Thinking about Sex: Pt 3
November 7, 2004
Susan Andrews, former moderator of the PCUSA preached on Eros & Ethics Friday evening, using the Song of Songs as one of her primary texts. She shared her frustration, as a seminary student, with the sex curriculum that was available, specifically mentioning a Unitarian curriculum that was so factual and accurate (& even included a birth control show ‘n tell section) but was so lacking of any Spirit, any excitement, any joy of sex. So she created a curriculum of her own (but kept the show ‘n tell aspect).
She quoted Phyllis Trible’s “seminal” (she asked us to excuse her use of the bad pun) commentary on the Song of Solomon, and suggests that the imagery in Song of Songs is a (re)creation of the Garden of Eden (pre-fall). In Eden, sexuality is entangled by guilt & shameful nudity, there is pain in childbirth, unequal power between lovers, and being an adult means that we leave our mother and father. However, in the Song of Songs, erotic love is woven into play, imagining, a nudity that is both desired and exalted (there is no guilt), childbirth is eagerly anticipated, they have a mutuality of power and passion and the lover invites her lover into her mother’s chamber.
Andrews uses Rowan Williams’ “The Body’s Grace” (I haven’t read this but I plan to sometime) and talks about the need for a sexuality that is not selfish or exercise power over another, a sexuality that heals and enlarges the life of the other. “Sacred sexuality is about glorifying and enjoying God with the full worship of our bodies,” Andrews said. It’s about the shaping of erotic love with agape love.
I wonder how we take the views of sexuality that many hold today, and bring about a more honest, awe-inspiring view of sexuality…one that is more of a Song of Songs sexuality? How do we encourage young adults (and I’m thinking of even anyone under 30 here) to express their sexuality, specifically in intimate relationships. We are all sexual beings (though let’s not let that be the #1 aspect of our persons that defines us), in addition to being emotional, physical, spiritual, etc., beings. It is 100% natural to want to express sexuality and intimacy with others; the question is how do followers of Christ show sexual intimacy with others, honestly, joyfully, unashamedly, fully…while still respecting the other, healing the other and honoring God?
I suppose as I read that last sentence, it seems to sound pretty damn Evangelical. But I’m not asking for some True Love Waits answer, and I don’t want a typical “well, sex outside of marriage is just plain wrong” answer either. I guess I’m not really sure what I’m looking for. Let’s just talk about sex…
Tags: Conference, Covenant-Network, Sex, Sexuality
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
November 7th, 2004 at 8:24 pm
Marriage is a picture of God’s relationship (through Christ) with the church. I think it’s a pretty good picture. We have broken marriages and broken churches all over the place. In marriage, we have husbands and wives who are looking outside the marriage to work, addiction, or adultery for their sense of worth. In the church, we have people and congregations who are looking outside of God - to money, buildings, intellectualism - for their hope.
In perfection, God loves the church unconditionally and the church returns that love fully. In perfection, the husband loves the wife with the passion found in Song of Songs and the wife returns that same love.
It isn’t about “sexuality.” That’s the myth. The lie. The book is not about sexuality, but about passion and devotion. Do we really love God with the same passion the woman loves her beloved or do we just put up with God, continuing to love wealth and status?
Sexuality is a form we use to communicate our passion. It is not a bottom line. It is not the focus. It does show where our heart is focused. If my heart is focused on God, my actions are going to reflect his love. I’m going to stay true to my wife (whether I’m married yet, or not). If my heart is focused on self, my actions will play that out in behavior that seeks to gratify the flesh.
November 8th, 2004 at 1:37 am
I’m in a Christian Ethics class, and recently we were talking about Christian marriages. I agree with Kevin about how if the heart is focused on God, the actions will reflect that. I think that marital sex contributes to the development of love, as well as representing the marriage and love itself. In the mid 80’s a Catholic team commissioned by the US conference of Catholic Bishops wrote that “mutally pleasureable marital sex is perhaps the most accessible human experience of love that characertizes the persons of the Trinity.” (if you want the title of the book the quote came from e-mail me).
As for non-marital sex, it’s more difficult. I don’t think we should discourage young people from finding themselves sexually (and I’m not just saying that because I’m young), because that’s one of the things that helps define and deepen someone’s understanding of themselves. However, there does need to be a sense of responsibility that comes along with this.
I guess, to say in the words of this country’s great leader, “It’s hard work.”
November 8th, 2004 at 11:35 am
Try as we might, Kevin, there is nothing in the Song of Songs to indicate that the two lovers are actually married to one another. In fact, the discovery and newness of the exchange almost indicates they are not.
November 8th, 2004 at 9:31 pm
Try as we might, Brian, there is nothing in the Song of Songs to indicate that the two lovers were actually having sex with one another. It was a passionate relationship, to be sure, but that does not directly imply sex.
I agree with you that the two were not likely married, though for different reasons. I take them to be engaged/intended (in whatever the cultural form at the time was) and absolutely in love with one another. It doesn’t mean they were having sexual relations.
Here’s what I would like to know: Are we starting with an assumption that we want sex outside of marriage so we read scripture trying to find the loopholes that might allow it? Is our faith really about seeing just how much we can get away with?
November 8th, 2004 at 11:53 pm
Actually, no. I think, generally speaking, that sex ought to occur in marriage, or at least in a covenanted exclusive relationship, for a variety of reasons–some biblical, some not. I just don’t think it’s fair to say that the Bible presents that as the only way to do it, or even as clearly the best.
The assumption I am starting with is that we should bring as few assumptions as possible to the biblical text, and read it for what it really says–not for what we want it so say, or what culturally we expect it to say, or what “traditional family values” insist that it says. And I think that’s a pretty high view of scripture–taking it seriously enough to really read it.
November 9th, 2004 at 4:05 pm
On re-reading my last post, I think I need to clarify. I should have said “I just don’t think it’s fair to say that *EVERY PART OF* the Bible presents….” A variety of cultural norms exist in the various writings of the Old and New Testaments–polygamy, numerous concubines, obviously arranged marriages, etc. I do not mean to say that a marriage between a man and a woman is in any way contrary to scripture or somehow not “best” in the eyes of scripture. Scripture just isn’t necessarily that clear about it.
November 10th, 2004 at 12:42 am
That’s what’s cool, Brian. I, too, am trying to just read what scripture actually says. I’m trying to learn what my biases are to screen for them when I read and get past them. I do know one thing. Even if we come to a different answer here, we’re still brothers. :)
November 10th, 2004 at 5:36 pm
In his “Money, Sex and Power: The Challenge of the Disciplined Life,” Richard Foster explicitly broadens “sexuality” to encompass the desire to be in relationship with others. It’s not the same as acted, erotic love. In our culture, however, this is what a “real” relationship actually means (and the beef I have with “singles” ministry): somebody with whom one can enjoy erotic intimacy.
We are meant to be touched, held, and known intimately in our relationships, and while erotic intimacy is still a deeply desired way of relating, it is not a necessity of life. The other stuff is.
The experience of intimacy, in friendship or erotic relationships, is a holy thing, and as the degree of intimacy increases, so does the ability to impart life - or destroy it. Christian “Sex ed” needs to frame intimacy in terms of a holy endeavor, one to be protected and revered, not feared.
I don’t think I’ve answered Adam’s questions, perhaps merely objected to the terms…
August 3rd, 2005 at 12:02 am
I personally look to “post-modernism” (or whatever we want to call this emerging paradigm) as one way of approaching this sexual/relational nexus. The Song of Songs is so radically pomo in construction — a story, yes, but even as a story hard to follow in a linear timeline manner. The book functions as sex manual, a feminist handbook (over half the verses come from the woman, not the man, and she is sexually active, not passive). I’ve mucked about in a very personal, narrative way myself with Song of Songs, coming at it as both
spiritual allegory and rather heatedly straightforward love poetry.
So in sum, for me dealing with Sexuality is to deal with the Song of Songs, a book that only gets more wonderful and mysterious the more one ponders it, prays over it, and lets it imbue one’s inner world.