tell you that it wasn’t easy. I struggled mightily. It was indispensable that beginning at 19 I dated and eventually married Jeanie Grant, a woman who was steadfastly committed to this ethic and who resisted me when my resolve on this issue grew weak—and yet with whom I enjoyed plenty of affection and lots of hope of great sexual intimacy later.
It helped a lot that I was in a Christian subculture in which this ethic was still largely taught and widely attempted, at least. It helped that we didn’t wait forever to get married. And 25 years later, Jeanie and I have only been with each other and enjoy a wonderful marriage. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the same self-control required to abstain from sex before marriage was available and put to good use to abstain from sex with anyone other than each other. Now we are so welded to each other after 25 years that being with anyone else in any way is inconceivable. What a joyful ride.
A pattern becomes visible here that will surface on the other two topics I will address—and on many others:
- Cultural practices in our own nation sometimes stray profoundly from God’s plan.
- We must never assume that just because something is done in our culture that it is okay for Christians to do it.
- Christians must be the kinds of people whose fluency with biblical teaching and values enables us to clearly tell the difference between cultural practices and biblical values.
- Cultural practices that stray from God’s plan end up hurting people a lot, and this hurt is also expressed by the same culture, in media and in, for example, the number of people on antidepressants. We need to pay attention to those cries of pain and learn from them. They can be a bridge that can help us explain Christian beliefs.
On the matter of sexual morality, changing cultural patterns have mainly brought less stable relationships, more sex-related heartbreak, more exploitation of women, more unwanted pregnancy, more abortion, and a weakening of marriage as an institution.
Christians need to develop a counterculture in which we reinforce biblical values with one another and learn to live differently from the world around us where necessary, as in this case. As we embody—not just talk about, but live out—a different way of life, we bear powerful witness to those around us of the difference that Christ makes.
