Tuesday, July 07, 2020

Excarnation II



But this understates the difficulties. That Christianity has often been seen as another form of Platonism, even worse in that it seems to give such an important place to punishment and sacrifice, is not just a function of the denseness or  the ill will of the critics. The Gospel message doesn't fit into the categories which have come down to us through ages of human history, and is recurrently being twisted, even by its own adherents, to make sense in these terms.

This means that there are clearly wrong versions of Christian faith. But it doesn't mean that we can give a single right version to replace them. The hold of these categories which come to us through our history, including that of our pre-Axial religious life, is so great that we have trouble thinking through what the Christian revelation means. The wrong categories often come more "naturally" to us. So we operate with a certain amount of unclarity and confusion. This is the condition of doing theology.
Perhaps the most obvious area in Christian culture where the tendency for excarnation has been felt is in the Christian approach to sexuality.  Taylor doesn't devote a great deal of his book to the subject and the  impression I get is that  he is far more "liberal" than I am, but it would be a mistake to think his critique of excarnation is an attempt to "liberalise" Christian sexual ethics. Taylor does not go into an extensive historical treatment of the subject but simply reminds the reader of the the hostility that Christianity has towards sexual desire. No matter how the act is realised, there always seems to be an element of sin associated with it. This continual association of corruption with the desire itself resulted in a Christianity that was nearly always hostile to its expression. As this blog has mentioned before, it was only after two millennia of Christian thinking that unitive element of sexual desire was recognised as legitimate, and even then conditionally.

Whatever its reasons, Christianity's hostility to sex has resulted in theological treatment which links sin to its expression in nearly all instances, even within marriage. However this position  creates an anthropological vision which regards mans sexual nature as evil.  Therefore the good man in such a vision is a man who has literally "chopped off" his sexual nature. Now some defenders of the traditional position will argue that it is important to control an appetite as rowdy as sexual desire due to all the damage it can do, but difference between regulation and suppression is a matter of degree, and the Church regulated hard.

Really hard.

Yet, sexual desire is a constitutive element of human nature so the traditional Christian opposition to Eros was an attack on the human constitution. To quote Taylor:
And in this, it follows much of Christian sensibility over the ages, which has also own uneasy about many aspects of human flourishing, has been uncertain and ambivalent about them. Take sexual fulfillment for instance. For centuries, the midiaeval church taught that sexual intercourse was essentially to be directed to procreation, and you shouldn't enjoy it too heartily even then. The Reformers tried to rehabilitate sexual relations among married couples, but in practice the emphasis on its being carried out to the glory of God put a damper on sexual pleasure....... Now that there is a tension between fulfillment and piety should not surprise us in a world distorted by sin, that is, separation from God. But we have to avoid turning this into a constitutive incompatibility. This, however, is what both exclusive humanism on one hand, and the sensibility of much conservative Christianity on the other, tend to do. The first take for granted that what is dedicated to God must detract from human fulfillment. The second are so focused on the denial and restriction of desire that they easily fall into a mirror image of the secular stance: following God means denying yourself.
It's hard to beat the beast when you're both playing the same tune.

The problem with this approach is that it seriously impaired the Christian understanding of sexuality and created a state off affairs which many found repellent and pushed them into the secular world.
But there is another charge against the aspiration to transcend, not just futile and self-defeating, but that it actually damages us, unfits us for the  pursuit of human fulfillment. It does this by inducing in us hate and disgust at our human desires and neediness. It inculcates a repulsion at our limitations and poisons the joy we might otherwise feel in the satisfactions of human life as it is.

Here the enemy is not so much Greek polytheistic fantasy and Greek philosophy but Christianity, especially in its Augustinian forms. Here Nussbaum takes up one of the central themes, one of the constitutive polemics of our secular age, as I am trying to describe it. Hatred at Christianity for having defamed, polluted, impure ordinary human sensual desire is one of the most powerful motivations which impelled people to take the option for an exclusive humanism once it became thinkable.

What Christianity tried to do--especially Catholicism--is refashion Eros into a "platonic" version of itself, stripping the carnal element of it to its bare minimum and hence deforming it in the process. It tried to create sex without sexuality. It is also why--for the average person--it really has lost all authority of matters of sexuality. It speaks of sexuality in a way that the common man cannot relate to.

To consider what I mean take the following from commentator Chent in a recent post.
"Rape is sex without consent, and it can definitely occur in marriage."

Yes, a definition that is not found in the Bible or the tradition of the Church but it is the standard feminist definition.

The Bible never talks about consent. And even less about consent being the basis of the morality of sexual intercourse. The basis is marriage. [ED]

Of course, this does not mean "sex on demand" at any time or place". Nobody said that. But constant denial of sex is a serious sin and a break of marital vows. "You must not deprive each other, except by mutual consent for a limited time, to leave yourselves free for prayer, and to come together again afterwards; otherwise Satan may take advantage of any lack of self-control to put you to the test." (1 Corinthians 7,5)

Don't get me wrong. Of course, I am against a husband forcing himself on his wife. Not because it is rape (it is not, according to the Bible), but because it is aggression. Because an evil is not an excuse to commit another evil.
Commentator Chent puts forward a very orthodox and traditional interpretation of conjugal rights. But what's important to note here is that any dimension of desire [Eros] is not even factored into the analysis. Access to the partner is seen in strictly legal terms  and the erotic constituents of the sexual act which facilitate it, are considered irrelevant to the legitimisation of access. It's a thoroughly decarnalised understanding of sexuality. Furthermore, even the other partner's right to resist is also grounded in legal terms of access,  not in the lack of facilitation of the erotic faculty. It's as if we were having a discussion of property rights and not sexual responsiveness. The underlying approach being predicated on the notions that desire is irrelevant to the act or that the desire is evil and should not be factored in. To top it off, any attempt to introduce this element into the discussion is seen as Feminism or heresy.

And even here Chent is justified in his charge. Because the notion of factoring desire into the analysis of the situation is outside the traditionalist Christian tradition.  But this creates a tension between human nature which instinctively grasps the importance of Eros, and the Church's legalistic tradition which ignores the element.

What Christianity it tried to do is create a sexuality without Eros: it's teaching on the subject clashing with human nature. But because Christianity has been unable to address issues of sexuality convincingly within its own tradition, external non-Christian forces have filled the gap and thereby gained legitimacy.


*Quotes from Taylor's Secular Age.

22 comments:

  1. Hoyos1:43 am

    I know it’s only part of what you’ve written here, asI recall, the Bible does talk about consent, in the Deuteronomic code where it discusses rape,it talks about the circumstances, with the assumption that a woman being sexually attacked would scream for help if anyone was around to hear. Also as I recall, if no one was around to hear her, the assumption would be she was telling the truth, Additionally on the positive side in the Song of Solomon, the wife is very interested in uniting with her beloved.

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  2. I find this post strange, but I confess I've never understood the constant angst about sex in regards to religion.

    To me, sexual issues are a minor thing on the whole moral spectrum, and I've never noticed the Church obsessing about sex more than the average person seems to. Rather, the Church seems to be at great pains to ignore it all until finally the cultural consequences of family decay destroys the culture.

    What Christianity it tried to do is create a sexuality without Eros: it's teaching on the subject clashing with human nature.

    I don't see this at all. The Church has merely responded to mankind's twisting of the naturally good of sex. Clearly, how God unified sex and children and love seems to bother a LOT of people. But the Church seems fairly balanced about it all. Personally, I'm fully on-board with God's sexual framework, and I've noticed that nearly all large families I know have the same cheerful approach, like happy pagans I guess.

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  3. @Hoyos

    The "Angel of the House" is such a Victorian lie that no doubt came from the Manichean distortion of the truth that has long infected the Church.

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  4. I don't like to follow up with my comments in blogs because I don't like to participate in debates and, even less, with a guy as you, who are bright and whom I have learned a lot from. Because of my childhood, I tend to avoid conflict, even such a mild way of conflict as an Internet debate. So I usually write my comment and I don't read the post again, just in case somebody else has replied to my comment and I end up being in a middle of a debate.

    But, since the post is about my comments, I think I have to set the record straight. I don't think I have expressed myself well in my last comment. This is not unusual, because English is not my native language and I am always struggling to find a way to convey my thought in English. I see that I failed miserably in the last comment and I will probably fail in this message.

    You explain my comment as an example of traditional thought and I don't recognize myself in that. I agree with much of the things you have said: that traditional Christianity has seen the sexuality with a deep mistrust. I don't agree with this mistrust. It is hard to follow the rules even inside marriage, a thing which I am painfully aware of in my own marriage. I think that the fact that the ones that make the rules are celibate causes an unnecessary rigidity (which they don't always apply to themselves, as the last scandals have manifested, in which mercy has been freely provided to the most aberrant actions).

    (I am not that sure that this is a gnostic corruption of Christianity. It seems baked into the faith. Saint Paul speaks about the flesh as bad and the spirit as good and says that it is better to be celibate. But this would be a different discussion for a different time)

    Me: "The Bible never talks about consent. And even less about consent being the basis of the morality of sexual intercourse. The basis is marriage. [ED]"

    TSP: "But what's important to note here is that any dimension of desire [Eros] is not even factored into the analysis."

    It is because desire is never factored into the analysis in moral duties, not in sex, not in anything else. When you have the duty to provide to your children:

    "Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (1 Timothy 5:8)

    It does not say: "You have to provide for your household only if you feel like it. Everything else is exploitation". Of course, there is flexibility. Let's put a husband in a traditional society as an example. Maybe the husband is sick or there is something that prevents him from working today or for long periods of time. But, imagine that, one day, a husband gets home and says: "Honey! I have decided that I will only work when I feel like it, which is once in a blue moon. Don't tell me to go to work if I don't feel like it, because this is exploitation". Wouldn't be this a severe breach of the sacrament of marriage in this case? It is assumed that you acquired the duty of providing for your family when you got married. Trying to get you to fulfill your duties is not exploitation.

    (Continues)

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  5. (Follows from above)

    The same way, when a person gets married, he commits to monogamy, not to celibacy. Let's say, the wife is not in the mood today. Everybody can understand that. Or the wife has health conditions or something like that. This is completely understandable. But let's imagine a wife telling: "Honey! I have decided that I will only have sex when I feel like it, which is once in a blue moon. Don't tell me to have sex if I don't feel like it, because this is rape". (There are men in your country that spend months without sex because their wife is never "in the mood"). Wouldn't be this a severe breach of the sacrament of marriage? It is assumed that you acquired the duty of having sex when you entered marriage. If you don't want to get sex or you are not attracted to the guy, then don't get married.

    (On a side note, I have never understood why women have this problem in your country and in the country I was born. In the country I have lived for the last 20 years, we men are the ones that have to say: "Not tonight honey ...")

    I know you will criticize me depicting sex "as a duty". Where is the Eros? Where is the play? This seem legalistic and dry. Of course, there is Eros and play in sex, but we are talking about *moral* issues. *Moral* issues are expressed in terms of duties, not only in sex but in anything else. "Thou shalt ...."

    If you say "Honour thy father and thy mother", this is a duty (and a right for parents because the duty of a person is the right of another person). Does this mean that the relationship between fathers and children is only a duty? That "the child's right to resist against care for his parents is grounded in legal terms of caring about elders, not in the lack of facilitation of the affection between fathers and children. It's as if we were having a discussion about contracts of elderly care and not about affection inside a family. The underlying approach being predicated on the notions that desire of caring for your parents is irrelevant to the act or that the desire of not wanting to care is evil and should not be factored in."

    Of course, not! The relationship between fathers and children is a constant source of happiness and joy. But moral duties are predicated for the times we don't feel like it. If we feel like caring for our parents, no commandment is necessary. It's for the times when our parents need to be cared for and we don't feel like it, that there is a duty.

    I get that American way of life is based on feeeeelings. So a marriage can finish if one of the two spouses is not feeling it. I guess that talking about duties instead of romanticism is counter-cultural. But the Bible never says that the moral law is based on feelings.

    The opinion that marriage does not give a right to sex (and the right of a person is the duty of another person) is not Biblical and, in fact, it is a very strange idea in all cultures of history and in the Western culture until some decades ago. You can tell me that I am wrong when I say that it is a feminist idea, but you haven't given any reason of why it is not. Historically, it is a feminist idea: it is born inside feminism and it is only present in feminist cultures. A dismissal is not an argument.

    I am exhausted after having written such a long wall of text. I have reviewed. I hope I have not messed with possessives and pronouns, as usual. I hope this is my last comment of this topic. This is your blog and it is fair that you have the last word.

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  6. Anonymous7:29 pm

    Yeah, but St. Paul also says that a bishop should be a husband of one woman, that he only recommends celibacy to avoid burdening oneself with all the care in the world, etc. In the early church bishops and priests were married (as were all the apostles except St. Paul and St. John), and if one follows the church canons through the councils as the centuries progress, originally celibacy was instituted for bishops IIRC because it made pagans stand in awe (IOW it made them look cool and supernatural). Still, it would take many more centuries before celibacy was instituted for presbyters and deacons, and in the East it never was. It is interesting that it was a vow of celibacy of one man in the ancient church that (purportedly) beget the heresy of Nicolaism. These Nicolaites renounced sexual intercourse with their wives, but considered homo-orgies fine and dandy (thus technically remaining celibate, parallels with modern day clergy are... interesting).

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  7. @Hoyos

    I think its important to interpret bits of scripture in the context of the totality of the Bible. The whole husband-wife dynamic isn't a simple hierarchical ordering but needs to be interpreted in the context of Caritas. Without delving into a post about the nature of Christian marriage it's clear that a marriage is meant to operate as one unit, with each partner trying to be "pleasing to each other" There is a reciprocity built into the relationship that looks toward the betterment of each of the parties. It's not just about rights it's also about obligations to the partner.

    The husband demanding conjugal rights also has an obligation to his wife and vice
    versa. So demanding your marital rights without reference to the other party is just as much a violation of the marriage as withholding of them. It's not just that women and men have "rights" in a marriage, they also have "duties". Each party in a marriage may have sexual access rights, but they also have a duty to be arousing.

    What I find interesting is that many women buttressed their frigidity in the past by an appeal to the Christian bias against sexual pleasure. Catering to their husband's "base" needs was seen as a sort of defilement and thereby justified their sexual refusal.

    @MK

    The Church has merely responded to mankind's twisting of the naturally good of sex.

    Sex is a big deal. Porn, while evil, is a barometer of peoples interest in it. I think the point of this post is that, yes: mankind has twisted the natural good of sex but so has the clergy.


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  8. @Chent

    Thanks for your comments.

    I tend to avoid conflict, even such a mild way of conflict as an Internet debate

    I don't like conflict either but I think it's important these issues are hammered out and sometimes it can't be done without a bit of honest conflict. I replied to you in a post simply because I think your comments deserved more than a combox reply.

    And you have expressed yourself well. I also want you to know I am having this debate with you in good faith. So any criticism I direct your way is with respect.

    It is because desire is never factored into the analysis in moral duties, not in sex, not in anything else. When you have the duty to provide to your children:

    Moral duties are not simple abstract principles but need to be seen in the context which they are performed. Clearly "in principle" a spouse cannot refuse the other sex, yet circumstances may arise which render this obligation suspended. You can imagine all the possible scenarios where a spouse could legitimately say no.

    Now a spouse who unilaterally decides to refuse sex is attempting to change the nature of marriage and is clearly in the wrong. But here's the problem, can you compel them to have sex? My thoughts are that you can't since coercive sex is rape. Not only that, the nature sexual union involves mutual desire and the way to overcome this problem is by fueling desire, not forcing copulation. You've got to work with Eros, not against it, or not factor it into your calculations. Duty, or "pity" sex is profoundly destructive to a relationship as well.

    You mention in your culture that it is the men refusing sex. My understanding of Latin culture is that there is far more emphasis on gender polarity than in the developed west. Women want to have sex with masculine men, they don't with beta's. Latin culture works on fueling the desire not just emphasising the duties.

    Also, I don't think that feelings should be dismissed too quickly,as they are the products of our carnal natures. And this is what I mean by decarnalisation, it's the approach to human relationships as if "feelings" are in a separate domain to duties and don't interact with each other. If a wife doesn't want to have sex with her husband because of some idiotic feminist theory she is wicked. But if she does not want to have sex with her husband because there is no desire for him, the solution here is to determine why the desire has failed and try to correct it, not operate on a principle that duties trump feelings and sexual arousal is irrelevant to the situation.

    I look forward to your future comments.

    BTW, I'm not American, I'm Australian.



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  9. @Anon

    It is interesting that it was a vow of celibacy of one man in the ancient church that (purportedly) beget the heresy of Nicolaism

    That's the thing about asceticism, it can go bad really fast.

    As I said before, the medievals worried far less about fleshy sins than spiritual ones as they knew the latter caused far more damage.

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  10. Anonymous12:35 am

    >Sex is a big deal.

    This. Reproductive instinct is like being born with a heroin addiction, except it doesn't go away after a week of abstinence. And unlike a heroin addiction it cannot be avoided, you cannot hide, nor can you run away from it. It is built into you. I don't know how it works for women, but for men even if you are completely celibate you will still have nocturnal emissions (unless you also happen to suffer from insomnia in which case you are likely to develop prostatic hyperplasia at a young age). The phenomenon of prostatorrhea is the means by which the body attempts to fight the hyperplasia in youths:

    http://journals.lww.com/humanandrology/Fulltext/2013/09000/The_sexual_profile_of_patients_with_prostatorrhea.1.aspx

    So sexual discharge for men at least is unavoidable, celibacy or no celibacy. It will happen no matter what you do or how strong your convictions. But achieving orgasm because of taking of a dump is probably not something anyone ever had in mind or wanted.

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  11. @Anonymous


    "This. Reproductive instinct is like being born with a heroin addiction, except it doesn't go away after a week of abstinence. And unlike a heroin addiction it cannot be avoided, you cannot hide, nor can you run away from it. It is built into you. I don't know how it works for women, but for men even if you are completely celibate you will still have nocturnal emissions (unless you also happen to suffer from insomnia in which case you are likely to develop prostatic hyperplasia at a young age). The phenomenon of prostatorrhea is the means by which the body attempts to fight the hyperplasia in youths:"

    In any case nocturnal emissions isn't a problem or a sin other than being a mess. It simply happens as a necessary bodily function.

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  12. @Social Pathologist

    "Now a spouse who unilaterally decides to refuse sex is attempting to change the nature of marriage and is clearly in the wrong. But here's the problem, can you compel them to have sex? My thoughts are that you can't since coercive sex is rape. Not only that, the nature sexual union involves mutual desire and the way to overcome this problem is by fueling desire, not forcing copulation. You've got to work with Eros, not against it, or not factor it into your calculations. Duty, or "pity" sex is profoundly destructive to a relationship as well."

    I think that is grounds for releasing Men from many obligations also. But outside of that a man ought to keep fit and his Testosterone levels at healthy levels. He must demonstrate strength and virility to keep the fire alive.

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  13. Anonymous5:21 am

    I am working on a series of essays 'towards' a covenantal moral theology, which tentatively extend dogmatic theologian Donald J. Keefe, SJ's four-volume, two-million-word masterwork of systematic theology, Covenantal Theology, to moral theology. I have not got very far, and I can only go where the evidence takes me and what I learn from it, so I may never get to topics pertinent to normal people like you and me, but you may be interested in reading the essay on sexual continence in the Church: catholiclearning.com/Continence.html

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  14. Jason6:34 am

    Perhaps a distinction can be made doctor between anti-sexuality and a reluctance (or refusal) to actually recognize the importance of the sensual and carnal. While you definitely can see the former throughout history, say in the example of the Irish church, my impression is that the latter generally predominates in modern times. The pagan manosphere blogger and author Rolla Tomasi likes to say that "you need sex," something in my view that is generally true for psychological - and also to a degree for moral and spiritual - health. Yet when I was a believer in the past, in all three branches of Christianity - Evangelical, mainline, and Catholic - this was never emphasized. To be sure there was no antipathy to the body expressed by a priest or a minister or nun; indeed it was always affirmed as a good. Never was marital bliss espoused as necessary though for that overwhelming majority of those church members who had not a vocation, or those rare species who are "undersexed" to use an old-fashioned term.

    Instead, the point seems to have been at best implicitly recognized yet never really explicitly acknowledged. Instead marriage has always been affirmed for its conduciveness to spiritual development or family formation. Or to put the matter negatively, the mantra was always to appeal to the supernatural in the face of sexual temptation, perhaps especially for blue-balled men - pray about it, or have an accountability partner. Never was the notion entertained that the church, through the instruction of the clergy and the efforts of the laity, might openly assist young people in marrying so that the sexual urge may be sated. Maybe that was sufficient before when individuals generally married in their twenties (or continue to do so in traditionalist circles, to reference MK's observation), thus a least in a de facto sense enjoyed the apotheosis of the pleasures of the flesh. Surely it's not sufficient in the church today, much less the secular world, where so many experience a terrible atomization and isolation, a sense of being quite literally shut out of the world of sexual pleasure and love.

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  15. Anonymous7:26 pm

    >Never was the notion entertained that the church, through the instruction of the clergy and the efforts of the laity, might openly assist young people in marrying so that the sexual urge may be sated.

    Well, some of the more cult-like religious organizations do just that (and more than that, not only do they help their members marry each other, they also help them in getting training and gainful employment and so on), both Protestant and non-Christian e.g. Church of the Nazarene, Church of Scientology, etc. Problem with mainstream Protestant churches and churches of the catholic tradition (Catholic, Orthodox, Miaphysite, Nestorian) is too much historical baggage, too much folklore, too much involvement in politics, scheming, and struggles for power to actually care about the flock. They have got their cradle believer base who are basically all lapsi, but they do not care, they have got the numbers and the funding anyway.

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  16. Anonymous3:39 am

    I think you're right about this. Nothing more to add, but I know you get pushback on this topic, so it's important to point out that there are people reading who [silently] agree whole-heartedly. --Rex

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  17. @Anonymous Jason
    "Perhaps a distinction can be made doctor between anti-sexuality and a reluctance (or refusal) to actually recognize the importance of the sensual and carnal. While you definitely can see the former throughout history, say in the example of the Irish church, my impression is that the latter generally predominates in modern times. The pagan manosphere blogger and author Rolla Tomasi likes to say that "you need sex," something in my view that is generally true for psychological - and also to a degree for moral and spiritual - health."

    Promiscuity reinforce Frigidity and vice versa. Both twin Heresies help each other exist.

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  18. @John Rockwell

    I think that is grounds for releasing Men from many obligations also. But outside of that a man ought to keep fit and his Testosterone levels at healthy levels. He must demonstrate strength and virility to keep the fire alive.

    I'm not sure if you can release a man from marriage--at least in the Catholic context--in a relationship but I do think that there needs to be some kind of recognition that there is something wrong where asymmetry of sexual desire exists. I think if you allow recognition that marriage is meant to have an erotic component then "letting yourself go" could be seen as a sin against the marriage. i.e you're not allow to turn into a fat slob and then argue that you've been wronged when're you're not getting enough.

    @Anon

    ......but you may be interested in reading the essay on sexual continence in the Church: catholiclearning.com/Continence.html

    I had a look at your essay and you raise some interesting points.

    You might want to have a look at this encyclical because it covers a bit of the same ground that you do.

    Once again, without going into a big discussion on the subject, it interesting to see that virginity per se does not really get you any Brownie points unless it's done specifically for "the Kingdom". Inceldom is not meritorious. It's also interesting to see that while consecrated virginity ranks higher than the married state the Church does not denigrate the married state (at least in modern times). However what is established by the Chruch's stance is a spiritual order of precedence which I think can by be abused--by weaker thinkers--to denigrate marriage. It's akin to saying that only the best is good enough and everything else is rubbish. It's a huge breech where spirtual pride can enter through.

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  19. @Jason

    Perhaps a distinction can be made doctor between anti-sexuality and a reluctance (or refusal) to actually recognize the importance of the sensual and carnal. While you definitely can see the former throughout history, say in the example of the Irish church, my impression is that the latter generally predominates in modern times

    There's definitely been a shift in attitude over the last 100 years insofar as there has been a recognition of the fact that sexual pleasure does facilitate the love between spouses and has some legitimate role(though it still appears to be subordinately conditional to procreation) But I think change has been forced onto the Church by factors external to it. Just as Protestantism and the response to Communism saw the Church put greater emphasis on conscience, so has the sexual revolution affected some of the Church's thinking.

    I think that the Church's historical treatment of concupiscence as an evil to be avoided has left it culturally blind with regard to the importance of sex and its mechanics. But to be fair, even secular society has issues with this.

    Surely it's not sufficient in the church today, much less the secular world, where so many experience a terrible atomization and isolation, a sense of being quite literally shut out of the world of sexual pleasure and love.

    I think that the Church's treatment of concupiscence/Eros has meant that it has never seen any good in it and therefore has nothing to say on the subject. Not seeing any good in it has meant that there is no tradition of positively advocating for it. Of course the negative consequences of the secular world's purely carnal conceptions of it seem to reinforce this view. So we're in a situation where many people aren't really happy with the sexual market place but there appears no way out. Secularism leads to atomisation as does an excessive spirituality. I think that the Church could charge into the void but it needs to change some of its thinking on the subject.

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  20. @Anon

    They have got their cradle believer base who are basically all lapsi, but they do not care, they have got the numbers and the funding anyway.

    I think that one of problems of clericism is that clerical concerns occupy the clergy and institution of the church sees the world through a clerical perspecitve. How to have an active and happy sex life just isn't on their radar, and justifiably so. This really is an issue for the laity to tackle, but given the Church's tradition of a passive laity means that there are no leaders to fill the void.

    John Rockwell

    Promiscuity reinforce Frigidity and vice versa. Both twin Heresies help each other exist.

    Agree totally. The reformed whore is usually a prude and the reformed prude is usually a whore.

    @Rex,

    Thanks a lot.

    Sometimes you wonder if writing these posts is worth the effort, especially if there isn't much traction. The feedback helps.

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  21. Anonymous10:04 am

    Whatever its reasons, Christianity's hostility to sex has resulted in theological treatment which links sin to its expression in nearly all instances, even within marriage.

    One glaring problem with your view of sexuality as essential to human nature is that nowhere does Christ sanction the idea.

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  22. One glaring problem with your view of sexuality as essential to human nature is that nowhere does Christ sanction the idea.

    And where does He condemn it?

    So Trangenderism is OK since sexuality is unimportant?

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