Paul & sex
Submitted by F.O.D. on March 03 1999 at 10:33:20
In reply to In the Navy... Submitted by F.O.D. on March 02 1999 at 12:26:46
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F.O.D., Once again, for the sake of our discussion of the topic at hand and for the "new" Christians, I think it would have been better if Paul hadn't said anything about sex & vocation or if somewhere the counterpoint would have been made. Nowhere in the New Testament, in my immediate recollection is the connection between "God is love," "God is spirit" and "love/sex/relationship" made. It seems to me also, without checking it out, that marriage and children aren't important in the New Testament writings. It seems to me that the Catholic tradition of sexual validity for procrecation only grows out of the Old Testament and post New Testament church, and that Old Testament sexual expression wasn't nearly as strictly tied to one husband, one wife as the ideal today. (Consider levirate marriage - closest male relative is required to father children with the wife of a male who died childless.) Nowhere today does it seem that celibacy is encouraged and expected among heterosexuals (except maybe among Christians saving themselves for marriage -- and even there I'm coming to the conclusion that that may not be the best route to go!) as it is among Christian gays, lesbians, and boylovers. I think there is another point to be made that, from all my experience and study, is theologically, spiritually and psychologically sound. Here are four more quotes from the writings I prepared for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America almost four years ago (and as I said previously, to which no one has noticed). (Don't worry if you don't follow the deep theological language of the first. I put it here to make the theological connection more complete, hoping at least maybe someone may be able to follow it! The latter three are much more easy to read and straight to the point.) One becomes fully human in community The third area on which I want to comment, and also related to the matter of holistic description, is the renewed discussion today about personhood, particularly as that discussion is led by contemporary eastern orthodox theology. Not unlike Wolfhart Pannenberg's theological anthropology that an authentic person is "eccentric" rather than "egocentric," orthodox theology in deeper and more nuanced fashion, with reliance on the Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th century, upholds the definition of a person as ecstatic and hypostatic. John Zizioulas argues that a person is thus not merely an individual intended for self-fulfillment, self-definition and consumption, but an open and ecstatic reality who refers to others for his or her existence. Personal actualization occurs through self-transcendence and communion with other persons. Further, as Zizioulas says, "the person in its ekstatic character reveals its being in a catholic, i.e., integral and undivided, way, and thus in its being ekstatic it becomes hypostatic, i.e., the bearer of its nature in its totality." In other words, a person becomes so only in communion. But in communion vis a vis his or her unique relational history, a person is an unrepeatable hypostasis/identity. The theological implications should be clear, not only because this issues from a theological trend. The genuine person is an ecclesial being, who finds affirmation and integrity only through placement and realization in the ecclesia. Such a holistic understanding would be indeed salutary in a culture or church whose pluralism too often erupts into governance according to constituencies and self-interest groups. (Duane H. Larson, "A Current Agenda for Systematic Theology," The Lutheran Theological Semianry Bulletin, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania USA, 74:1, Winter 1994, from remarks presented before the Seminary faculty in 1992, p. 26.) I have become fully human because of relationships I have become and am becoming fully human because of those relationships -- social, sexual, political, economic -- in which I both take seriously and am taken seriously by others, in which we need and depend on one another, i n which we initiate and follow, welcome and are welcomed, challenge and are challenged, encourage and are encouraged, take risks and find rest. (Gary David Comstock, Gay Theology Without Apology, Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1993, p. 128.) A human in love is a human on the way to God For most gay and lesbian people, it is the human experience of gay love that opens the door of hope to the possibility of a passionate love relationship with God. As Patrick Arnold observes in his book Wildmen, Warriors and Kings: Masculine Spirituality in the Bible, "Falling in love is the most important clue a human can ever find to his or her latent spiritual needs and potentialities. Without this experience a human's relationship with God remains largely one of obedience, respect and will, but one that ultimately lacks passion, heart and love."* As St. Augustine is reported to have said: "Show me a human in love, and I'll show you a human on the way to God." [Notes, p. 228: *Patrick Arnold, Wildmen, Warriors and Kings: Masculine Spirituality in the Bible (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 172-73.] (John J. McNeill, Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians, and Everybody Else, Boston: Beacon Press, 1995, pp. 156f.) Love is the only path to substantial joy Call it what you will, genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy. Take another path and you may find rare moments of ecstatic joy, but they will be fleeting and progressively more elusive. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, A Touchstone Book NY: Simon and Schuster, 1978, p. 160.) So, F.O.D., am I saying once again that I think Paul is wrong! :-) I don't think so! Just that there's more to love than just a quick glance at 1 Corinthians indicates! But if I may paraphase Paul (1 Cor 13:8-11,13): Love's power never ceases. Gifts of preaching and teaching the message of God will be rendered ineffective, words of wisdom will cease to be uttered, knowledge will be made useless -- for we know in part and we preach and teach imperfectly. But when the complete and whole comes, the incomplete and partial will pass away. ... But now faith, hope and love endure. Faith (to be able to trust God, people, and what we know as truth and to be faithful to them), hope (to have no anxiety when planning and working toward a future), and love (to care about others and to feel cared for) -- these three are necessary to meet the emotional and spiritual needs for life and growth, and the greatest of these is love. Ray |