Paper Tigers

I remember when I first started my life as a Christian. I was inundated with inside information which attempted to build barriers between me and those outside the faith. There is a natural division that occurs when one holds strong opinions about right and wrong in a culture that has moved from those opinions, but the war Christians fight should never be an engagement against people who disagree with them. The battle is against evil; against spiritual wickedness; it is not against "flesh and blood." Jesus never looked to personalize sins; He was adamant about the sins of scribes, pharisees and false teachers. but he was more interested in personalizing salvation to those who followed Him, exposing the gap sin had created between God and man (which is what the Sermon on the Mount illustrated) and revealing Himself as the savior who bridged it.

Christians and non-Christian both have values. When absolutes standards are rejected, human beings are adept at living in the grey, at abiding in the "moral of the moment," at foraging ideas and finding ways to survive through compromise. Absolutes give birth to "temporaries," and these multiply extravagantly. I want a path more powerful than this, but unfortunately I know many Christians who take the same approach to life's challenges as those who are indifferent or opposed to Christianity. "Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream," encouraged the Beatles. Do what feels good; be natural; go with the flow; ignore the rest.

Which brings us back to the one crucial area and three critical issues of the last 40 years: sex, and sex in three areas: personal morality; reproductive rights; and sexual orientation.

PERSONAL MORALITY: Let's start at the beginning: it IS natural to want to have intercourse - early and often, married, engaged or single. The 7 year itch is real, and wanting to plant your seed in as many females as possible IS an evolutionary trait. It is natural to protect yourself from outside harm (using a gun if necessary), bear and raise children safely (getting yourself as much accumulated security as you can), to celebrate using drugs and alcohol, to dance and frolic late into the night, to play music and howl at the moon.

Dylan said "if dogs run free, why can't we?", and a girl I met while sharing Jesus at the University of Maine tempted me with that line. I thought about spreading my seed for an instant (probably 2, actually), but turned down her invitation to "talk about Jesus in her room." She was exotic and I remember the moment now, 37 years later.

But remember, it's not wrong to do things that aren't natural. We fight obesity and struggle to stop smoking. We go through rehab to shed drug and alcohol addictions. We regret past decisions about how we treated the planet. Human beings, in their most natural form, seem hell bent on wasting everything and killing those who get in their way.. We can't glorify people living closer to a subsistence level as some kind, naked ape, because they handle their environment as poorly as their cousins living on Park Avenue, maybe worse. Many of them would split to the lights of the city if they had a chance, and the Amazon is filled with a hundred thousand indigenous people who have. Natural medicine, healthy food and fiber is great, but Whole Foods is suffering right now because when the economy is bad, people eat food with pesticides on them to save a buck.

Christians are doing a disservice when they tell those outside the faith that Christian choices are more natural than theirs. Christian choices are based on faith in the revelation of God's book, the life of Christ and the traditions of the Church, and they are profoundly unnatural. For them to be followed at all is completely supernatural.

It may be normal for a teenager getting through High School as a virgin. But it's weirder in College, and after College? We're on track to the "40 year Old Virgin." Why is virginity important? Like it or not, Jesus demanded virginity until marriage. It's a discipline of obedience, but if you can't celebrate the discipline, then a commitment to virginity is lost in resentment of the instruction.

Most of the traditional moral values haven't ceased: virginity to marriage; one partner; no adultery; rest home. There is a lot more in it than that. What isn't is "hooking up" prior to marriage, adultery during marriage; divorce; serial monogamy. Put away the "what about" questions. You know their answer. The Christian way with sex may be unattractive, but it's simple and straight forward.

By the way, I want nothing to do with your bed. I reserve the right to speak the truth in love about the practices of my culture, but I have no desire to pass legislation to insure that my way is your way. I respect CIVIL RIGHTS, and what happens in your domicile is eminently YOUR BUSINESS. If God's power can't change a heart, I don't expect man's laws to. Christians are about God's power, not man's laws.

SEX: Part 2, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS