Chaos and a Gaping Hole

Once upon a time, evangelical Christians were all against the LGBT movement. Times have changed quite a bit. Every day you can find another evangelical convert to the new view. The idea that there’s no real conflict between Christianity and LGBT practice is constantly gaining ground in circles that otherwise look just like the rest of evangelicalism.

This isn’t the only recent change in sexual ethics. Over the past century, birth control has gone from a taboo to a way of life. Giving it anything less than a thumbs-up raises eyebrows. And while the average evangelical church still teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong, lots of individual members don’t buy it. Even those who do buy it often don’t get it.

Other gender issues are closely related to this. More and more evangelical women, especially younger ones, identity as feminists and egalitarians. Female pastors are almost the norm. People reacting against this sometimes claim that women in general are subject to men in general. Legalistic “gender roles” are not rare.

In general, it seems, evangelicals don’t get sex or gender. There is confusion everywhere. Proposed solutions also abound to little avail. The whole situation is a mess.

Why?

If we want to make any progress, this is the real question. What has gone wrong? Why can’t we hold together a coherent view of sexuality? Are we missing something?

Diagnosing the Problem

The answer to my last question is “Yes.” We are missing something, and without it, nothing else makes sense. What then are we missing? Nature. Specifically, we’re missing human nature. To get even more specific, we’re missing the doctrine of natural law.

I’m not going to distract or bore you right now with an explanation and defense of natural law. I’ll probably write that at some point, but not yet. In the meantime, if you’re interested, I point you to The Calvinist International.[1. The link is the first post in a several part series. It’s great work. I might also refer to my post on the types of law.] For now just remember this: I’m talking about the morally significant order built right into creation. This refers especially to the part of creation that is the human race.

Both inside and outside the Church, moderns have lost touch with nature. There are many reasons, but technological advancement is a big part. We’ve become so good at manipulating things that we don’t see them as being any particular way. It doesn’t matter what something is; all that matters is what we can turn it into or do with it. This has changed how we view ourselves as well. What is a human? What is the human body? We don’t know and don’t care. All that counts is what we make of it.

If this sounds abstract, I’ll be bringing it around shortly. But it’s important to get what’s going on. We don’t know anymore what human nature is. Sexuality belongs to human nature. So we don’t get sexuality. And when we as Christians don’t get sexuality, we don’t understand the biblical teachings on it. Either we cling for life to a list of traditional rules we’ve inherited, without being able to explain them, or we abandon them. Therefore, if we want to get biblical teachings, we’ll have to get human nature.

The Heart of the Matter

To understand the natural law background biblical teachings on sexuality, we have to take a hard look at the human body. Specifically, we’ll need to consider the human reproductive system. This might feel crassly physical, but that’s how God made human nature. Human nature itself is bluntly fleshly. We have spiritual capacities and souls and whatnot, of course. But we are also animals. The union of those two things is uniquely human, and we break human nature when we downplay one as not really relevant to understanding ourselves.

So, what do we see in the human reproductive system? First, we see that the roots go deep. The hormones and processes that give us our sex organs begin their work early in the womb. They also penetrate into the whole body, not just giving us genitals but also wiring our brains, shaping our forms, and regulating our development. The difference isn’t just man-parts and woman-parts. We have two distinct “genres” of human.[2. Yes, of course, there are intersex people and other strange situations. But what we find in their case is not a third principle—a third genre—but rather a mix or confusion of the two. Also, thanks to Alastair Roberts for providing the term “genre” in this context.] But even in their difference, they have unity. Men and women, for all their differences, are the same species and have most of the same abilities and features. And besides what they have in common, they are united as a fit. Looking back to the reproductive systems, we find a unique match that works together.

But this brings us to the next serious question. What “work” do reproductive systems of man and woman together do, anyway? Well, here the answer is simple. Like the digestive system digests, the reproductive system reproduces. The two different genres of humanity, precisely in their differences, unite to create new human beings. This is the point on which everything else hangs. Understanding sexuality means understanding that the two become one and the one becomes three.

Applying Nature

This is what I mean when I refer to natural law and human nature. The nature of human sexuality is this deeply physical dynamic of union in difference that creates new life. Everything else flows from this. So understanding sexuality in light of natural law will put together the diverse parts of classical Christian sexual ethics. Our modern culture is uniquely set to forget all of this. We are alienated from our natures. Our bodies are invisible to us. Developments in technology and changes in philosophy make it possible for us to look at sexuality and not see its creative heart. We are then confused, and we try to rework sexual ethics to fit a new approach to human nature itself. It’s no longer a reality of life that transcends us as individuals, but a raw material that we manipulate by sheer will and technique.

Correcting this blindness with sight will show us many things if we pay close attention. I lack space to go into much detail here, but I’ll sketch what I mean. Binding sex to marriage makes sense when we think of the need to protect the sacred potency that creates people from passion. Gay marriage makes no sense when we see it lacks both the diversity and the creativity natural to human sexual union. The moral ambiguities of a birth control culture are evident when the natural end of sexuality is in view. Transgender identities become highly questionable inasmuch as they define femininity in terms unrelated to motherhood and masculinity in terms unrelated to fatherhood. We can perhaps even see how feminism is chauvinism.

Not all of this will be obvious. Some of it will be controversial.[3. Well, all of it is controversial. But not all of it is that controversial for evangelical Christians.] But seeing nature for what it is gives us the missing key. If we think patiently and carefully about what humans are, both male and female, we can recover nature. And if we recover nature, we have everything we need to figure out the rest.[4. And counter the abolition of man.]

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Reddit

Pocket

Telegram

