Chastity and sexual ethics, yet again

It's a busy morning, and I arrived late on campus.  Not much time for posting.

Last night, I read through the first half of Lauren Winner's Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity; it was recommended to me by Thunder Jones last week.  I'll blog more about it after I've finished it.  It's a charming little book, and I made it through that first half in just under thirty minutes.  I wanted to bring it with me to campus to quote from it in this post, but in my haste this morning left it at home.   

Winner makes a powerful, but gentle case for chastity before marriage.  Hers is a nuanced approach, and she's eager not to alienate a readership that might be deeply suspicious of a call to avoid sex before marriage.  This is the chief virtue of the book, I suppose -- unlike many of the books on the Christian market on the subject of pre-marital sex, most of which are aimed at the already committed believer.  (I think of the painfully earnest work of Elisabeth Elliot, which I've read and which left me wincing.)  Winner doesn't rely on Scripture alone to make her case for her, and indeed, there's so little reference to Scripture in Real Sex that some of her conservative allies are a bit miffed.  But it's the soft-pedaling of the gospel, and the emphasis on the communal nature of sex (which owes much to folks like Wendell Berry) that make Winner's case likely more compelling for a reader not steeped in the evangelical or conservative Catholic traditions.

Tonight, we have our second of four youth group sessions devoted to sexuality.   After lots of prayer and reflection, I still stand firmly by my words to the kids last week.  I simply am not prepared to believe, on biblical, spiritual, or psychological grounds, that heterosexual marriage is the only acceptable arena for the expression of genital sexuality.   But I'm realizing it's not enough to say "I don't believe in traditional Christian teaching about sexuality."  If I'm going to be of maximum service to others, I have to be better about articulating why it is that I don't believe that!  I have to explain a sexual ethic that has depth to it, one that makes sense to the hearts and minds and spirits of teenagers and adults alike.  Quoting George Regas, whom I admire immensely, is insufficient. 

My kids deserve the absolute best, and if I refuse to admit that chastity before marriage is that "absolute best", then I need to explain why in terms that are clear, compelling, and go beyond a slick repackaging of contemporary cultural messages.  In all truth, I'm afraid of where I'll end up if I take this process seriously -- because I've ended up there before.  Several years ago, as I was in the conversion process, I spent a great deal of time reading and discussing works on Christian sexual ethics.  In late 2000, I became convinced that God's best is indeed chastity before marriage and radical fidelity within it.  I didn't start out wanting to come to that conclusion; I was simply led there by prayer, reflection, and a hell of a lot of arguments with friends on all sides of the issue.   

But as with so many things in my life, the intensity of that conviction waned quickly.  As I continued to talk through issues of sexual justice, I was reminded again and again by some of my dear gay and lesbian friends that committed homosexual relationships can be every bit as loving and every bit as life-affirming as heterosexual marriages.  And as I went through my third divorce, I was reminded once again that marriage, in and of itself, doesn't make our sexuality more loving, more generous, more healthy.  Marital sexuality can be just as anxiety-filled and unhappy as a fleeting one-night stand; without going into further details, I can assure my readers that my past makes me eminently qualified to say that much.

But I'm aware that most of my current sexual ethic has been built on the back of my own experience.  The Wesleyan Quadrilateral tells us that Reason, Experience, Scripture and Tradition (REST) all play a part in discerning the right path.  Like many progressives, I tend to give undue weight to the second, a modest amount to the first and third, and no credence whatsoever to the fourth.

So -- it's time for still more prayer, still more reading, still more discussing.  I have an awful feeling I'm going to end up agreeing with Lauren Winner by the time I'm done with her little book.  Sigh.  You'd think that two weeks shy of 38, Hugo's convictions would be more stable and more certain!

Comments

[Kristie Vosper]

I'm doing research preparing for teaching a seminar for preteens on sex, depression, peer pressure, drugs and alcohol. It is such a stunning process to justify ones heritage...the way that my own convictions on this topic have shaped me. I remember your own words, which I have used to explain my own sexual standards..."I believe sex and my body are sacred. I want only three things inside of me. Jesus, My husband and my children." I believe that your words, inspired by the Spirit in a crucial time...in the year 2000, have been preserving, enlightening and leading.

Interestingly, it seems that this whole principle of viewing our bodies as holy and sacred, starts there. In a culture where we do not see ourselves as beautiful, and are barraged by the contridictions of both feminist and mysoginistic (and all the shades inbetween) it seems that we have to find a way to climb into our skin and value it. If we do not, then the conversation is hard to entertain.

I will start there the girls I get to love and teach at church. I will start at a place where I teach them how beautiful they are...how holy...how wonderous. Then maybe then we will place a little more value on who we are naked before and who we allow to come inside of us.

[Hugo]

Darn it, Kristie! Using my own words back at me... I was thinking about that very conversation we had back then, when I made that very case to you. Funny how the Lord uses us, isn't it, and funny how we change!

[Jennifer]

"Marital sexuality can be just as anxiety-filled and unhappy as a fleeting one-night stand."

Thank you so much for bringing this up and for your honesty. I think you're right about that. I haven't read it, but I've heard that David Matzko McCarthy's book Sex and Love in the Home addresses this. Like Winner, he approaches sexuality from a communal perspective and doesn't support premarital sex, but I think he spends time talking about how the wrong kind of emphasis placed on marital sexuality can be damaging. And he also links marriage to our wider socio-economic situation in the U.S. which I think would be interesting.

[*Christopher]

Hugo, in general I agree waiting for sex in marriage is the best to give your kids, but that needs to be framed by emphases on the virtues even then in my opinion. Sex in marriage is not a good in and of itself--there are many exploitative marriages.

So how do you reframe the discussion to commitment, fidelity, chastity, growth in faith, hope, and love?

And as a gay man, when I heard those words--marriage only--from more conservative folk growing up in youth group, it became clear there wasn't a place for me within the bounds of such discussion, so I just tuned out and became depressed and felt completely isolated. That's where the rub lies for me, is when it turns so legalistic, that it fails to see the fruits of the Spirit in same-sex relationships that do not have the benefit legally or sacramentally of marriage. I hope you can do better for your kids, one of them might not be heterosexual, you never know...

[Chip]

"The Wesleyan Quadrilateral tells us that Reason, Experience, Scripture and Tradition (REST) all play a part in discerning the right path. Like many progressives, I tend to give undue weight to the second, a modest amount to the first and third, and no credence whatsoever to the fourth."

Hugo,

Thanks for your honesty and thoughtfulness. I rarely hear progressives admit this point, not because they're necessarily lying about things (I seriously doubt they are), but because they don't think of it in those terms. I see a fair amount of confusion of reason with experience among progressives (not to mention a disregard for the context in which Hooker placed reason -- reason was the intellect informed by God's truth, not just the intellect itself). I've talked with progressives who say they put Scripture first, but the more I speak with them, the more it becomes clear (or seems clear to me, at any rate) that they put experience and reason ahead of Scripture.

So a thought and a question for you: If you give "no credence whatsover" to tradition, then you only have RES, not REST. Why do you think so lowly of tradition?

Peace of Christ,
Chip

[Hugo]

Well, obviously, Chip, I'm troubled by my own dismissiveness of tradition. To be progressive, after all, is to be progressive -- and that implies that few things are timeless. Too often, tradition and progress seem at odds. Like many progressives, I sometimes find comfort in high church ritual. Many a lefty Anglican loves the smells and bells, because we do indeed want the externals of tradition without being bound by its strictures.

As a child of the Enlightenment (difficult but not impossible to reconcile with my evangelicalism), it's hard not to see the past as in some way laboring in darkness...

But my own contradictions find their way to the surface quickly.

[the_methotaku]

It's nice to see an Episcopalian cite the Wesleyan Quadrilateral- one of the factors leading me to stay with the UMC was the importance that experience has in my spiritual life. I'm currently contemplating the same dilemma of chastity that you are, though only for myself. I've thought of reading 1 chapter from Real Sex and one from Dirt, Greed, and Sex a night and deciding which one is right that way.

[Hugo]

Hye, I'm a big Countryman fan!

[the_methotaku]

Just to clarify- I haven't read either book before, so both authors would be new to me. In fact, I found out about Real Sex from your blog.

[Patricia]

This issue is a bit off the topic from what you've been writing about, but I am curious what your thoughts are on transsexuals. I think most of them claim that they just know they were meant to be the opposite gender. But how does one know? Is it a sin to undertake such a change? How does morality play into this?

[mythago]

Hugo, Reform Jews have saying that "the past has a vote, but not a veto," which I think is a healthy approach to tradition--that there's often a good reason we've always done something this way, and it may be affirming to do something that carries on a tradition, but we don't follow it unthinkingly or let it trump all other considerations.

[Hugo]

Oh, Mythago, I like that very much.