Sanctified Sexuality, Part Three

A few weeks ago, I began to discuss how our culture treats sexuality and why. I said our culture has sanctified sexuality, elevating it to a point of near-untouchability. That's why sexuality is guarded with such defensiveness, it is holy, and not to be subject to regulation or disapproval. I then began to search for the source, the reason why sexuality became sanctified. We sanctified sexuality because somewhere along the way we began to view sexuality as the ultimate form of self-expression. A person's sexuality has been tied to their identity in such a way that rejecting or disagreeing with someone's sexuality is to reject them as a person altogether.

But the problem, as we saw in part two, is that sexuality is not the fundamental, ultimate form of self-expression. Worship is. We serve and revere what we worship, which, in our (culture's) case, is actually humanity itself. We are our own gods. Therefore, we guard what is most precious to us, namely sexuality. We must honor ourselves because we worship ourselves. And to fully honor ourselves, we exalt sexuality, our ultimate self-expression. So, as I said a couple weeks ago, sex becomes the worship service of our religious humanism. We are caught in this vicious cycle of self-worship, unless we behold something greater than ourselves to worship.

We have things backwards. We, as created things worship ourselves and other created things, rather than the Creator. This is what God calls "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). How do we do such a thing, especially in the way we exalt sexuality? It starts with God. We all know God by nature. "For what can be known about God is plain to them...For His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Romans 1:19-20) This means we innately know their is a Creator who is worthy of our worship. Sadly, we don't respond to Him in worship although we know God, we don't honor Him as God. We choose to exchange the truth of God's glory and worthiness of worship for lesser things. We worship and serve creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:21-25). It's like esteeming the sculpture or painting above the artist. The mind and skill of the artist produced the masterpiece, therefore it is the artist who deserves praise. We would rather praise the artwork (humanity) than the Artist (God).

We are stuck in this backwards mentality and we are powerless to get ourselves out. Even if we could, we wouldn't want to. This is why the wrath of God is on us, why we are separated from God because we treat Him as less than His creation, and we delight to do so. This is why Jesus came. God sent His Son to show us His glory, to broadcast the superiority and supremacy of God over all things. He showed the sovereign power of God over demons, winds and waves, life and death. He demonstrated the righteousness of God by living a perfectly moral life, loving God flawlessly while also loving mankind rightly as well. He portrayed the great love of God by dying on the cross, bearing God's wrath for us and bridging the gap between us and God. Through Jesus, this great and glorious God is made ours!

Once we believe Jesus for reconciliation to God and forgiveness of sins, accepting Him as the most precious, valuable treasure, we see something greater, someone greater. Thus we are freed from our self-worship conundrum.

So if we will be freed from our sanctified sexuality, we must see the glory of God revealed in Christ. When we see Him for who He is, we will see ourselves for who we are, and sex for what it is.

I hope you've enjoyed this brief series! If you have any questions or remarks, don't hesitate to comment.

Sanctified Sexuality, Part Two

Last week, I introduced an idea about the way sexuality is treated in our culture. We have sanctified it, elevating it above many other aspects of personhood and human experience. The times of sexual accountability are gone. To disapprove of anyone's sexuality is to hate him/her or at least to condescend. Evidence is seen in the defensiveness surrounding any discussion on sexuality.

But why has this happened? Why does it matter?  These are questions we will tackle this week.

Think of the movie Happy Feet. It's a story about a penguin named Mumble who is born amongst a tribe of singing penguins. Singing is what they do. When they are moved with passion and wish to convey strong emotion, they break out in melodious harmony. Singing binds them as a group. Singing is their identity. Our friend Mumble, on the other hand, sounds like a bird moaning in excruciating agony when he tries to sing. It's something like a whining squawk. To make matters worse, he has no desire (understandably) to sing at all. But he can tap dance something fierce! When he is filled with joy or overtaken with exhilaration, his feet move with a creative cadence that would make a jazz drummer jealous. He loves dancing. It's his identity. So how do you think he feels once he's rejected by his tribe, alienated by those closest to him, because of his tap dancing? He's devastated. Tap dancing is identity. To reject it is to reject him.

Our culture's view of sexuality is similar to the penguin tribe's view of singing. It is seen as the foremost and fundamental form of self-expression. Therefore to reject a man's sexuality is to reject him. To tell a woman her sexuality isn't what it should be is to tell her that she isn't what she should be. This is what has made sexuality so sanctified. I have no clue about how this has happened or what small steps we took as a culture to arrive at our current location, but I do believe this is how sexuality is treated.

As a result of this view, we encourage people to embrace their sexuality. "Explore and experiment, express and enjoy," we tell them. Why? Because if they don't, they are detracting from their own experience, as if they had their inner man in a prison that can only be escaped by pursuing sex and expressing those desires.

Knowing our culture sees sexuality this way matters. Like a skilled physician, once we diagnose the disease itself, we can begin to provide a cure.

The problem is twofold, we are ignorant about true self-expression, as well as its context.

True self-expression is not seen in sex, but in worship. As humans created in God's image, we are worshippers at our core. We were created to adore greatness and respond to it in admiring love and submission. We worship every day. Worship drives what we do. Life, what we pursue and love, is like smoke arising from the flame of worship. We worship whatever is the most glorious to us, whatever is most valuable and lovely. For some, it's fame or reputation. For others, it's approval. Our hearts are idol-factories, as John Calvin said. We will always worship something, whether it is family, fortunes, or football. Worship is at the core of human experience, the true self-expression.

Our second issue springs out of the first. We esteem sex so highly because we worship ourselves. The god of our culture is not sex, but humanity itself. If a man or woman's sexuality is their ultimate form of expression, then sex is the worship service of our religious humanism. To defy my sexuality, or restrain it, is to stomp on the flame of my worship. So we are caught in this conundrum, this ceaseless downward spiral. We worship man and human experience, thereby enslaving ourselves to whatever we believe life is. The only hope of deliverance is to fix our self-worship. Our eyes must turn to something greater. That something greater will be our subject next week.

Sanctified Sexuality, Part One

With a title like this, you'd think I was writing about sex, marriage, or some combination of the two. But today, that ain't happenin'. I want to talk about a phenomenon we've noticed in our culture. We've all seen it and probably have commented on it in some way. I'm talking about the sanctification of sexuality. What an appropriate topic with the 50 Shades of Grey movie on the horizon.

The sanctification of sexuality. Sounds intellectual, right?  But on a more serious note, what does it mean? We have a sort of intuition of what sexuality is, the expression of sexual desires. As for sanctification, that may require some explaining. It's a churchy word derived from the Bible that means "to set apart." Israel was sanctified as God's first people. They were set apart for communion with and service to God. Christ sanctified believers by dying on the cross. Christians are now set apart to God, offering their lives up as sacrifices to worship Him. So, when I say sexuality has been sanctified, I am saying it has been set apart by the culture.

Sanctification has with it a connotation of sacredness, a sort of holy untouchability. This is what has happened to sexuality in our culture. It was once seen as a beautiful, yet serious treasure to be treated with great care. Society guarded it by stressing the appropriate context (marriage) and expression (heterosexuality). This limitation was not perceived as intrusive or hateful. It was right.

Now, sexuality is treated differently.  To tell a person "Your sexuality is not appropriate" and disapprove of perversions of God's creation is to hate him. People call it a vicious crime. A man's sexuality is to be accepted and affirmed. Any other action is seen as unholy. There is an untouchability about sexuality these days.

Think on your own experiences, what you've read, seen, and heard. Don't we speak freely on regulating the way people relate to one another without much trouble, until sexuality is mentioned? It has been elevated these days.

Next week we will talk about why/how this has happened and the implications of it.

What do you think are the implications of this? Do you disagree? Feel free to comment!