In the Midst of the Storm: See Luke 8:22-25

I think we ought to be reminded as we see the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and beyond to look to God in multiple ways. First and foremost, not that I am saying that this was (or was not, for that matter) an act of judgment by God, but that as an expression of God's power and sovereignty over natural forces it should give us pause in our considerations of Him. As per the Scripture reference above, we know that God is ultimately in control of all things, including hurricanes. Why does He permit them to happen? That I cannot answer. We know that God is good, and all powerful, but that bad things still happen. My tendency is answer that human freedom resulted in the fallen world, and now we corporately reap the consequences of that, namely in this instance, in the form of really bad weather. If we are free, and using that freedom to reject God, than we are rightfully experiencing an existence that is free of God and His protection (at times, anyway) But I digress...the Question of Evil will not be answered by me today. Our lot is to overcome that which happens be it good or bad, following our Lord regardless of our circumstance. Praying, serving, and giving up our lives for others. He is Lord over the Storm, and He does indeed care for us, as Christ so directly showed the Disciples that evening in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. My concern is more pastoral. If this storm, a creaturely thing, a thing which is less than God in power can bring this nation to a standstill, threaten it at its economic core, and destroy a vast swath of its territory, we ought to meditate upon His power and sovereignty,and be thankful for His altogether good and loving nature. Certainly, a being that was all-powerful, but not completely good would bring about much greater unpleasantness than this mere hurricane! As we contemplate the social, economic, familial, and spiritual implications of this event, the fleeting and contingent nature of all self-identities, safety nets, organizations and powers not rooted in God should become apparent. Will our nation fall on account of this? Of course not, or rather, I should hope not. However, as the most powerful nation on the face of planet...ever, we are tempted to trust in many things other than God as we revel in our own resplendence. The truth is that long after all the cultures, styles, fashions, worldviews, institutions, and foundations of America/Western Civilization have passed away in full or changed into their next iteration, the Gospel, Jesus Christ, and His Church will still be present. This ought to cause us to grapple with the questions of where our identities are founded. Am I a disciple and follower of Christ first, and everything else ('American' or 'Republican' or 'Academic' or "Charismatic" or "Reform") secondarily? Is my citizenship in the final analysis in this nation, or in God's coming and eternal Kingdom? This display of natures destructiveness is an illustration of God's power to judge or bless serves to (amongst other things) relativize us. By it we are 'put in our place' so to speak. It demonstrates in tangible ways what has really been the case all along: we are contingent, finite beings. We long for permanence, for that which is larger than ourselves. We want to be part of something bigger than us, but to not lose our individuality. To be 'persons-in-community.' And rightfully so! We build institutions, structures, even nations. These are certainly not bad, but as with our very selves, they are contingent and finite also. To find permanence and meaning in them is to find it in the wrong place; because ultimately they cannot provide it. As co-Creators with God, we give these structures of meaning/identity/permanence their value and traction inasmuch as we relate them to God through our own relationship with Him. Not vice-versa. All that to say, we are reminded by this tragedy of the fleeting nature of our own existence and our sources of personal and corporate meaning when they are disconnected from God. Thanks be to God however, that the inverse is also true! When our lives and institutions/sources of identity are properly related to God (recognizing His Lordship, and rightful ultimacy to them) they have eternal and appropriately ordered meaning! On a practial note, the Biblical enjoinder once again is simple: serve and contribute practically where possible, and most importantly to pray. Finally a word of encouragement: The Lord cares for us, and we can lean on Him in all things. The Disciples probably had a seaworthy vessel, moreover they were experienced fisherman, but rather than relying on either their boat or themselves, it was to Jesus they went in the Storm. We should be so wise...

So...here we are.

This is my new blog. The dreary "members-only" netherworld of myspace will no longer keep me from my readers! (Ahh, the delicious flattery of delusion!) I don't know about pictures or private information yet... Here you get my writing, such as it is, and my thoughts, such as they are. With that in mind read, reflect, rant. The purpose of this 'place' is conversation!

What I believe, more or less...

The journey I am now on with Christ began when I was 14, but to identify the ‘beginning’ of that journey merely with my taking note of and assenting to the reality of God and His rightful place in my life would be to make too much of the story mine to tell. At 9 or 10 years old, I was very strongly convinced of the existence of an Other that was personal, beyond me, and to which I owed something. So I prayed to a God I didn’t know, the only prayer that I did, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” Except for some nights when I was too tired, too distracted by some movie or family event, or just plain forgot, I would pray. This situation did not improve much over the course of the next couple years until I became friends with the son of the Pastor of the local Assembly of God congregation. I doubt his intentions were fully missionary, regardless though, it was through him that I came to church and eventually confessed Christ, and that I belonged to Him. My teenage years were an alloyed collection of advances and retreats. Eschatologically speaking, there is a sense in which that evening in the Spring of 1994 when I was face down on the carpet, staining it with my tears was Christ’s D-Day on the enemy shores of my heart, but as Hoekema has said, we live between D-Day and V-Day in the grand corporate sense, and so do I personally as well. To be moved from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light is a great thing. However, one can very easily remain in the provinces, never making their way to seat of the Empire, the figurative Rome. And so it was with me until I went to College: I remained in the spiritual hinterlands of God’s kingdom, wandering the provinces of His empire throughout High School. During College I went through a time of cynicism and rejection of much of my Pentecostal/Charismatic training and upbringing. I certainly was serious about the reality of God and Christ, and the reality of the Christian existence and life. It was the many negative cultural accoutrements and additions that I saw manifesting themselves in my tradition that enraged me. These elements were not just a matter of ‘putting culture to good use’ in my view, but a replacement, a warping of the truth of God inasmuch as these cultural elements were shaping the Gospel rather being shaped by it. In my fervor to purify my thinking and theology of these elements, I rejected much of my past Pentecostalism, relegating myself to a sort of milquetoast Charismatic idealism that permitted me to fellowship with other people of my ilk, but never participating fully in their life. What began to pull me back into the Charismatic life of the church I participated in was at once theoretical and experiential. It was to a Foursquare Church that Providence and circumstance lead me, and it was there that I found a relationally functional and healthy community in which I thrived. As I began to share life with genuine Pentecostal and Charismatics, people possessed of sound minds and authentic faith, I could no longer deny the reality of the Charismatic experience as I had so arrogantly done in the intervening time between the height of my Pentecostalism and the watery Charismatic theology I held to at that point. However, I had yet to separate the genuine activity of God in the lives of those around me from the genuine theological difficulties I had with the way in which people manifested the power of God, as well as the problem of the Charismatic culture and its interactions with the world and other Christian traditions. Eventually, I was able to see that while the gifts/empowerments of the Spirit as Charismatics express them are at their core affected by contemporary culture, they are not merely cultural. It is very possible to be charismatic in and to fundamentally distinguish oneself from the culture at large while fully expressing the gifts as they have been given. Having come upon this realization, I have been able cautiously re-appropriate much of my own Charismatic tradition. The challenge of late is creating a meaningful charismatic ecclesiology and approach to culture that makes headway without falling into the mistakes of my forbears and their ‘over-indulgence’ in pop culture. And so this is the point of departure, my theology has been forged as much by cool reflection as white-hot experience. Coming from an anti-intellectual tradition, the fires of that crucible have burnt me in their own unique ways. Nonetheless, abandoning ship, no matter how much water she is taking on is not my way, least of all in terms of my Charismatic brothers and sisters.
I believe that ‘in the grand sense’ Scripture is the Statement of God about Himself and His activity in History. God has revealed not just information about God, but He has revealed Himself to us, with the ultimate revelation of God taking place in the Person of Christ. From these encounters with the Person of God both before, during, and after the Incarnation, God has inspired and divinely authored a collection of writings about Himself through human authors. These writings are firmly placed in history, and require careful study by the reader, but in their message and what they communicate about the Character of God, they remain authoritative. While Scripture does not touch on all questions we have directly, we can extrapolate the character and nature of God sufficiently but not exhaustively from it, and from there answer many of our questions effectively. To speak of sufficiency sets up that which we know with surety about Him, and what He requires of us, to reject exhaustiveness takes the power away from Man to turn Yahweh into another idol by removing his (mans) ability to say in a minimizing fashion that ‘this is all that God is and requires.’ That being said, He (God) will not violate or deviate from what He has demonstrated about Himself in the Bible. I believe that the writing of both the Old and New Testaments were inspired in their autographs and that with much historical study the text as received has been shown to be reliable and faithful to the message and intent of both the human and Divine authorial intention. The Canon as we have it now is authoritative for teaching and rebuke as St. Paul has said, as well as for the formation of Christian believer into the image of Christ. Ultimately the Story of God in the Bible is ‘the story which swallows up all other stories’ or the ‘meta-narrative.’
God is quite simply the Ultimate Being in the Universe. He created it, sustains it, and is intimately involved and knowledgeable concerning it. He has unlimited power and knowledge over all things, and He is everywhere at once and anywhere He wants to be. His attributes, mind, and Person are not constrained my time, distance, or our human lack of conceptual categories capable of grasping Him.
God exists as Three Persons who are at such fundamental and substantive unity that their diversity simultaneously exists as one Person. This is the basis of the Divine Community into which Humanity is called for fellowship and worship. This model of otherness-in-unity is less something for us to try to understand that for us to imitate. For obvious reasons, as fallen, incarnate beings we can only approximate this Trinitarian life. The Bible, while tantalizing with its insights into the workings of the Godhead, seems to call us more to acceptance, contemplation, and imitation rather than a comprehensive understanding. The Trinity contains, relativizes, and gives boundaries to us, rather than vice versa. The God of the universe will not be made an Object of Study. Nonetheless, with godly and God-given curiosity we press in…
God’s purpose in Creation was to bring glory to Himself, and to have creatures to fellowship with Him. We do not know why He seems to value the latter, because there can be glorification of God without creaturely consent or desire, but the former is explained simply by this: God is ultimately the most worthy being in the Universe. He is not an omnipotent megalomaniac, but the Being who is worthy of praise above all other beings. God’s desire for worship of Himself is rooted in His self-awareness of His own glory, purity, beauty, holiness, and uniqueness. He knows that He is good, and that it is good for His creatures to worship Him. To return to the concept of fellowship however, it seems that while God in no way harbors a ‘need’ for our company and conversation, He takes some sort of delight in being with us. To poke and prod at the mind of God intrusively where He has remained mysterious yet graceful in regard to us seems a bit unwise to me. I suffice it to say that what He wants He gets, and if its me He wants, I am not going to say ‘No.’ All things that have been made are either immediately or ultimately dependent upon God for their creation, sustenance, continued being, and completion. All things exist at His behest, and for His pleasure. God is involved with, but not the same as His creation, God created all the beings in the Universe, and is above them all.
Of the beings God has created, Man has a special place in Creation. Mankind was created for fellowship with one another and with God. We are made male and female to model ‘other-ness’ to each other and to call us out of ourselves to those who are different from us, as God calls us away from ourselves to Him. The man and woman were made to care for one another and to exercise dominion over and care for Creation. The Man and Woman were placed in the Garden to serve as the Image of God, to represent Him to Creation.
The Fall of Mankind originated in a fully irrational and nonsensical action by Adam to rebel against God, under the deceptive influences of the Serpent. The Fall has affected the entire human race since, and we have inherited the sin as a fundamental aspect of who we are from our original representative, Adam. Adam was our representative before God, and failed in his duty to represent us to God. Because of his failure, we have lost the moral ability to conform to God’s will. Whether one interprets this narrative of the Edenic rebellion literally or figuratively in relation to the Fall of Mankind, it speaks the same truth about us: we are separated from God by our willful rejection of Him, and His rightful place in our lives.
Jesus Christ was fully God and fully Man. In the mystery of His power, God limited Himself in humanity but in no way reduced His essential God-hood. The same affirmation goes for the human aspect of Jesus. Whatever makes God God and whatever makes man man is successfully combined in Jesus. There is no other way Jesus could have been Who He was and successfully completed His mission, having borne what He must, and having done so, been resurrected as the God-Man to sit down at the right hand of the Father, symbolizing the completed work of His life and mission on earth. That Mission was to show us who God truly was and to bring us back into fellowship with Him. Jesus revealed unto us God in His Person, and through His death in our place on the Cross for our sins restored friendship between God and Man.
The work of Jesus at the Cross is applied to the believer by the Holy Spirit upon their acceptance of Christ as their Savior in the form of Salvation from enslavement to sin and the punishment of eternal separation from God. They are re-created/regenerated in God’s image. The prominent Biblical imagery in this topic is the resurrection from the dead of the new believer. God has called the person forth, and called them back to life for the purpose of fellowship with Him. In a temporal sense I am a Wesleyan through and through at this point. For sin, worship, fellowship, and all the other sorts of relational terminology that surround regeneration and its benefits to make sense, humans must have a real choice. That being said, our wills are bound and broken by sin-totally incapable of moving towards God- and it takes grace from God to sufficiently free and resurrect the will to enable a real choice for or against Christ. However, it seems rather silly that from eternity past to eternity future God would not be able to see who will accept Him and who will not. This leads me to posit that while God does enable actual choice in the believer, any activity of His Spirit in the life of the individual is efficacious inasmuch as God is aware of who will believe in Him to start with and either (a) doesn’t bother with thoroughly rebellious humans, or (b) simply exercises His power in a meaningful futility that ensure a creatures separation from Him is of its own accord. In a slightly modified sense, one could say I am ‘from an eternal perspective’ a Calvinist.
Temporally speaking then, justification is applied at the ‘time of salvation’ but from eternity past that act has been foreknown and planned upon by God in relationship to the believer. Justification is both a legal and a relational term biblically speaking. In the legal sense, we have been declared righteous by God inasmuch as He sees Christ in our stead, and we are justified inasmuch as we are unified with Christ. It is this unity with Christ that allows our sins to be dealt with in the eyes of God by His Son.
Sanctification is the gracious gift of God through His Spirit and His Church to the believer and the Covenant Community. God in His righteous hatred of sin recognizes that evil behavior and ways of life are not only self-destructive for the sinner and corrosive to the flourishing life of the community of believers, but also an affront to Himself. For all these reasons His Spirit partners with the believer, and the Church to impart righteous character and habits of living both individually and corporately to the Church. These are most basically understood as the Fruit of the Spirit, which will be covered in a moment. As for perseverance I will take a position similar to the one I formulated in my account of Salvation. I think that it is largely a matter of perspective. We cannot predict who will ‘fall away’ and who will ‘persevere.’ For God, these questions are easy to understand and answer from eternity. The text in Hebrews 6 seems to presuppose a real salvation that can be really be fallen away from, but if one presupposes that God is fully capable of causing a saint to persevere, than they were never truly saved anyway, or are experiencing some sort of temporary rebellion or ‘hiccup’ in their (from the eternal perspective) saving relationship with God. So, from God’s perspective such issues are already decided, but in our linear and temporal experience of reality, we cannot help but think in terms of ‘choices’ and ‘turning points.’ Hence why I call such issues a matter of perspective.
The Holy Spirit is indicated in several texts to be a person, or at the very least to have personal attributes. He is referred to the parakletos or Advocate/Family Lawyer. In the Johanine Epistles we see the Trinitarian formulations using ‘water’ as a moniker for the Spirit. There is use of personal pronouns in reference to the Spirit in both the New and Old Testaments. It is obvious that the Father and Son are clearly delineated Persons in Scripture, and when encountering germane baptismal, doxological, and creedal formulas in the New Testament and early Church nothing less seems to be logical in reference to the Holy Spirit. Having established the personhood of the Spirit, we move on to His work in the believer…
The Spirit imparts the Fruit of the Spirit in the form of character traits that exemplify Christ in the life of the believer and enable a more complete and thriving community life. This impartation takes place in a partnership with the Church Community and the individual believer. This Spirit-empowered dialectic between individuals and communities is the environment in which vices are exposed, dealt with, and eventually replaced with their opposing virtues.
The Spirit also imparts gifts that are for the edification and building up of the Church. These gifts are miraculous and powerful in nature, but are expressed throughout an entire range of personalities that shape that expression. The ‘gift lists’ in Corinthians and other Pauline epistles are not exhaustive in my opinion, but merely set up a context and give parameters/delimiters to help the Church understand and correctly express/use the gifts as they (the gifts) operate from the will of God through the believer. The Spirit is still working miraculously, powerfully, and visibly in our current era, and is evidenced in a multitude of ways.
The Church is a Community called forth in diversity for a purpose. Its commanded and sometimes nearly approximated unity does not demand uniformity. I think that the running disagreements in the Church may actually be a purposeful on the part of God to keep the paradoxicality, ineffability, and incomprehensibility of Who He Is firmly in view. The Church is to be simultaneously salt and light with Abraham Kuyper exercising dominion and authority over all spheres of life in this fallen world and thereby participating in Gods saving work in the world, while also understanding its otherness and ‘over against-ness’ to the world, and its duty to be the Church so the world can be the world, and so that both can know themselves and the other as they are a la Stanley Hauerwas. The Church exists to serve the world, but also to stand prophetically against it, telling it the truth about itself and all of reality, and pointing it always towards God and Christ.
While I believe Church government is given to us by God, it is most often not what we could call ‘inspired...’ I think that three primary forms of Church governments are a rather pragmatic reflection of the needs and desires of the particular times and circumstances in which they are employed. The onus is now not on the exegetes to answer an old and over-argued question, but for the leadership of given communities to exercise prayerful judgment and discernment as to what sort of government of the three primary New Testament varieties is most conducive to a promoting a healthy church. More often than not the question is posed in such a way as to only allow one right answer. I would propose that a certain degree of ‘holy pragmatism’ seems appropriate to these questions, because were all three systems of Church government (episcopal, presbyterian, and congregational) co-existing at the time of the New Testament, hence the reason they are all evidenced in Scripture!
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper…the two things that ought to bring unity to the Church, are often the grounds for their most bitter debates. This should not be, and so I will endeavor to say little about them, lest I add to the fires of disunity. Baptism is the sign of the continuing covenant of God with His covenant people. This sacramental action can take place at either a young age or as an adult. The obedience of being baptized as a symbol of inclusion in the Covenant Community and the impartation of grace is where the emphasis lies in Scripture, not the specific time frame (whether as a child or as a believing adult) With that being said, even if one is obedient in baptism but does not persevere as a believer, whether they were baptized as a baby or adult, it was just another common encounter with water!
The Lord’s Supper is a time in which the personal and spiritual presence of Jesus with His people is celebrated, remembered, and participated in. Ontologically and metaphysically the bread remains the same, but it is still more than just a symbol. Christ’s spiritual presence goes with it in a special way. The precise ontological and metaphysical attributes of pita bread and grape juice seem to me much less important than the liturgical and community-building aspects of participation in the Lord ’s Table. The Church restates its covenantal relationship to God and to one another in taking communion, and takes seriously its commitments to both. In having this peaceful meal with God and one another we are saying ‘We belong to God and one another, and we will show God and our brethren practical hospitality as well as hospitality of the heart, giving away our lives to them both.’
In terms of theological propositions, my Eschatology can be summed up very simply. In terms of the actual ‘system’ I adhere to, I suppose amillenialism would be the closest to what I believe about the nuts and bolts of the chronology of the second coming of Christ. I believe that History finds its terminus, goal, and ultimate meaning in the Kingdom of God which is already present among us in part, but is not yet fully come to pass as it will be at Christ’s return. God’s Kingdom had been inaugurated and set on its course in the first coming of Christ, and it continues to grow to this day, and will find its consummation and completion in the New Heavens and the New Earth. Jesus will come again, all things will be His to rule over, justice, joy and peace will be universal and permanent. All of Christ’s followers throughout history will be in blessed fellowship with God and one another in an ecologically and spiritually renewed Creation. Those that have rejected Him will experience the final results of the trajectory that they have set themselves on: they will experience eternal separation from God. Beyond this, I know that our job as the Church is to simply worship God, persevere through tribulation, and overcome the world; this is the Scriptural admonition to the Church in the Revelation. Ours is not to know comprehensively so that we may have security and a sense of control over our circumstances, ours is to trust in our Bridegroom. Ours is not to manipulate history to try and affect the timing of God’s plan, but to hope and wait faithfully for Him. Ours is not to calculate the day and the hour, but to understand that the signs of the times have been all around us for a long time, which, quite simply, places us in the ‘last days’ whether we realize it or not. This recognition of the precariousness of Our Time in redemption history ought to remind us to be watchful and prayerful in the way we live.

Theology and Sexuality: Towards a Positive Theological Account of Human Sexuality

This originally was a term paper for an Ethics Class...unfortunately the footnotes didn't survive the transfer from my WP program to here. Oh well, enjoy!


Human sexuality is a powerful force for Christians and non-Christian alike, but it is our Christianity, our identity as a counter-culture that requires that we provide a meaningful account of our sexuality that challenges this worlds’ truly god-less view of sexuality. In recognition of that fact, and to that end, a case will be made herein that sexuality has been mistreated by the church as much as by the world even to the present day, and that the church must deal comprehensively with sex positively in a theological and practical way. After outlining ways in which the contemporary culture has misused and misunderstood sex, the same treatment will be applied to the church. After that, a brief overview of the important recurring themes in the emergent sexual theology of contemporary orthodoxy will be given, and in conclusion there will be comments from the author on the ecclesial nature of Christian sexuality. This paper will not attempt an exhaustive account of human sexuality or try to pursue every implication hinted at to its fullest extent as that is not within the scope of this paper. Inasmuch as the author approaches each of these topics, it is with the realization that they each deserve comprehensive treatment in themselves, and can only be sketched briefly within the practical constraints of this paper.
By way of introduction it must be said that as Creatures of the sixth day, we know we lead an incarnated existence, sharing with our fellow creatures of the earth the natural aspects and trappings of biological life, including genital sexuality, but as the Image-Bearers of God we also are made to look to the endless seventh day, and He who rests and dwells there, for our ways and means in that biological life. This recognition of our super/natural life and meaning is the source of any Christian understanding of human sexuality.
The Church and the World on Sex: Two Sides of the Same Coin
If the world has lifted sex to the heights of Heaven and expected Heaven of it, then the Church has historically pushed it down to Hell and is now catching Hell for doing so. First we shall deal with the world, as its sin is obvious, then the Church’s as its sin is shrouded in much holy apparel. The fact that sex can be powerfully constructive or destructive psychologically, spiritually meaningful/meaningless on the deepest human level, and not least immensely pleasurable has obscured the truth from both Church and World in different ways, and must be dealt with accordingly.
The contemporary culture, (defined as those contemporary systems of thought and cultural sentiment which do not find their philosophical basis in the moral monotheism of the Bible, and lead to a less-than-fully ‘human’ account of our sexuality) has taken man from his proper place at the pinnacle of God’s created order, and reduced him to a merely biological being. As the culture has done this, it has also discarded God as both the source and goal of human life, and more to the point the source and ‘goal’ of human sexuality. In so doing they have also taken sexuality and done one of two things with it: “turned it into a false infinite’ or debased it as nothing more than a commonplace biological act like eating or sleeping. This idolatrous false infinite is created by the transcendence physiologically and experientially implied by sexual union. This transcendence, while very much hinted at anecdotally, is hard to quantify. In a recent ‘phenomenological’ study, MacKnee pointed out the occurrence of ‘sacred Christian sexuality.’ In those instances intense feelings not only of personal transcendence and union between the married lovers, but a tangible sense of God’s holy, sanctifying, and accepting presence was experienced. These sexual ‘mountaintop’ experiences were by no means something manufactured on demand by the lovers involved, but were firmly set in the context of Christian orthodoxy, a functional marriage relationship, and long-term commitment (on the order of decades) and profound emotional care. These peak experiences that exceed normal sexual expectations for both believers and non-believers alike in terms of personal psychological power and numinous quality will be important later in this paper, but for now they show all the more clearly the immense power of sexuality, and give us a lens through which can be seen one of the contemporary culture’s primary misunderstanding of sexuality, sexuality as false absolute or ‘false infinite.’ In the pleasure and intimate union of the sex act, the desire of the human being for self-transcendence, for the joining with the ‘Other’ is indeed ‘hinted at’ to once again quote Yancey. Paradoxically, even though this self-transcendent power remains in sex even for those who believe in no ultimate Other in the form of YHWH, the dominant naturalist/Darwinist worldview has legitimized the cheapening of human sexuality as an animal act that is nothing more than an expedient for the sake of evolution. Ultimately, in evolutionary terms, sex is pleasurable to cause us to participate in it more often, so that we will ensure the continuation of our species. Inasmuch as the only true metaphysical concern in sex is the propagation of mankind, sex is seen as comparable to eating, sleeping, and other common bodily functions. This point is interesting inasmuch as it shows the way in which our culture participates in the unhealthy debasement of human sexuality that is a result of the naturalistic/Darwinistic account of humans sexuality. From these two extremes we can withdraw one very important observation: that neither the viewing of sex as a ‘false absolute/infinite’ or the purely naturalistic explanations of Darwinism are sufficient accounts of what it means to be a sexual human being. It is plain to see that sex is not a divinizing act in the proper and strict sense, because it is plain to see that there are a lot of humans having a lot of sex, and none of which are approaching any sort of god-hood. Nor does the fact that many people behave like animals make them animals, nor does our cultures attempt at voiding sex of meaning make it any less meaningful a force for our hurt or betterment. The power of sex is considerable, but human beings are still precisely what they are: Immanent, contingent individuals that find meaning in their singularity by being in community, and participating in transcendent acts that make their contingent singularity bearable and meaningful, transcendent acts like sex.
The Church, as counter-cultural witness to the world’s ways, means, and weltenschaung, has failed in many ways up until recently to advance a thoroughly Christian account of the meaning and value of human sexuality. It has in various times and places proscribed and (very rarely) prescribed it, but has only as of late attempted at a fully orbed structure of thought that can explain the continuing mystery, power, and created goodness of sex. Up until this point, the two primary ways in which the world conceptually misunderstands sex (from which all of its misuse, abuse, and mis-construal is derivative) has been sketched for the purpose of showing what the church must face in building a meaningful theology of sex. However before that can happen, the church’s laxity must be discussed.
Historically speaking, the Church’s theology has been informed by dualistic, Platonic thinking about sex that relegated it to the realm of the body, of the earth, of the flesh. It was considered an unfortunate necessity at best. This suspicion and rejection of sex arose from a number of circumstances that swirled around the Church in its earliest years. The licentious sexuality of the Greco-Roman culture, and the link that was seen between that civilization’s eventual downfall and its out-of-control expressions of sexuality was a compelling reason for Christians to participate in a degree of anti-sex sentiment. While a historical treatment of the Church’s understanding of sexuality and culture is beyond the scope of this paper, it is helpful to understand in brief what has taken place historically so as to make sense of the attitudes towards sex in the 21st Century amongst evangelical Christians.
Evangelicals in the 20th Century, and more specifically since the late 1970’s have had an increasingly open attitude towards the discussion of sexuality. In a break with the perceived and/or real prudery of the past, they have assimilated a standard secular mode of sexual education: the Sex Manual. Described therein are various techniques, suggested models and timelines for intercourse, and various descriptions of the respective partners’ sexual responses. While DeRogatis is somewhat critical of the broad categories and generalizations made by the conservative/Protestant evangelicals, and applies a feminist critique of the language and substance used in these manuals, she does nonetheless point out their respective similarities. The aspect most important in DeRogatis’ treatment of these “Evagelical Sex Manuals” as she called them, is that they create a strong conceptual link between Scripture, the Protestant understanding of the inherent goodness of Creation, and the acceptance of heterosexual, monogamous, married sexuality as a gift from God. While there is room for critique of the presuppositions about gender roles that are consciously and unconsciously manifested in these books, it does provide an insight into the historical-cultural progression of the sexual attitudes of contemporary evangelicals. This progression of mores and the evangelical subculture’s assumptions will be the departure point for the next part of the discussion.
The evangelical movement in the 20th Century began to part ways with prudery as early as the 1930’s in its attitudes towards married sexuality and more importantly towards the education of married couples for the purpose of marital sexual fulfillment. This stage of initial concurrence in the early to mid-20th Century between the ‘norms’ of the larger society as evidenced by the similarity of Christian sex manuals and education to secular sex manuals and education was soon disturbed by the development in Christian thought of sex not being just ‘permitted’ for the purpose of the control of lust and promiscuity outside the marriage bond, but by it being altogether positive in terms of its ability to unify and bring ‘one-fleshness’ to the marriage partners. With the recent proliferation of Christian sex manuals since 1980, it can now be seen that the evangelical subculture is beginning to take sex not simply as ‘take it or leave it’ sort of matter, but one of great importance, not only for its moral implications (both inside and outside of marriage) but for the way in which Christians are sexual. DeRogatis’ observes that mutually satisfying, unifying, and intimate sex for married Christians is beginning to take on an aspect of witness. The fact that Christians can tout higher levels of satisfaction and fulfillment in marriage is seen as proof of the validity of the institution of Christian marriage itself. While in some ways, this might be an effective advertisement for the relative superiority of being a Christian in a sexualized culture such as ours, it also places the foundation for the value of Christian marriage on shaky ground, inasmuch as sexual dysfunction, poor health, or simple marital discord can oftentimes be detrimental to short or long term sexual fulfillment in marriage. That being said, it seems that regardless if the participants are always in a state of ‘personal fulfillment’ the value of being a Christian in marriage, as well as the value of Christian marriage respectively both remain regardless of their level of ‘sexual success.’
Historically, this movement from prudery to progress has seemed to proceed from a general disgust/distrust with sex (as caricatured at the beginning of this paper in the ascetic, Greek philosophy-influenced Christianity that informed much of the Church’s official thinking up until the time of Luther) to the ambivalent ‘sex as not bad, but morally and spiritually neutral at best’ model illustrated in the sex manuals of mid-20th Century conservative Protestants and Evangelicals. From there we see the current stage of Christian thought on sex as actually positive, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. Currently, sex is viewed as spiritual and positive in the personal sense, inasmuch as it builds unity and accord between the partners. In the public sense, Christian sexuality is still viewed as not precisely spiritual in the theological sense, but spiritual inasmuch as it can be harnessed to the concept of ‘witness.’ Christian sexuality is viewed as an act of ‘witness’ in the popular sense when it garners more of the World’s desired results (numbers of orgasms, amount of personal fulfillment, etc) while reaching those results in an altogether ‘Christian’ manner. This is useful if one’s paradigm for witness is selling the Gospel, or making the Christian life (and Christian marriage) an attractive path leading to greater worldly happiness and pleasure, but as mentioned before, this puts the institution of Christian marriage as well as our corporate witness on shaky ground. Christian marriage ought to include meaningful and satisfying sex, but this is certainly not everything that ought to appeal about it! To reduce its ‘value in the world’s eyes’ to simply getting more of what the world is after is to miss the fact that Christian marriage is fundamentally not participated in for the same reasons as ‘wordly’ marriages are, as will be discussed later.
This reduction of Christian sexuality to a one dimensional expression of the Church’s witness should be a clarion call to the academic theological community that it is time to construct a positive theology of sexuality that moves beyond the mere vagaries of pop culture and its churchly imitators into an understanding of sexuality as an important and vital part of God’s created intention for humanity and not merely a simplistic attitude of “sex is for marriage.” While sex is certainly not less than this, it is so much more, and that will be the task of the concluding section of this paper, showing the innovative and powerful directions that some pastors, mental health professionals, as well as theologians proper are taking human sexuality.
It has been said that all of Western Philosophy is an extended footnote to Plato, and when it comes to contemporary theology, much of the 20th and now it seems the newborn 21st Century will in some way find itself derivative or referential in relationship to arguably the greatest of the 20th Century theologians, Karl Barth. Barth held that at its core human gendered-ness was a statement by God about Himself. In the Genesis passages that indicate Adam’s sense of ‘having no one suitable for him’ as a partner (prior to Eve that is!) as well the Pauline texts that speak of the couple becoming one flesh, Barth saw that the separation between the sexes indicated not only profound sense of difference, but also an inherent desire for one another, a profound sense of need and longing for the ‘other. ‘
“In our attraction-in-difference is reflected the difference-in-relation in the Trinitarian God.” Hereupon is where we encounter eros as a theological category. While eros is never spoken of in the New Testament, it is clearly seen that theologically speaking that the various models of Christ relationship to the Church as His ‘bride’ indicate a level of ‘erotic’ desire for the ‘other.’ As it was in Graham Ward’s article, eros is herein defined as the kenotic emptying of oneself to another, a joining of oneself to another for their (the others) own sake. This ‘erotic’ desire for the “Other” goes both directions, from Christ to the Church, and from the Church to Christ. It is this “I and Thou” relationship that is seen modeled in human sexuality. While Ward does make some theological moves that are unsettling, removing the basis of male and female en-gendering from its biological and historical location in the respective sexes, placing them purely in ‘relational’ contexts (the basis whereupon later in his article, he will begin to defend homosexuality) his analysis of Barth on this point is not only insightful, but makes plain much of what Barth is expressing.
The ‘otherness that desires togetherness’- that is the watchword of human sexuality, once again to quote Wards’ analysis of Barth, “-their vocation as male and female is to be for the other, a vocation that is divine and there communicated through the Spirit; and their desire for each other. The sexual difference is a theological difference…The Church then occupies a space in which the dualism of agape and eros, kenotic and possessive desire, is deconstructed. The agapaic enables the proper realization of the erotic (the completion of the couple, their incorporation) and stands in tension to the more general self-giving of one to another in the community.” From this Barthian foundation, we see not only his foresight and prescience of vision in terms of his theology of sexuality, but also the basis for much of the positive theological analysis that is happening in our own time.
In this Barthian notion of erotic sexuality as desire for the unity with and giving of oneself to another we find a starting point from which, consciously or unconsciously, most contemporary theological thought concerning sexuality springs. In the concluding pages of this paper several derivative themes that are found initially in Barth will be briefly sketched out, with some concluding thoughts on the ecclesiological character of Christian sexuality.
Sex as Sacrament
It is interesting to see this interplay of differing opinions on this particular idea from amongst the authors culled for this paper. The rather more conservative journal includes an article that speaks the most sacredly about sex, implying that God’s presence and graceful blessing are present and wrapped up in the sex act in some way for married believers. “Each contributor knew, beyond a doubt, that God was present with him or her as sexual intimacy was taking place…God’s presence during profound sexual intimacy provoked heightened feelings of physical and emotional responsiveness.” However, Ward, who gave the aforementioned critique and analysis of Barth, (not to mention a very positive account of homosexuality) gave ‘sacramental sex’ very short shrift in his introduction, “I do not believe orgasm and revelation are the same things or two forms of similar self-transcendence.” Instead seeing human eroticism purely as a model from which he wanted to “construct a theology of desire, God’s desire for me (a desire which is prerequisite for any doctrine of election and hence redemption) and my desire for God.” In this author’s opinion, either approach is a way forward because they seem to be two sides of the same coin. If sacrament is the practical participation in and impartation of God’s grace and presence through immanent-physical means (the consuming of bread and wine, the baptism of water) than both approaches are sacramental in their own way. MacKnee’s phenomenological approach locates a tangible, almost ‘charismatic’ presence of God accompanying and bound up with the sexual union in marriage. In the ‘reverse engineering’ that Ward seems to use when constructing his “Erotics of Redemption” the sex act is at least symbolic if not participatory in God’s graceful presence and unity with humanity. In many ways, this fits under the rubric of Ephesians 5:21-33. There is to be mutual service and love between the partners in marriage, each considering the other before his or her self. Moreover, if we are to take Inspiration seriously we ought to take as meaningful the fact that Paul’s chosen metaphor for Christ’s relationship with the Church is marriage! Whether God manifests himself sacramentally in the sex act tangibly or symbolically, it is not to be dismissed flippantly.


Gendered-ness and Sexuality as “I-Thou” Relationship
Genesis 2:18 puts forth that God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, and so created for him a partner suitable for him, much to Adam’s delight! (Genesis 2:23-24) However it was surely not unknown to God that Adam would be lonesome in this state, and would require someone else to complete Him. From these two verses, the first pointing out the incompleteness of one sex without the other, and the second shedding light on the pleasure, rejoicing, and the sheer ‘giftedness’ of the first two humans to one another, we see a model of how God relates to the Church, to the World, and to the individual. “God also created sexuality with male and female becoming one flesh. This is His ultimate Love Story that we retell in our love stories, Christ and the Bride throughout eternity…we experience deep longing and feelings of being incomplete which can only by fulfilled by union with God. He created within man and woman a desire for each other and intimate completion that mirrors our need for Him.”
In this it plain to see that we (all of the respective individual “I’s” to the great single “Thou” of God) were made for the Other, the Thou. We were made to clearly understand our incompleteness, made manifest in our sense of loneliness and longing for a partner in life; that realization of incompleteness was intended to make obvious our need and indeed our created purpose of relationship with God. This understanding of the individual as one made and intended for the other, be they human or divine militates not only against any sort of radical individualism that would separate itself from God in an attempt at freedom and independence, but more directly against homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a seeking of the Other, the Altogether Separate, the Different, as the seeking of male and female for one another, or God and man for one another is. Homosexuality is the avoidance of risk, it is the seeking of the Self, the Same in the Other. It is sin manifestly because it represents metaphorically the human search for Self as Source of Ultimate Meaning and Completion instead of the search for those things in the Ultimate Other, the Eternal Thou, God. That being said, a loving, forgiving, and serving attitude towards homosexuals (their sin is no uglier than mine!) is certainly in order.
Ecclesiology and Sexuality: A Re-interpretation of Sex as Witness
Early in this paper mention was made of evangelicalism trying to use ‘successful’ sexuality as a selling point for the Gospel. This author argued against that because in the end the Church, it seems, is trying to ‘sell’ the Gospel to people on account of its ability to deliver greater earthly goods to them. (“Become a Christian, and you too will have more frequent, and more fulfilling sex!”) The difficulty with this is not that it is necessarily untrue, many studies seem to show that it is indeed true actually. It is the use of ‘successful’ sexuality as an enticement that allows those who have a sexual failure, moral failure, or who simply do not enjoy the relatively ‘good’ sex lives other couples do to de-legitimize the Gospel in their own lives and corporately. These are the dangers in trying to ‘market’ the Gospel to people in terms of its worldly benefits: The Gospel only very indirectly offers worldly goods as rewards for the Christian life if at all, and all the more importantly it misses the true significance of sex for the Christian marriage. In the light of the Gospel not promising phenomenal sex and ecstatic marriage experiences as commonplace for the Christian believer, what does the Gospel have to say about the way in which Christians are sexual? Here we arrive at the conclusion of the matter: it is not altogether central that Christians have more frequent and more enjoyable sex (though it seems that they indeed do…) or that they reject sex as dirty or a necessary evil (as did the church for a very long time) or that they indulge in it as if was devoid of meaning or invest too much power and meaning into it, rendering it an idol (the two common mistakes of the world) but that the reasons and ways, and the means and ends in which the Christian community uses sex for its proper ends are altogether good, and lead to human flourishing in the Christian community.. Speaking apophatically, we can name what Christian sexuality is not, and proclaim a witness from within that. Christian sexuality is not self-seeking, it is not damaging, it does not destroy intimate bonds, it does not break trust between its participants. To speak positively, it is restorative, refreshing and constructive; it is the modeling of God’s Other-ness, the unveiling of the mysterious bond between Christ and His Church, and it is the establishment of a bond in marriage. It is these things that allow the Church to consider sex a matter of witness. With these things in mind we must approach our sexuality both privately and corporately in the body of Christ.

Platonism and Asceticism

Initially it is hard to see how Platonic dualism has affected Christian ethics. However, that is because it seems that dualism is/was so commonplace in our outlook as to blind us to its presence. Being more Aristotelian in my ethical stance, I cannot help but militate against the lack of 'instantiation' or 'incarnation' that is engendered by Plato's ethical/moral dualism. With that in mind, forgive me for beng largely critical (at least herein) of Plato in this respect.
I think that we see the negative effects of moral dualism across the breadth of Church history in the the various expressions of asceticism. It has been said all of Western philosophy is but footnotes and addendums (be they pro or con) to Plato. Much the same thing could be said of 'asceticism as central spiritual discipline.' As you will soon see, I will be coming down on the 'con' side.
The removal of man from his environment, that is, the incarnate life, with all its 'materialality'(which, whether we like it or not is where we are stuck for the time being, and in a redeemed fashion, what we will be resurrected into for the rest of eternity) doesn't do much to aid the living of the authentic Christian life in the midst of the world. I am not a rabid pragmatist/utilitarian by any means, but it is simply unabalanced, and it denies the created goodness of the physcial body, as well as the created order by extension. In its own way it is a retreat into the self, and away from the sometimes nasty, and certainly morally alloyed front lines of the Kingdom and ministry to the world. In emphasizing evil/sin as a thing that is 'of the body' or peculiarly linked to incarnate existence, we make the mistake of thinking we can avoid it by simply removing that which is 'of the body' (food, reasonable comfort, fellowship, sex;--which leads to another difficulty: what are the criteria for the determination of what is fleshly or not? What happens if asceticism takes a particularly ironic turn and calls study and communal scholarship a thing of the flesh, and then follows our culture into its pronounced inter-personal atomization?) Anyway...The danger of this is that it places sin/evil once removed from us as fallen beings. Inasmuch as we can say 'the devil made me do it' or 'I was in the flesh when that happened' we have rejected our own depravity as a meaningful anthropological category. We are sinful; we don't like to admit it, and so we attempt to justify ourselves by way of identifying a cosmic source of moral evil outside of ourselves to ease our throbbing consciences. Or we simply say that that its a matter of our 'physicality overwhelming our spirituality.' The former is true in a minimal sense regarding Satan simpliciter, but in a more holistic sense, sin is in me, not out there. Not in Satan, nor in strong drink, nor in the beauty that gives opportunity for lust. Even in that sentence is seen the core of the argument. One does not blame the beautiful woman for the lust of the lecher, but rightly the lecher is deemed blameworthy. Sin is not found in the warp and woof of physical beauty, (for her beauty is a gift from God, who does not give evil or substandard gifts) or at the bottom of a pint, or on on the shining porcelain of a plate licked clean after a great feast, but in the interiority of the lover/lecher, the drinker/alcoholic, or the feaster/glutton. The sin is inside me. It is the perversion of goodness to which my whole being is bent. I cannot extirpate these seeds by simply avoiding the soil they find most fertile, but only by allowing my garden to be weeded and my stock of seed replenished from a better Gardener than I. Moreover I think the New Testament miliates against Plato's faulty linking of moral evil with ignorance of the soul, as caused by its fleshly prison. Mere ignorance and mere knowledge are not the determinig factors for moral evil in the human person. More than a few intelligent and well informed people were/are very sinful. (Nazi doctors, the Nixon administration, me...) There must be another noetic/anthropological category by which we can explain our behavior. (I hear a voice in my head saying, 'It's the SIN stupid!') Any anthropology or ethical framework that doesn't take into account mankinds fully sinful constitution (spiritually and bodily fallen, to use a dichotomy I dislike) denies Scriptural testimony about us. Moral dualism of the Platonic variety, besides quietly elevating Satan to a position of parity with God (a la Zoroastrianism) also allows us an easy escape from the reality of our own depravity and responsibility, thereby cheapening the grace of God.

Thoughts on Equality

Last night, I was reading an essay by C.S. Lewis called "Religion and Rocketry" in which he postulated the ramifications both practical and non-matierial of life other than our human variety in the universe. He conjectured that there might be races that could be unfallen, innocent, and sinless. How crass and backwards we would appear those god-like creatures! Perhaps this unfallen race would be surprisingly less advanced and not as highly developed technologically or organizationally as we, pity that sort of creature if it ever fell into our hands for surely we would destroy them in a heartbeat! (i.e. "Earth first! We'll log the other planets later...") A thing that struck me in all his conjecture, as it has struck me in a number of his other works is his unabashed comfort with inequality between people, between species, perhaps even between human beings and extra-terrestrial races. I suppose this is a classical conservative position that should not really surprise coming from a mid-20th centure British academic. Yet still...yet still...After all the accuasations of him being a dead white guy, a classist, a snob, a 'man of his times' have been voiced, the truth of our fundamental inequality still holds true. Surely, political equality and democracy are very good things. Not because people are good and really deserve power in government and decision-making, but because we are all evil and selfish. The true genuis of the American republic is not that it 'gives everyone their fair say' (to tell the truth some of the things people 'jsut have to say' are crap, because they are ignorant twits and they shouldn't be given the helm of grocery cart let alone a nation) but that it spreads power out. It (tacitly, perhaps even unconsciously) assumes the fallen selfishness of everyone, and therefore avoids the mistake of allowing a single person or oligarchy too much power. It acknowledges that a good way to keep a persons selfish fallen-ness in check is to put it in competition and accountability to another persons fallen selfish-ness. (i.e. checks and balances in the three branches of government...sort of) But I digress...

The reality is that we are not all equal, and thats ok... The regard that human beings are required to have for each other is not based upon their merit, only from their status as creatures made in the image of God. Oftentimes there is a search for a meaningful basis for human 'rights' or dignity outside of the Bible, even we Christians do this. I do think there is some to be found, but in reality this can only be a hazy and endlessly debate-able 'natural revelation' of what has plainly revealed in Scripture. I have done this myself, but it seems to arise from my desire to justify a theistic Christian wordlview and ethical stance to non-believers by 'proving' Christianity on their (the non-believers) own intellectual terms, that is, on territory that is not 'theistic' or 'Christian.' This seems to me to be an interesting endeavour (I like doing it actually!) but nonetheless quixotic. In truth, the Christian is better off founding their ethical-moral framework and ethical anthropology on the the revelation of Scripture, and using natural revelation as merely an apologetical tool rather than as the basis simpliciter for their ethics. That being said I digress once again....

Once again the regard we have for each other as human beings is based upon the understanding that we are all made in the image of God, and that while our existence now is one of real and true inequality on many levels (socio-economic, political, in terms of physical beauty and intelligence, and unfortunately race also...) that our regard for, and concordant good treatment of, one another is not based upon these criteria anyway. Who is to say that some sort of meaningful inequality amongst the blessed citizens of the new heavens and new earth will persist after the end of time? I certainly don't like to believe in gradients of eternal reward, but surely, God in His wisdom and love is not constructing a place of discord and strife? If there is to be inequality...well then I am sure it will be the most delightful sort possible. Perhaps like a loved child before its Father? Could the Hobo I avoided today on the sidewalk be the one who is gently rebuking me and helping me grow on the other side of eternity? This life demands that we take inequalities seriously, and not artificially try to ignore them. Some people are simply more capable at some things than others. Or more beautiful, or what have you. It does not lessen the moral or ontological value of the the less-capabe individual, just their utility in that situation. Unfortunately we are a society that values pragmatic capitalism above all else and we have sinfully absolutized those mercenary values inasmuch as they have become the criteria by which we judge more than a persons utility, but their very value as people. This should not be so. All that to say, Jesus loved 'em so I should too.

The Sovereign God of the universe made me and placed me in history where He saw fit. If that statement is true, than my socio-economic position, my accomplishments, my physical beauty (something I must remind myself to be thankful for on a regular basis) are not what determines my value. The same goes for others. With that in mind, we can love and pray for our betters as those who bear the greater weight of responsibility that we because of their greater gifts or endowments (rather than with envy) and treat our inferiors with responsibility and deference of service (rather than self-aggrandizing condescension or abusive instrumentalization of them). Moreover, Jesus makes it pretty clear that those who woud lead His remarkable little enterprise through history (heretorfore known as "The Church") would be the same ones that scrubbed the toilets, cared for the dying, and tolerated the diapered screamers in the third pew back. In conclusion, the superior pays to the inferior the debt of love by deference and care, be it man to animal, man to man, or extra-terrestrial to man!

So there...