Hey there– So I am completely drowning in seminary homework, and I intended to flesh this post out more than I really have the time to do, but if I don’t post it I never will.
So here’s the “point” of the post– Karen Sloan and I met over coffee a couple weeks ago and had this amazing conversation about the church and about our struggles and journeys within the PCUSA. Towards the end of the conversation, we somehow found ourselves on the subject of chastity. I found myself confused by the term– what has it and what does it mean for the church today? How has chastity been interpreted and reinterpreted within the Presbyterian Church over time? Does it mean more that simple abstinence? And if so, what is the “more”?
Perhaps this all stems from confusion over the meaning of “chastity in singleness, fidelity in marriage,” but ultimately I think there is more to it than that. I feel both intrigued and challenged by the ambiguous concept of chastity, and my gut tells me that it has quite a bit to offer the church as long as we can save the term from becoming a synonym for abstinence. So, with that very hurried and brief overview of my thoughts over the past month or so, I ask the question that has persisted for me: what does “chastity” have to offer the church today?
About Sarah Glass
Please listen to the ramblings of a “child of the sixties”, one who was not chaste, and who has since learned why it would have been so much better to have been so.
I find it hard to believe that there is any ambiguity regarding chastity even though that ambiguity is constantly being espoused. Could it be that those who find themselves unable or unwilling to remain chaste are in some way attempting to justify their actions?
Let’s first deal with the meaning of chastity. When used in God’s Word as provided us in the Holy Bible (as in Titus 2:5, “to be. . . chaste) the Greek word used is “hagnos” and is interpreted as meaning innocent, modest, and perfect; examples being clean, pure, and chaste. For the meaning of chaste and chastity in today’s world let us turn to Webster’s dictionary–Chastity: abstention from unlawful sexual intercourse and abstention from all sexual intercourse. Is there really anything ambiguous about this?
So, what does chastity have to offer the Church today? How about the opportunity, through chastity, to be able to become part of a committed, life-long relationship in marriage with our spouse (defined in the Constitution of the PCUSA as being between a man and a woman). To be able to do so without the baggage of having previously given ourselves totally to someone else. How about the comfort in our spousal sexual relations of not needing to wonder “how we compare” to someone else or why we can’t get what we got elsewhere. How about being able to give the greatest possible wedding gift to our spouse, that of a pure and untouched physical self, kept pure for him or her?
What about the fact that God teaches us that sexual relations outside of marriage between a man and a woman are sinful? Isn’t God’s Word enough? Or is it that so many of us have decided that the Bible, God’s Word, of 2000 years ago doesn’t always apply in today’s world? When I first began to read the Bible in it’s entirety at age 43, after a failed marriage and while starting a new relationship, I realized that I needed to make a decision. Was I able to believe everything the Bible had to say or could I pick and choose? I realized that I was not qualified to choose which passages to believe or disbelieve, nor did I then know anyone who was (and I’m sure I never will). Therefore, I realized that my only choice was- “Do I accept the Bible in it’s entirety or do I turn away from it completely”? Anything else would be an unintelilegent decision. I chose to believe. There is too much support and proof of the Bible for an intelligent person to do otherwise. For those who aren’t sure about that read Lee Strobel’s “A Case for Christ” and “A Case for Faith” or, for something a little more concise but with the same message try “More Than a Carpenter” by Josh McDowell.
There is always room in Christ’s church for purity, not only in our actions but in a pure and unadulterated belief in God’s Word. Remember a simple rule of thumb, when determining what God has to tell us in His Holy Bible, if our interpretation does not hold true with EVERY other passage in the Bible, then we have not properly understood the message. Turn to the Bible if you are confused. The more you study it, the more of God’s truth you will know and understand.
God be with us all.
So why not use the word abstinence here. It would make more sense. Chastity refers to what is socially normative. Strobel and McDowell – blech. You can’t allow these interpretations to leverage your own study of the Bible. Let those opinions be challenged and then see where you come up. Never be satisfied with an interpretation of Scripture, but continue to wrestle with it.
“Or is it that so many of us have decided that the Bible, God’s Word, of 2000 years ago doesn’t always apply in today’s world?”
Clearly not all of it does. When was the last time you saw someone stoned for working on the Sabbath? All of those golfers, NASCAR drivers and pit crews, and NFL players have a lot coming to them if we are to follow God’s unchanging word. Ever kill a woman caught in adultery? How about the clothing you are wearing? The food you eat? Do you follow all of these clear dictates as well?
“What about the fact that God teaches us that sexual relations outside of marriage between a man and a woman are sinful?”
Then I should have more than one wife as well since that was a widely practiced and accepted norm in the culture and many of the churches leaders from Israel had more than one wife. If it worked for Abraham it works for me too right? Or are you going to cherry pick which strictures of the law are upheld and which are not based on McDowell and Strobel alone?
The point is that you have to make clear extra-biblical decisions about what a term like “chastity” actually means.
Finally, the last I checked the PC USA Book of Order nor is the Book of Confessions equivocated with Scripture. As our understanding of Scripture changes over time, so does our guidance with these documents as you can tell with recent editions of both. We vote through a democratic process what stays and what goes.
I too like clarity since ambiguity does not help people organize themselves very well. But we have to be honest in how we actually adjudicate what this clarity means without blindly accepting any theology that meets our own selfish need to be right. Take a line from Kierkegaard, before God we are always wrong. To assert otherwise is idolatry.
As anyone who has spent time in a church youth group can attest, it is quite possible to be “abstinent” without being “chaste.”
I have no problem with chastity as the ideal. Chasity is a choice to reject the world’s push to be people ruled by our passions (and thus exploited) and instead be people ruled by God’s will (and thus give ourselves to the world in productive and creative ways.)
I must admit, that when I was an enquirer, no one asked about the state of my chastity, or really, any of the other ways that I was attempting (or not) to live according to the will of God in my life. They only would have asked if I was gay.
We should call all people (not just ministers) to give their whole lives to God’s kingdom.
Wow, Noel. I’m wondering if we have anything in common besides three letters in our first names.
There’s plenty of ambiguity in the word “chastity” (and in all words, really, but that’s the linguist side of me talking…or am I?)
And compare these two definitions you’ve given: “innocent, modest, and perfect” with “abstention from unlawful sexual intercourse and abstention from all sexual intercourse.” Ummmm, I’m failing to see any sexual connotation at all in the first set of words. In fact, it kind of makes the case that “chastity” is a way bigger concept than sexual abstinence (which was probably Sarah’s point to begin with).
Lee Strobel? Josh McDowell? Are you serious??? These are some of the people who make me want to run screaming far, far, away from the church and the Christians who advance their arguments.
I’m not sure why you felt it necessary to point out that the PCUSA Constitution defines marriage as being “between one man and one woman.” That is at best a point of division among many in our denomination, and doesn’t really contribute anything positive to this discussion.
And the part about “being able to give the greatest possible wedding gift to our spouse, that of a pure and untouched physical self,” Gee…so much for all those vows, commitments, time, laughter, family and all that other stuff that happened on our wedding day. I Sure hope the sex wasn’t disappointing then, if it really was the best gift I had to give her.
Chaste … a concept that goes way beyond abstinence. I tend to resonate with Drew’s definition about pushing away the temptation to be ruled by passions which exploit, and give ourselves to the world in productive and creative ways.
Maybe it’s easier for me to understand what isn’t chaste … I’m currently on the beach in the Mexican Riviera … I didn’t think about it being Spring Break when we booked the vacation. There is not much chastiy around. It has less to do with the bikinis and more to do with the way I hear groups of college men talking about the girls they met last night. The drinking … to the point of losing all sense of responsibility, only so that giving in to passions is acceptable.
Is it a male thing? Thinking about sexual morality in such legalistic terms? I don’t think the moral boundary has much to do with which body parts touch and when. It has to do with the building and breaking of trust and relationships. It has to do with giving more than receiving; it means being a life-giver and not a life-taker.
Most of our sexual mores have much more to do with culture than with Biblical mandates. And we have to consider the culture we’re a part of as we make moral decisions, trust and relationship building are based on a shared understandings and assumptions. So, in our culture, yes, I believe chastity implies abstinence. But it also includes much more.
What I find absurd about this whole thing is that what is generally understood as “chastity” is a theologically unattainable standard If we take Jesus at his word, that is.
Folks who say “look to the Bible” for your nice simple morality seem to always skip blithely over that pesky Sermon on the Mount…where what Jesus clearly says (Matthew 5, you know where it is) is that in the eyes of God, the simple act of *desiring* non-connubial nookie is a sign of our separation from God’s grace.
For much of my young life, I was “chaste in singleness”…from a legalistic point of view. But I’d be serving the Father of Lies if I said I was chaste from Christ’s point of view. I’ve now been married to my wife for 15 years, and she’s still my friend and my companion and I’m still seriously into her in that other marital way. We meet and exceed the legalistic standard of fidelity. But then there was that evening we watched Y Tu Mama Tambien together, and, well, shoot. Suffice it to say that from a strictly Jesusy standpoint, that probably wasn’t the best call.
The issue, if we use the Doctrine of Differential Authority as a guide, is more that we need to insure that our actions as sexual beings are absolutely Golden Rule compliant. From that highest standard I interpret chastity as rooting out and defying in ourselves those sexual drives that are predatory or solely self-seeking, as well as those that if expressed would shatter the covenant relationships and bonds of love that are the fabric of Christ’s Kingdom.
Well shoot– who knew that my half-formulated thoughts on chastity would spark such debate? And some of it almost contentious… I will honestly say that I didn’t anticipate the response that I received from Noel, but I think that his post is a good entry point into the issue when you think about it, because this is precisely the view point that confounds me and makes me wonder whether chastity in those terms IS salvageable. It is precisely the ambiguity of chastity within the bible which extends out into our culture’s one-to-one association of chastity to abstinence that makes me wonder why it has become THE standard for successful relationships. While I think abstinence can be and is a valuable practice, I don’t find that definition of chastity satisfying enough. It feels more like a “no” than a “yes,” in other words.
So what is it then? I hear the word chastity and I KNOW that it must mean something bigger than not getting naked with a man or woman out of wedlock. It feels like an idea that could be powerfully transformative to the church, but one that is too often co-opted by those who would relegate it to sex ed class and chastity pledges with 15 year olds. What about Chastity as a lifestyle? As a choice that extends beyond sex and into the very substance of how we see ourselves as christians in the world? Drew’s definition of chastity as a “choice to reject the world’s push to be people ruled by our passions and instead be people ruled by God’s will” sounds a whole lot less like sex and a whole lot more like Kingdom-living, and I wonder whether chastity might be re-appropriated in THIS sense by those of us in the mainline who have shied away from the word because of the associations with, for example, the way it is used in ordination (“chastity in singleness” to root out those of alternative sexualities) and the way it has been used by the religious right to argue against things like sex-education in schools.
Ultimately, it feels like chastity has been put in a box that is too small for the possibilities it offers. I love Wendy’s point that “I don’t think the moral boundary has much to do with which body parts touch and when. It has to do with the building and breaking of trust and relationships. It has to do with giving more than receiving; it means being a life-giver and not a life-taker.” Or David’s observation that interprets “chastity as rooting out and defying in ourselves those sexual drives that are predatory or solely self-seeking, as well as those that if expressed would shatter the covenant relationships and bonds of love that are the fabric of Christ’s Kingdom.”
Chastity as Kingdom living… a wonderful concept indeed.
This is a very interesting conversation.
From one perspective, we’re unchaste if we expose our ankles.
From another perspective, men are chaste no matter what they do, but women are unchaste if they express any desire for sex whatsoever. (Sort of like the Old Testament, in which a married woman commits adultery if she sleeps with another man, but a married man can sleep with anybody, except of course a married woman (because then he’s causing HER to commit adultery.))
From a perspective in which “chastity” means only “abstinence from intercourse,” same-sex couples are automatically chaste, thus G-6.0106b should only be applied to straight people.
From the perspective of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, chastity means the purification of the heart from lust. I don’t think it’s impossible, but it’s certainly difficult enough that it should preoccupy us for quite awhile in working on ourselves before we point fingers at others.
Theologians Elizabeth Stuart, Eugene Rogers and Michael Vasey have written some interesting work lately on celibacy, which is that the social norms compelling people into heterosexual marriage actually devalue celibacy. Celibacy as a commitment allows for the development of friendships of many kinds among many people, and can be in many ways more intimate and less restrictive than marriage. Not to mention that celibacy is valued much more highly in the New Testament than marriage. It’s an important reminder these days when we’re suspicious of celibacy.
I also like this perspective because it holds up the value of celibacy without making it into a rule for everybody. Valuing things without requiring them of everyone is a lovely skill and I wish more Presbyterians had it.
The pragmatist in me (which is like all of me) just thinks we do not talk about sex in church enough. It is still a dirty thing. I wonder if we can ever take a more sacramental view of it rather than simply discuss all that is wrong with it? We still need to have sex to have babies (for the most part). Without babies, no body of Christ. We literally give birth to the Body of Christ here. And sex needs to happen for that to take place. The problem with homosexuality stems from the moral repugnance we have traditionally accredited to sexual intercourse, and it also stems from the problematic of the female reproductive system from years of a decidedly male regulative structure for how we incorporate that into our experience of God. I am not saying go nuts with the metaphor (Ruether and Johnson kind of have in their theology). But find ways to incorporate sex as sacrament into the ways that we discuss our union with God.
I’ll chime in if it’s not too late…
One caveat – Drew, I can’t help but conjure up an image I’m sure you didn’t mean when I hear “find ways to incorporate sex as a sacrament into the ways that we discuss our union with God.” – the cultic prostitution which happens in many religions. I’m sure you meant nothing of the sort.
Anyway, I’m feeling a little “both-and” coming on here. I resonate with some of Drew L & Wendy’s comments earlier in the idea of Chastity being more than sexual. But I want to contend that in being more, it is certainly not less – it does include our sexuality and by incorporating all of our lives into the concept of chastity, but we don’t relegate our sexuality to being a tertiary or inconsequential segment of that. Generosity extends beyond the idea of giving 82 cents to a guy so he can catch the bus, but simply because I live my life with a “spirit of generosity” – opening my door to friends and family, finding time to talk with others and share their sorrows – doesn’t get me off the hook from giving the guy that 82 cents. In the same way, our chastity, our living lives not ruled by our passions, doesn’t then give us the right to simply submit to the cultural norms of sexuality – like “hooking up” as some kind of new way to experience intimacy in a group setting.
But I also want to say that Drew’s right on when mentioning we need to talk more about sex in church – we need to do a better job of lifting up a vision of our sexual lives that is neither dirty and shameful nor the highest experience known to humanity. Sex is A PART of life as a human. It is intended to be a GOOD part but it is not intended to be THE good part. And coming full circle, I think that’s what chastity is all about. But until we can offer up a healthy and clear (not necessarily unambiguous) vision of the place of sex in our lives as humans – until we can get beyond being driven strictly by hormones and submit ourselves body and soul to Christ (man, is that hard) – we don’t have much to offer either inside the faith community or outside to the world we’re called to serve.
There is some thought-provoking discussion here, but the core meaning of the sentence if G-6.0106b is pretty clear.
1.) Don’t have sex with anyone you aren’t married to.
2.) Marriage is between a man and a woman.
I think differing views on #2 represent an important theological conversation we ought to be having.
It is much harder to make any kind of Biblical case for attacking #1, but doing so on the basis of word games about what “chastity” means (as some candidates have attempted in some presbyteries) is basically bogus. That’s the kind of thing the Pharisees did–trying to obey the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit.
As they told me in seminary, everything happens in a context–and the context for when G-6.0106b was added to the Book of Order ten years ago was pretty clear.
I agree with most of what has been said about sex being intended as a good part of human life. I strongly recommend Lauren Winner’s book REAL SEX.
Just a quick response (while in class) to Mike’s comment on G-6.0106b… I think the point of this discussion is that there is more to chastity than a clause in the book of order on sex, that perhaps we have pigeonholed the term by making it synonymous with abstinence. I feel like that limits us too much, kills the conversation before it begins, implies that there is nothing more to talk about than the physicality and emotional aspects of sexual intercourse.
Well said, Sarah. Sometimes I feel the compulsion to state the obvious core before I can really engage in branching out.
Neither ‘chastity’ nor ‘chaste’ appears much in any English Bible translation that I have on my computer. 2 Cor 11:2, Titus 2:5 & 1 Pet 3:2 would seem to be the only possible examples. Abstinence appears not at all except with regard to dietary codes in 1 Tim 4:2.
I wonder if considering the spiritual gift of ‘self-control’ would be a fruitful avenue of inquiry.
I read something in Gibb’s and Bolger’s book “Emerging Churches” that might be helpful in this discourse, at least it is for me. In the book, the author is essentially dealing with the issue of imitatio Christi– in other words, what does it mean to imitate Christ? which aspects of Christ’s message were purely cultural expressions and which were “inspired by the gospel of the kingdom?” The author quotes John Yoder:
“THere is thus but one realm in which the concept of imitation holds–but there it holds in every strand of New Testament literature and all the more strikingly by virtue of the absence of parallels in other realms. THis is at the point of the concrete social meaning of the cross in its relation to enmity and power. Servanthood replaces dominion, forgiveness absorbs hostility. Thus–and only thus–are we bound by New Testament thought to be like Jesus.” Yoder concludes by arguing that the practices of “celibacy, manual labor, itinerancy, desert or mountaintop dwelling, the adoption of small groups, an isolated prayer life, or long periods of fasting” were not adopted by the early church as means of imitating Jesus but rather as practices which functioned as “the means of and formed the context for the redemptive activities that were intended to be transcultural.”
My reading, which is of course open to criticism, is that these were cultural *practices* that shaped the community as it sought to express the foundational Christ-centered message that the kingdom is here and now. In that sense, they are not essential, but that does not mean that they are not helpful. So trust me that I am not saying that we ought to throw out celibacy and fasting, etc… I am merely suggesting that perhaps we can express the more important message in equally meaningful ways, and that perhaps it is time to revisit other practices that can express our chastity before God and our commitment to the missio Dei.
Cultic prostitution eh? Hmmm… That would be an interesting overture for the GA
Not quite the angle I was going for.
On the other hand, here is an article on sex-ed in churches:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/q/chi-0302_sundaysex_k_d_hmar02,0,3403656.story
As usual the media picks two extreme poles of Unitarian Universalists and Focus on the Family.
I still think a sacramental view is the way to go. When I was at Princeton there was an Orthodox priest at eh CTI was working on a book on the sacrament of sexuality in Orthodox theology. I forget both the name of the priest and the name of the book. That would be a good find if he ever did publish it.
About G-6.0106b: At the 1996 General Assembly in Albuquerque, the committee also considered a version of b that said “celibacy” instead of “chastity.” They rejected the celibacy version in favor of the chastity version.
I don’t have that much tolerance for word games either (that’s why I think G-6.0106b just needs to be deleted) but they aren’t completely pointless. If celibacy in singleness is really the “spirit” of b, the committee and Assembly wouldn’t have had a problem passing it.
From a purely cultural standpoint, I hate the word chastity.
I have a wrenching gut reaction that immediately conjures up the worst kinds of oppression against women– from chastity belts to scarlet letters.
Every Presbytery meeting we have an elder who stands up and asks each candidate if they are going to be chaste in their singleness, and it feels like an inquisition.
We live in a culture where people can’t get married until they are in their thirties. Do we really expect them not to have sex before that? Really?
It seems to be that the chastity clause not only does the damaging service of keeping LGBT persons out of ordained positions, but it keeps out most people under the age of forty as well.
Is it just me?
It’s definitely not just you Carol. And I think that’s what Sarah is asking – is there a way to reform our understanding of chastity so that it is not an injunction, but a positive affirmation of sexuality? In my mind, all people in theory are included in it. I also happen to think that LGBT persons should be able to get married and ordained under the same rubric.
In my class last night we discussed teenage pregnancies. If you are having sex talks with your kids as early as 12 and talking about it as casually as the sports scores over breakfast, you have missed the boat. But sex in our culture is so paradoxically sequestered as something almost not natural, that most folks keep it segregated.
“From a purely cultural standpoint, I hate the word chastity.”
Carol– you are spot on here…. the word Chastity, especially but not only for people like myself who are seminarians under care, takes on a gut-wrenching, oppressing sort of meaning in the PCUSA these days. I hated the word for a long time because I heard the horror stories of how it is being used against my brothers and sisters who are seeking ordination as a means of filtering out those who have been defined as other or deviant by our institution. It made me sick and I wanted no part of it.
These days, I am trying to reclaim it, though. Drew makes the excellent point that chastity could maybe be understood in a positive way, if we were to let it. I am intrigued by the idea that has come up again and again in the responses to this post of chastity as another means of living out the message of Christ, as being more than just sex. I do think though that until, as Drew puts it, we address sex as “natural” and refuse to sequester it, not much positive is going to come out of discussions of this sort.
Great, wide-ranging discussion! I’d like to zero in on one aspect, if I could: chastity as a religious discipline vs. chastity as a spiritual result or “fruit”. I’m 10 years into my second marriage. In both marriages, the issue of my chastity would delight any biblical list-checker. I was and continue to be scrupulously faithful. But in the first, I wouldn’t have made Jesus’ list. As the other J.C. confessed, I “lusted in my heart” after other women. This, I realize now, was a symptom of the problems in that relationship. But hey, I was disciplined and Jesus was discreet.
Marriage the second time around has been tougher in the sense that we’ve worked a lot harder at doing the daily maintenance. Not just the fun stuff or getting past the usual individual peculiarities but being sensitive to and digging into developing problems – no matter where it may lead. In other words, we have a real relationship. And the physical part of that relationship follows – or doesn’t – as it will. Now, I ain’t no saint. A good-looking woman will turn my head. But my heart’s just not in it. Chastity is the result.
In the “religious” sense, chastity is what you DO – or don’t do – in the context of a relationship. In the “spiritual” sense, chaste is what you ARE as a result of the relationship.
I’m really interested by two comments Carol made: “We live in a culture where people can’t get married until they are in their thirties.” I’d love to hear more about this. I didn’t get married until 35, but I always considered myself an anamoly in that regard.
“Do we really expect them not to have sex before that? Really?” No, not really. Not any more than we expect them to really love enemies, turn the other cheek, not worry about themselves because the birds and flowers are provided for, show hospitality to all strangers, etc., etc.
I’ve had this conversation with a sister-in-law who works in public health and quotes statistics at me about abstinence. My response is that public health officials had better be basing their decisions on what is, while preachers ought to be calling people to the highest ideals because that is what Jesus did. And the twin good news is that the Spirit does work in us to make us better than we thought we could be while simultaneously we are forgiven all our failings.
I was really taken with one bit of an Emergent podcast about an “impossible” Catholic church and the necessary, but impossible and dehumanizaing aspects of celibacy. The speaker is Jack Caputo.
I’ve uploaded the five minute audio clip to http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QFNR622Y. (I don’t endorse the advertising. Ironically for this thread it was for a “dating service”!)
In 2004 the average man married for the first time at 27.4 years (if he did get married). It’s gone up since. In our churches, the marryin’ age is a little higher. It’s higher for people who have more education. You know, people typically try to get settled before getting married.
When Jesus talked about lusting in the heart, he was talking about adultery. I’m talking about sex before marriage. I’m not sure there’s a very strong biblical base for no sex before marriage. One of our greatest metaphors for the Church and Christ, according to Augustine and so many others, is the Song of Songs–a steamy love story about premarital sex. And then there’s Ruth and her kinsman redeemer. And Esther.
Now, please don’t get me wrong. I’m not condoning irresponsibility, hookin’ up, or sex between anyone other than committed adults. I’m just wondering if our Christian views of chastity are culturally bound to an idea that’s not actually too prevalent in the Scriptures.
what you say carol, is related quite a bit to thoughts I have had on this subject, if you only deal with sex as chastity, before.
My thoughts generally have run thus– if you are in a committed relationship, one in which both of you are monogamous with one another with marriage or partnership as a possbility, I don’t see how this wouldn’t be viewed as within the boundaries of appropriate sexuality. We live in a culture that has lifted up and assumed that marriage is THE ONLY indication of a valid relationship, but these days that just isn’t the case. There are many couples that have been together for a long time, couples who have chosen not to get married (both hetero and not) that are completely chaste with one another. Take for example my aunt, who after a horrible first marriage wrote off the institution permanently. She has been with her now common-law husband Jeff for over a decade, and not a single person that I know would consider their relationship as being less valid or meaningful than one that was consummated by an official ceremony. ANd to your point that people are marrying later in life, it just goes to show that culture has shifted, that people have shifted how they live and that perhaps the monolithic interpretation of a valid and meaningful relationship has changed, perhaps for the better.
THen again, I still want to keep pushing this discussion beyond sex. I think that it is fruitful to talk about the implications of a broader sense of chastity ON sex, but I want to see how far we can push chastity as MORE than that.
Yes, yes… back to the topic. Broader than sex. I often think of purity as broader than sex. Certainly faithfulness. I hope we can redeem chastity. Perhaps we could think of it more broadly as self-denial? A pertinent thought in Lent…
With the continuing rise of divorce rates, we don’t even know what marriage means anymore as a culture.
I am reading Simone Weil’s Need for Roots with my students right now. Her political philosophy is radical. It is tied to a focus on the obligations we have to the other rather than on the preservation of our personal rights. If we are all obligated to the needs of the other and recognize this level of attention to others, our culture mediates the good and people will flourish because as they are giving the good, they are receiving it as well. We are defined here by our otherness (kind of like Levinas). For her this is the definition of love – the otherness of things (not her phrase, but Diogenes Allen’s phrase to describe it). If we are so obligated to the other and every other is also obligated to us, it is a consistent mutual giving and receiving that happens.
On an even deeper level as this, I think, implies, we do not partner with people out of a need to feel more complete or right with the world. We partner out of our need to give to an other in the most intimate way. We do not marry because we need that person. We marry because we want to give of ourselves to that other person out of a desire to meet our obligation to an other. We can therefore give fully of ourselves, because the person with whom we partner, will always give back.
And this is how we mediate the love of God.
That, is a beautiful definition of what love in a marriage should mean and what 50% of the married couples (first time married couples) do not experience often enough.
I found this in the Catholic Encyclopedia (newadvent.org):
“The vow of chastity forbids all voluntary sexual pleasure, whether interior or exterior: thus its object is identical with the obligations which the virtue of chastity imposes outside the marriage state. Strictly speaking, it differs (though in ordinary language the expressions may be synonymous) from the vow of celibacy (or abstinence from marriage), the vow of virginity (which becomes impossible of fulfilment after complete transgression), or the vow not to use the rights of marriage.” (written in 1912)
in another section on chastity as a virtue (as opposed to a vow): “With chastity is often confounded modesty, though this latter is properly but a special circumstance of chastity or rather, we might say, its complement. For modesty is the quality of delicate reserve and constraint with reference to all acts that give rise to shame, and is therefore the outpost and safeguard of chastity.”
so apparently it’s ok that i have a huge thing for david tennant, but if i ever met dr. who in person there could be no touching unless i felt really ashamed about it. however, if i married and didn’t enjoy sex with a dr. who look-alike then all would be ok.
what. the. hell? (and this coming from the catholics who obviously have thought about it way more than us from 1996) i say we listen a little bit less to paul and maybe notice a bit more that it was the woman at the well who was Jesus’ first missionary and the first in John with whom he shared his discipleship (well, except for mom. she cracks me up at the wedding). I don’t think God made us in any inherent way that should cause inherent shame.
wow…sex sure is a hot topic, I think this may take the cake as the most commented upon post here at presbymergent.
I remember doing a word study one time on the word ‘fornication’ which was always translated when I was growing up as ‘pre-marital’ sex.
Pretty eye opening to discover that in almost all cases it had absolutely nothing to do with the concept of sex before marriage, except I think for maybe one time within the context of one of the letters to the Corinthians. We just read all that back into the text.
Our biggest problem – as I see it- in the church today is that we just don’t have a broad enough, encompassing enough, or nuanced enough sexual ethic. We need a sexual ethic that can speak clearly to teens about why they might want to wait for sex, that can address the issues surrounding singleness (whether chosen or not), and that can address folks in committed relationships.
Each one of those probably needs to hear a different message, but it’s a whole lot easier to just draw the line in the sand and say “no.”
Growing up I never heard about sex unless it was from Uncle Larry Flynt. It is sad that we have expectations of singles that we do not prepare them to live in to. We as the church as responsible for the horrible working conditions that plague the single life. We make no room for exploration and grace in the polity. When will we get that God calls messed up, broken people into the fold and they become leaders.
I see the whole chastity thing as a way to be exclusive without having to take responsibility for saying that we do not want “them” in the pulpit. It saddens me. We should wear our colors and our stripes.
Jim,
I’m so glad you did the studying. I kept asking my husband, Brian, “It’s not in there is it? Sex before marriage isn’t strictly prohibited is it?” And neither one of us could think of anything or find much…. Faithfulness is important, of course…a beautiful Christian concept.
In response to Carol and Jim, I have to say that claiming the Greek porneia has noting to do with sex out of marriage is way overreaching.
It can sometimes refer to cultic prostitution rather than ‘fornication’, but inserting that meaning into most verses doesn’t make a lot of sense from context. Look at Hebrews 13:4 for example. The three lexicons I checked all state that ‘fornication’ is the primary definition.
PS. I want to mention Lauren Winnder’s Book REAL SEX again. It is a quick read, beautifully written and has chapter titles like “Chastity as Spiritual Discipline” and “Communities of Chastity”.
On porneia–that looks like too many assumptions there.
Defining “fornication” as “sex outside marriage” is a modern phenomenon. Having a problem with men having sex outside marriage (as long as it isn’t with someone else’s spouse or with a prostitute) is also a modern phenomenon, as the OT laws about adultery demonstrate. Make no mistake, I’m certainly in favor of equal treatment for men and women, but we’re looking at the OT and NT assumptions at the moment.
The Septuagint translates zanah as porneia. Zanah refers to sex with prostitutes and to adultery. (That much I remember for sure from studying Hosea. It could be that zanah also means sex outside of marriage in other situations.) Technically speaking, adultery and prostitution are sex outside of marriage, but there are further problems with both, obviously. The LXX also uses porneia as a metaphor for idolatry, in analogies in which God is the husband of Israel, thus it’s probably closer in meaning to adultery than to anything else. In 1 Cor. 5.1 porneia refers to son-stepmother incest. There is also a more specific word for adultery, moicheia.
And if we’re looking for lexical definitions, my Thayer says “illicit sexual intercourse in general.”
In sum, you can only claim that porneia means “sex outside of marriage between 2 people who otherwise could be married” (ie not incest, prostitution or adultery) if you assume ahead of time that “sex outside of marriage between 2 people who otherwise could be married” is illicit.
And that’s assuming the conclusion.
preach it heather!!!!
BTW to Mike re: winner’s book– good suggestion for sure; karen sloan recommended it to me and I have been perusing it, but I will mention that I think she goes a bit far at some points.
Ah Heather, you “see my Greek and raise me a Hebrew!” This is an old argument as the quote I dropped at the bottom shows.
The other bit that should be introduced on the OT side is that women were supposed to refrain from sex until marriage (virginity). An acknowledgment of the inequality of patriarchy could lead you to saying that (1) to be fair men should also or to (2) saying that women need not. The early church picked #1.
No matter where you come down on the liguistic arguments, you must admit that the early church developed a strong ethic of chastity/celibacy outside of marriage and has been fairly consistant about it for many centuries. I personally think that arguments that the context has changed (i.e. no marriage until 30, or many cohabitation arrangments being common law marriages) could be way more persuasive than claiming that the church has been flat out wrong for 1800 years. Tradition should never get the final word; but it definitely deserves the first word.
Mike
START REALLY IMPRESSIVE SOUNDING ACADEMIC QUOTE…
πορνεία should be understood as a general term including all sorts of sexual impurities). It denotes any kind of illegitimate sexual intercourse (cf. BAG, 693; Hauck/Schulz, TDNT 6, 579–95; Reisser, NIDNTT 1, 497–501; this however has been questioned by B. Malina, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication?” NovT 14 [1972] 10–17; note, however, J. Jensen, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication? A Critique of Bruce Malina.” NovT 20 [1978]: 161–84, who argues that the term and its cognates in the NT describe wanton sexual behavior including fornication) and the word-group was employed in the LXX (rendering the Hebrew zānâh) to denote unchastity, harlotry, prostitution and fornication (Gen 34:31, 38:15; Lev 19:29; Deut 22:21). In later rabbinic literature, zenût . (= πορνεία) was understood as including not only prostitution and any kind of extramarital sexual intercourse (&˒Abot ; 2:8) but also all marriages between relatives forbidden by rabbinic law (cf. Str-B 2, 729, 730). Incest (Test Rub 1:6; Test Jud 13:6; cf. Lev 18:6–18) and all kinds of unnatural sexual intercourse (e.g. Test Ben 9:1) were regarded as fornication (πορνεία). One who surrenders to it indicates ultimately that he has broken with God (Wisd 14:27, 28; cf. Reisser, NIDNTT 1, 499).
O’Brien, P. T. (2002). Vol. 44: Word Biblical Commentary : Colossians-Philemon. Word Biblical Commentary (181). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.
(NovT = the journal ‘Novum testamentum’)
True, the traditional understanding of chastity may indeed by “culture bound.” It may just be something “read back into the text,” and the Bible really does allow for extra-marital sex. We should always be ready to interrogate cultural assumptions. On the other hand, Christians in many different cultures (Middle Eastern, African, European) and many different time periods (ancient, medieval, modern) seem to have been in general agreement about what the Bible teaches about sex and what terms like “chastity” and “fidelity” meant. So, it might just be that we are the ones whose interpretations are overly culture-bound, perhaps we are the ones reading back our cultural preferences onto the text and tradition. It should give us pause, I think, that no one seemed to wonder what “chastity” meant until extra-marital sex became common and largely socially acceptable.
The “culturally-bound” argument definitely cuts both ways. It also (especially?) applies to the North American/European enlightenment culture, which currently seems to be the only culture going that is so convinced that that traditional teachings on sexuality are so inadequate. We should always be ready to interrogate cultural assumptions–especially our own.
yes, i wonder where we would be without the help of the victorians… or the puritan theologians for that matter. and to think that in the renaissance showing more boobage (and even more!) indicated younger and more pure – thusly the more covered the more married and sexually active. and which way of dressing is more chaste, hmm?
Thank you everyone for your comments! This has been an awesome discussion!