Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice Love
by
Viola Larson
I have always read the whole of any book I have written about, but last
night after reading Scott Haldeman’s essay, ‘Receptivity and Revelation: A
Spirituality of Gay Male Sex,” in _Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality As
Justice-Love _I was sick at heart and laid the book aside. The book edited
by Marvin M. Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, uses the controversial 1991
Presbyterian study ‘Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality, Spirituality,
and Social Justice” as a foundation for most of the essays. The book
attempts to redefine several biblical concepts; the most important one
redefined is the being of God. After laying the book aside, as I was
attempting to fall asleep, the lines from a hymn, ‘O thou who changest not,
abide with me” continually ran through my mind. The God who changest not,
but who changes us, is not the God worshipped by the authors of this book of
essays. They are advocating pagan gods; gods formed out of human experience,
in particular, sexual experience.
There are some issues of interest in this book The debate over
‘essentialist” versus ‘social constructionist” views of sexuality is
addressed by Carter Hayward in her article ‘We’re Here, We’re Queer.” This
is where feminist ideas about human nature, post modernist ideas and liberal
attempts to say homosexuality is natural come into varying kinds of
conflict. As Carter writes, ‘Nonetheless, by their proclamations that
homosexuality and heterosexuality are essentially unchanging and
unchangeable, theologians like Perry and McNeill unwittingly made it
difficult for progressive Christians to understand sexuality as, often, a
more nuanced dimension of our life together, a dimension that is at least
partly constructed culturally.”(83) However, for the biblical Christian,
neither argument is helpful since the essentialist view means there is no
transformation from a gay lifestyle and the social constructionist view
means there is no dividing line between gay and straight.
Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos in her article, ‘How To Read What We Read,”
states ‘Prescriptions for and descriptions of sexual conduct, including
those for same-sex conduct, were determined by the cultural patriarchal
norms of biblical times and by high anxiety about biological productivity.”
(69-70) Using methodology that would fail most kinds of historiography (e.g.
Wijk-Bos’ understanding that since concubinage, brother and sister marriage
and polygyny did not hinder order or the production of children they were
acceptable and without penalty in ancient Israel.1) she uses an analogy that
mixes apples with oranges. Wijk-Bos writes, ‘Clearly, faithful people today
are not called to repeat the norms and patterns of sexual relations observed
here. Otherwise, we might as well try to construct a church building by
following the instructions given by God for the construction of the
Tabernacle in Exodus!”(69) On the one hand, Wijk-Bos suggests that sexual
biblical norms were formed for sociological and cultural reasons and on the
other hand she refers to God’s blueprints for the tabernacle. Perhaps
unintentionally, Wijk-Bos has grabbed onto an important truth. The building
is important but as a shadow of better things. The book of Hebrews helps us
understand that the tabernacle and its offices were a shadow of the reality
that came with Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews reminds the reader that
because of Jesus’ death we ‘have confidence to enter the holy place by the
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through
the veil, that is, His flesh.”(Heb. 10:19,20) So we have two realities:
redemption by the blood of Christ but also the fact that we are sinners. The
author of Hebrews also warns the reader that, ‘if we go on sinning willfully
after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a
sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of
a fire which will consume the adversaries.”(26-27) The connection between
leaving the sin and finding redemption in Christ cannot be severed so
easily. Dietrich Bonhoeffer gives understanding on this point. In _The Cost
of Discipleship_, he writes that in Germany, in the last century, ‘The
justification of the sinner in the world degenerated into the justification
of sin and the world. Costly grace was turned into cheap grace without
discipleship.” (50)
However much the logic of these articles fails it is the shaping of new
gods, based on human sexual experience, that is the most disturbing. Rebecca
Todd Peters in her article, _Embracing God as Goddess: Exploring connections
between female Sexuality, Naming the Divine, and Struggling for Justice_,
attempts to erase the unchangeableness of God. She puts her problem this
way:
If we believe that God disapproves of nonmarital sex, then that affects
behavior in one of several ways: we do not have nonmarital sex; we have
nonmarital sex and feel guilty and alienated from God; we think that
such a God does not make sense in a world in which nonmarital sex is a
positive aspect of life and thus we reject God; or we experience God’s
presence and love in the context of intimate relationship, which helps
us rethink our relationship with God and our theology. (161)
Peters goes on to side with the present culture’s view of nonmarital sex as
positive and to shape God in the image of changing female sexuality.
Reminding the reader of the various life changes women experience, e.g.
menstruating, giving birth, she posits a changing god/ess. Peters believes
that , ‘A God/ess open to change, vulnerability, and partnership exercises a
nontraditional form of power rooted in relationality and reciprocity. These,
then, can become the moral ground for ethical behavior in the world,
including sexual behavior.”(168) Peters rejects God’s revelation of Himself
and holds on to an idol for the sake of nonmarital sex. Once again
Bonhoeffer offers a better way. In his book _Ethics_ he makes confession for
the whole Church during the Nazi era. Included among such horrendous sins as
the death of the innocent, ‘the exploitation of the poor and the enrichment
and corruption of the strong,” Bonhoeffer confesses the sins of the Church
regarding sex. He writes:
The Church confesses that she has found no word of advice and assistance
in the face of the dissolution of all order in the relation between the
sexes. She has found no strong and effective answer to the contempt for
chastity and to the proclamation of sexual libertinism. . . . She has
rendered herself guilty of the loss of the purity and soundness of
youth. She failed to proclaim with sufficient emphasis that our bodies
belong to the Body of Christ.(114)
In this new proclamation of ‘sexual libertinism” the god and goddess of
paganism are held up for worship. The new call for sexual freedom with new
gods will be no different than yesterday’s paganism; the images are all
human and are always capable of turning demonic. Scott Haldeman, in his
article ‘ Receptivity and Revelation: a Spirituality of Gay Male Sex,”
after assuring the reader he does not think of his partner as god, defines
his meaning. He writes, ‘Sex as revelation is about mediated knowledge of
God, about encountering God, in partial, momentary glimpses, through the act
of encounter with my lover.”(221) Going on to describe the act of gay sex
he focuses a great deal on his own sense of receptivity and sees it as a
kind of sacrament. Describing the various stages of the sexual act he
explains how they contribute to spirituality, and in the conclusion suggests
his version of deity. ‘I see a divine self that is more playful and more
serious, quite uninterested in notions of purity, and yearning to become a
new thing among us, a communion in which all will dance a wild dance of joy
and passion.” (229) This after he has put aside the biblical account of God
with the words, ‘Certainly we ought not confine ourselves to the tales of
ancestors for knowledge about God.”(227)
The Biblical understanding of God’s plans for His people is quite different
than those pictured by the above authors. In Malachi after the prophet has
pleaded for some one to shut the gates to keep the priests from offering
useless offerings on the altar, he speaks God’s words of promise:
‘Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way
before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His
temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold,
He is coming,” says the Lord of Hosts.
But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He
appears? For He is like fullers soap.
He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and will purify the
sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver so that they may
present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. (Malachi 3: 1-3)
The biblical God is unchanging. He seeks the sinner and calls for
repentance. He brings salvation at great cost and includes obedience in his
call. Oh thou who changest not abide with your church and purify her.
_________
1 Several things could be stated about this. First, Leviticus 20:17 does
hold a penalty for brother sister marriage. Second, while Israel may have
accepted polygyny and concubines, God only tolerated the arrangement. The
statement about man and woman becoming one flesh in Genesis 2:24 is the God
given norm. Furthermore, both David and Solomon sinned in having their many
wives and concubines, because in Deuteronomy in God’s laws for Kings the
texts states, ‘He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart
will turn away.” (17:17b)