Speaking of Sex....

I was reading about a taboo subject today – sex! And particularly about the Christian understanding of sex. You all know what it is. Sex is bad. Or at the very least the slippery slope to sin. But have you ever wondered why we feel that way?

After all, it seems pretty much hardwired into us that it both feels good, and is necessary to make more of us. But that is the problem, when it feels good we think we are doing something wrong.

The person to blame for this is Augustine. He was one of the original, and earliest writers about what Christianity should look like. He was a Bishop in Africa some 300 years after Jesus. He wrote these massive books on the church, on faith, on belief, and his writings became the norm for our thinking about church.

But he had issues. Most of them having to do with sex. He had a mistress. He had boyfriends. He had an illegitimate child. He got in more trouble than all of these fallen mega church pastor's put together. And the root of his trouble was sex. Or at least, that is what he felt. He could not control his temptations.

And so he developed something you have heard of, but was never, and is not, in the Bible. Original Sin.

Yup, Augustine made that up to explain why he could not stop having affairs. Original Sin was lust, and lust was injected into us as unborn children because we were conceived through, gasp, sex. This was not natural, as most biologists would feel, but a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

Therefore every single person is born sinful – and every single person is incapable of controlling or accepting their sinful sexual urges.

This is a brief history lesson and ancient theological explanation but I just want you to have some background for the idea that our Christian views on sex and sexuality are actually crazy. They are not from the Bible, they are not from Jesus, they are probably not even from the Holy Spirit, they are from some guilt driven sense of remorse in one man's writing.

The absolute only thing Jesus ever says about sex is that if you are married, you should not have sex with someone else. That is it, the entire ethical standpoint of Jesus Christ as to what is good and bad about sex.

The fact that we took Augustine's views on sex and made them doctrine is the equivalent of taking Charles Manson's views on group dynamics and making them the law in terms of how we build churches. It is crazy.

I have felt this for a long time, but now a woman named Debra Hirsch has written a book called Redeeming Sex. In it she points out that all of this is based on the physical aspects of sex and ignores the emotional and spiritual component – it ignores how sex can be an act of love, of passion, of intimacy which brings two people together in an extremely close and loving way.

She argues for us to start over. For us to realize that everything the church taught about sexuality for the last 1500 years has been based on Augustine's guilt.

It is hard to change your belief about something mid stream. I doubt we can really start over. But it is certainly worth starting to admit that some of what we think is just weird. How can sex be something so terrible if it creates such cute babies, for example?

Even if we could just start to make the change to thinking, sex is natural and everyone does it, that might begin to swing the pendulum. Who knows what we could do if we stopped fighting about this!

Change as Rest

The times they are a changing – sorry about that; I felt the need to insert a little Dylan into your day. But they are. Even if it keeps snowing – the seasons have changed.

In the church world, it is now post Easter. Which is the most exciting time in the church world because almost nothing happens! Exciting? You bet! Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter – all of these are high holy days with lots and lots happening. We run through the life of Jesus, metaphorically, in a few scant months and throw ourselves into our faith. There are feasts and fasting, studies and practices... it is work.

I suppose it may be a chicken and egg sort of argument, how our society got on to this rhythmic movement through the year – maybe the church invented it and the civic world took it over, maybe church just adapted the way most people lived their lives... but it is not just in church circles that the times are changing – it is a universal Canadian phenomenon.

This week most University campuses will begin exams – or finish classes. And by the end of the month everyone will go home and find a summer job – perhaps a summer romance – perhaps move back in with their parents and realize how much things have changed....

And what about retired people who now have to open cottages, plant gardens, clean up lawns...

Life has a rhythm and we here in Canada certainly fall prey to it more than some other people – because we have the two main seasons – one where it is too cold to be outside without intention, and one where it is too warm to want to be inside since we spent the last 6 months there.

And life changes because of it. Things slow down, people change focus, and we really do try to make the most of everything around us.

Or at least – that is what I always thought, and what I always hoped. I have lived in a few different ways in the past year, even worked the most minimum wage job you can get – three months in a call centre. Because I had to. Because I chose to walk away from active ministry for a while and get a change of perspective after 20 years in the church.

But again, this is what I am saying, there is a rhythm - a different time and place for everything.

Long long ago some court prophet wrote a poem about it which crept into the religious texts of the day – for everything there is a season, and a time for everything under heaven – a time to live, a time to die, a time for sunshine and a time for snow, a time for ice cream and a time for tea.....

And it is wisdom, deep deep wisdom straight from the soul. A change is as good as a rest goes the current slogan, which it is most certainly not, but there is wisdom there too. We all need the changes that a different season, a different place, a different perspective grant us. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results – so take advantage of whatever changes are coming with this seasonal shift from cold to hot and do something different!

You see, that is the thing, faith is not about some pie in the sky different way of living, it is about seeing the world around you for what it is and living with intention. So embrace the changes, be open to the spirit, and live with intention!

Brett Anningson Brett Anningson is the chaplain at University of New Brunswick and is passionate about progressive Christianity and relating faith to modern culture.