Yesterday
Tony Jones directed me to Tim Dalrymple's blog entry entitled "
The Young Christian's Guide to Sex at Seminary." I was particularly intrigued by his argument since he uses Princeton Theological Seminary as an example of where, in his estimation, mainline Christian seminaries seem to be failing in their task of training young men and women for Christian discipleship. Since he and Tony and I all went there, there's an interesting sort of "class reunion" quality to this discussion that made it seem worth some deeper reflection.
Since reading it I've given a lot of thought to Tim's main points, and I think that while he elaborates on some important issues, his diagnosis stems very strongly from his confessed "evangelical with conservative leanings" point of view. Clearly the sexual mores that he took for granted coming from his background and outlook aren't reflective of every Christian (even, I suspect, every evangelical Christian). They certainly aren't reflective of the sexual mores that I grew up with, or experienced as being widespread in two mainline seminaries (including PTS). But Tim's blog post gave me pause and caused me to wonder why that is. I've come up with several possibilities, none of which, I think, exclude the others, and all of which may contribute to the liberalization of sexual mores among Christians in general and seminarians in particular.
Let me just note that I suspect that Tim would like to think that his position represents the normative base point for Christians in the early part of the 21st century, and can't figure out why folks in seminary have deviated from it. I think the truth is the opposite. Tim's very sincerely held belief is, and has been for a very long time (I'd guess since at least the early 20th century), very far from the norm among Christians. However, it took until the 1960s before people were willing to be more open about the rarity of actual adherence to the principle of premarital chastity (I remember reading a statistic at one point that fully 50% of all childbirths in the middle ages were undertaken in relationships that were, as they say, "without benefit of clergy"). Tim's position is the outlier, and has been for a very long time.
But why is this? There are, I think, several possibilities:
1. IT'S JUST NOT THAT BIG A DEAL. This, I think, is at the heart of most young people's attitude toward premarital sex in contemporary America. In the grand scheme of things, whether you have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend is of only somewhat more significance than the question of whether you take your junior year abroad or major on political science rather than sociology. It matters, of course, but the actual decision isn't that earth shattering. I would guess that even among those Christians who believe that doing it is a "sin" (again, a sharply declining number would be my guess), they wouldn't consider it a very important sin. No more important perhaps than drinking a few too many beers on a Friday night, taking a puff on a joint, or failing to return a borrowed book. Sure, it may be wrong, but on the spectrum of wrong things, a loving, consensual, pleasurable act between two unmarried people is of a very minor variety.
From an evangelical perspective, of course, it would be argued in response that sexual fidelity is central to Christian morality, but I've got to say that I don't see it. You can point to Biblical passages that accentuate it, but you can point to other passages where it really is not that big a deal. Certainly in his own teaching and preaching, Jesus had a lot more room for the sexually "impure" than for those that were quick to condemn them. Concubines abound in the Old Testament! And the story of Judah and Tamar doesn't even blink at Judah's willingness to sleep with a prostitute.
On the other hand, clearly sex carries implications that ARE a big deal, particularly when issues of emotional exploitation and pregnancy are raised. But these issues, in a world of birth control and frequent serial monogamy can be separated to some degree from sex by people who are careful enough and willing to to do so. Ultimately, if the sexual relationship takes place in the context of a loving, monogamous relationship, then the question of marriage is secondary.
2. TRADITIONAL SEXUAL ETHICS AREN'T THAT RELEVANT. The social conditions that were at the heart of the more traditional sexual ethics that Tim is advocating don't really have much to say to those of us in mainstream culture who were born after, say, 1960. The world we grew up in is a world where, as above, birth control is widespread and where marriage is often deferred until quite late in one's reproductive life.
In a world where the average age of marriage continues to climb, where women are often interested in pursuing other things besides marriage and motherhood, where economic pressures often necessarily make marriage and childbearing wait, it's very hard to see the relevance of a set of sexual mores that assume most people will be married by their mid-to-late teens.
While for some Christians, sexual ethics -- or any ethics for that matter -- don't have to be relevant, since they are simply rooted in obedience to a divine command (something that I think that is embedded in Tim's assumptions, though he may dispute that), for most Christians, as for most people in general, if a moral norm seems irrelevant and, indeed, arbitrary, and if violating it doesn't seem to harm anyone, it's very hard to convince them to adhere to it. I'd go farther and say that, if there is not a comprehensible, sensible reason to adhere to a set of mores, people WON'T. Even Christians. Even seminarians. And again, as above, even if they might abstractly understand it to be sinful, in the absence of any rational understanding of what is HARMFUL about it, the idea that it's sinful simply because God (or more probably accurately, some pastor somewhere) said so won't amount to much, any more than with drinking or dancing.
Connected to this is the fact that for many mainline protestants, and an increasing number of evangelicals, who care about gay and lesbian inclusion in the life of the church, it's hard to square the relevance of more traditional sexual ethics for heterosexuals when those ethics seem to have been so harmful to homosexuals over the years.
Can an ethic that includes unreasonable demands for gays and lesbians be any more reasonable when applied to heterosexual relationships? Again, even a relatively conservative stand which might say, for example, "gay and lesbian relationships aren't optimal, but for those men and women who are incapable of having heterosexual relationships, they can be embraced within the church as doing the best they can," can be extended to many heterosexual men and women's experience. They can just as easily say: "Ideally, I'd like to have remained chaste until marriage, but I haven't and I won't, so I'll do the best I can until I get married."
But at core, I suspect, it's really simply an belief that those traditional sexual mores don't really have much to say to contemporary Christians, because they are rooted in a very, very different time and place.
3. THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT. This is connected to #1 above, but takes a different angle. Premarital sex isn't that big a deal because, quite frankly, SO MANY OTHER THINGS ARE. From a Christian ethical perspective there are poor to be fed, justice to be fought for, prisoners to be visited, naked to be clothed, thirsty to be given water, etc. With all of this going on, it's hard to view sexual morality as being near the top of the list of things Christians should be concerning themselves with. Again, even if one might think that there are better and worse ways of engaging in a sexual relationship, it's something that I'll get to after I've solved all of these other problems first.
4. IT'S THE HYPOCRISY, STUPID. For liberal Christians, I think that there is a bit of eye-rolling that takes place when more conservative Christians start going on about sexual ethics because there often seems to be an assumption on the part of conservatives that if they've got their sexual house rightly ordered, they're doing their job to adhere to Chritian morality. It's almost the polar opposite of what I've described above.
What's more, while concentrating on sexual ethics, and seeking to root that in Biblical teaching, little attention is paid, for example, to what the Bible says about usury, and what that implies for seminary students' use of credit cards, or their student loan debt, or even the fact that they keep their meager savings in an interest-bearing savings account. By the same token, little attention is paid to the Biblical teaching about the communal character of the church, and the early church's example of a community that held all things in common. Particularly given the potential that exists for a seminary to become a model community for the larger world, the failure to take these elements of Christian morality into account represents an abject failure to consider what it would mean for the Church to truly be a "contrast society."
5. SECTS FOR CHRISTIANS. I think that Tim's analysis is rooted, even if he wouldn't put it this way, in an church/sect model of Christianity where he's occupying the "sect" category and he sees the other students at PTS as occupying the "church" category. As a sectarian, he views the church as being essentially counter cultural, and contemporary sexual ethics as reflecting a very "pro-cultural" failure on the part of many Chrisitans, and many of his fellow seminarians. But even sectarian Christians aren't counter-cultural about EVERYTHING (Amish perhaps being an exception, but even then, not everywhere). Tim will play frisbee, and presumably take out a student loan for his education, thus engaging in very "pro-cultural" behaviors. He'll drive a car and use the internet. But he's "counter-cultural" on sex, and this, for him, is a mark, I think that his Christianity is more "genuine" than that of many of his peers, since it is a reflection of his "obedience" to the command of God.
And as I suggest above, there is something to be said for a conception of the church as a for of "contrast society," representing an alternative to the pro-cultural biases of the world at large. But how that counter-cultural spirit is embodied in the church, and what moral norms are viewed as central to it, requires a lot more reflection on the part of both mainline and evangelical Christians than Tim's sniffing at the cultural captivity of mainline protestantism lends itself to.
And yet … if Tim's obedience to the command of God required him to abstain from premarital sex (a triumph that he's sad to see so few of his peers achieved), then is it disobedience for him to take a loan, keep his money in savings, refuse to share all of his goods in common, drive a car? Or would he reply, that these things aren't that big a deal, and aren't really all that relevant to his Christian life? Would he say than there are more important things to worry about? Or would he say that liberal Christians, by focusing on these matters to the exclusion of sexual ethics are at the end of the day engaged in acts of hypocrisy?
This is what makes Christian discipleship so hard, and Christian ethics so difficult. It's also why, I think, at the end of the day it's vitally important that we affirm we're saved by Grace.
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