Girls and other stuff
Submitted by F.O.D. on February 10 1999 at 16:25:06
In reply to Re: You mean it's not as bad as I fear? Submitted by Oliver on February 10 1999 at 01:32:11
|
Hi Oliver, thanks for your thoughts. I guess part of what I am feeling is a kind a cynicism to my relationships with girls. I've noticed a pattern with the few girls that I have gone out with, that at first I would think "yes, this is finally it! I'm going to marry this one!", then within, a couple of months I'm already thinking "no, I can't stay with this one. We'd end up tearing each other apart." I've never gone out with a girl for more than two or three months. I've been friends with my YF E, though, for some three years already, though certainly it is not fair to describe him as my "boyfriend". I was dating the last girl right in the context of my YF. I was close to him before I met her, and I was close to him after I broke up with her; indeed I broke up with her because I couldn't handle being around her all the time and pined for E's company. So I ask the question, what is it with my relationship with girls? Is it just that I've never met the "right one"? I can in a philosophical sense envisage a girl that I would be happy with. But I haven't met her. Do I break up with them after two months because that is the amount of time it takes to realise we really are incompatible? Or is it because of something else, because, perhaps, I really want intimacy with a male? It's not question I can really answer. Maybe if I live to 80 and still haven't met Ms Right, I can safely assume it really was the latter. Now I'll tackle the theology of the One Way. "One Way of Sexuality"? I see the Cross as a crucial point in our religion (duh, fancy that). I mean, what has it achieved? The key thing the Cross gives us is the reconciliation of all mankind, to each other on the one hand, to God on the other. The verse I have in mind is Gal 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." OK, in the first instance this verse is talking about who is acceptable to God, who is considered a "son of God". But I wonder if it goes deeper than that. Compare it with that odd comment Jesus made: "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." Mark 12:25 In heaven there is no gender distinction. What real meaning, therefore, is there in invoking a legalistic gender distinction in human relationships on earth? It may have validity if male-female relations carry an intrinsic spiritual meaning in their bi-genderedness, being a reflection of the relationship between God and man or some such, which was my original way of understanding it. But is that actually the case? I came up with that interpretation as a means of explaining the assumption that homosexual practice is intrinsically wrong. I couldn't see any other way in which it could be in and of itself wrong. In the kingdom of heaven gender plays no role. But does it play an essential role in maintaining society? We need woman, certainly. They are essential to life as a whole. But in the particulars, does that exclude the possibility of male-male relationships? I suppose if all of society was in a same-sex relationship, that would mean the end of us all. But that does not happen. The majority will always be happily hetero. Does that mean we on the statistical periphery are to be excluded? To get back to the topic, I can see how the cross frees us from having to adhere to meaningless legalisms or from putting up barriers which would not be there if we had not decided arbitrarily that they should be there. If there is neither "male nor female", then maybe gender has no higher spiritual value, and is relevant only to keeping society as a whole well-balanced and populated. In the context of the One Way of the gospel, then, the One Way of sexuality would then lie in being no longer alone, having a "helper" fit to help, having two become one, being faithful to that one, without forcing a gender distinction. Well, it's verses like that which give me the freedom to pose the question of whether or not our traditional understanding of homosexuality is correct. I haven't come to a final conclusion. Ray has looked into it and come to the conclusion that the freedom of the cross means we have the freedom to love without gender distinction, and I respect his arguments. As a final comment, when I was about 15 myself, I remember being very confused about how Christians could marry and have sexual relations with anyone. My reasoning went like this: the Spirit of God has come to live in us, it's no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me and I have a fellowship with the Father and am a member of the body of Christ. If I belong to Christ's body, how then can I become united sexually with another person? Wouldn't that be a kind of adultery against Christ? Eventually I realised that other Christians are also part of the Body of Christ, so marriage to a Christian won't be adulterous against God, because they are both parts of the same body. For me this thinking underlies why I think it is important for Christians not to marry non-Christians. I've said enough. God bless! F.O.D. |