HUMAN SEXUALITY - Vital Christianity

1HUMAN SEXUALITYLars Wilhelmsson

2CONTENTPREFACE 7-13INTRODUCTION 14-181. THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION 19-33Early ChristianityCivilization or Chaos?Situational Ethics2. THE TRAGIC DIVORCE: CHURCH'S ROLE IN SEXUAL ATTITUDES 34-39The Tragic DivorceGod's StandardGod's AttitudeSex Is a Gift from God3. THE AFFIRMATION OF OUR SEXUALITY: GENESIS 40-51Imago-Dei—RelationshipGod's First Command: Express SexualityCreation of ManInterdependenceCommunionSpecial CreationMonogamyCovenant FidelityIllicit SexIntegration of Sexuality4. THE CELEBRATION OF OUR SEXUALITY: SONG OF SONGS 52-65The Call to LoveThe Intensity of LoveThe Exclusivity of LoveThe Mutuality of LoveThe Permanence of Love

35. SINGLENESS AND SEXUALITY 66-71Gift from GodAttitudes toward SinglenessBiblical Approach toward SinglenessLegitimate Expressions of SexualitySexuality and Self-ControlAn Alternate Life-Style6. WHY WAIT TO ENJOY SEX? 72-76The Main Reason to WaitOther Reasons to Wait7. WHAT ABOUT MASTURBATION? 77-81A Viable Option?Four Views8. LUST: THE FORBIDDEN DESIRE 82-90DefinitionThe Seed of AdulteryAgape & Eros9. HOW TO DEAL WITH SEXUAL TEMPTATION 91-114Beware of Danger: We Are All VulnerableUnderstand the Dynamics of Spiritual WarfareStrategy for Ongoing PurityIs There Hope For The Immoral People?A Prayer for the Sexually Tempted10. HOMOSEXUALITY Part I 115-140A Call to Double RepentanceNot the Worst Sin or EvilHomophobiaA Call for Compassion"There Is Nothing New Under the Sun"The Church's Historic Position on SexualityPro-Gay Theology

Is Homosexuality A Viable Christian Option?The Creation of ManThe Institution of MarriageHeterosexual MonogamyThe Holiness Code411. HOMOSEXUALITY Part II 161-168Why Is There No Biblical Counsel For Homosexuals?Is Homosexuality Natural?"Burning With Passion"Penalty for ImmoralityLaw & Grace/ Commandments & LoveGod "Gave Them Up"Hope for the Homosexual!Causes for HomosexualityRoot CauseIs Homosexuality An Illness?Is Genuine Change Possible?Fourteen Steps to Homosexual FreedomThe Transforming Power of GodNOTES 169-179BIBLIOGRAPHY 180-182

5God did not create sex!Man did.God created human sexualityAnd man reduced it to sex.

6I dedicate this book to the scores of people who are hurtingbecause of the distortion of God’s gift of human sexuality.May this book bring biblical information on an importanttopic and thereby lead to understanding and healing.

7PREFACE“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according tohis conduct, according to what his deeds deserve” (Jeremiah 17:9).The British movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral" depicts Hugh Grant playing a youngman who regularly attends weddings but avoids marriage until he meets up with a brashAmericanbeauty.The comedic aspects of the movie is seen in the various ways in which church weddingscan go wrong. Focus is given to the ceremonial trappings of the weddings with no interest in thespiritual content. Religion, rather than something to be taken seriously, is merely part of thestructure of formality. Thus the clergy is typically depicted as either wooden or bumbling.In one scene Andie MacDowell, who plays the American woman who captures HughGrant's attention and interest, sits in a coffee shop and runs through the list of her previouslovers. By the time she reached No. 30 one would expect her to confess that she was kidding.Instead she is serious. While her bragging may be designed to suggest that women can be asbrazen in their sexual conquests as men, yet this message has become too true to life to beamusing. This side of feminism only shows that women have become as amoral andirresponsible as men. Hardly liberation!A "liberated" and braggadocious attitude toward sex has become commonplace in oursociety.The barbarism of this present generation helps us see more clearly what is coming next.The devolution of values has been moving relentlessly toward the abyss without much notice,much less opposition.In the 60's we were still aware that sexual intercourse outside of marriage was wrong,though we opened the floodgates to it. Today our amoral philosophy questions the sanity ofthose who hold such Victorian, prudish and outdated notions.

8When I was a teenager we were appalled at homosexuality. Now it seems that everyoneis appalled at those of us who think it is wrong. It is no big deal. In fact, it is a sign ofenlightenment and liberation. In August, the U.S. Customs Service uncovered an Internet childpornring and found that the perpetrators are the children’s parents. The book, The Sexual Life ofCatherine M. has been on the New York Times bestseller list for a while after its enormouspopularity in Europe. It is a memoir by a Paris art critic (Catherine Millet). Rather than being amemoir of her art life, it is a graphic and clinical description of sex in lavatories, on car hoods, instairwells, and in restaurants, with hundreds of anonymous men, at times with individual menand at other times with them in groups. The reviewers are calling the book “exquisite,”“philosophical” and “imaginative.”One person’s “philosophy” or “imagination” is another person’s “invention of evil” (Ro1:30). We have been warned,“Woe to those who call evil good” (Isa 5:20).A rose by any other name is still a rose!Whatever happened to standards of morality? They are gone. A civilization built on dirtcannot remain forever! We have devolved from immorality (the acknowledgment of wrong) toamorality (or nonmorality, the lack of a sense of sin and its acknowledgement). This means wehave no moral basis for our actions! And when that happens who can say any action orinaction is wrong or even inappropriate?Society’s attitude toward sex has helped to contribute to its attitude toward the unborn.When sex becomes a sport its “accidental” product becomes an inconvenience of which todispose. In spite of increasing danger since the advent of international terrorism, the wombcontinues to be the most dangerous place for unborn babies: 1.2 million are antisepticallymurdered each year (56 million since Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortionin 1973).The Tragic Loss of the Acknowledgement of SinWe have done away with sin. All is psychology. The evil and darkness that lurk in oursouls are explained away. The couch, not the altar, has become the means of relief. Explanationand understanding, not confession, have become the answer.

We have become morally blind as a culture, and the more we copy Sodom andGomorrah, the less we realize it. We are blind to our blindness.9The late famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger once asked in a well-known book,“Whatever Became of Sin?” In fact, this question turned out to be the title of the book. Where sinhas disappeared, something also seems to have happened to repentance. Today about the mostone can expect of people seems to be an acknowledgement of a “mistake,” or in the words ofWoody Allen, admitting that he had had sexual relations with his adopted daughter, said, “Iscrewed up.”It was not always so. Not only humble but great and powerful men and women of the pastsometimes dared to make public confession of sin. Just as King David is the most famous figureof ancient Israel and Saul of Tarsus is the most famous in the New Testament, Hester Prynne isone of the most famous in American literature.Although she was forced to wear “The Scarlet Letter” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bookentitled The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne wore the letter for the whole world to see—apunishment which she freely accepted as proper penance and which expressed her true remorsefor her sin. Her husband Arthur Dimmesdale, however, held on to his secret guilt which ate awayat both his mind and his body. His punishment was far worse than Hester’s because he knew hewas a hypocrite and a coward.Hester is a heroine not because she defied society’s rules but because—despite her sin—she became a model of modesty, charity and goodness.And Dimmesdale gains peace only when he follows the dictates of his conscience andreveals his sin.The movie version has the town upset, forcing her to wear a scarlet letter “A,” foradultery, as a badge of shame—none of which of course she feels in the slightest. Dimmesdale,on the other hand, is somewhat embarrassed, so he keeps his role in the matter a secret andHester protects him. Hester’s persecution only leads her to ever greater acts of defiance andincreases her secret husband’s revenge.The Hollywood version of this film lacks what Hawthorne’s novel had: an examinationof the depths of the human heart—love and hate, sin and redemption, charity and goodness.Hawthorne’s characters are among the most memorable in American fiction because of their

10internal moral struggles. But in Disney’s version of moral relativism, the struggle disappears and,with it, the dramatic interest. Thus the film version of The Scarlet Letter is a typical Hollywoodstory for our time, a tale based on amorality.In contrast David experienced genuine remorse. David’s offense was, humanly speaking,atrocious: adultery and organizing the death of the faithful officer that he betrayed. He had to bepersonally confronted by the prophet Nathan to face his own culpability. Even after Davidrepented, his sin did not pass without consequences for his family and the nation; nevertheless,upon repentance he was forgiven and has gone down in biblical history as the man after God’sown heart.Augustine openly admits to sexual self-indulgence. This admission was the starting pointfor a remarkable career: he became the greatest theologian of the early Latin Church and aninspiration to such major figures as Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin.Difficult and painful though it may be at the time, true and thorough repentance can bethe beginning of a transformed life of amazing productivity. Unfortunately for the men andwomen of our own era, including Christians, repentance is made harder by the fact that we nolonger seem to think that sin exists, or that if it does, that it is shameful.What about the church? Studies show that Christian moral choices are increasingly similarto that of the general population.Evil arrives with enticement “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Mt 24:24).The frog in the kettle warns us against the allure of evil. The frog acclimates by degree to thewarming water until he is cooked. Evil gently snuggles up to us and before we know it, we aretaken in.Once we lose the gravity of sin we also lose the desperate need for repentance.Whatever happened to a holy hatred for evil? We are told repeatedly in Scripture:“Those who love the Lord hate evil” (Ps 97:10).“To fear the Lord is to hate evil” (Pr 8:13).“Hate what is evil” (Ro 12:9).

11“A wise man fears the Lord and shuns evil” (Pr 14:16).“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom” we are told in reference to national security.The same is true of the security of our souls. Peter warned:“Be self-controlled [disciplined] and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls aroundlike a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm inthe faith . . .” (1 Pe 5:8).Unless we repent we may drown under the weight of our own immorality andamorality. Isn’t that what really happened to the Romans? Paul had warned: “Because of this,God gave them over to shameful lusts” (Ro 1:26).Today we have not only lost sight of the seriousness of sin but we have also lost sight ofGod, especially of God as Judge, and thus we have lost our awareness of accountability toGod. So often we are simply unwilling or unable to accept the reality of personal sin andtherefore to accept our need for repentance.Our culture has written sin virtually out of existence. Even as Christians, who shouldunderstand the basic truth that all are heirs of Adam’s fall and thus all are sinners, are impacted,often blinded, by humanistic values. Humanism was found in the Garden when the tempterinvited Eve to be “like God.”The biblical word for repentance is the Greek word metanoia. Meta means “change” andnoia means “mind.” Literally it means “a change in mind, heart and life, wrought by the Spirit ofGod.”Such radical transformation requires the ultimate surrender of self. In practical termsthis leads to deep remorse for sin, confession of sin, and restitution. If we have cheated anyoneand not restored what we have taken unjustly, or if we have injured anyone, sexually orotherwise, and do not set about to rectifying the wrong we have done so far as we are able, wehave not truly repented.Whatever became of sin? This startling theme and title by Karl Menninger is a mosttimely question. The answer lies within each of us, but to find it we must come face to face withwho we really are. This is a most difficult process. That hidden self is buried deep inside our

hearts, and as Jeremiah warned, the human heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9).Confronting that true self is an excruciating discovery. But it is also the pathway to spiritualliberty and revival.12PurposeThe subject matter of this manuscript is spelled out in the title: HUMAN SEXUALITY:Heterosexuality and Homosexuality. With the barrage of unbiblical, unhealthy attitudes towardsex that we are flooded with it is important to provide a book that speaks to the issue from athoroughly biblical point of view. I believe that you will find this treatment steeped in Scriptureas I have worked very hard at grounding human sexuality in the creation order as man was madein the image and likeness of God Himself.Christians have too often approached this subject in a very simplistic way by telling ouryoung people when they are tempted with sexual involvement what Nancy Reagan advocated inthe “war” on drugs, “Just say NO!” This solution in the area of sexual involvement is as effectiveas it is in the area of drugs. God has a better solution. It is based on knowledge andunderstanding.Too often in the history of the church, sexuality and spirituality have been regarded asenemies rather than friends. The answer to the world’s distorted view of sex is not legalism andVictorian prudery, but a balanced, biblical viewpoint that acknowledges and celebrates erotic,passionate love as God’s idea. Sex is to be regarded not as something that God has made us toendure but to enjoy. Like hedonism, Victorian prudery is unbiblical because it is a distortion ofour sexuality since God created us “male” and “female”—as sexual human beings.The purpose of this book is to inform God’s people about human sexuality from abiblical viewpoint. Both heterosexuality and homosexuality are examined. While manyheterosexuals treat homosexuals with contempt, homosexuals claim that their lifestyle is aslegitimate as that of the heterosexuals. Both are unbiblical. Homosexuals are human beings whoshould be treated with respect and love and heterosexual’s sexual attitudes and practices are notnecessarily biblical just because they condemn homosexuality. Heterosexuals have distortedviews of sex just as the homosexuals have.I was horrified a few years ago to find a book promoting “Christian homosexuality”(Stranger at the Gate by Mel White, Simon & Schuster Pub.) by a former professor of mine at anevangelical seminary (Fuller Theological Seminary). Evangelical writers such as Lewis Smedes

13and Philip Yancey encourage Christians to read this (promoted on the jacket of the book). Withthe alarming increase of “Christians” who believe that homosexuality is a legitimate alternativelifestyle or who simply view homosexuals as people who “cannot help it that they are the waythey are” it is vital that this sexual preference is seen in the light of Scripture. To pretend that thisis not a real battle in the evangelical camp is to have our theological heads in the sand.Condemnation is not enough. Enlightenment by Scripture and the Holy Spirit is the only way thisbattle is won.The purpose of this book is motivation and empowerment as well as information.Information as it leads to knowledge and understanding will hopefully be a strong motivatingfactor in people seeking to lead lives that are pleasing to God. This should be true in the area ofsexuality as well as in all areas of human endeavor.It is also my hope that if non-Christians pick up this book that they will find the Creatorof human sexuality—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—as their God. It is my hopethat such unbelievers will find that the God who made them understand their struggles, whetherin the area of human sexuality or in other areas, and that they will turn to this God of the Bible asOne who can meet them at the point of their deepest need.

14INTRODUCTION

15"We should not be ashamed to mention what God was not ashamed to create."--Clement, Early Church FatherThe statistics speak for themselves!In the next 30 minutes while you are reading this book 57 kids will run away from homeand 3 out of 4 girls will end up selling sex to survive.One 16 year old girl was responsible for 218 cases of syphilis and 440 cases ofgonorrhea.According to Time magazine (December 9, 1985):"Each year more than one million American teenagers will become pregnant, fourout of five of them unmarried—30,000 of them are under the age of 15. If presenttrends continue . . . 40% of today's 14 year old girls will be pregnant at least oncebefore the age of 20." 1Is this so surprising when less than half (46%) of our population believes there isanything wrong with premarital sex?According to national statistics, more than 50% of all girls and 70% of all boys becomesexually active by the time they are 16. Dr. Janet Taylor who works with AIDS patients at theWestchester County Medical Center, just outside of New York City, says that she has seen boys10 and girls 11 years old who are sexually active because it is the macho thing to do. 2The May 10th and May 18th issues (1994) of the USA TODAY newspaper in an articleentitled, "Good kids aren't saying no to sex" and "Teens say they regret early sex" point out thefollowing alarming statistics:● 36%-54% of high schoolers have had intercourse.● 26% of 1,000 6th to 8th graders said they'd had sex.● Among 8th grade boys, 80% of blacks and about 40% of Anglos and Hispanics saidthey'd had sex.

● Among 8th grade girls, 30% of blacks and about 10% of whites and Hispanics saidthey were sexually experienced. 3Dr. Michael Benson, a Northwestern University researcher presented his study to theAmerican College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He stated that his study was "verydepressing" as he also found that the following factors did not seem to halt early sexualinitiation:● Church Attendance● High Grade-Point Average● High Self-Esteem● Sex Education16Dr. Benson concluded: "We're doing all kinds of interventions"—like sex education andself-esteem training—"without any clue as to what effect they have." 4Kids are having sex for other reasons as well. According to Centers for Disease Controland Prevention (CDC) the following are the main reasons why kids are sexually active:GUYSGIRLS● Curiosity 76% 80%● Wanting Popularity 58% 58%● Love 50% 63%● Pressure from Date 35% 65% 5It is clear that sex among teen-agers is not just a problem of the intellect. Children aretrading their bodies for love and acceptance, not pleasure.According to USA TODAY (May 18, 1994) kids are having a lot of sex but they are alsohaving reservations about it. A new survey indicates that a little more than half of the teens whoare sexually active wish they had waited longer to start. 6When Marion Howard, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Emory University,asked more than 1,000 teenage girls in Atlanta what they wanted to learn in sex education, 84%of the girls answered,

17"How to say no without hurting the other person's feelings?" 7Contrary to what the media preaches, saying "no" presumably has a large constituency.Many of the girls who drift into early sex and early motherhood really don't want to, but they do.Their main problem is not a lack of education or a shortage of latex products, it is a lack of moralvalues, a lack of self-esteem, and a lack of social support for abstinence among family andfriends.This all takes place in the context of a culture which advocates an attitude of "anythinggoes."Our culture has allowed the media to define much of our values or nonvalues. Thus wefind ourselves surrounded by the media which condescendingly snickers at words such as"abstinence" and "self-control" as they have bought into the belief that children from the age of11 or so are sexually active much of the time and that there is nothing that society can, or evenshould, do. As a result we helplessly shrug our shoulders, swath everybody in latex and get outof the way of the hormonal impulses. 8Today, more than any other time, there is widespread fear of contracting a sexuallytransmitted disease (STD--the most common being syphilis, gonorrhea and herpes). According tothe December 18 th issue of Time magazine (2000) whose sources were the Journal of theAmerican Medical Association (Dec. 6, 2000) and New England Journal of Medicine (Dec. 7,2000) there are about 65 million Americans who are currently infected with one or more STDs,and 15 million new infections occur each year. 9 This means that each day almost 42,000Americans get a sexually transmitted disease. It is estimated that at this present rate one out ofevery four Americans will eventually acquire a STD. Most disturbing, after two decades ofdecline, gonorrhea incidence is up 9% since 1997. Meanwhile, 18% of women and 8% of mencarry the human papilloma virus that causes half of all cervical-cancer cases.A few years ago, there were just five of these diseases—today there are more than 34.And with the advent of the killer AIDS virus, medical doctors are becoming prophets of doom.The specter of the AIDS epidemic looms larger and larger on the horizon. What formerSurgeon General C. Everett Koop and others predicted years ago, that is, that unless cures arefound or lifestyles are changed, AIDS will take on epidemic proportions, has come true.Therefore our generation is now plague-stricken with sterility or girls and women give birth tounprecedented numbers of infected or deformed children.

18During the next decade millions worldwide will die of AIDS, with some countries, manyin Africa, losing more than 25% of their population.Faced with these startling statistics and heartbreaking experiences of today's adolescentsit is imperative that we learn how to deal with this most powerful force called the "sex drive."

191. THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION

20put it:All of us have been impacted by the sexual revolution in one way or another. As someone"On the one hand, it has sometimes felt like a tidal wave that could drown an entiregeneration; on the other, it has stimulated many of us to seek more sexual fulfillmentin our own lives." 1Like anything else in life, sex is a double-edged sword. While sex is a part of thegoodness of creation; it is also a part of the distortion produced by sin.We live in a day when we are encouraged to unbridled indulgence of our sexual passions.Our environment has encouraged people to take the lid off their sexual needs, urges, andfantasies.The mass media constantly, persistently bombards us with sex. It uses the lure of sex topush every conceivable product. Sex is used to sell everything under the sun. Why? Because sexsells! It is sizzling and sensuous, tantalizing, exciting, attractive. And so it is used by sales peopleto sell their wares. And people are duped by the millions.Television floods our living rooms with sex-saturated advertisements. In the past some ofthe most obvious have been toothpaste: "it gives your mouth sex appeal," shaving cream: "takeit off; take it all off," and detergent: "the stripper." Our newspapers spew forth stories of sexualcrimes and romantic involvements in naked sexual detail. Sex is in full display in virtually everynook and cranny of our lives.Since the advent of sex education, the old fellow who drove the local school bus,confessed he couldn't tell whether the kids on the bus were talking dirty or discussing theirlesson assignment.We have become a culture literally obsessed with sex. The whole atmosphere of modernlife is drenched and saturated in sex. It has become the be-all and end-all of our existence.While the Victorians pretended sex didn't exist; we moderns pretend that nothingelse exists.

21Although sex was shunned (or at least talk about sex was shunned) in the past, now it hasbecome a sport. We have famous athletes such as Magic Johnson who admits to having hadsexual encounters with hundreds of women and Wilt Chamberlain who has bragged about histhousands of sexual partners.In the historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii, one character says of another: "Ionehas but one vice—she is chaste." 2 This statement by a fictional character sums up the attitudetoward sex that is so prevalent today.As a society we have bought into hedonism which dates back to 350 B. C. asphilosophical system (Epicureanism). This is the philosophy which values pleasure as thehighest good, as the chief purpose of life. Paul referred to this philosophy in his letter to theChristians at Corinth when he stated that if Jesus did not really rise from the dead then let's"Eat and drink for tomorrow we die" (1 Co 15:32).This Playboy philosophy proudly affirms:"I want what I want, when I want it, and I don't care who gets hurt."Playboys treat playgirls as playthings. But playboys and playgirls eventually find out thatsuch a philosophy has diminishing returns as they grow old wondering why they are playingmore and enjoying it less.We have become a hedonistic society which worships at the shrine: SEX.Toward the end of his life, Malcolm Muggeridge lamented,“. . . sexual freedom has led to erotomania on a scale hitherto undreamed of.” 3Our comic strips, academic journals, pop songs, talk shows, novels and plays show achildish fascination with sex. People talk in a deadpan scientific way about the organs, sensationsand secretions of sex, believing that they free themselves thereby from the mysterious power oferotic feeling. By disenchanting sex they hope to discard their old morality, and the guilt thatcame with it. 4

22The French sociologist Jacques Ellul perceived our modern fixation with sex as thesymptom of a breakdown in intimacy. Our emphasis on sexual technique--the proliferation ofsex studies, sex manuals, sex videos, sex toys, etc.—has detached the physical act of intimacyfrom relationship and the only thing left is the work of perfecting the technique. Thus sex hasbeen reduced to an animal act. 5Hookups & Date RapesHookups is another manifestation of our amoral culture that minimizes relationships andintimacy. This is the practice of guys and girls engaging in physical encounters without anyfurther expectations. Such a practice has all but replaced dating at most colleges, according to astudy released by the Institute on American Values, a nonpartisan family issues think tank. Astriking statistic is that only half of the women interviewed had been on six or more dates duringcollege with a third who had been on no more than two dates. 6Although hooking up doesn’t necessarily involve having sex, it can. The term isintentionally ambiguous and thus includes all of the bases of some kind of encounter. Those whoare basically modest can imply that less happened than did while braggarts can hint at “hitting ahome run.” Hookups are defined by alcohol, physical attraction and a lack of expectations in themorning. 7This means that dates and, for the most part, love affairs, are a thing of the past. Theattitude is, “Why should I bother asking someone to dinner when I can meet at a party, have afew drinks and go home together?” 8Today’s college kids are the first generation to have had their entire childhoodsscheduled. Therefore they approach the boy/girl relationship from a practical standpoint andconclude that to them, dating is simply not a productive use of time. 9Students go out in groups, and there is a fair amount of partying on campus, but as onestudent said, “People don’t have time or energy to put into real relationships.” 10 Since they stillhave hormones, they hook up instead: stumbling home together late Saturday night, roll aroundin bed, pass out and the next morning, it’s as if nothing happened. 11Hookups, therefore, do satisfy biology urges, but the question is, “Do emotionaldetachment satisfy the soul?”

23The overachieving parents who attempt to achieve next to perfect children have led themto structured activities so tightly that they stunt the growth of their children’s souls. AsLaura Vanderkam put it,“Too much supervision creates kids who would rather hook up than fall in love,who would rather get the right answers on tests than ask the larger questions.” 12The only hope for our children to take love more seriously and engage in fewer hookupsis if parents stop rigidly scheduling their children’s lives, and if they start teaching them that lifeis more than merely a series of concrete goals to be met and then exceeded. 13Date rape is further proof of the destructiveness of sexual liberation. Such acting outone’s animal nature jeopardizes everything that gives a woman confidence in her sexual feelings:love, commitment, marriage and the family.If there are no moral absolutes and sexual restraint is outdated, one cannot logicallycondemn sexual abuse. Yet victims of abusive relatives and pedophiliac priests testify thatsomething far more than a body gets hurt when a trusted adult abuses a child sexually. Thesuffering persists for a lifetime.______________________________________________________________________________"A house built on sand will not last; neither will a civilization built on dirt."--Anonymous______________________________________________________________________________Early ChristianityChristianity stood out in stark contrast to the prevailing immorality of the ancientreligions. Church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette testifies:"Sexual intercourse outside of marriage was sternly interdicted and within marriagewas permitted only for the procreation of children. Divorce was not allowed, exceptafter the violation of the marriage bond by one of its partners. Sexual offenses were

24by no means unknown among Christians, but they were long held to exclude theoffender from the Church. Later . . . restoration was permitted after due repentanceand discipline." 14Christian Aristides, an Athenian philosopher, wrote a defense of the Christian faith toEmperor Hadrian in A. D. 125. He stated:"They [the Christians] do not commit adultery or immorality . . . Their wives,O king, are as pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest. Their men abstainfrom all unlawful sexual contact and from impurity, in the hopes of recompensethat is to come in another world." 15The "Letter to Diogenes," is an anonymous letter which is believed to have been writtenin the second century. It gives a lengthy description of the early Christians and their attitudetoward sex:"They offer a shared table, but not a shared bed. They are at present 'in the flesh'but they do not live 'according to the flesh.' They are passing their days on earth,but are citizens of heaven. They obey the appointed laws, and go beyond the lawsin their own lives." 16Historian Will Durant testifies to the sexual practices of the early Christians:"In general, Christianity continued and exaggerated the moral sternness of theembattled Jews. Celibacy and virginity were recommended as ideal; marriagewas tolerated only as a check on promiscuity . . . and homosexual practiceswere condemned with an earnestness rare in antiquity." 17Civilization or Anarchy?From the beginning of recorded history we have instinctively known that the sex drivehad to be controlled if civilization was to replace anarchy. Arnold Toynbee, one of the world'sgreathistorians, claimed:"Of twenty-one notable civilizations, nineteen perished, not from conquest fromwithout, but from decay within." 18

25One of the significant manifestations of the decay was the sexual immorality which wasso prevalent in those civilizations.The proven dictum: "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it"certainly applies to our sexual revolution.But have things really changed that much? Is this emancipation from the slavery ofsexual taboos really so new, so modern? The following account sounds just like today."Sexual anarchy assumed extreme forms and spread through a large part of thepopulation. Side by side with an increase of sexual perversions, a shameless sexualpromiscuity also greatly increased. They seduced members of the same family.Relations between father and daughter . . . son and mother . . . remained notunknown. The [contemporary] authors especially stress the cases where a man livedsexually with two sisters or with a mother and her daughter. [Adultery, rape, andprostitution greatly increased] . . . homosexual love entered the mores of thepopulation. The contemporary authors seem to sadistically enjoy the enumerationof a variety of turpitudes and sexual perversions. They describe all the aberrationsof morbid eroticism with the impudent serenity of the casuist: rape, unnaturalsexual relations, flagellations, and sodomy." 19This account was written by an author at the collapse of the Old Kingdom of Egypt 4,500years ago!The temples of the ancient Canaanites—the people God told the Israelites to drive out ordestroy because of their depravity—practiced debased sex worship which resulted in childsacrifice. Archeologist William F. Albright claims:"In no country has so relatively great a number of figurines of the naked goddessof fertility, some distinctly obscene, been found. Nowhere does the cult ofserpents appear so strongly. The two goddesses Astarte (Ashtaroth) and Anathare called the great goddesses which conceive but do not bear! Sacred courtesansand eunuch priests were excessively common. Human sacrifice was well-known. . . the erotic aspects of their cult must have sunk to extremely sordid depths ofsocial degradation." 20

26The Syrians and Phoenicians had a goddess whose worship involved "sacred prostitutionof both sexes." 21 Sexual perversion was common in antiquity.Historian Will Durant points out that heterosexual and homosexual sensuality wastreated as normal in ancient Greece and Rome. He says that prostitution was so common inRome that sometimes the votes of politicians had to be collected through the collegiumlupanariorum, which was the "guild of brothel-keepers"! 22 Adultery was so common that itattracted little attention unless played up for political purposes. Practically every rich woman hadat least one divorce, and it was not uncommon for them to have as many as half a dozen.Philosopher Seneca assumed widespread adultery among Roman women. 23The cities of Pompeii were probably the vilest of all cities of the ancient world. Morepromiscuous objects have been uncovered from the remains of Pompeii (A. D. 79) than from anyother city. For example, it was common for a phallic (penis) symbol to adorn the outside ofhouses. Every kind of vice was practiced and celebrated in these ancient cities.It was not many years ago that the former Soviet Union experienced their sexualrevolution. Sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, professor at Harvard University, published an influentialvolume in 1956 called The American Sex Revolution. He wrote of his own country's revolution:"During the first stage of the Revolution, its leaders deliberately attempted todestroy marriage and the family. Free love was glorified by the official 'glass ofwater' theory. If a person is thirsty, so went the Party line, it is immaterial whatglass he uses when satisfying his thirst; it is equally unimportant how he satisfieshis sex hunger.The legal distinction between marriage and casual sexual intercourse was abolished.The Communist law spoke only of contracts between males and females for thesatisfaction of their desires either for an indefinite or a definite period, a year, amonth, a week, or even for a single night. One could marry and divorce as manytimes as desired. Husband and wife could obtain a divorce without the other beingnotified. It was not even necessary that marriage be registered. Bigamy and evenpolygamy were permissible under the new provisions. . . . Premarital relations werepraised and extramarital relations were considered normal.

27Within a few years, hordes of wild, homeless children became a menace to theSoviet Union. Millions of lives, especially of young girls, were wrecked; divorcessky-rocketed, as did abortions. The hatreds and conflicts among polygamous andpolyandrous mates rapidly mounted--and so did psychoneurosis.The results were so appalling that the government was forced to reverse its policy.The propaganda of the 'glass of water' theory was declared to be counterrevolutionary,and its place was taken by official glorification of premaritalchastity and of the sanctity of marriage. . . .Considering that the whole cycle occurred under a single regime, the experimentis highly informative. It clearly shows the destructive consequences of unlimitedsexual freedom." 24History illustrates the fact that the powerful forces that feed our sexual adventures oughtto be repressed because when they are freed from the moral playground they run wild.J. D. Unwin, historian at Cambridge University, after studying 80 civilizations rangingover a period of 4000 years, concluded that a society either chooses promiscuity and decline, orsexual discipline and creative energy. He wrote:"Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy, or to enjoysexual freedom; the evidence is that they cannot do both for more than onegeneration." 25The time is about up for our generation. It was in the early 60's that hedonism took root inour country. A generation lasts 30 to 40 years. This means the time for decline is upon us.SITUATIONAL ETHICSThe 1960s marked a turn in our country, at least intellectually, toward our attitude towardJudeo-Christian ethics. A man by the name of Joseph Fletcher came out with a book entitled,Moral Responsibility (1967) in which he talks about "situational ethics." He proposes that ourethics must be determined to a large degree by the situation. Fletcher puts it:

28"It is a matter of intelligence, not sentiment. Nothing is as complex and difficultas ethics, even Christian love ethics, once we have cut loose from law's oversimplifyingpre-tailored rules, once we become situational.With the development of computers all sorts of analytical ethical possibilities open up.There are four questions of basic and indispensable importance to be raisedabout every case, four factors at stake in every situation, all of which are to bebalanced on love's scales. There are no foregone conclusions.As the Christian situationist sees it, his faith answers for him three questions ofthe seven always to be asked. These three are his 'universals.' He knows thewhat; it is love. He knows the why; for God's sake. He knows the who; it is hisneighbors, people. But only in and of the situation can he answer the otherfour questions: When? Where? Which? How? . . . is adultery wrong? Onecan only respond, 'I don't know. Maybe. Give me a case. Describe a realsituation.Note that in this complex program of deciding how one should act in each case,the questions to be answered are not simple. In addition to questions aboutmotive (love, hopefully) there is the indispensable question, 'What are theforeseeable consequences?'Given any course of action, in the context of the problem, what are the effectsdirectly and indirectly brought about, the immediate consequences, and theremote? This last question means, we must note, that there are more resultsentailed than just the end wanted, and they all have to be weighed andweighted." 26Love is to be the all-important criteria. A certain action, therefore, cannot be decided tobe right or wrong by itself. Its rightness and wrongness can only be determined by looking at itscontext in the eyes of love. Any action must be seen in the light of the circumstances surroundingit and the motives of the people who are involved.

29Moral absolutes or moral truth are out and relativism is in! Subjective response replacesobjective standards. The question of what is right or wrong is no longer determined by any moralcodes but by the subjective judgment of the people involved.Thus the Ten Commandments became obsolete as an absolute standard by which peopleare to live and man's moral judgment took center stage. To condemn certain actions by anoutsider makes that person automatically guilty of being judgmental, intolerant, unloving,insensitive, old-fashioned. In modern terms moral judgment is politically, religiously, andtheologically "incorrect."Fletcher's ethical theory is not only difficult to apply; it is impossible. In the first place itrequires tremendous intellectual and moral ability of which most, if any human being,is capable. Even if a person is intelligent enough to figure out the complexities of such ethicaldecisions, the situations would be rare in which there would be enough time to determine whatthe proper decision should be. In the moment that a person may be asked to respond to a difficultquestion or situation, he would have to think through—evaluate—seven or more questions aboutthat situation. In addition he would have to include the question as to the immediate and longrangeresults of his words and actions. In the case of a difficult question he would have toconsider the pros and cons of telling the bare-bone truth, the half-truth, the lie, or an alternateanswer.The situationist is correct in emphasizing love as the basis of ethical decision making.Too often ethical issues are decided in a very legalistic, cold, and sterile way. He is also right inemphasizing the will, rather than the emotions, as the basic agent of love. However, he is wrongin divorcing love from the law. By so doing he is emptying love of its concrete meaning. Thuswe are left with a love that is rather nebulous.There is a philosophical problem with situational ethics in that it allows for internalcontradiction while it simultaneously teaches an absolute truth: love. It allows for thenegotiation of truth in the very act of telling the truth. Thus love itself is threatened. JohnMontgomery, attorney and theologian, reasons:“The insurmountable difficulty is simply this: there is no way, short of sodiumpenothal, of knowing when the situationist is actually endeavoring to set forthgenuine facts and true opinions, and when he is lying like a trooper. Why?Because deception is allowed on principle by the new morality, as long as the

30ultimate aim is love. Consider: If Professor Fletcher acts consistently with hispremises, and if he should consider it an act of true love toward me or towardthe audience . . . to convince us of the superiority of situation ethics, he can tothis end introduce any degree of factual misinformation, rhetorical pettifogging,or direct prevarication into the discussion.But wait! Should he assure us, by swearing on his mother's grave, etc., that hewill tell us the truth no matter what, can we even then relax our vigilance? Afterall, that very assurance may well be a situationally justified prevarication for thesake of "doing us good in love" by convincing us of the merits of situationalism . . .If a situation ethicist, holding to the proposition that the end justifies the means,in love tells you that he is not lying, can you believe him?"And since mutual trust is the basis not only of institutions of justice but also ofeconomic life (money itself is little more than a symbol of mutual confidence, asevery inflation and depression illustrate) community relationships, and all othersocietal phenomena . . . Not a single aspect of human society—from regulargarbage collection and public library book borrowing through friendship andmarriage to equal protection under the law and the search for truth ininstitutions of higher learning such as this one—could survive the generalonset of situational ethics." 27Premarital and extra-marital sexual activity are now no longer condemnedoutright. Love, sincerity and honesty are the new criteria by which sexualstandards are measured. In reviewing Fletcher's ethical theory Timemagazine commented:"In the situational approach of the new morality, he said, 'one enters into everydecision-making moment armed with all the wisdom of the culture, butprepared in one's freedom to suspend and violate any rule except that onemust as responsibly as possible seek the good of one's neighbor,’ which isquite a long thought for an eighteen-year-old during a passionate momentin the back seat of a car." 28In the passionate moment in the back seat of the car, where is the wisdom, where is thetime to carefully, intellectually evaluate the rightness and wrongness of a specific behavior?

31Situational ethics, as Christianity Today, pointed out:". . . forgets that life is a network of habits, dispositions, and desires, partlyinherited and partly acquired, which we cannot shed as an old suit of clothes.And it overlooks the fact that acts that seem innocent to us may hurt others,even years hence." 29Life is too complicated to be able to judge the outcome of a single word or act toward asingle person, much less a series of words and acts involving many people. Finite man is hardlysophisticated enough intellectually, and moral enough spiritually, to be able to improvise in anygiven situation, what is the right and best thing to do. The world is too complex for mortal manto throw God's law to the wind, to jettison moral standards, to ignore biblical injunctions, andmanage on his own in the vast ocean that is filled with ethical mines. This is sheer folly!Even if man were able to determine what is right and best in any given situation, whatmakes us think that man would necessarily choose such a course if the cost to himself isdetermined to be too great? History and experience provide ample evidence that man simply isnot that altruistic. He is inherently too selfish to always choose what is best for his neighbor if itinterferes with what he considers best for himself. Only God acts consistently for the highestgood of all!For 50 years moral relativism has catapulted our nation into spiritual confusion andmoral degradation. Love, loosely defined, was supposed to be the be-all and end-all. The irony isthat sex itself has usurped the place of love and has taken center stage.We have adopted the Kinsey view of sex, “as a tingling of the genitals, with orgasm asthe goal and the partner as the means to it.” 30As a society we have embraced Kinseyism in which there is no difference in principlebetween heterosexual and homosexual intercourse and no moral distinction between pure andperverted desire. It is the belief that chastity is merely a choice but certainly not a virtue.Therefore the only moral questions that surround the sexual act are questions of consent andsafety. 31

32The fundamental result of the sexual revolution was not to change people’s behavior butto change their conception of sex. “Liberation” has come to mean that we no longer make love:we have sex. And since having sex does not involve any emotional tie or long-term commitment,it involves nothing more than pleasurable sensations, mutually induced. This means the sexualpartner is no longer the object of sexual feeling but the means to it—a component in the pleasuremachine. 32The tragedy is that our society will find out eventually, when it is too late, that those whomake love secure the loyalty and trust of another person, whereas those who have sex can neverbe sure of such a rich reward. Instead their sexual adventures are fraught with suspicion. As aresult friendship and respect become unobtainable.

332. THE TRAGIC DIVORCE: THE CHURCH'S ROLE IN SEXUAL ATTITUDES

34THE TRAGIC DIVORCE"Sexuality and spirituality are not enemies but friends." 1--Donald GoergenThe world, then, has no clue as to the nature of human sexuality. But what has been thechurch's attitude toward our sexuality? What alternative has she offered the world's distortedview of sex?One of the real tragedies in church history has been the divorce of sexuality fromspirituality.While every society sets boundaries or taboos around sexuality, in Western civilizationChristianity was the main force to set such boundaries. It is until recently that Christianity hashad a negative view of sex. This is partly understandable since Christianity became a religiousmovement in pagan Greek and Roman cultures which incorporated temple prostitutes intoworship activities. As a result the early church went through a period of purging. Anti-sexheresies arose such as the Encratites, the Catharites (also known as the Albigensians) and theManichaeists which condemned sex per se—even within marriage. By the third century, celibacywas beginning to be valued as a mark of holiness. Yet extremes were frowned upon for Origenreceived disapproval because he made himself a eunuch, believing this was commanded in thegospels. 2At the same time even such a theologian and church leader as Augustine along with otherchurch leaders looked upon sex as a degrading necessity which is only to be tolerated for thesake of preserving the species. Jerome, a contemporary of Augustine, was plagued by sexualfantasies and often found himself “surrounded by bands of dancing girls.” He told mothers toraise their virgins with the strictest rules so they would not be so tempting to men and said tohusbands, “Anyone who is too passionate a lover with his own wife is himself an adulterer.” 3Thus many of the early church fathers looked upon marriage as legalized adultery. Many of theReformers even, saw sex as legitimate only in terms of procreation.Philip Yancey points out:“In the succeeding centuries church authorities issued edicts forbidding sex onThursdays, the day of Christ’s arrest; on Fridays, the day of His death; onSaturdays, in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and on Sundays in honor of the

departed saints. Wednesdays sometimes made the list too, as did the 40 dayfast periods before Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost, and also feast days anddays of the Apostles, as well as the days of female impuirity.” 435John Boswell has estimated that this list of taboos escalated to such an extent that only44 days a year remained available for sexual intimacy. 5These men spoke with two voices. On the one hand they extolled the sanctity of sex inmarriage, while on the other hand they exalted celibacy and treated sex as something sinful. As aresult, Christendom has viewed sex as being wicked, vulgar, smutty and obscene under allcircumstances. And so the subject has become surrounded with embarrassment, shame and guilt.Christians, and especially Christian leaders, bear a heavy responsibility for the severeattitude toward sex that has encouraged the extreme reaction so evident in modern society.Why is it that we use the word “immoral” only to signify sexual sins and reserve churchdiscipline, almost exclusively, for those who fail sexually?In being quick to judgment, we must be reminded that Jesus treated those who had falleninto sexual sins with compassion and forgiveness while He reserved His harshest words for thehidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed, a critical spirit and legalism.The Explosive Power of Our Sexual UrgesWho can deny that our sexual urges are explosive? I'm reminded of an old priest who wasasked by a young seminarian, "Father, when will I cease to be bothered by the sins of the flesh?"The father responded, "I wouldn't trust myself, my son, until I was dead three days."What should our attitude be toward this creative and explosive power called sex?We must watch out for the pendulum to swing too far in any direction. From century tocentury the pendulum has swung from total debauchery to total abstinence (even for the marriedcouple), from the deification of sex to the vilification of sex, from treating the body as a tavernto treating it as a tomb (the Greeks called it, "the prison house of the soul"). Neither extreme isbiblical. Rather the body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Co 6:18).

36The legalism, the prudery of the Victorian age is not the answer to hedonism. Shuttingsex up in a closet is no virtue. Denying its rightful place is not biblical. Sex is not evil. Passionatedesires are not necessarily sinful. Erotic, passionate love is God's idea. He has made us to not"endure" but to "enjoy" our sexuality. Like hedonism, Victorian prudery is unbiblical because itis a distortion of our sexuality since God created us "male" and "female"—as sexual humanbeings.GOD'S STANDARD"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for Godwill judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Heb 13:4).What is God's attitude toward sex? God's standard is clear. His Ten Commandments havenot changed. And the seventh command still states:"You shall not commit adultery" (Ex 20:14).Called to Live a Holy LifePaul writes at length about God's standards of sexuality. He points out:"It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexualimmorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a waythat is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who donot know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or takeadvantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we havealready told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, butto live a holy life (1 Th 4:3-7)."The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord (1 Co 6:13)."Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside hisbody, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you notknow that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whomyou have received from God? You are not your own; you were boughtat a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (vv. 18-20).

"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or ofany kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God'sholy people" (Eph 5:3).This standard still applies in a day and age when less than half of the population (46%)thinks there is anything wrong with premarital sex. God's Word does not give in to a societywhose motto is: "If it feels good, do it."37The Advent of the PillWhen it comes to moral standards, in the area of sex, the advent of the Pill has setthe agenda. Some who call themselves Christians have used the Pill as the criterion for moralityby arguing that Paul would not have written about sex as he did if he had known of the Pill.Paul's concern, they say, is for the creation of a living relationship between the sexes, and thiscan occur only when they do not need to be anxious about a possible pregnancy. The Pill, theyargue, now allows just such a loving relationship to occur at any time. Currently, even moresophisticated birth control devices makes this argument even more compelling.As we have already seen, such an argument does not square with Scripture. YetChristians have been affected by such reasoning and have become engaged in premarital andextramarital relationships for various reasons.Immorality among ChristiansJust how prevalent is immorality among Christians? Terry Weir in his book Holy Sexclaims:“The sex scandals we see reported on the evening news are just a small part ofa very pervasive problem that is undermining the whole church. The averageChristian sitting in the pew has no idea just how many in his church are secretlystruggling with sexual sin.” 6--Terry Weir

38Christianity Today, an evangelical journal, surveyed a thousand of its subscribers andfound unfaithfulness among 12% of those involved in "full-time ministry" and the figure to benearly double, and in the case of laity 23% said they had had extramarital intercourse and 45%indicated they had done something they themselves considered sexually inappropriate. One infour Christian men are unfaithful and nearly one half have behaved "inappropriately." 7In addition, Dr. Mark Laaser, Co-founder and Executive Director of OASISS, a divisionof the Christian Alliance for Sexual Recovery, estimates that at least 10% of a church’scongregation will be trapped in some form of sexual addiction. 8Shocking statistics!This makes the contemporary evangelical church "Corinthian" to the core. It is beingstewed in the juices of its own sensuality. Sensuality and godliness are mutually exclusive. Wemust "discipline [ourselves] for the purpose of godliness" (1 Ti 4:7), and such discipline mustinclude the discipline of purity.Francis Schaeffer commented 40 years ago in his book Death in the City:“Men are simply carrying on from memory. They are living only by habit, notbecause they have a firm, rational Christian base for their actions.” 9Goodness lasts only for a season if it is not rooted in personal conviction. What goodis it to be good and decent for no reason? What good is it not to engage in immorality justbecause our parents or grandparents didn’t do it? Young people need to know why they shouldfollow God’s principles.GOD'S ATTITUDEGod is not a universal killjoy trying to keep his children from experiencing thefulfillment that comes through sexual enjoyment. After all, sex is His idea. Rather, God knowsthat sex is going to be enjoyed to its fullest only within a context where there is safety, love andcommitment.

39Maximum JoyWhen God says, "Wait," He wants to protect us from the pain of the inevitable tragicconsequences of premarital sex and provide us for the maximum joy that comes only throughobedience to His principles of life. The Bible is clear that God wants us to live fulfilled lives:"For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no goodthing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless" (Ps 84:11).God's commands are for our good:"And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lordyour God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God withall your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands anddecrees that I am giving you today for your own good?" (Dt 10:12-13).God knows that waiting to experience a sexual relationship is in our best interest until wefind and marry the person He intends for us for life.God then, has provided boundaries to ensure our holiness and happiness. The full,physical expression of our sexuality is to be enjoyed only in the context of a permanentrelationship as expressed by marriage.SEX IS A GIFT FROM GODThe answer to promiscuity and sexual experimentation is a healthy appreciation of sex asa gift from God given with careful boundaries for its maximum "enjoyment" and "enrichment." Itis a gift intended to serve love.Whenever sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a terrible taskmaster!The church's divorce of sexuality from spirituality is especially lamentable since theBible holds such a high celebrative view of human sexuality.

403. THE AFFIRMATION OF OUR SEXUALITY: GENESIS

41In the first chapter of Genesis we have a brief, yet magnificent, comment on the meaningof human sexuality. The narrative opens majestically as God brings the universe into existenceby speaking the creative word. And this universe that God created is "good, very good" (Gn1:31).Imago-Dei--RelationshipHuman beings are the apex of God's creation. Human creation is set apart from all others,for it is in the imago dei, the image of God. Notice how closely related our human sexuality is toGod's image:"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;male and female He created them" (v. 27).Strange as it may seem, our sexuality, our maleness and femaleness, is somehow relatedto our creation in the image of God. At its essence, sex is not something we do as much assomething we are. God made us sexual creatures.Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian, was the first major theologian to help us see theimplications of this confession of Scripture that human sexuality is grounded in the image ofGod. What he has helped us understand is that relationship is at the heart of what it means to be"in the image of God" and that the relationship between male and female is the humanexpression of our relationship with God.Our human sexuality, our maleness and femaleness, is not just an accidental arrangementof the human species, not just a convenient way to keep the human race going. Rather it is at thecenter, at the heart, of our true humanity. We exist as male and female in relationship. Oursexuality, our capacity to love and be loved, is intimately related to our creation in the image ofGod. What a high view of human sexuality!God's First Command: Express SexualityIn fact, God's first command to Adam and Eve was to express their sexuality:"Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it" (v. 28).

42Notice that this command was made by God before the fall, before sin entered this earth.Sex, therefore, was not the result of the fall! Perversion of sex was the result of the fall. Sexitself then, was a gift from God.Those of us who have a less than positive attitude toward sex ought to realize that Godcould have made man, his maleness and femaleness, differently. God could have provided somemore "reputable" or "noble" and less passionate way of propagating the human race. But Hedidn't! Therefore, a negative attitude toward what God created—our sexuality—is revealing ourprudishness and lack of confidence in the wisdom of our Creator. Clement, the early churchfather, put it:"He ought not to be ashamed to mention what God was not ashamed to create."Sex, like any other gift, is to be received with gratitude and guarded and protectedcarefully.CREATION OF MANGod spoke all of the creation into existence except for human beings. To create Adam,God took the dust of the earth and breathed life into it:"And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathedinto his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being [soul]" (Gn 2:7).Man is made up of dust and God's breath: Dust & God's Breath=Man. Man is describedby Moses as a "living being" (New International Version) or "soul" (King James Version). Manas "living being" or "soul" includes his whole person. This means that his body is part of who heis rather than just something he has (as the Greeks taught). Man does not, therefore, have a body,he is a body. In the same way man does not have a spirit, he is a spirit. Man does not have asoul, he is a soul. Man is a unified being: body and soul (if spirit is included as part of soul as itis in Hebrew thought), or body, soul and spirit (to emphasize the distinctive makeup of man).Thus what affects the body deeply affects the soul as well, and vice versa.

43InterdependenceThat union of earthly dust and divine breath gives us one of the most insightfuldescriptions of human nature. As in the case of Adam, God did not speak Eve into existence asthe rest of the creation as though she were a part of nonhuman reality. And because she was notbreathed into dust as Adam was, she was not a creation unrelated to man. Her very creationshows her relatedness to man—for she was made from a part of him. God used the rib of Adamto underscore their interdependence. Moses points out that "the man said,""This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called'woman,' for she was taken out of man” (v. 23).Instead of independent autonomy, the two of them are interwoven, interdependent,interlaced. Notice Adam's need for a partner:"The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. It will make ahelper suitable for him" (v. 18).CommunionWe see here that sex was originally designed to end isolation and aloneness. Thisreflects something that exists in the persons of the Triune God—communion of Father, Son andHoly Spirit. Even though there is no physical or sexual expression of the persons of the Godhead,since they are spirits (except for God the Son who is both God and man: God-Man), they relateto each other in a loving way (Jn 17). This lack of sexual expression on the part of the Godheadshows that genital expression of sexuality is not inherently necessary for fullness andcompleteness. After all, in heaven, which is perfect, there will be no genital expression ofsexuality. But there will be perfect communion.Special CreationThe Bible points out that a helper for Adam was not to be found in what God had alreadycreated:

44"Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and allthe birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them;and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the mangave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.But for Adam no suitable helper was found" (Gn 2:19-20).Then we are given the account of the special creation of the woman, Eve:"So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he wassleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of theman, and He brought her to the man" (vv. 21-22).The man, Adam, at that point affirms God's gift to him:"The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; sheshall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man'" (v. 23).In Sumerian, one of the languages of Mesopotamia, the word for "rib" also means "life."Something of that concept is intended here: the woman comes into being out of the very life ofthe man. Life begets life. And then it is the woman who becomes the life-giver as she is giventhe gift to give birth.The word "helpmate" in Hebrew means "suitable helper" (literally "as against him"). Theidea is that this "suitable helper" will bring balance to the male. It is best understood by theancient method of using counterweights to attain a balance. One weight without thecounterweight is imbalanced. Only as the weights are used "against each other" is balancesynthesized. Man was created imbalanced even before the Fall. He needed the woman to bringthe balance God intended.Augustine, in order to show the interdependence of the man and the woman, stated:"The woman was not made from one of the bones in the man's head in order tomake it possible for her to lord it over him, nor was she made from one of thebones in the foot in order to enable him to trample and crush her. Rather, shewas made from one of the bones in his side, so that they might share lifetogether in mutual protection, concern, love and care."

45MonogamyThe words for "man" and "woman" sound very much alike in Hebrew as well as inEnglish. Even in themselves they serve to help cement the one-flesh union—monogamy, notpolygamy—that was the divine intention for husbands and wives from the beginning. One manwould be united to one woman, and they would become one flesh:"For this reason a man will leave His father and mother and be united [cleave]to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (v. 24).This fidelity of the one man and one woman to each other is to set the pattern for allmarriage. And as Jesus Himself points out, it is to last "forever":"'Haven't you read,' He [Jesus] replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator 'made themmale and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and motherand be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are nolonger two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man notseparate" (Mt 19:4-6).The central word here is "unite" or "cleave." This is from a Greek word which means "tobe glued together." Uniting or cleaving has the idea of sticking together, for better or for worse,not for the sake of convenience but because God has ordained the marriage union in whichpartners are "heirs together of the grace of life" (1 Pe 3:7).Covenant FidelityNext we are given the confession of covenant fidelity that sets the pattern for maturemarriage:"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to hiswife, and they will become one flesh” (Gn 2:24).In God's command to man "to be fruitful and increase in number" we see that procreationis tied to sex. But in this statement of the man and wife being "united" and becoming "oneflesh" sex is mentioned apart from procreation. Here sex is seen as a unifying force, in fact anillustration of the complete unity of husband and wife. "One flesh" then does not only refer toemotional and spiritual union; it also refers to physical union.

46One flesh means one life. When Moses and Jesus speak of husband and wife being oneflesh they were not merely expressing a sentiment but stating a fact. Just as a lock and key areone mechanism or a violin and a bow are one musical instrument, so the union of a husband andwife is a union that embodies oneness at three levels: the physical, emotional/psychological andspiritual levels of humanity. Thus they are soul mates.The New Testament draws our attention to the mystery of marital union and likensChristian marriage to the union of Christ and the Church. Husbands must love their wivesbecause Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, and wives must be submissive to theirhusbands because the Church is to be submissive to her Head--Jesus Christ. All this because weare all--whether male or female--fellow members of His body (Eph 5:25,30).Illicit SexIt is this unifying force that sex has that makes illicit sex so serious. Paul warned:"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I thentake the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you notknow that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh.'" But he who unites himself withthe Lord is one with Him in spirit" (1 Co 6:15-17).When a man and woman join their bodies, the entire personality is involved. Psychiatristswill testify that there is a bonding which occurs in the sexual relationship which is more thanphysical. It is a deep bonding which takes place on the emotional and psychic level. It touchesdeep into the spirit of each person. Sexual union is not merely a physical union, but a deeperexperience, a "oneness" that brings with it deep and lasting consequences. Derrick Baily stated:"Sexual intercourse is an act of the whole self which affects the whole self; it is apersonal encounter between man and woman in which each does something tothe other, for good or for ill, which can never be obliterated. This remains trueeven when they are ignorant of the radical character of their act." 1

47A Life-Uniting ActThe reasoning behind the biblical prohibition of sexual intercourse outside the boundaryof marriage is not just the practical concerns of pregnancy, venereal disease or AIDS. Sexualimmorality is wrong because it violates the very purpose of sexual union: a life-uniting act.Fornication or adultery is wrong because it is being involved in a life-uniting act without a lifeunitingintent. "Intercourse signs and seals—and maybe even delivers—a life-union; and lifeunionmeans marriage." 2Sexual intercourse outside marriage does violence to the very nature of the act itself sinceit draws a couple into a "one flesh" reality. It unites and bonds a couple in a deep and mysteriousway, whether positively or negatively. Derrick Baily claims that when this life-uniting act is notlinked to a covenant of permanence and fidelity it becomes". . . a hollow, ephemeral, diabolical parody of marriage which works disintegrationin the personality and leaves behind a deeply-seated sense of frustration anddissatisfaction—though this may never be brought to the surface of consciousnessand realized." 3To engage in a life-uniting act without a life-uniting intent wounds the inner spirit whicheventually poisons one’s personality. Our society is filled with people whose lives have becomepainful, even unbearable, as they carry such deep wounds and scars.The Hebrew word (yada) for sexual intercourse means "to know." In sexual intercoursethere is a special kind of knowledge, an intimacy, that takes place as in no other kind ofcommunication. This is why such communication is preserved only for the life-long covenant ofmarriage.Paul continues:The Involvement of the Whole Person"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body,but he who sins sexually sins against his own body” (1 Co 6:18).

48Sexual sin is so devastating because it involves the whole person. Sex is not just a part ofthe body. Being "male" and "female" involves the total person. Therefore, sexual experiencehas consequences in the total personality.DefilementImmoral sexual behavior brings defilement. Moses warns:"Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourselfwith her" (Lev 18:20).In this chapter of Leviticus 18 you will find a strong denunciation of adultery, incest,homosexuality and bestiality. The chapter ends concludes by emphasizing the seriousness ofsexual wrongdoing:"Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nationsthat I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land wasdefiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited its inhabitants. Butyou must keep My decrees and My laws. The native-born and the aliens livingamong you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these thingswere done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the landbecame defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomitedout the nations that were before you."Everyone who does any of these things—such persons must be cut off fromtheir people. Keep My requirements and do not follow any of thedetestable customs practiced before you came and do not defile yourselveswith them. I am the Lord your God" (18:24-30).Sexual wrongdoing is not only immoral, it is defiling. It not only violates God's order forhuman relationships; in some particular way it makes a human being unfit to stand in God'spresence and worship Him. The word "detestable" or "abomination" as used by sometranslations, is a very strong expression for the displeasure that sexual immorality provokes inGod.

49The Temple of the Holy SpiritPaul asks the believers at Corinth who were loose morally:"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is inyou, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you werebought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Co 6:19-20).Sexual immorality is horrendous when seen in the light of the fact that our bodies areGod's temple—dwelling place. Since He bought us with the costly blood of His Son, we do notbelong to ourselves. It is therefore only logical that we should "honor Him with our bodies."Fleeing TemptationPaul's remedy for sexual temptation here is fleeing:"Flee from sexual immorality" (v. 18).Because the body is a sacred trust the believer must not merely avoid fornication; he musttake a much more activist approach and flee from it. In the Greek the word "flee" may betranslated, "continually flee away from fornication." The picture is that of a person who sovividly knows the dangers and tragedies bound up in certain circumstances that he not onlyavoids them but also perpetually, consciously runs from them.The Role of SexWithin marriage, the sexual relationship must not be minimized. It is important. For thisreason all the branches of Christendom have acknowledged that a marriage has not actuallytaken place until the sexual union is consummated. If sexual union does not take place or cannottake place, then the marriage can be annulled as invalid.The union of body with body is a vital aspect of the marriage relationship. Sex is to be aregular expression of the love relationship. In fact, to defraud or withhold sex from a partneris sin. Paul makes this crystal clear in his first letter to the Christians at Corinth:

50"The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife toher husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to herhusband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alonebut also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent andfor a time, so that you may devote yourself to prayer. Then come together againso that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control" (7:3-5).Paul is saying that once we are married that we belong to each other. Our concern is to beto please each other and not ourselves. Therefore it is wrong to deprive the other partner oftheir emotional and physical needs.A quick way for a marriage to end up in trouble is for the wife to have a headache everynight and go to sleep early to avoid the sex act, or for the husband to lose interest in his wiferomantically and spend his nights working with his hobbies or spending time "with the boys."This is being selfish and insensitive to the needs of the other partner.Many Christian marriage counselors say that if sex is functioning properly in a marriagethat it counts for about 10% of the happiness of the entire relationship, but if it is not functioningproperly, it causes 90% of the problems in marriage. Sex must have its rightful place in a happyand satisfying marriage relationship.Integration of SexualityFinally the scene closes with the comment:"The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame" (Gn 2:25).Here we have the ideal picture of two people whose sexuality was integrated into theirentire lives. There was no shame because there was innocence and wholeness. There was organicunity within themselves and with the rest of creation. Nakedness was part of knowing each other(yada), the transparency, the vulnerability, the intimacy of human love.Here we witness unashamed eroticism that existed before the fall? The fall of man didnot create eros; it only perverted it. In the creation story, we find the man and the womandrawn to each other, naked and not ashamed. They know their masculinity and femininity are the

51handiwork of God, as is their passionate affection. Their differences also united them; they aremale and female but also one flesh. The two of them in relationship, in love--why should therebe shame? Their sexuality is the creation of God.We all know the tragic conclusion to the story, how the man and the woman rejectedGod's way. The venom of that Fall poisoned everything. It ruptured the relationship betweenGod and Adam and Eve. It even soured the marriage relationship.The result for the human sexuality has been, as Karl Barth put it, a vacillation betweenevil eroticism, on the one hand, and an evil absence of eroticism, on the other. How tragic! InChrist we affirm our full sexuality and through the power of the gospel, turn away from itsperversion.

524. THE CELEBRATION OF OUR SEXUALITY: SONG OF SONGS

53While the book of Genesis affirms our sexuality, the book of Song of Songs (the Hebrewtext calls it "Solomon's Song of Songs" which means "the greatest of songs") celebrates it.Historically this Song has been interpreted as an allegory of the love relationship betweenGod and Israel, or between Christ and the church, or between Christ and the soul. Suchinterpretations are without warrant since neither the Old Testament nor the New Testamentnowhere quotes from or even alludes to the Song. Yet, as Old Testament scholar E. J. Youngpoints out:"Not only does it speak of the purity of human love; but, by its very inclusionin the canon, it reminds us of a love that is purer than our own." 1Such a parallel, however, should be seen as an application of the text, rather than itsoriginal intent.There are no legitimate reasons to interpret the Song of Songs in any other way than thatit is a poetic presentation of passionate human love. This book is an object lesson, an extendedproverb or parable illustrating the rich wonders of human love, which is itself a gift of God'slove. Love is celebrated in all its spontaneity, beauty, power and exclusiveness. "Love isexperienced in its varied moments of separation and intimacy, anguish and ecstasy, tension andcontentment." 2The power of this poem lies in its creative and delicate repetitions of the themes of love--a love longed for when apart (e.g., 3:1-5) and enjoyed to the full when together (e.g., ch. 7),relished amid the splendor of the palace (e.g., 1:2-4) or in the serenity of the countryside(7:11ff.), and reserved exclusively for the covenant partner (2:16; 6:3; 7:10). 3Like love poetry of many cultures this Song extensively uses highly sensuous andsuggestive imagery drawn from nature. This Song provides". . . a wholesome, biblical balance between extremes of sexual excess orperversion and an asceticism, too often taken as a Christian view of sex,which denies the essential goodness and rightness of physical love withinthe divinely prescribed framework of marriage." 4

54We can no longer afford to hide behind allegorical leaves and deny human sexuality itsrightful place. The answer to our sex-crazed culture is not a denial of human sexuality, but anaffirmation and even celebration of human sexuality as it was meant to be.Karl Barth has called the Song of Songs an expanded commentary upon Genesis 2:25:"The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."How true! There is nothing else in our Bible that quite compares with its lavishcelebration of human sexuality. That it is in Scripture at all is a great testimony to the Hebrewrefusal to compartmentalize life—to chop life into things sacred and things secular.The uniqueness of symbolism is that it conceals as it reveals. Even though the poems areopen, explicit, and honest they are still delicate and pure.The Song of Songs provides an insightful window into eros (erotic, passionate love) as itshould be. There is sensuality without licentiousness, passion without promiscuity, love withoutlust.THE CALL TO LOVEThis poem which celebrates human sexuality begins with the call to love:"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;your name is like perfume poured out.No wonder the maidens love you!Take me away with you—let us hurry!Let the king bring me into his chambers" (1:1-4)With great passion the bride exclaims her strong desire for the presence of her groom,who is called "king," in accordance with common Semitic usage. We see that his love bringsmore pleasure to her than the taste of wine or the smell of rich cologne. She wants him to takeher to himself and imagines him saying to her, "We will enjoy your love."

55THE INTENSITY OF LOVEFour great themes on love become obvious in this book. The first is the intensity of love.The singer goes to great lengths, piling superlative upon superlative, to show the extravagance oftheir love. The woman cries:"Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples for I am faint with love" (2:5).The bride proudly announces her love before everybody in the tavern or restaurant, andasks for something to eat, for her passion is so strong that it has made her weak. Then shecharges them with a solemn oath to leave their loving, until their desires have been fulfilled (v.7).At another point the singer describes the woman in bed longing for her lover. She gets upin the middle of the night and roams the deserted streets looking for "the one my heart loves"(3:2). She even accosts the watchman, pleading for knowledge of here lover's whereabouts.Finally she cries out:"I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go" (v. 4).Eros without shame—the intensity of love.THE EXCLUSIVITY OF LOVEAlongside love's intensity we need to see the restraint of love. There is no crude orgyhere. Love is too high, sex is too deep, for such lusting.In chapter eight the woman remembers what her brothers said of her when she was achild: "We have a young sister, and her breasts are not yet grown" (8:8), that is, she has not yetmatured. They continue:"What shall we do for our sister for the day she is spoken for? If she is a wall,we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her withpanels of cedar" (8:8-9).

56In essence, the brothers protectively ask, "Was our sister a wall? Did she keep herselfpure? Did she keep her erotic passions in control, reserving herself for her loyal lover? Or wasshe a door? Was she violated by temporary lovers?"Fully matured, the woman gladly announces to her lover, "I am a wall, and my breasts arelike towers" (v. 10). She had not given in to unrestrained passion.Love's BarriersThe Lover: "You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;You are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.Your plants are an orchard of pomegranateswith choice fruits, with henna and nard,nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,with every kind of incense tree,with myrrh and aloes, and all the finest spices."You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing waterstreaming down from Lebanon.The Beloved: Awake, north wind, and come, south wind!Blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad.Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.The Lover:I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride;I have gathered my myrrh with my spice.I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey;I have drunk my wine and my milk.Friends: Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fill, O lovers" (4:12-5:1).In the duet, the groom praises the delectable qualities of his beloved, but complains thathe finds her a "closed garden" and a "sealed fountain." She responds by declaring that althoughshe is a closed garden—a chaste, pure virgin—to men in general, yet she is open to him, andenthusiastically invites him to enjoy her. Even their friends enjoin both of them to fully enjoyeach other ("drink your fill"—5:1). She calls him to receive her charms and to enjoy the fruit of"his garden" (her). She does not say, "Come and enjoy yourself" as though she is a sex object,

ut she says, "Enjoy me." That is, he is to enjoy her as a person—a sexual person—in all therichness that that means. He accepts her invitation with cheerful promptness and finallyannounces the joy of love's consummation.57The man, too, knew the lessons of restraint. In chapter six he recalls the numerousopportunities he could have had to show his sexual prowess. In what is perhaps a bit of Hebrewhyperbole, he mentions 60 queens, 80 concubines, and "virgins without number" (6:8). Theycould have been his yet he said no them all for"I am my lover's and my lover is mine" (v. 3).Just as fire belongs in the fireplace, sex belongs in marriage. Fire outside the fireplacewill destroy a home and sex outside marriage will also destroy a home. Sex, like fire, can eitherwarm the home or burn it down.God's antidote to our hedonistic philosophy of free sex is not asceticism or negation--nosex—but the free expression of human sexuality within the loving confines of a marriagerelationship. God's boundaries of restrictions concerning sex are not motivated by the desire tokeep human beings from enjoying themselves; it is motivated by the desire to see them enjoythemselves as much as possible.Intended for PleasureIntended for Pleasure is the title of a book by physician Ed Wheat. The title and the bookemphasize the fact that human beings were designed physically, psychologically/emotionallyand spiritually for pleasure. God created all parts of the human body. He did not create someparts good and some bad. He created them all good. When God had finished His creation, Helooked at it and said, “It is all very good” (Gn 1:31). God could have created man verydifferently than He did. But He didn’t.To reduce human sexuality to a merely animal act runs counter to how God created us.Man was created for relationship and human sexuality encourages relationship. This is why wewere designed the way we were. We experience sex as a personal encounter, not just a biologicalact. We are the only species that commonly copulates face-to-face, so that partners look at eachother as they mate and unlike other social animals, human beings prefer privacy for the act sinceit is a very personal experience.

58The physiology of human sexuality is fascinating:“The moist parts, the million of nerve cells sensitive to pressure and pain yet alsocapable of producing pleasure, the intricacies of erectile tissue, the economicaland ironic combination of organs for excretion and reproduction, the blendingof visual appeal and mechanical design.” 5Zoologists point out that in comparison with every other species, the human is richlyendowed. The human male has the largest penis of any primate, and the female is the onlymammal whose breasts develop before her first pregnancy. Virtually all other mammals have aspecified time in which the female is receptive, or in heat, whereas the human female can bereceptive anytime, not just once or twice a year. In addition, the human species is one of veryfew in which females experience orgasm, and humans continue to have sex long after their childrearingyears have passed.Marital Love and CommitmentGod knows that sex, to be what it was intended to be, must be experienced in the lovingconfines of marital love and commitment. Only in marriage are we free to express ourselvessexually in its fullest sense—spiritually, emotionally and psychologically as well as physically.Love in the Song of Solomon is restrained also in that it refuses to be rushed. This iscaptured well by the chorus that threads its way through the book:"Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of thefield: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires" (3:5; 5:8; 8:4).And if it were important for ancient Israel to hear that counsel of patience and restraint,how much more important for our society, which takes even children and makes them sexsymbols.When we are tempted to experience sex prematurely, we must be willing to radicallyremove that which lures and entices us. This is not easy. For as Jesus Himself points out, to bringthe sex instinct under control and deny it free expression might be as painful as plucking out aneye or chopping off a hand. Yet this is nothing compared to the hell of fire which burns thewhole personality of those who do not exercise such discipline and self-control. As Jesus put it:

59"It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go[or be thrown] into hell" (Mt 5:29-30).Within the bounds of marriage, sex is sacred. Paul, in fact, used the sex relationship toillustrate the oneness of Christ and His Church. Paul writes,". . . husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves hiswife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feedsand cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of Hisbody. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be unitedto his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However each one of youmust also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect herhusband" (Eph 5:28-33).God created man male and female (the sexes) in order to establish in marriage theclosest of human unions. Sexual union unites husband and wife as one flesh in the most intimateway. But marriage is not only made up of the union of body with body but also of soul withsoul (intellectual and emotional) and spirit with spirit (spiritual). Paul in this passage is usingmarriage (with its physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual union) as an illustration, apicture, of the mystical union of Christ and His Church.In this passage we see that the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church--unconditionally, sacrificially, unreservedly. Likewise, the wife is to be submissive, respectful,toward her husband as the church is to be toward her Bridegroom—Christ.William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, writes:"It is to be recognized that sex is holy . . . Anyone who has once understood thatwill be quite as careful as any Puritan to avoid making jokes about sex; notbecause it is nasty but because it is sacred. He would no more joke about sexthan he would about Holy Communion—and for exactly the same reason. Tojoke about it is to treat with lightness something that deserves reverence." 6

60Mutual enrichment, not personal gratification, is the purpose of sex. Sex must neverbecome an end in itself; it must always be a means of unifying two people who love each otherand are thus committed to each other. There is no place for such rationalizations as "sex is ourright to happiness," or "sex is needed for fulfillment"—in name of love—to obtain sex outsidethe bounds of marriage. As seen earlier, love is never divorced from responsibility, respect,honor, fidelity. When sex becomes an end in itself it usurps the place of love. People become"objects" of physical gratification rather than human beings made in the image of God.In the passages of 1 Corinthians 7 and Ephesians 5 we see that sex must never beexploited. Sex within marriage can sometimes be as selfish and destructive—as sinful as sexoutside marriage. If either partner uses the other person only to gratify personal desires, if eitheruses sex as a weapon, or withholds it as a punishment, or demands it unilaterally, such a personis guilty of immorality. For it is abusing another person by not treating that person with respectand sensitivity. It is failing to meet the needs of that partner.Another word for such exploitation is "lust." The word "lust" is used to mean either"sinful desire directed toward a forbidden object" or "sinful desire that becomes so intense that itovercomes self-control." Love says to give, lust can't wait to get. Lust persists against anotherperson's wishes. Lust is uncontrolled sex. Sexual love is controlled sex.Freedom in sex is found then, not through selfish indulgence but through self-control.While erotic passion is celebrated in the Song of Songs, it has this exclusive character.This is most clearly seen at the wedding when the man describes his bride to be as"a garden locked up. . . a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain" (4:12).She has said no to capricious sex; she has kept her garden locked.But when we come to the wedding night, the woman calls out:"Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that itsfragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and tasteits choice fruit” (v. 16).Here we see the intensity and the exclusivity of love.

61THE MUTUALITY OF LOVEThe third theme that weaves its way through the Song of Solomon is the mutuality oflove. Nowhere in this book do you find the dull and routine story of the man acting and thewoman being acted upon. Far from it! Both are intensely involved; both initiate, both receive. "Itis as if the curse of man's domination that resulted from the Fall has been surmounted by thegrace of God." 7Even the literary structure of the book emphasizes that love is reciprocal. The manspeaks; the woman speaks; the chorus sings the refrain. There is open-hearted dialogue.The Lover: How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!Your stature is like that of the palms, and your breasts like clusters of fruit.I said, 'I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit.'May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,the fragrance of your breath like apples,and your mouth like the best wine.The Bride: May the wine go straight to my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth.I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside,let us spend the night in the villages.Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded,if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom--there I will give you my love.The mandrakes send out their fragrance,and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old,that I have stored up for you, my lover" (7:10-13).In this rhapsody of love, the lover compares his chosen bride to a slender, curvy andstately palm tree, and he announces his intention of climbing into its branches and enjoying itsdelights. With the joyous affirmation of the love binding her and her lover, the maiden callsupon him to come out into the fields and vineyards, blooming in the glory of the spring. There,she promises, she will give him her love. The "mandrake" was regarded as an aphrodisiac (lovepotion). The other fruits symbolize love by their blossoming and giving of fragrance.

62The lovers are lavish in their praise for each other's beauty.The Lover: "How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful!Your eyes behind your veil are doves.Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing.Each has its twin; not one of them is alone.Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely.Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.Your neck is like the tower of David, built with elegance;on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors.Your two breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazellethat browse among the lilies.Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountainof myrrh and to the hill of incense.All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you" (4:1-7).In this poem in praise of the physical perfection of the maiden the lover spares noadjectives. Her "eyes as doves" speak of her purity and gentleness. Her hair is soft and wavy asthe softness of wool and as wavy as the flowing motion of sheep coming down a mountain. Thelarge neck and prominent nose was a mark of beauty to the ancients. As David's tower was talland had many shields hanging on it for decoration so her strong slender neck is bejeweled. Alsothe figure of the "tower" is used to symbolize her exclusiveness for her one love, her inaccessibilityto all other men. Although her body is described as sensuous, she is not thought of as a sexobject for her outward appearance portrays her inward and moral characteristics. He loves her("you are fair, my love"), not her body. Old Testament scholar Robert Laurin pointsout:"Beauty or loveliness is involved in the physical form, but it is also related toother qualities of attractiveness: charm, gentleness, humility, selflessness dignity—apart from which physical beauty is not very important, and by which lack ofphysical beauty can often be transcendent." 8The Lover continues by describing love's enchantment.

63The Lover: "You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;You have stolen my heart with one glance of youreyes, with one jewel of your necklace.How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!How much more pleasing is your love than wine,and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;milk and honey are under your tongue.The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon" (4:9-11).The charm of the maiden has ravished her lover, who finds her presence more fragrantthan wine and perfume, and other beautiful ornaments. The term "sister" was used as a term ofendearment. The sweetness of her lips speaks of her sweet and gentle speech, for true love canhave no bitterness.The woman is open, unashamed and lavish in her expressions of love and passion:The Bride: "My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts . . .My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi...My lover is like a gazelle or young stag. . . .How handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how charming!And our bed is verdant. . . . Like an apple tree among the trees of theforest is my lover among the young men.I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.He has taken me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples,for I am faint with love. . . .Listen! My lover!Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills.My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag.Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows,peering through the lattice" (1:13-14,16; 2:3-4; 8-9).

In these songs we see total and mutual attraction and involvement. Love is herereciprocal. The concern is for each other's pleasure and fulfillment. Love is expressed freely,spontaneously, uninhibitedly and boldly.64Though love here is open, it is not vulgar; though it is intense, it is not coarse. Though awindow is opened for us to see scenes of two lovers captivated and enraptured with each other,there are no sex scenes here. Just at the time of great intimacy, the curtain of the lovers' bedroomis drawn shut to conceal the special, private moment.Although the scenes of the intenseness of love are protected, are private, there is no placehere for prudishness. Sexual love is to be enjoyed, but in the privacy of the lover's embrace.Human sexuality is to be appreciated, not hid behind allegorical leaves. Song of Songsteaches us to unashamedly enjoy sex. Sex is here not recreational—a mere biological function; itis a deep expression of the passion, the love, that exists between two lovers. Pleasure, fulfillment,satisfaction are found in mutual love.Lewis Smedes perceptively writes:"What we experience in our own sexuality is a need for communion. It happenson the biological level as a need for pleasure and release; but the biologicalexperience is only the substratum of the whole sexual urge. What we want insexual satisfaction is to be close to somebody, to share the most intimate kindof exposure of ourselves, to give ourselves in spontaneous and uncontrolledtrust to another. What we want, then is the height and depth of personalcommunion and security." 9In Genesis we are told only of Adam's attraction to Eve, but here the accent is upon thelovers' mutual attraction. Both are constantly giving and receiving in the act of love, love'smutuality.THE PERMANENCE OF LOVEThe final theme we should see is the permanence of love. There is no promiscuity here,no running away when the going gets rough, when bills are overdue and boredom sets in.Toward the end of the Song the woman cries out:

65"Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal over your arm; for love is asstrong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire,like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash itaway. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterlyscorned” (8:6-7).Their love is ongoing and strong. It transcends the hot-cold fluctuations of erotic passion.It is as strong as death; it cannot be bought at any price."The loyalty pictured in the Song should remind [us] that there's no way out ofthis. There's no ripcord that can be pulled, no ejection seat that can be triggered.They are in it together, bound to each other forever with covenantal loyalty."10These words of fidelity and permanence remind us of the love-hymn of the apostle Paulin 1 Corinthians 13: "Love always perseveres. Love never fails" (v. 8).In our day of sexual permissiveness and perversion on the one hand, and prudishness onthe other, the Song of Songs provides a healthy corrective.Sex within the bounds of marriage plays a significant role in enforcing and enhancing themarriage union. In fact, the sexual union is the ultimate physical expression of love between aman and woman.Love's intensity, love's exclusivity, love's mutuality, love's permanence—humansexuality as God meant it to be.

665. SINGLENESS AND SEXUALITY

"Hell is the only place outside heaven where we can be safe from the dangersof love." 167--C. S. LewisEven though God has created mankind for a marital relationship by creating sex andinstituting or ordaining marriage, He has called some to be single and thus given them the gift ofcelibacy. Such a gift enables the single people to live a life that is still rich and fulfilling. Paulassures us of this gift:"I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one hasthis gift, another has that” (1 Co 7:7).GIFT FROM GODJesus taught that some people have the ability to remain single for the sake of God'sKingdom:". . . some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made thatway by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdomof heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it" (Mt 19:12).The meaning of the word "eunuch" is not clear. There is debate over whether it refers to aperson who has never been married or to a married person whose partner has left for a paganlife who does not remarry and therefore is a "eunuch for the sake of the kingdom." The practicaloutcome is the same, whichever interpretation is chosen. The point is that such a person livesa single life for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.If a person does not have this "gift," Jesus' and Paul's instructions are clear that he shouldmarry (Mt 19:12; 1 Co 7:2). If a person is forced to live a life of singleness, he should ask infaith for the ability to live happily and productively in that God-ordained state.As a whole, Judaism considered celibacy to be an abnormal state. Therefore, eunuchswere forbidden to serve as priests (Lev 21:20). As far as we know the only exception was theEssene community of Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). In all likelihood Jesuswas aware of this group since His cousin, John the Baptist, was in all probability involved withthese Essenes.

68How does a person know if he has "the gift"? Paul explains that when one "burns withlust" (1 Co 7:8-9) one knows that one lacks this ability. This gift enables a person to live freelywithout consuming thoughts of marriage or continual distracting preoccupation with those of theopposite sex.ATTITUDE TOWARD SINGLENESSIt is unfortunate, and certainly unbiblical, to treat singlehood as inferior to marriage. It isalso unscriptural to treat singleness as superior to marriage. This latter teaching arose in earlychurch history partly due to Greek philosophy in which there was the dualism of the materialworld which is inferior (of which man's body was a part) to the world of the mind and thespirit which is superior. The logical conclusion of such a position is seen in the Roman CatholicChurch's teaching of the law of celibacy for the priesthood. The complete and unencumbereddevotion to God is only possible by the priests and nuns. Thus it is considered a higher order inGod's economy.Such a teaching is unwarranted by Scripture. The Bible clearly teaches that marriage isGod's way (Gn 2:18; Pr 18:22; 1 Ti 3:2; 4:1-3; 5:14), His usual way for His children.The Bible is clear: there is nothing unclean or polluted in sexual relations in the marriagerelationship (Heb 13:4).Both singleness and marriage are approved by God and each has its advantages. Singlenesshas the advantage of singleness of heart, of unrivaled devotion to the Lord:"Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stayunmarried, as I am. . . . Now about virgins: I have no command from theLord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you remain asyou are.Are you married: Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look fora wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, shehas not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life,and I want to spare you this.

69What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who havewives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; thosewho are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were nottheirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them.For this world in its present form is passing away.I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concernedabout the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married manis concerned about the affairs of this world--how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concernedabout the Lord's affairs: her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in bothbody and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs ofthis world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for yourown good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way inundivided devotion to the Lord" (1 Co 7:8,25-35).Undivided loyalty and devotion is only possible, in its most practical way, bysingleness. Marriage, by definition, requires loyalty and devotion not only to God but also to amate and children.Then what is the advantage of marriage: companionship, completeness, procreationand sexual fulfillment? Also a Christian marriage has the opportunity to be a model of Christ'slove for the church (Eph 5:22-33).BIBLICAL APPROACH TOWARD SINGLENESSSince single people, just as married people, are sexual beings, it is unrealistic andunbiblical for them to deny their sexuality. Since we are all created in God's image as maleand female, all that we are and do has sexual implications. But this sexuality does not need to beexpressed in genital sex since genital sex is a very small part of what it means to be a sexualbeing. Our sexuality, whether single or married, is primarily expressed in our capacity to loveand be loved. Intimacy is not dependent on genital sex. In fact, often it is hindered by genital sexbecause its focus is shifted from the emotional/ spiritual dimension to the purely physicaldimension of a relationship.

70LEGITIMATE EXPRESSIONS OF SEXUALITYSingle people need to develop caring and wholesome relationships with members of bothsexes to be human which by its very nature is sexual. Relationships which are deep and intimate,but nongenital, are as legitimate expressions of human sexuality as are relationships whichinclude the genital dimension. One is not inferior, but merely different.The sexuality of the single person is expressed in the experience of emotional fulfillment.Warm and fulfilling friendships are legitimate ways for single people to express their sexuality.Emotional fulfillment is wholly possible for the single person in the context of caringfriendships.The touch, the hug, the kiss, the warm embrace are some legitimate physical ways forsingles to express their sexuality, their humanity. Such physical expressions are vital ingredientsto wholeness. In the last few years the healing professions have shown a growing interest in thefield of nonerotic touch. Psychiatric workers and doctors are learning the power of simplyholding someone's hand, nurses are taught how to stroke and cuddle, and even massage, babies.Probably no one has shown the world as powerfully as Mother Theresa of Calcutta howimportant—life-changing—the compassionate touch is.SEXUALITY AND SELF-CONTROLSexual feelings are not to be denied or repressed. As Donald Goergen has noted, ". . .feelings are meant to be felt, and sexual feelings are no exception." 2 To deny such feelings, hesays, is to "cut ourselves off from our humanity." 3If such sexual feelings are not to be denied or repressed, how are they to be dealt with?Through self-control! There is no denying that in most heterosexual relationships there is anerotic element. This is so because we are sexual creatures. There is nothing wrong with suchfeelings. And it does no good to deny or repress them. Instead we should accept these feelings.But to accept them does not mean to act upon them. We are not to be mastered by our feelings,but we are to master and control them. Sexual feelings, as all feelings, are to come under ourauthority.4 This is not easy. But it is God's way!

71AN ALTERNATE LIFE-STYLERichard Foster in his book, The Freedom of Simplicity, have correctly stated:"We do people a disservice when we fail to proclaim the single life as aChristian option. Marriage is not for everyone, and we should say so." 5Single people are not "half-people." They are not people who should be looked downupon and thought of as not able to somehow capture a mate. Rather as Heini Arnold has noted,"It is possible for everyone to find the deepest unity of heart and soul withoutmarriage." 6God knows best! Jesus Christ assures us all, that He came to give us life, and give it to usfull (Jn 10:10). This is true whether we are single or married!

726. WHY WAIT TO ENJOY SEX?

73Most kids evaluate truth by their life experience, not be absolutes. Therefore pressure andfear mean very little to today's teen-agers. Compassion and reasoning are crucial in helpingyouth to live by God's standard. What we tell them will mean little unless we show them in reallife terms what it means to live for God.THE MAIN REASON TO WAITGod's standard is clear: purity before marriage and faithfulness after marriage.The main reason why we should wait to have sex before marriage and why we should remainfaithful in the marriage relationship is because God says so. That should be enough reason to liveby high moral standards. Any violation of God's laws and commands results in His judgment:"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure [undefiled],for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Heb 13:4).OTHER REASONS TO WAITThere are other reasons for abstaining from premarital sex and for remaining faithful inthe marriage relationship. One reason goes back to what was argued about the birth controldevices: safety. As long as we're safe from the fear of pregnancy, many reason, we can have anenjoyable loving and meaningful sexual relationship. While it is true that the Pill and other birthcontroldevices have made the fear of pregnancy less common, sexually transmitted diseaseshave increased the fear of illness, and especially in the case of AIDS, the fear of death.A representative of Planned Parenthood admitted that condoms are only 87-90% effectivein birth control. It is estimated that they are only 80% effective in protecting us from STDs. Thismeans using condoms is playing Russian Roulette. There is one chance in five that you may getAIDS or any of the other STDs. Talk about gambling with your life!One of the fallouts of premarital sex is the continual fear of sexual comparison—comparing the sexual performance of one against the other. The mind, which is the main sexorgan, can haunt you as you are reminded of your unhealthy sexual experiences and as youthink about the sexual experiences of your partner. The constant fear that your partner was morefulfilled sexually with others before you is very damaging to your sexuality and thus to yourrelationship.

74Another reason why God says "NO" to illicit sex is because it destroys trust. Premaritaland extramarital sex erodes the trust factor and creates suspicion in a relationship whether it bebefore or after marriage. When a husband or wife knows that the other partner waited to have sexuntil after marriage, trust is enhanced. There is added confidence that if they were pure beforemarriage that they will more likely be pure—faithful—to their mate after marriage. Such waitingalso helps the other person to feel special, rather than just another sexual partner.Sexual relations divorced from the marriage relationship lacks security and commitmentwhich are so essential to a satisfying relationship. The argument that physical compatibility mustbe tested before one can be sure that the prospective mate is "suitable" is nonsense. Sex apartfrom life-long trust is illusory. Sex-in-marriage—God's design—cannot be tried outside ofmarriage since the essential ingredients are not there. What is tried, therefore, is a poorsubstitute. For the woman especially, to whom the security of belonging is so crucial, evenphysical climax may prove illusive.One woman shares her uncommitted relationships:"You can't say to someone, 'I love you. Let's live together to see what happens.'On those terms, either of you can split at a moment's notice. As a result younever really can be yourself or feel free to disagree without fear of losing theother person. You can never have the liberty to share your deepest feelings.You have to hold back. The relationship doesn't get a chance to grow becauseit is based on a conditional acceptance which is the cover for the selfgratificationof two people indulging themselves in what they politely term ameaningful relationship.Real commitment, on the other hand, says, 'I am willing to spend my life withyou to see you grow.' . . . Others say, 'For as long as we both shall love. . . .'Love may have some cold spots, and it alone will never be enough to holdtwo people together.It's commitment that carries them over difficult times. Commitment is whatGod intended between a man and woman. That is why he set up marriage—to express a lifelong commitment." 1

75In a 1981 study called, Women in Sweden, it was reported that couples who lived togetherbefore marriage have nearly an 80% higher divorce rate than those who did not. 2 This study ofover 4,000 women has found interest among American researchers because the social trends inSweden tend to precede American trends by 10 to 15 years. This study confirms what has beenpredicted for a long time: "Trying it out" in advance simply does not enhance the potential forsuccess of marriage. 3By waiting we also develop Christian virtues such as commitment, patience, disciplineand self-control. Martin Luther put it:“But some might say, ‘Waiting for marriage is unbearable and aggravating!’They’re right. It’s very similar to other difficulties requiring patience thatbelievers must face, such as fasting, imprisonment, cold, sickness, andpersecution. Lust is a serious burden. You must resist it and fight against it.But after you have overcome it through prayer, lust will have caused you topray more and grow in faith.” 4Sexual purity is a testimony of our obedience to God and His Word. All thesecharacter qualities are essential in forming solid relationships. This is true whether it isfriendship or marriage. Without these character blocks relationships will eventually crumble.Waiting helps us to focus on the relationship. Once sexual union occurs the relationshipchanges and the physical aspect takes on disproportionate and unhealthy attention oftenengulfing the relationship. This keeps a couple from really getting to know each other as humanbeings, which is so vital to a life-long marriage that is fulfilling and satisfying.Waiting also enhances sexual enjoyment, satisfaction and fulfillment. Couples whowait are more likely to enjoy a special kind of euphoria about their sexual union since it has beenreserved for that "special moment"—the wedding night—the time intended by God. Theirwillingness to wait and endure the strains of sexual continence because they love and respectGod and each other is not only a great testimony to their strength of character; it also makes theirsexual union that much more "special."Next to God's command, the primary reason why we should not practice illicit sex,however, is that it violates God's purpose of sex—mutual enrichment, not personalgratification. The sexual union is intended to deepen and strengthen the relationship betweentwo people who are committed to each other in love.

76Sex must never become an end in itself. It must always be a means of unifying twopeople who love each other and thus are committed to each other. There is no place for suchrationalizations as "sex is our right to happiness," or "sex is needed for fulfillment"—in the nameof love in order to obtain sex outside the bounds of marriage.Love is never divorced from responsibility, duty, obligation, respect, honor, fidelity (Mt5:17-48; 7:21-23; 19:1-12; Ro 12:9-16; 13:8-10). When sex becomes an end in itself itusurps the place of love. People become "objects" of physical gratification rather than humanbeings made in the image of God. People are to be valued and loved, not used.Illicit sex is a failure to understand God's intention for the male/female relationship.Prudery and celibacy are not God's intention for mankind since He created sex and instituted orordained marriage. However, God has called some to a life of singleness (1 Co 7:7-8,17-40).But He has provided the gift of celibacy to enable them to live a rich and full life without a lifepartner.Studies show that in general religious people are not prudes who have difficulty enjoyingtheir sex lives. George A. Tobin, in his book, First Things, gives ample evidence that the morereligiously committed people consider themselves, the more satisfying and fulfilling they findtheir sexual lives to be (55-59% as opposed to 54% of those who are nominally religious and44% of those who are not religious at all). 5

777. WHAT ABOUT MASTURBATION?

78It is generally estimated that 90% of all males over age fifteen have experienced someform of self-induced orgasm at least once. The estimate among females who have had at leastone erotic experience through self-stimulation, ranges from 40% to 60%. The male experiences abuild-up of sperm until some form of ejaculation becomes biologically necessary. This releasecan come consciously through sexual relations with another person, it can come unconsciouslyin an emission during sleep, often accompanied by a dream, or it can be self-induced(masturbation). In the case of the female there are definite times during the monthly cycle thatthe psychological and biological drive for sex is stronger.A VIABLE OPTION?Is masturbation a viable option for the Christian? What does the Bible say? It is notaddressed directly. Yet historically the church as a whole has condemned masturbation. In theMiddle Ages the church stressed the evils of masturbation primarily because of its inability tofulfill what was considered God's main purpose of marriage: procreation. In fact, this was seenas the only legitimate function of sex. Even the most recent Vatican statement on the subjectdeclares that "masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act." 1Protestantism typically has differing opinions or convictions on this issue. Thefundamentalistic wing of Protestantism also sees masturbation as inherently evil, whereas theevangelical wing has mixed feelings whether masturbation is a legitimate sexual outlet.In the past many myths that instilled fear were spread but these have been discredited byscientific research.FOUR VIEWSThere are basically four views on masturbation among Christians:1. It is a gift from God.2. It is probably all right if it is not indulged in with lustful fantasies, is not compulsive,is not performed in a group setting, and does not produce guilt.3. It is probably wrong because it is against nature and may be in violation of the biblicallaw of purity.

794. It is always wrong. 2Psychologist Archibald Hart, who does not see masturbation itself as being morallywrong or sinful, nevertheless points out in his book, The Sexual Man, that there are at least threeconditions under which masturbation is "clearly wrong or destructive":1. When it is used to avoid sexual intimacy or to punish a partner by satisfyingoneself. Does this happen? Often. A husband who is angry takes care of himself by selfstimulationand avoids intimacy with his wife as long as possible, hoping she will "suffer" and begood to him next time. Not only is this psychologically sick it is downright immoral!2. When it is used to fulfill an addictive urge. Here, as with other addictions,masturbation is used as an emotional anesthesia to numb pain or avoid reality. Some men drinkalcohol; others use masturbation. There is little difference, really, in the underlying dynamics.3. When it is used to foster lust or a desire for others. I believe there is somethingintrinsically immoral about masturbating to fantasies that involve other men's wives or, for thatmatter, single women. What right does any man have to take my wife in fantasy? What right do Ihave to take yours? 3Hart ends his section on masturbation with his "bottom line" on the issue:"Solo sex is not a healthy substitute for real sex." 4Is masturbation itself morally wrong or sinful? Many point to the fact that masturbationmust be all right since the Bible does not directly address it, does not hold water. There are manyissues that the Bible does not attack head on, yet which are condemned by our Christiancommunity, and in some cases, even by our society. Some of these are: polygamy, slavery,pornography, drug abuse, and abortion.One of the reasons this issue may not have been addressed is a practical one. DuringBible times people were married much younger. It was not uncommon for people to get marriedany time after 12 or 13 years of age. Thus in ancient Jewish society temptation to masturbate wasgreatly reduced and thus not an issue with practical implications.

80If this is so, does Scripture provide any principles that would preclude autoeroticism?Jesus pointed out that sexual sin begins with mental sexual desire and culminates in sexualintercourse with a person other than one's marriage partner. Since most masturbation isassociated with sexual fantasy it easily borders on sin. The imagination that is so often part ofmasturbation is certainly wrong since it encourages mental sexual desire. Even if it can be arguedthat it is possible to masturbate for the pure purpose of physical release, we need to be mindful ofPaul's argument that one's body does not belong to oneself but to one's partner so far as sexualactivity is concerned (1 Co 7:4).Since masturbation is basically self-stimulation it probably violates all four of God'spurposes in marriage. The purpose of oneness is violated since sex was designed by God to beunifying. God provides sex to be other-centered as it is meant to cement and promote oneness.Masturbation by definition, cannot do so. It is purely self-centered. It focuses on self rather onone's partner. Masturbation, therefore, distorts one of the purposes of sex: mutual enrichment.Masturbation also violates a second purpose of sex: companionship. By its very naturemasturbation, if it is not in a group setting which would make it wholly unbiblical, is practicedin isolation. Instead of being a means of providing another dimension, a physical/sexualdimension, to enhancing a deeper sense of companionship, masturbation is practiced in a lonesetting where there is no relational encouragement and support. As Richard Foster put it,"Masturbation is sexual solitaire." 5It is "sex on a desert island" 6 as pointed out by psychiatrist John White.The most obvious purpose of marriage is procreation. This was the first command givenby God to Adam and Eve. Masturbation, of course, cannot fulfill this purpose. Rather someargue that masturbation is a good form of population control.Finally, one of the purposes of marriage is to model Christ's relationship to the church.Christ's attitude and behavior toward the church was one of self-giving and self-sacrificing.Masturbation, on the other hand, is a practice that seeks to serve self rather than others. This is aclear violation of this selfless principle.While it may be argued that we cannot clearly and unmistakenly forbid masturbation inall cases, the evidence is quite strong that its practice is questionable at best, and sinful at worst.

81The biblical approach to temptation is not to find a compromising practice, but tosubmit to spiritual discipline. Prayer and starving one's appetite—cutting out sexuallystimulating materials and situations as much as possible (although this is extremely difficult inour sex-obsessed culture)—is God's proven method of resisting temptation. Self-discipline, notself-indulgence, is God's way.Involuntary nocturnal emission during one's sleep (unconscious state) is nature's way ofproviding a release valve. It is probable that when erotic dreams accompany such emission thatthere has been an overexposure to sexual stimulation during the conscious time of the day.Limitations to the exposure to sexually stimulating material is important in keeping suchemissions free from licentious thoughts (whether conscious or unconscious).Some argue that there is no evidence for biological pressure in the female, but this iscontradicted by many, especially women, who find there is both psychological and biologicalpressure. Of the two many would argue that the desire for pleasure that is psychological/emotional is greater. The argument for the inevitability of ejaculation in the male cannot be fully,though partly, applied to the female.Sublimation is another way of dealing with sexual temptation. Historically this has beenone of God's great means of accomplishing His purpose in the world as men and women of Godhave zealously and lovingly given themselves to selfless and sacrificial service on behalf ofothers.Masturbation, whether sinful or not, simply cannot fully satisfy our sexual needs. Orgasmis only a part, though an important part, of human sexuality. Human sexuality encompassesthe whole range of personal human relationships. Richard Foster put it well:"Masturbation will always fall short, because it seeks to perpetuate the myth ofthe self-contained lover." 7

828. LUST: THE FORBIDDEN DESIRE

83"Inordinate love of the flesh is cruelty, because under the appearance of pleasingthe body we kill the soul." 1--Bernard of ClairvauxSeveral years ago, former President Jimmy Carter stirred up a lot of conversation whenhe admitted in an interview to be published by Playboy Magazine that he was guilty of lust. Themedia picked this confession up and had a heyday with it. But is Jimmy Carter really muchdifferent from the rest of us, especially men? Maybe the main difference is that he knows himselfbetter and is more honest about his struggles.Few, if any, escape the indictment of lust. The reverence for womanhood and thesacredness of the marriage relationship is the basis of the seventh commandment. In illustratingthe new and higher law of the kingdom of God, Jesus selects the seventh commandment whichdeals with our sexuality. He put it:"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you thatanyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery withher in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw itaway. It is better for you to lose one part your body than for your whole body tobe thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throwit away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your wholebody to go into hell" (Mt 5:27-30).According to Jesus, anger is the equivalent to murder as lust is the equivalent to adultery.In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says that the boundaries of our sexual expressions arenot only limited by the physical but also by the mental:". . . anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adulterywith her in his heart" (v. 28).The rabbis of Jesus' day tried to limit the scope of the seventh commandment to thephysical act of intercourse. Although the sin of desiring (in the mind) another person's wife orany woman is included in the tenth commandment against covetousness, these rabbis ignored itand taught that they kept the seventh commandment so long as they avoided the act of adultery.Sexual purity was therefore broadly defined.

84But Jesus preaches that just as the prohibition of murder included the angry thought andthe insulting word, so the prohibition of adultery included the lustful look and the playfulimagination. Just as we can commit murder with our thoughts and words so we can commitadultery in our minds and hearts.THE SEED OF ADULTERYLust, says Jesus, is adultery because adultery is the physical consummation of lust. ThusJesus brings the issue of intent. As anger is the seed of murder, lust is the seed of adultery.The word "lust" (Greek epithymia) originally meant "craving" or "any strong desire" (Mt4:19; Rev 18:14) and was morally neutral. However the word took on negative connotations andbecame used almost exclusively in reference to inordinate sexual desire. By the time of Jesus thisis how the word is used most of the time.All of us fall into the category of lust of some form. And this should not surprise us sincethe Bible describes the human heart, the natural man, in rather uncomplementary ways:"For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality,theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arroganceand folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'" (Mk 7:21-23)."The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity anddebauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage,selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, andthe like" (Gal 5:19-21).No one escapes the indictment of sin! We are all guilty! For many of us it may comemost powerfully in the area of sex whereas for others it may come more forcefully in the areas ofjealousy, greed or power.When Jesus warns against looking on a woman lustfully He uses the word "looks" in thepresent tense indicating that the person "keeps looking." The phrase "looks at a woman lustfully"means literally "desires to have a woman sexually." The look of lust is looking at a woman withthe deliberate intention of lusting after her.

85Lust is not noticing that a woman is sexually attractive. Lust is born when we turn asimple awareness into a preoccupied fantasy. It takes place when our normal observationsbecome abnormal preoccupations. It is inviting sexual thoughts and nurturing them. Jesus is nottalking about the involuntary glance, but a purposeful and repeated looking; looking to excitelonging; using the eyes to awaken the imagination and then playing with the imagination. Jesuscondemns the act of using the eyes to stimulate the desires; finding a delight in those thingswhich waken the desire for the forbidden thing.The Jewish rabbis were very well versed in the relationship between the eyes and hands.They had such sayings as:● "The eyes and the hand are the two brokers of sin."● "Eye and heart are the two handmaids of sin."● "Passions lodge only in him who sees."● "Woe to him who goes after his eyes for they are adulterous!"DEFINITIONLewis Smedes gives the following definition of lust:"It is foolish to identify every erotic feeling with lust. There is a sexual desire thatfeels like a lonely vacuum yearning to be filled, a longing for intimacy that broodsunsettled in one's system. To identify that as lust is to brand every normal sexualneed as adultery. Eros, the longing for personal fulfillment, must not be confusedwith lust, the untamed desire for another's body. Nor is every feeling ofattraction toward an exciting person the spark of lust. It would be odd indeed ifthe Creator put attractive people in the world and forbade us to notice them. Butthere is a difference between the awareness of someone's sexual attractions andbeing dominated by a desire for that person's body. Jesus did not choose todraw the line between them. But we should know that there is a difference, so thatwe will be neither too quick to feel guilt nor too careless with our feelings.Attraction can become captivity; and when we have becomes captives of thethought, we have begun to lust. When the sense of excitement conceives a planto use a person, when attraction turns into a scheme, we have crossed beyond

86erotic excitement into spiritual adultery. There need be no guilt when we have asense of excitement and tension in the presence of a sexually stimulating person;but we also need to be alert to where that excitement can lead." 2While temptation to illicit sexual indulgence is not in itself sin, it easily becomes sinwhen toyed with, welcomed, entertained."Sow a thought and you reap an act.Sow an act and you reap a habit.Sow a habit and you reap a character.Sow a character and you reap a destiny."--AnonymousThe sin is not in the coming of the thought, but in the holding of it, the harboring of it.As Martin Luther pointed out,"We cannot help the birds from flying over our heads, but we can help by notletting them build nests in our hair."The difference between sexual temptation and sexual sin is that temptation is sexualattraction to an attractive woman whereas sin is walking around the block for another look.While we cannot help the vagrant thoughts from flying through our minds, we can helpby not brooding over them, warming them and thus hatching them into action. We have atendency to dramatize our temptations and then we go to meet them. If we want to end adultery,we must end adulterous thinking.The word "lust" is used to mean either 1) Sinful desire directed toward a forbidden objector 2) Sinful desire that becomes so intense that it overcomes self-control. Lust says,"I want what I want when I want it."Love can wait to give, lust can't wait to get. Lust takes advantage of another person'sweaknesses or persists against another person's wishes. Lust is uncontrolled sex. Sexual love iscontrolled sex.

87Lust is sexual passion in which the object of passion is not, finally, the sexual partner,but rather the pleasure or services which the partner or the passion itself can provide. This deemphasizesrelationship and promotes pure physical pleasure.C. S. Lewis addresses this important distinction:"We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say of a lustful man prowling the streets,that he 'wants a woman.' Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want.He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece ofapparatus . . . Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particularwoman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires theBeloved herself, not the pleasure she can give." 3Lewis continues by pointing to the devastation of adultery:"The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulgein it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kindsof union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexualpleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must notisolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try toget the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing thingsand spitting them out again." 4Jesus in addressing the issue of lust is condemning the act of looking at a woman as apossible object for selfish gratification. Lusting is treating a woman as an object to be exploited,not as a person to be respected. It is reducing a human being to a physical body and thenexploiting that body. Lusting is wishing to enjoy the pleasures of sex without accepting itsresponsibilities.Dennis Rigstad gives these descriptions of lust:● Lust can't wait, it is impulsive.● Lust is cruel, critical and manipulative.● Lust seeks more than it gives.● Lust is easily threatened.● Lust is disrespectful and thoughtless.

88● Lust is demanding and uncaring.● Lust is temperamental and retaliates.● Lust does not forget offenses.● Lust commits wrong to get its way; it rationalizes.● Lust encourages lies and covers up misdeeds.● Lust takes to gain its own ends; lacks concern for consequences to others.● Lust is suspicious and jealous.● Lust says one chance and you're out.● Lust backs out when it is no longer convenient.● Lust ceases when self is no longer served; it is fickle, insecure and unfaithful. 5AGAPE & EROSSome Christians contend that agape (God's love) and eros (human passion) contradicteach other and are therefore irreconcilable. If this is so, then why did the God of love (agape)make us sexual creatures with the need for erotic expression—eros?Let us not be superspiritual by denying sex its rightful place! Rather, as pointed out byThomas Aquinas, agape and eros complement each other. God's love (agape) is not seen asreplacing human love (eros) but making it better and more complete.Lewis Smedes discerningly writes about the relationship of the two loves:"Christian love does not substitute for sexual love; agape does not supplant eros . . .the God of saving love is the same God who created us male and female . . .allowing Christian love to crowd out sexual love would be the kiss of death forgood sexual relations. Christian love is always 'in spite of' the shortcomings itsees in the loved one. A lover who lets the loved one know that the latter isloved wholly 'in spite of' what he is will kill sexual love. In sexual love we seekand find what we need; but we also need to be needed. We must know we havesomething to give, that we are loved 'because of' what we are. Furthermore, insexual love we need a sense that our loved one is special; we need to select onefrom many. And we need a sense that we too are desired above any other.Agape is neighbor-love: it goes out to all people just because they are there andin need. But no wife or husband could abide being loved only with neighborlove.And no sexual relation could remain whole and healthy on a love that isthe same for everyone." 6

God's intention for His people is sexual freedom. Such sexual freedom is not freedomfrom sex nor is it selfish indulgence; rather it is self-control.89THE ROLE OF SEX IN MARRIAGEPsychologist Archibald Hart claims that sex either makes or breaks a marriage, "andmore often than not it breaks it." 7 He continues by outlining what he believes to be the role ofsex in marriage:● Sex strengthens the bond between man and wife. A satisfying sexual relationship helpsto keep a couple together.● Sex fosters growth of intimacy (a special type of friendship) in the relationship.● Sex helps to provide a special privacy that excludes all others from the relationship.● Sex overcomes many conflicts and helps a couple to come back together wheneverthere is a rift.● Sex serves to reduce stress and anxiety by providing a special time of togetherness anda release of tension.● Sex can become a wonderful way of expressing love between a couple.● The pleasure of sex provides a shared experience, even when not much else is sharedin common in a relationship.● Sex provides a special sense of emotional security that helps to create a sense of wellbeingand happiness. 8 (Emphasis added)Hart continues by stating that "an atmosphere of mutual caring, friendliness, openness,sharing of feelings, and commitment . . . mutual tolerance for shortcomings, a spirit offorgiveness, trust, and freedom from fear . . . love" are essential to a satisfactory sexualrelationship. "Without love," as Hart points out, "sex has the potential to become a monster." 9

90BOUNDARIESSex is like a river or fire. In the case of a river as long as it flows within its banks it canbring life and blessing to everyone it touches. Once it breaks out of its banks, however, it bringsdevastation and death. Also in the case of fire as long as that fire is contained in the furnace orfireplace it can bring heat and warmth, but as soon as it spreads beyond these areas ofconfinement it quickly will burn down a house and any people found in it.Because sex has so much potential for good or for evil, God strictly confines it to themarriage union, to show those whom have established a mature and enduring relationship andare ready to accept responsibilities for their activities including rearing of children if they shouldresult.SALT WATER: THE DECEIVING DANGER OF LUSTCraig Larson shares that as a child, he saw a movie in which some shipwrecked men areleft drifting aimlessly on the ocean in a lifeboat. As the days pass under the scorching sun, theirrations of food and fresh water give out. The men grow deliriously thirsty. One night, while theothers are asleep, one man ignores all the previous warnings and gulps down some salt water. Hequickly dies.Ocean water contains seven times more salt than the human body can safely ingest.Drinking it, a person dehydrates because the kidneys demand extra water to flush the overload ofsalt. The more salt water someone drinks, the thirstier he gets. He actually dies of thirst.When we lust, we become like this dying man. We thirst desperately for something thatlooks like what we want. We don't realize, however, that it is totally the opposite of what wereally need. In fact, it can kill us. It killed Samson!

919. HOW TO DEAL WITH SEXUAL TEMPTATION

92“There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.”--Mark TwainAn affair is made all the more thrilling by its forbiddenness.”--Richard Tuch“Forbidden waters taste sweet.”--Talmud“Adultery is taboo—and taboo is exciting.”--AnonymousTemptation has been defined as “an enticement or invitation to sin.” And there is animplied promise of greater good to be derived from following the way of disobedience.While God may test His people, He does not tempt them, nor can He Himself as the holyGod be tempted (Jas 1:13). God cannot be induced to deny Himself (2 Ti 2:13). The supremetempter is Satan (Mt 4:3; 1 Co 7:5; 1 Th 3:5), who is able to play upon the weakness of humanbeings, whose basic nature is sinful (Jas 1:14), and so to lead people to destruction.Satan then attacks us in areas of weakness. He knows which buttons to push. Thomas aKempis put it:“Temptations discover what we are.”Jesus Christ, because He is both Man and God—the God-Man—was able to be tempted(Mt 4:1-11; Lk 4:1-13). Having resisted satanic temptation Himself, He is able to comfort andaid His followers who are tempted in similar fashion (Heb 2:18; 4:15).HOW TO DEAL WITH SEXUAL DESIRESSt. Francis of Assisi, one of the great saints of church history, knew the power of lust forhe testified:"The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant."

But how do we deal with sexual desires that so easily turn into lust? Jesus spoke of theseriousness of lust and therefore the radical surgery that is necessary for its expulsion:“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is betterfor you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be throwninto hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw itaway. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your wholebody to go into hell” (Mt 5:29-30).93Obviously, Jesus did not mean for us to take this prescription literally. He is not teachingself-mutilation. For we all know that dealing with sin by gouging out and cutting off body partsdoes not address the real problem. A blind man can lust. A person with a missing hand can lust.The problem lies in the mind and the heart. Jesus’ radical statement is to draw attention to theseriousness of the problem. The point is that we should deal as drastically with sin asnecessary.How then do we deal with lust?BEWARE OF DANGER FOR WE ARE ALL VULNERABLENo one is immune:"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! Notemptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God isfaithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. Butwhen you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you canstand up under it" (1 Co 10:12-13).Even though we are all at risk, some are at greater risk than others. PsychologistArchibald Hart in addressing male sexuality believes that men (the same is true of women) atgreater risk has some or all of the following characteristics:● An innocent outlook. They are naive about their own vulnerabilities.● A high, but rigid, standard of morals. Rigidity of morals often refers to a man whosedefenses are brittle and easily broken down. Those who behave as if they are invulnerable areoften the most vulnerable.

94● Too many unmet needs. Men who have never been deeply loved either in childhoodor adulthood are more likely to seek out someone to meet these needs. Men who are hungry foraffirmation or attention often get unwittingly caught up in affairs.● Too much failure and stress. Midlife failure is a common trigger for infidelity. Themale reaches out for sexual fulfillment to comfort the pain that a sense of failure brings.● Too much guilt. Guilt proneness, rather than being a protection, is often a hazard tofidelity just as it is to obsessiveness. More often than not, it exaggerates the pleasure of anaffair.2According to studies, it is estimated that 50% of us will be tested in this area ofimmorality in a very severe way. The Bible presents basically three areas of temptation:"For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes andthe pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world" (1 Jn 5:16 KJV).The "lust of the flesh" refers to "the cravings of sinful man"(NIV) which means bodily orphysical sins such as immorality, gluttony, etc. The "lust of the eyes" has to do with that whichappeals to our selfish nature such as covetousness, materialism, etc. And the "pride of life" has todo with status and prestige, and worst of all, spiritual pride. It is the "lust of the flesh" where ourprimary focus will be even though there is usually interplay between these temptations.Play it safe. We dare not trust ourselves by building fences right at the edge of the cliff:"Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a manwalk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?" (Pr 6:27-28)1. Make a list of nonnegotiables. We must make sure we have a list and continuallyremind ourselves of this (e.g. marriage, family, calling, personal holiness, integrity, etc.).One single immoral act can torpedo your walk with God and/or influence with people:

95"But a man who commits adultery lacks judgment; whoever does so destroyshimself. Blows and disgrace are his lot, and his shame will never be wipedaway; for jealousy arouses a husband's fury, and he will show no mercywhen he takes revenge. He will not accept any compensation; he will refusethe bribe, however great it is" (Pr 6:32-35)."Now then, My sons, listen to Me; blessed are those who keep My ways.Listen to My instruction and be wise; do not ignore it. Blessed is the manwho listens to Me, watching daily at My doors, waiting at My doorway.For whoever finds Me finds life and receives favor from the Lord. Butwhoever fails to find Me harms himself; all who hate Me loves death" (8:32-36).2. Be self-controlled and alert. Satan prowls around like a lion seeking especially todevour those committed to doing God's will! Peter put it:"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like aroaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Pe 5:8).Unlike most of us, Satan is very patient. He waits and waits and waits for that opportunetime to strike when we least expect him to do so. Often the opportune time is when you havewon some spiritual victory and feel self-confident. Overconfidence—pride—always leads to adownfall. Solomon put it:"Pride goes before destruction,a haughty spirit before a fall" (Pr 16:18)."When pride comes, then comes disgrace,but with humility comes wisdom" (11:2).This is true in the area of sex as in all other areas.Alertness and self-control will only take place if we are humble and in touch with ourown weaknesses and vulnerability. Only then will we realize that Satan is a danger to us.Humility, therefore, is key in not getting devoured by the enemy of our souls.

96Alertness and self-control are crucial in not getting devoured by the enemy of our souls.3. Resist and Stand firm. Peter adds:"Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothersthroughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings" (1 Pe 5:9).We need to be grounded in the faith if we are to be able to resist the enemy. We must,like Jesus, appeal to Scripture as our final authority.To a certain degree we will always be vulnerable. If we examine the biblical recordcarefully we will find that most of the people (especially the leaders) who fell in biblical timesdid so toward the last part of their lives.Be on guard!UNDERSTAND THE DYNAMICS OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE1. We don't fall into sexual sin, we slide into it.The tree falls in the direction it has been leaning. Sexual sin smolders until it comes to fullflame. Solomon put it:"Keep your heart with full diligence, for out of it comes the issues of life" (Pr 4:23).Are we sowing seeds of immorality?While temptation is not sin, playing with temptation invites sin.2. The beginning of sin seems too harmless.We need to be cautious about what we allow into our minds and hearts. Satan slowly,gradually, incrementally—almost imperceptively—increases the doses of sin or evil. Like thefrog in the kettle, many of us become numb to sin and thus die morally and spiritually before weare even aware that the temperature of sin has been turned up merely by degrees until it is toolate. We must be sensitive to the subtle suggestions and compromises of temptation.

97"The Moment of Maybe"Sexual unfaithfulness is never a sudden, spontaneous, and thus totally unexpecteddecision or act. Since our actions are preceded by our thoughts, immoral behavior is alwayspreceded by a process of compromise which at the beginning stages can be responsibly dealtwith. Such a process begins with the conflict of attitudes toward our own sense of moral andspiritual integrity, and/or our attitudes toward our spouse and our marriage. If wrong attitudes areallowed entrance into our mind and soul, they will at first simmer then they will grow andeventually bloom into outward actions that lead to sexual immorality. When immoral behaviortakes place it merely manifests what has been brooding in the deeper recesses of our hearts."Early on in an extramarital friendship, there often comes a moment of "maybe."Even when that friendship is altogether innocent, your friend may send the signal,or you may sense the feeling, of further possibility. It occurs in a glance moremeaningful than mere friends exchange. It arises from a touch, a hug, a brushingof flesh that tingled rather more than you expected—and you remember the sensation.A mutual understanding seems to establish itself between you, unspoken. Perhapsyou succeeded together with a difficult project at work, and you celebrated thetriumph; but a greater closeness crept into the celebration. Perhaps one of yousupported the other in a crisis; but the dependency became more personal, morevaluable than the crisis truly warranted. This is the moment of "maybe".In that moment nothing more is communicated than this: our friendship could turninto something else. Neither of you need say or even think, what the "somethingelse" might be. The friendship is still quite innocent. Both of you still maintaincontrol. Nothing has been said or promised or done. It all remains a mere "maybe."Nevertheless, it is precisely here that the drama toward adultery begins. Whetherit also ends here, or whether it continues hereafter, is a terribly critical question.For a door has been opened up.If, in this moment, you do nothing at all, then you enter the door. If you make nodecision (privately but consciously) to close the door and carefully to restrictthis relationship, the drama continues. For though a promise has not been made inthe moment of ‘maybe,’ it hasn't been denied either. And though you may notyet love each other, neither have you said no to love. You permit, by making nodecision at all, the ‘maybe.’ And ‘maybe’ takes on a life of its own.

98Well, let's see what we will see, you think, excited by mystery and possibilities.We're only friends, after all, you rationalize to preserve this moment of pleasure,and I can draw the line. But this is deceptive. In spite of the fact that nothing yetis passionate or out of control, you have empowered the ‘maybe,’ granting itpermission to mature; you've surrendered something of your independence. Youhave, by silence, approved it. Hereafter, every small exchange with your friendwill be a promise of things to come; and somewhere in the progress of thisdrama, promises will subtly turn to commitments. Helplessly, then, you will say,‘How can I hurt him now?' ‘How could I break her heart?’ ‘How, you will think,did we become so entangled?’How? By not kindly indicating ‘No’ at the moment of ‘maybe.’ For at that momentNo is as possible and still as kind as Yes. At that moment both answers are equallyavailable, and neither answer would wound, since no commitments have beenmade. It is, therefore, your responsibility to perceive these moments when theycome. And it is definitely in your power to close the door then, right then, by awise defining of yourself and of this friendship as a friendship, nothing more inthe future. For who you are includes your spouse. Your very being is bound upin that one. And every time you chat with or kiss or hug another, it is two who do.‘Let no one seriously insist of his adultery, ‘I couldn't help it. I don't know whatcame over me.’ Whether it was a spiritual drama reflected, finally, in his selfishattitude toward marriage, or whether it was a romantic drama enacted with herparamour, there was a moment when he could very well have helped it, whenshe could have closed the door. No adultery is sudden. Every adultery has itslingering history. Only the willfully blind are taken by surprise." 3No one can afford the luxury of thinking and behaving as though he were free from thedangers of the attraction of someone of the opposite sex.3. Even as believers our capacity for deceitfulness and deception is limitless.This is why Paul tells us several times in Scripture "to test and see if we are in the faith."The sexual area is most prone to deception because it is so tied to our egos.As we get involved sexually with another person we become as blind as bats spiritually.

99J. Allen Peterson in his book, The Myth of the Greener Grass, suggests David's massiverationalization as he was in the throes of temptation:"Usiah is a great soldier but he's probably not much of a husband or a lover—years older than she is—and he'll be away for a long time. This girl needs alittle comfort in her loneliness. This is one way I can help her. No one will gethurt. I do not mean anything wrong by it. This is not lust—I have known thatmany times. This is love. This is not the same as finding a prostitute on thestreet. God knows that. And to the servant, 'Bring her to me.'" 4When our minds are controlled by lust there is no limit to our capacity to rationalize. Thefollowing are a few examples:● "How can something that feels so good be wrong?"● "God's will for me is to be happy; certainly He would not deny me anything which isessential to my happiness—and this is it!"● "The question here is one of love—I'm acting in love. Isn't love the most importantthing in life?"● "My marriage was never God's will in the first place."● "You Christians and your judgmental attitudes make me sick. You are judging me andyou have no right to do so. Your judgmental attitude makes you a greater sinner thanI'll ever be."4. We need healthy, biblical intimacy with others.As believers we must treat each other with utmost respect—as brothers and sisters in theLord. One of the best way to keep from getting involved in unhealthy relationships is to havehealthy ones.5. Intimate relationship with a person of the opposite sex is a gradual progression.

100a. Illicit relationships usually begin innocently.b. Two people of the opposite sex enjoy each other's company.c. Their needs (emotional and maybe spiritual) are met by that other person.d. Physical contact takes place next even though it might be very minimal like an"innocent" touch on the shoulder.There is such powerful self-deception going on as the people involved think tothemselves, "It feels so good," "It seems so right."6. Sexual temptation is one, if not, the most powerful force in our lives.This is true especially as we grow spiritually. There is a fine line between the spiritualand the physical as the psychological aspect of our nature nudges us toward each other sexuallywhen there is great spiritual intimacy.We must not let sin establish its power over us! (2 Co 6:2)STRATEGY FOR ONGOING PURITY1. Each one of us must come to grips with our vulnerability. We cannot afford to be naiveto think that just because we condemn adultery and immorality that this alone will keep us pure.Remember the warning of Paul:"Let him who thinks he stands take warning so he doesn't fall" (1 Co 10:12).2. We need to make sure our marriage relationship is good for this strengthens us andenables you to better fight against sexual temptations.Psychologist Archibald Hart claims that marital infidelity "is not so much the result offailure of morality as it is the pressure of psychological or circumstantial factors." 5 Therefore, hestates, "when a marriage lacks intimacy, is devoid of mature love, and where there is anavoidance or unwillingness to communicate, you have all the ingredients for an affair." 6 In suchinstances it doesn't take much for you to meet someone you can idealize.

101Women are especially vulnerable to lack of emotional needs whereas men tend to bemore vulnerable to lack of physical needs. Be careful not to defraud, not to withhold sex fromeach other. The Bible warns:"The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife toher husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to hiswife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, sothat you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so thatSatan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control" (7:3-5).It is vital that we understand how men and women are basically different in how they aresexually stimulated. Generalizations are always dangerous because there is usually anoverlapping of characteristics whenever we give characteristics of one sex or the other. In lightof such exceptions and overlapping James Dobson's analysis is insightful:"First, men are primarily excited by visual stimulation. They are turned on byfeminine nudity or peekaboo glimpses of semi-nudity. . . . Women, by contrast,are much less visually oriented than men. Sure, they are interested in attractivemasculine bodies, but the physiological mechanism of sex is not triggeredtypically by what they see; women are stimulated primarily by the sense oftouch. . . .Second (and much more important), men are not very discerning in regard tothe person living within an exciting body. A man can walk down a street andbe stimulated by a scantily clad female who shimmies past him, even thoughhe knows nothing about her personally or values or mental capabilities. He isattracted by the body itself. Likewise, he can become almost as excited over thephotograph of an unknown nude model as he can in a face-to-face encounterwith someone he loves. In essence, the sheer biological power of sexual desirein a male is largely focused on the physical body of an attractive female.Women are much more discriminating in their sexual interests. They lessCommonly become excited by a good-looking charmer, or by the photographof a hairy model; rather, their desire is usually focused on a particularindividual whom they respect or admire. A woman is stimulated by theromantic aura which surrounds her man, by his character and personality. Sheyields to the man who appeals to her emotionally as well as physically." 7(Emphasis added)

102DRESSING ATTRACTIVELY OR TEASINGLYIn light of this difference between the sexual attraction of men and women it is vital thatwomen consider whether they dress to look attractive or dress to tease. Psychologist Hart listssome questions to keep in mind in this matter:1. Do you wear real tight skirts or dresses around certain men or at certain meetings?2. Do you wear low-cut tops or allow your cleavage to show?3. Do you wear see-through blouses, even though you have no slip underneath?4. Do you bend down, sit, or walk in a manner that causes a man to notice you in asexual way? 8Since men are so easily aroused by what their imagination does with what they see, it isonly right that women are sensitive to such a weakness and dress appropriately.3. Consciously make a covenant to sexual purity and holiness.Author Karen Mains tells about a young woman who came to her for counsel overseveral years who seemed especially susceptible to sexual sin. She professed to be a Christian,but she had low self-esteem. She often wrestled with depression, did not have a high regard forher body, and lacked discipline in almost every area of her life. Somehow she never reallyseemed to put her faith to work in her life. In fact, it seemed that she would deliberately putherself in compromising situations. One day she came in tears and repentance to tell a very sadstory saying, "I never meant for this to happen." At that point Karen Mains discerningly askedher a key question,"Did you intend for it not to happen?"We must honestly covenant not to be involved in immorality.4. We need to commit ourselves to be steeped in God's Word which is so crucial to moralpurity. It was the primary weapon Jesus used when He was tempted (Mt 4:1-11; Mk 1:12-13; Lk4:1-13).

1035. A Key to resisting temptation is to be content with what God has given you. Paul put it:"Godliness with contentment is great gain . . . People who want to get rich fallinto temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plungepeople into ruin and destruction" (1 Ti 6:6,9).Learn to recognize and avoid phony, glittery imitations to true happiness. That otherperson who may look so good to you also has flaws once you get to know that person.While the grass looks greener on the other side, remember, it too must be mowed!It is vital that we cultivate our marriage relationship that we learn to appreciate the personwith whom we have already committed to spend the rest of our life.focus.As a couple we need to develop all that God wants the two of us to be. That should be our6. Pray and fast. Make sexual purity a matter of prayer and fasting.A. Fasting uncovers our real selves. David cried,"You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from You . . . When Iweep and fast . . . Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of Your love; inYour great mercy turn to me" (Ps 69:5,10,16).“. . . my guilt is not hidden from You” (v. 5) says David.In spite of our commitment to Christ, we sin. It is easier to cover up what is on the insidewhen we focus attention on food and other external trappings. But when these things are strippedfrom us we feel naked and God is able to get our attention and reveal the things that lurk inour souls.Anger, bitterness, jealousy, fear, lust will all surface as we deny our physical appetitesand concentrate on our spiritual condition. Fasting has a way of bringing us to ourselveswithout our usual defense mechanisms. Thus God can get through to us what He wants to

104show us. Deep cleansing can take place when we give God time and attention to bring to lightwhat is hidden in our lives. While it is painful, God's probing is a prerequisite to His power inour lives.Just as kneeling or prostrating ourselves before God in prayer can reflect humility beforeHim, so fasting is a physical expression of humility and dependence upon God. This does notmean that fasting itself is humility. After all, the Pharisee at the temple bragged to God in prayerthat he fasted twice a week (Lk 18:12). Rather fasting is an expression of humility. Instead oftrusting in military power, Ezra and his people trusted in God's protection as they sought Himthrough prayer and fasting (Ezra 8:21-23).B. Fasting brings cleansing.Once David acknowledges his sin, he pleads with God:“In Your great mercy turn to Me” (Ps 69:16).Forgiveness and cleansing follows conviction and confession of sin.C. Fasting is an expression of grief and leads to a deeper level of grief. If pride and lustcontrols us, it will be easily revealed through fasting. David confessed:"When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn . . ." (69:10; see also 32,51).It was also common for Christians throughout the centuries to grieve for their sins.While such grief is not a payment for forgiveness, it is an expression of deep sorrow for sin.Through fasting we see more clearly and deeply the hideous nature of sin and thus are led to agreater appreciation of God's forgiving grace.When we are overwhelmed by grief, it is as appropriate to accompany grief with fastingas with tears.D. Fasting helps us overcome temptation. It may be shocking to find that our desire forfood determines our schedule, divides our mind, and rules our life.

105Though God has given us bodies and planted within them certain basic instincts,including bodily appetites, we are required to keep the physical subservient to the spiritual.The body is ever to be our servant, not our master. Yet many of us are slaves to our appetites.Peter states: "for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him" (2 Pe 2:19).Paul insisted on the importance of disciplining the bodily appetites and not thinking of"how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature" (Ro 13:14).There is nothing essentially evil or vile in the human body, for God created it, even withits desires and appetites. There is nothing evil in a hungry person's desire for a square meal. It isnot God's will to repress these natural instincts, but to control and keep them withinbounds prescribed by God. The physical is not to be ruthlessly suppressed, but firmly disciplinedand subordinated to the spiritual. Only then will we find that we are poised to overcometemptation.E. Fasting develops self-control. Many of us may be shocked to find out how our desirefor food determines our schedule and therefore rules our lives. Self-control is meaningless unlessit includes the control of our bodies, and is impossible without self-discipline. Paul uses theathlete as his example. To compete in the games he must be physically fit, and therefore he goesinto training. His training will include a disciplined regime of food, sleep and exercise: "Everyathlete exercises self-control in all things." And Christians engaged in the Christian race shoulddo the same.Any appetite enslaves unless it is checked. Fasting is a practice of self-denial. In fastingwe say "No!" until our flesh yields control to the Spirit. Then we are free. Fasting helps to keepthe body in subjection. Paul stated:

106". . . I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached toothers, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize" (1 Co 9:27).In our effort to keep the physical subservient to the spiritual as it needs to berestrained, the body must not be treated as an enemy. Rather it must be our servant. Yet manyChristians are slaves to their bodies. Paul insisted on the importance of disciplining the bodilyappetites and not thinking of ". . . how to gratify the desires of [our] sinful nature" (Ro 13:14).There is nothing essentially vile about the human body, for God created it, even with itsdesires and appetites. There is nothing evil with a person's desire for a square meal. It is notGod's will to repress these natural instincts, but to control them and keep them within the boundsprescribed by God. The physical is not ruthlessly suppressed but firmly disciplined andsubordinated to the spiritual.Fasting is one of God's methods to counter self-indulgence. Therefore, fasting is to beapplied not only in regards to food, but in all areas of life. We must be willing to fast fromanything and everything that manifests self-indulgence.F. Fasting helps us to express wholeheartedness. Joel cried out,"That is why the Lord says, 'Turn to Me now, while there is time. Give Me allyour hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, mourning" (Joel 2:12).Fasting is an expression that says that we mean business with God!Fasting indicates willingness to sacrifice anything to attain what we seek in Him. WhenKing David's child was seriously ill, David fervently sought God to spare his son by fasting andpraying "through the night" (2 Sa 12:16).

107When a person is willing to set aside the legitimate appetites of the body to concentrateon the work of praying, he is demonstrating that he means business, that he is seeking with all hisheart, and will not let God go unless He answers.Fasting is calculated to bring a note of urgency and importunity into our praying, andto give force to our pleading with Almighty God. We must not think of fasting as a hunger strikedesigned to forced God's hand and get our way!Prayer, however, is much more complex than simply asking a Father to supply His child'sneeds. Prayer is warfare. Prayer is wrestling. There are opposing forces at work. There arespiritual cross currents. It is not enough that God is willing; there is the opposition that mustfirst be overcome.Our fast for another's release places us in the position of intercessor. A fast undertaken atGod's direction will strengthen us as intercessors to maintain pressure until the enemy iscompelled to loosen his grasp of the captive. If God calls us to fast and pray on behalf ofanother's release, God will affect that release through us.Fasting was sometimes the climax of earnest and prolonged supplication. When theheavens remained as brass despite earnest and persistent prayer, people were sometimes drivenin their desperation to fasting as the only solution. The Benjamites committed a terrible crimeand God told the other tribes to go up against them. They did, and were twice heavily defeated,though they prayed and wept before the Lord. The third time they fasted as well as prayed andwept, and God gave them overwhelming victory (Jdg 20)7. Take time to make a list of sinful sexual practices. It is important to becomeacquainted with the temptations that we must war against. We do this by looking for attitudesand patterns of behavior that set us up for a fall. Be as specific and thorough as possible.

1088. Take inventory and see if there are other practices in our lives that sets our mindon the flesh rather than on the Spirit. Prayerfully think this through very carefully. These thingsmay be very subtle and will reveal themselves to us only after a protracted time of waiting onGod. This will help us in understanding your weaknesses.The book of Hebrews addresses "weights" that "entangles" one's life (Heb 12:1). Theissue of masturbation is often brought up whenever sexual purity is addressed. Does the Bibleteach that masturbation is a sin? Scripture simply does not touch on this subject directly.However it can be easily argued that is a sin in that focuses on self which is a distortion of thepurpose of sex which is mutual enrichment.

109If it can be argued that masturbation is not a sin, it certainly is a "weight" which"entangles" our lives. A "weight" is not something that is a sin, in and of itself, but somethingthat hinders our relationship with God. For instance, wearing long pants in running a serious raceis not a sin, but it would be an entanglement or hindrance to running as fast as possible.Similarly, a weight is not a sin, but something that keeps us from running the Christian faith aswell as possible.9. Put to death passions and evil desires. This must be done consciously on a day by dayand moment by moment basis. Paul put it:"Make no provision for the flesh to gratify its evil desires" (Ro 13:14).Job recommends:"Make a covenant with your eyes not to look with lust on a woman" (Job 31:1).10. When you face raw temptation, flee.Paul admonished us all:"Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace,along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Ti 2:22).When it comes to temptation in general, there are times to fight and there are times to flee.In the case of sexual temptation, fleeing is usually the best route.Notice also Paul's positive emphasis in this exhortation. We are to "pursue" the positiveand good as well as "flee" from the negative and evil.11. Continually and actively be involved in the renewing of your mind.Paul put it:"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodiesas living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act ofworship.

110Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformedby the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test andapprove what God's will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will" (Ro 12:1-2).This is so crucial since our mind is the main sex organ in a person. It is in the mind thatthe battle with sexual immorality is won or lost.Thinking is our main occupation. We are supposed think all the time (some people makeyou wonder), even when we sleep. Sleep experts tell us that our inward vision during most of oursleeping time is filled with mental images that pass in the brain. In fact, it is this process ofmental imaging that helps and keeps us mentally healthy. Some people, for instance, during theirsleep discover solutions to problems that were on their minds before bedtime.Even though it is possible to stop entertaining certain thoughts in our minds, it isimpossible to stop the process of thinking. This is so whether our eyes are open or closed.While it may be possible for us to retreat from the outside world with its constantbombardment of stimuli, as we enter into our own little world, it will still be a world of thought.A husband and wife were sitting at the breakfast table on his day off. She told him,"Please don't think of playing golf just this once." He instinctively replied, "It's the farthest thingfrom my mind, dear. Now would you please pass the putter."12. Discover sexual cues of our culture.There are definite ethnic differences. We need to know what is appropriate and what isnot for different ethnic people. We need to dress in an appropriate manner. We must be carefulnot to dress in a visually stimulating way which causes distraction. We need to become sensitiveabout who we kiss and hug and how we kiss and hug. There are appropriate ways andinappropriate ways to hug and kiss. Also, what is appropriate in the case of one person is notnecessarily appropriate with another person.13. We need to be as open and communicative as possible with our spouse, if we aremarried. If not married, then find that openness with another friend.Psychiatrist Paul Tournier in his book, To Understand Each Other talks about menclamming up because so many women make their husbands feel misunderstood, condemned, andeven despised about their real inner sexual feelings and temptations. As a result men withdrawinto themselves and build a protective shell which keeps them from even sharing superficial

111feelings about their sexual attractions toward other women. If men are married to women whosimply are too insecure to even address the issue, then they need to find a friend who will meetthat need.It is Tournier's belief that it is this "veil of silence that may well jeopardize their marriagefar more than his sex drive." 9 Psychologist Hart agrees with this insight as he also sees theinability to talk about intimate feelings opens the door for sexual infidelity. This certainly doesnot provide an excuse for anyone to have an affair, but it does point out the importance toseeking every avenue to keep communications open. Tournier put it:"The best protection against sexual temptations is to be able to speak honestly ofthem and to find, in the wife's understanding, without any trace of complicitywhatsoever, effective and affective help needed to overcome them." 1014. Develop a relationship of mutual accountability with a peer or mentor.Human accountability is key in maintaining sexual purity. Isn't it telling that we will doin the sight of God what we will not do in the presence of a human being? It is so easy torationalize and justify and become careless in our relationship with God. Too often thatrelationship seems too vague and ambiguous, and thus not so real.It is therefore easy to act as though God really is not aware and/or involved in oureveryday lives. It is relatively easy to just ignore God. Our materialistic tendencies make usthink God is less real because He is Spirit. Another person of flesh and blood helps to keep ushonest, holding our feet to the fire. Others who really know us will keep us from some of theridiculous rationalizations that we may come up with.WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELFSEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO ANOTHER PERSONPsychologist Archibald Hart, which is about male sexuality, gives steps to keep in mind ifyou are already attracted to another woman (obviously the same applies to women):1. Avoid being alone with her. Ensure that your spouse is with you whenever you mustbe with this person.2. Stop fantasizing about being with her romantically or sexually.

1123. Don't open Pandora's box by telling her that you attracted to her. It will onlycomplicate matters more. She may turn around and accuse you of harassment. Or she may alsoshare her feelings of attraction to you which will deepen the feelings for both of you.4. Share your feelings of attraction with a close friend who can hold you accountable.5. Take responsibility for all your actions. You are not to blame for your feelings, butyou are responsible for the actions that follow your feelings.6. Try to look at the whole picture. A moment of passion can lead to a lifetime of regretand hurt. 11IS THERE HOPE FOR THE IMMORAL PEOPLE?Some of us may have said by now, "How about me? Is there any hope for me since I havealready been involved in illicit sex? Is it too late? Am I doomed to the eternal flames of hellforever?"The Bible is clear that immoral people deserve hell. Paul made this crystal clear:"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Donot be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterersnor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedynor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."(1 Co 6:9-10)That seems to put the final nail in the coffin of eternity! This is true if these two verseswere the end of the discussion. Notice Paul in his address to these Christians at Corinth hadanother verse following these verses:"And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you weresanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ andby the Spirit of our God" (v. 11).The church at Corinth, as is the case of every church, was a community of forgivensinners. Therefore there is hope for everyone!

113When Jesus was confronted by some pious Jews who dragged a woman who had beencaught in adultery, they tested Jesus by challenging Him, "Moses says she should be stoned.What do you say?" Jesus replied, "Whoever is without sin, throw the first stone."While Jesus waited, this immoral woman's accusers left one by one. Then the Lord turnedto the woman and said,"Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more!" (Jn 8:11)Notice that while Jesus did not condemn her, neither did He condone her sin. Here we seedisplayed the perfect balance between hating the sin and loving the sinner. This is our model.It should be followed whether in the case of others and even in the case of ourselves.Just as Jesus warmly embraced sinners, so must we! As forgiven sinners we are toconstantly, continually accept His forgiveness. Such gracious pardon is the key to a life offreedom in Christ whereby we are enabled by His grace to live a life of obedience.A PRAYER FOR THE SEXUALLY TEMPTED"We lift up our hearts in prayer for all those who find their severest temptationin sex. Help us not to think of sexual desire as sinful or unclean, since Youhave placed it in every mind, and in Your sight it is just as divinely plannedas hunger for food and thirst for drink.But since it is so strong and we are so weak, help us to be its master, not itsslave; to refuse to allow our hunger to be satisfied at the cost of anotherperson's self-respect or of our own.Give us steadfastness of purpose not to let our minds dwell on fantasies thatexcite and stimulate, when no legitimate satisfaction can follow. May ourmental pictures be limited to those which we should not be ashamed to showto You, O Lord, whose servants we are trying to be and who ‘knows ourframe, that we are dust.’Save us from feelings of exaggerated guilt on the one hand and from too slacka control on the other, so that no regret can spoil such outcome of our lovingas may be allowed to us, and no other life be degraded by our desire.

114So we lift this strange, mysterious, fierce energy to You, as we try to lift allthe energies of our nature. Grant that all our powers may serve You and findfulfillment within Your holy will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, the Onewho was tempted in every way—just as we are Amen." 12

11510. HOMOSEXUALITY Part I

116Homosexuality is a problem common to both sexes. About 4% of American males and2% of American females are thought to be exclusively homosexual in orientation. Mostauthorities question that this statistic has changed much since there have been significantchanges in popular and legal attitudes. Alfred Kinsey's book, Sexual Behavior in the HumanMale (1948) was a watershed study in the homophile movement. In it Kinsey claimed that alarge proportion of males (up to 25%), though not exclusively homosexual, nevertheless hadsome same-sex sexual desires (thus being bisexual). This does not mean that they necessarilyacted upon those desires.A study in the New York Times (Sept. 6, 1994) backs up Kinsey's claim. In an articleentitled, "Homosexual Attraction Is Found in 1 of 5" there is the obvious claim that as much asone-fifth of Americans have been attracted to someone of the same sex. This study, which wasconducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Center for HealthPolicy Studies in Washington, is the first national study to look at the question of homosexualattraction. It found that 20.8% of American men and 17.8% of American women surveyedreported homosexual attraction or behavior since age 15, which a much smaller number, 6.2% ofmen and 3.3% of women, reported homosexual behavior in the last five years. Interviewersspoke to 1,288 American men and 674 women, ages 16 to 50, and asked them to completequestionnaires. The study said 1,200 men completed face-to-face interviews, which included 100questions, and 1,130 answered 68 questions in the written study. A total of 634 womencompleted the interviews and 588 finished the written part. 1Many have questioned the legitimacy, and thus the accuracy, of this study because of thelimited amount of people involved. Whatever the accurate numbers are, such statistics show usthat homosexuality is an issue to be reckoned with."Homo" means "equal to" or "alike." Homosexuality is the propensity for sexualattraction and/or sexual relations with members of one's own ("alike") sex. The AmericanPsychiatric Association defines homosexuality simply as "a preferential erotic attraction formembers of the same sex." 2 Lesbianism, which comes from the word Lesbos, the ancient Greekisland inhabited solely by women, is simply a word used to describe female homosexuality.A great variety exists among homosexuals than is generally believed. Not all malehomosexuals are effeminate in manners, speech, and gait (the manner of walking). Nor are allfemale homosexuals mannish in appearance, athletically inclined, or prone to wear men'sclothing. While some homosexuals (like heterosexuals) are promiscuous and sex-obsessed,others lead quiet and self-controlled lives.

117A CALL TO DOUBLE REPENTANCEAt the outset of this study it is important to state that those who claim to be homosexualpeople be recognized as fellow human beings who are made in the image and likeness of God.In light of the treatment that some homosexual people have received, this is not so obvious afterall. Homosexual people have been dehumanized in countless ways that bears testimony to theinsensitivity and cruelty of heterosexual people. Jim Cotter complains of being treated as"objects of scorn and insult, of fear, prejudice and oppression." 3 Norman Pittenger describes thehateful correspondence he has received, even from people professing to be Christians, who havereferred to homosexual people as "filthy creatures," "disgusting perverts, "damnable sinners,"etc. 4 In many cases homosexual people have been treated as lepers.Evangelical theologian Richard Lovelace calls for "a double repentance . . . thatgay Christians renounce the active lifestyle . . . [and that] straight Christians renouncehomophobia." 5David Atkinson correctly points out:"We are not at liberty to urge the Christian homosexual to celibacy and to aspreading of his relationships, unless support for the former and opportunitiesfor the latter are available in genuine love." 6The Christian who urges homosexual people not to practice their bent toward sexualexpression to those of their same sex are hypocritical if they are not willing to be friends andprovide a network of support that is so crucial to such reformation. Those of us in the church ofJesus Christ who have exhibited unloving attitudes toward homosexual people carry some of theblame for the very existence of the "Gay Christian Movement."Many homosexual people who, in their loneliness and deep sense of alienation, havesearched for love, identity, and completeness that is so essential for all human beings, simplyhave not found much of it, if at all, at Christian churches. The very churches that have claimed tobe "family" have ostracized those struggling with their sexual orientation. Instead of findingchurches that provided an environment of love, understanding, acceptance (of them as fellowhuman beings and fellow Christians), and support they found derision, humiliation (dehumanization),and rejection. There is no excuse for such attitudes and conduct.

118NOT THE WORST SIN OR EVILEven though it is my position that homosexual practice is sinful and evil, it is not thegreatest sin or evil. Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, makes it clear that there are at least twosins or evils that are greater than any other sins: hypocrisy and pride. These sins head the list ofall other sins.Materialism and greed are addressed much more often by Jesus than sexual immorality.And Jesus never even spoke to the issue of homosexuality.Pride, especially spiritual pride, has been understood by all the great theologians throughthe ages as the mother of all sin. C. S Lewis put it:"If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quitewrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All theworst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in thewrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; thepleasure of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me competing withthe human self which I must try to become: they are the animal self, and thediabolical self: and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why acold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be nearer to hellthan a prostitute. But of course, it's better to be neither." 7In addressing homosexuality we dare not do so from a position of spiritual and moralsmugness, with a sense of spiritual superiority. Whether we have homosexual or heterosexualorientation, we are all fallen human beings. Total depravity teaches that as human beings wehave been tainted by sin at the very core of our being. This is true of our sexuality just as it istrue of every other aspect of our being. No human being, apart from Jesus—the God-Man—haslived up to God's perfect standard of sexuality.The question is not whether we have ever committed acts of sexual immorality, but asJesus so painfully pointed out, the issue is whether we have ever lusted (Mt 5:27-30). Lustindicts all of mankind!

119HOMOPHOBIA?To be fair it is necessary to state that homosexual people have also unfairly brushedanyone opposed to homosexual practice as being "homophobic." Militant homosexuals haveclaimed that "homophobes" are mentally ill. This is a ridiculous accusation. Most of theChristians that I have known have not been guilty of much of the accusations that have beenleveled at the Christian church.In the first place, the term "homophobic" is in most cases that I have heard it used plainlyinaccurate, a clear misnomer. This English word comes from the Greek word phobos whichmeans "fear," "fright," "terror," or "reverence." The root idea is fear. The beliefs and feelings ofthe Christians toward homosexual people that I have known for the last 30 years (this isthe most crucial years since this has been the time that homosexual people have "come out of thecloset") have not been rooted in fear at all. It has been based on:● Fidelity to biblical truth in an age of pluralism where each person's ideas andopinions of what is false and true matters equally.● Concern for spiritual and moral standards in our increasingly secular and godlessculture and society. Homosexuality is one of many other "evils" that has becomeacceptable and even celebrated.● Revulsion at the very thought of "what homosexual people actually do to eachother." 8While it is undoubtedly true that some people reject homosexual people and theirhomosexual practices because of fear, to pontificate that this is the root cause is not only arrogantbut ignorant.Psychiatrist Shelly Klinger, who is a member of the American Psychiatric Association'sGay & Lesbian Committee, has proposed the term "heterosexism." She used this term on theLarry King Live radio show, June 9, 1994. Notice that the last part of the word is "sexism" whichconnotes prejudicial or bigoted ideas and feelings. Such a term is also unfair, for the belief inheterosexuality is usually not based on prejudice or bigotry, but upon a belief in God's creativeorder—that He made man "male and female" and that they were made for each other.

120Such labels are a convenient way to simplistically, and thus easily, dismiss the seriousnature of the issue. It's the old method of branding and thus casting aspersion on those whodisagree. It is impugning evil motives to those who may simply and strongly disagree because ofmoral and/or religious convictions.A case in point is Mel White's book, Stranger at the Gate. Having been a student of his Iappreciated his creative abilities and his communication skills and know that he is an intelligentperson, yet in his book he repeatedly casts aspersion on anyone who disagreed with him. The"Religious Right" got bashed over and over and over again. I personally find that I do not agreewith some very important positions taken by the "Religious Right." I find they are blind tocertain sins such as insensitivity to poverty where they seem to have a lot more compassion forthe rich than the poor. They are, for the most part, blind to racism which is evidenced by theirsilence and/or naivete as they offer simplistic solutions to a very complex problem. I find themguilty of civil religion as they often wrap religion in the American flag. As I fault Mel, therefore,it is not with the intention of agreeing with the conservative Christianity known as the "ReligiousRight." The point is that Mel is reprehensibly unfair (uncivil) in his constant haranguing ofindividual members of the "Religious Right." This is inexcusable in light of Mel's intelligenceand claim to Christian convictions.Although I agonized for Mel (and all those like him) as he shares his own excruciating,heart-wrenching struggles, I also felt that he used the media (printed form) as a forum to bashpeople that he says he considers "fellow Christians."How could a person be used more powerfully by the cynical and politically correct media(specifically secular publisher Simon & Shuster Inc.) than Mel? His own combination of fervor,giftedness (especially his communication skills), anger, hostility, and bitterness played right intothe hands of the hostile media (whose members are for the most part either atheists or agnosticsaccording to polls) which is relentlessly and untiringly seeking the latest juicy tidbit to destroypersons or institutions, especially if it can be found in the camp of the "Religious Right" or theRoman Catholic Church.If one were to judge the real world by Mel's book one would think that all the wonderfulpeople in this world are homosexual people and the most evil and reprehensible people are theheterosexual, church-going conservative Christians. Not once in the book does Mel acknowledgethat homosexual people have also been guilty of reprehensible attitudes and behavior. I haveseen first-hand their vulgar, hateful, demeaning words bitterly and angrily voiced at people suchas myself for being a part of a march against death (abortion) and for life. I have witnessed onmany occasions their contemptuous behavior at marches as I worked in a restaurant onHollywood Blvd. in Hollywood, California.

121A CALL FOR COMPASSIONAs pastor I have known homosexual people whom I found to be sensitive and extremelycreative and thus interesting. I have ministered to people dying of Aids. I have sadly seen thesuffering that some of these hurting people have gone through as their bodies have wasted away.Like heterosexual people, there are the good and the bad, the sincere and the insincere, the kindand the hateful, the gentle and the bitter. Just as homosexual people are asking for fairness so itbehooves them to be fair to heterosexuals, especially conservative Protestants and RomanCatholics for who disdain have been more evident than respect. Anything less is a doublestandard!"THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN"To listen to some people, especially Christians, one would think homosexuality is arecent phenomena. This, of course, is absurd. It has been with us since time immemorial. Eventhough there is much more open and frank discussion about homosexuality as homosexuals have"come out of the closet" in the last 25 years, there are numerous references to it in ancientdocuments to indicate how long a history it has had.Homosexuality was widespread in biblical times in both the Old and New Testamentperiods. Homosexual practices were not only accepted, but were in fact, supported andencouraged by the nature fertility cults of the religions of the day. Fertility cults in their more"idealistic" form featured heterosexual cultic prostitution; it also included homosexual activities,along with bestiality and other almost indescribable sexual evils.The ancient Egyptians practiced homosexuality as part of their religion:"As part of their ceremonial worship to the goddess Isis, the Egyptian 'priests'(actually they were just male prostitutes) would engage in sex with the men whocame to 'worship.' This debauched form of 'worship' was found throughout theMediterranean region where this goddess was variously known as Ishtar,Mylitta, Aphrodite, and Venus." 9The word "sodomite" as used in the Old Testament". . . was employed . . . for those who practiced as a religious rite the abominableand unnatural vice from which the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah havedefined their lasting infamy. . . . Their dreadful 'consecration' [of the maleprostitutes to the gods] or rather, desecration, was spread in different forms

122over Phoenecia (the and of Canaan), Syria, Phrygia, Assyria and Babylonia,Ashtaroth, the Greek Astarate, was its chief object. It appears also to havebeen established at Rome." 10The Greeks are well-known for their practice and even celebration of homosexuality.They, too, had male homosexual prostitutes as part of their religious customs. In fact, inEphesus on a man street (Marble Street) a footprint was carved to show the way to the brothel.The worship of Diana was a perpetual festival of vice. And the Temple of Diana, also located inEphesus, was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. There was also the temple of Aphrodite atCorinth, which also had temple prostitutes. 11Yale historian John Boswell, whose history of homosexuality is written in verysympathetic tones, says of homosexuality in Greece:"Many Greeks represented gay love as the only form of eroticism which could belasting, pure, and truly spiritual. . . . The Attic lawgiver Solon consideredhomosexual eroticism too lofty for slaves and prohibited it to them. In theidealistic world of the Hellentistic romances, gay people figured prominentlyas star-crossed lovers whose passions were no less enduring or spiritual thantheir nongay friends." 12Plato's Symposium is an example of how widely known and accepted the love of man forman was among the ancient Greeks. This dialogue is always said to be one of the greatest workson love in the world, but its subject is not natural but unnatural love. Many rich men paid a talent($3600) for a male favorite. Cato complained that a pretty boy cost more than a farm.Fourteen of the first fifteen Roman Emperors practiced unnatural vice.At the time of Jesus Nero was emperor. He had taken a boy called "Sporus" and had hadhim castrated. He had then married him with a full ceremony and took him home in procession tohis palace and lived with him as wife and husband.This particular vice was rampant during the era of the early church. There is little doubt,so masterfully outlined in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, that homosexuality was oneof the main causes of the degeneracy and final collapse of that early civilization.Open, shameless homosexuality and every other form of immorality is here again. At therate of degeneracy evidenced by our culture, it won't be long until we also collapse.

123Russian-born sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, of Harvard University stated in 1937 andreaffirmed in 1957:"Persons with an overdeveloped wish for sensate [giving in to the senses]freedom are likely to become the over-sensual seekers for perverse pleasuresthat soon debilitate body and mind; or the egotists who do not want to reckonwith or respect any value except their own fancy or volition. Through theirscandals, indecencies, erratic exploits, and through the actions of robbery,murder, sacrilege, and the like, they ruin themselves and the society of whichthey are a part.A society with a considerable proportion of these over-free members cannotexist for a long time, with such lunatics at large. It will either disintegrate,or must take measures to bridle them: bridling them means a limitation,sometimes even an elimination, of the greater part of sensate liberty." 13Signs are everywhere to show that there are "lunatics at large" among us. There are "theoversensual seekers for perverse pleasure" whom Paul referred to as those who "approve of thosewho practice them [evil]" (Rom. 1:32). The continuing increase of what Sorokin called "sensateliberty," which we usually express with the slogan, "Anything goes!" is rapidly bringing about aninternal disintegration of society.The loss of fixed standards of morality and the incredibly narcissistic fascination withourselves is a sure combination for collapse. When self-centeredness is taken for granted as thenormal orientation in life no objective standards of value count. Thus there is nothing tomeasure ourselves and our conduct. The result is the assumption that whatever we desire to do orto have must, by its very nature, be right. Such an attitude is prevalent among individuals and issteering our society as a whole. There simply is no longer a moral and spiritual compass. It hasbeen thrown overboard! Nowhere is this more evident than in society's attitude toward sex.THE CHURCH'S HISTORIC POSITION ON SEXUALITYThroughout church history, homosexuality as well as heterosexual relations outside thebounds of marriage, have been condemned as "sinful." Although church attitudes have varied inthe severity of their judgments on homosexuality, they have not varied in the negativity. Thisposition has not needed defense until the publication of John Boswell's book, Christianity, SocialTolerance, and Homosexuality in 1980. This book was immediately received with widespreadacclaim. The reviewer of the New York Times said Boswell's book "restores one's faith in

124scholarship as the union of erudition, analysis, and moral vision. I would not hesitate to call hisbook revolutionary, for it tells of things heretofore unimagined and sets a standard of excellencethat one would have thought impossible in the treatment of an issue so large, uncharted andvexed." The following year Boswell won the American Book Award for History. This book hasso influenced contemporary thinking that it has become a kind of sacred text for those who wantto morally legitimatize the homosexual movement.Bruce Bawer's book, A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Societypainstakingly treats Boswell's book as though it is the infallible text in Church history dealingwith homosexuality. Even in certain court cases Boswell's study has been invoked in furtheringthe cause of homosexual rights.Fellow historians, however, have not been as impressed with Boswell's book. As moraltheologian (ethicist) Richard John Neuhaus put it: "The scholarly judgment of his argument hasranged from the sharply critical to the dismissive to the devastating." 14Neuhaus points to the fact that scholarly journals typically appear two or three years aftera book is published and by that time Boswell's book had already established itself in many placesas the definitive word on Christianity's historic position on homosexuality. Also it is not unusualfor articles in scholarly journals ever to make it into the marketplace of ideas with which eventhe educated are familiar, much less the average person. About eight years ago the EvangelicalLutheran Church in America (ELCA) uncritically accepted Boswell's interpretation of Old andNew Testament texts on homosexuality. 15Professor Boswell's reading of early Christians and medieval history seems to yield thekind of evidence he is looking for. Any historical "sniffing around" will yield immoral practices.But to interpret every expression of intense affection between men as proof that they were gay isfoolhardy. While there is no question that homosexual behavior has been evidenced throughouthistory, to claim that "they [the gay] were everywhere" is an overstatement. To claim thatbecause their actions were tolerated by some Christians is proof that Christianity, as a religiousmovement, did not condemn homosexual practices is totally without warrant. Even thoughChristians at various times (today is no different) have tolerantly winked at homosexualbehavior, this in no way means that authoritative Christian teaching ever departed from therecognition that homosexual acts are morally wrong.Before the fourth century, for example, Christianity, as an orthodox religion, was still inits forming stages as the church fathers grappled with major doctrines to provide a theologicalanchor for succeeding generations. During this time period there are a lot of gaps in terms ofinformation and it is clear that numerous sects and heresies flourished, some of which practiced

125immoral behavior. We should not be surprised, therefore, if homosexual behavior is sanctionedamong some. But to claim that this is proof that Christianity, as a religion, accepted suchhomosexuality is unwarranted. After examining the evidence put forth by Professor Boswell,British biblical scholar David Wright in his article on homosexuality in the highly respectedEncyclopedia of Early Christianity dismisses the book as "influential but highly misleading." 16Professor Boswell claims that in the early church there were few sanctions againsthomosexuality until the latter part of the Middle Ages when "intolerance" of gays becamecharacteristic of the church as she attempted to assert greater control over the personal lives ofher members.Boswell points to theologian Thomas Aquinas who provided a theological rationale forthe prohibition of homosexual acts and to the canon lawyers who gave the prohibition force inecclesiastical discipline, as the sad legacy that is still with us in the attitudes and laws soprevalent in Western societies.Contrary to what Boswell teaches, it is a well known fact that in the patristic era freedomfrom homosexuality was seen as a mark of the Christian's ethical superiority to the wanton wayof life that converts to Christianity had left. In this period sexuality was generally viewed as anexample of fleshly inferiority to the spiritual ideal that Christians should seek. Thus it is notsurprising that homosexuality did not receive approval. Monks were taught not only to avoid thesexual enticements of women, but also of other men. Basil of Caesarea instructed them to answerother men with "downward cast eyes" so they might not be enticed by looking at the face of apotential male lover.It was during this era that Paul's understanding of homosexuality as being "unnatural"gained increased authority. The influential John Chrysostom condemned homosexuality as a"vice" by which a man lost his true masculine nature or else "debased" it in a way that waswholly contrary to God's design. 17It should be pointed out that patristic references, like scriptural ones, were directed,however, to the practice of homosexuality, not to the desire itself. There was simply nocondemnation of the person who had such "leanings" but kept the propensity in check. Christianjudgment was imposed only on those who yielded to its pressures.In the medieval period a considerable attention was given to justifying this condemnationon theological grounds. The church doctor (teacher) Thomas Aquinas elaborated how thatanything that is natural and thus from God, must serve the end which is natural to it. Homosexualrelations were condemned as "unnatural" since they are an indulgence of lust that does not permit

126the sex organs to be used for their "natural" end. Penalties were imposed on those who practicedhomosexual acts such as mutual masturbation in the monastic communities. There were alsopenitential codes for secular clergy and laity who practiced homosexual acts. 18In Protestant countries, homosexual behavior even became a criminal matter as thegovernment took on more responsibility for regulating private behavior. It became a capitaloffense in England in 1533 and remained a "crime" in Britain, as it did in many Westerncountries, until well into the twentieth century.It was probably as a result of such hazards that homosexual behavior was drivenunderground. Thus in the modern period there was little reference to it until the mid-twentiethcentury. Homosexuality became known during this era as "the vice that dare not be named."The English writer Oscar Wilde was disgraced and even imprisoned in the late Victorian erapartly due to his determination to publicize what his generation preferred to keep hidden.It is no wonder that homosexuality was commonly assumed to be an infrequently found"deviance" that was partly known but seldom discovered. At the beginning of World War II, theUnited States army authorities thus claimed that only a "miniscule number" of personnel wereinvolved in homosexual behavior.The Kinsey report on sexual behavior among males, however, made such a claim invalidas it quoted a significant number of men who confessed to having one or more homosexualexperiences. A follow-up report by Kinsey which focused on female sexual behavior surprisedthe community at large as it indicated how widespread lesbianism was among women.These Kinsey reports opened up the subject of homosexuality in the West, especially inNorth America, where it had been hidden for so long. Inhibitions were increasingly shed andpolitical and church authorities reviewed the assumptions of legal codes and Christian teachingon homosexuality. The result was a widespread reform of governmental laws affectinghomosexuals.Legal penalties against homosexual behavior were either totally discarded or modified inseveral countries (especially in Britain, U.S., and Canada). Thus relations between consentingadults in private ceased to be subject to legal penalties. The distinction was made that while anact may be considered a "sin" by the church, this does not mean it should be considered a"crime" by the government. This led to the freeing of homosexuals from the threat of blackmail,exploitation and unemployment. 19

127The church as a whole accepted this distinction. However, it has not fundamentallychanged its position on homosexuality. Boswell's historical references show his revisionisticapproach to this subject. Robert L. Wilken, scholar of early Christianity at the University ofVirginia, describes Boswell's book as "advocacy scholarship," by which he means "historicallearning yoked to a cause, scholarship in the service of a social and political agenda." 20Professor Wilkens points out that Boswell's subtitle, Gay People in Western Europe fromthe Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, is contradictory since Boswellinsists that there were not "gay people" (in the contemporary meaning of the term) in the ancientworld. He insists that Paul and other Christian authorities were only criticizing heterosexualswho engaged in homosexual acts, not homosexuals. If this is so how can Boswell write a historyof gay people in that period of history? As Wilken puts it, "Boswell creates historical realitiesthat are self-contradictory, and hence unhistorical." 21Boswell's contention that there was no prejudice toward "homosexuals as a class" iseasily explained by the fact that people of that time period did not think there was a class ofpeople with sexual 'preferences' for the same sex." 22 Wilken reasons:"The notion that there is a 'class' of people defined by sexual preference is a veryrecent idea that has no basis in Western tradition. To use it as an interpretivecategory is confusing and promotes misunderstanding. Where there were lawsor social attitudes against homosexuals, they had to do not with homosexualsas a class but with homosexual acts. Even where certain homosexual acts weretolerated by society (as in ancient Greece), there was no suggestion that sexualpreference determined behavior or that certain people were thought to belongto a distinct group within society. Even when tolerated (for example, betweenan adult male and a youth), there was no social approval given an adult malewho played the 'passive' role (the role of the boy).” 23"In some cases," Wilken notes, "Boswell simply inverts evidence to suit his argument." 24As an example, he cites Boswell's contention that Roman citizens "objected to Christianityprecisely because of what they claimed was sexual looseness on the part of its adherents." 25They charged, among other things, that Christians engaged in "homosexual acts" andBoswell claims that "this belief is partly rooted in fact." As evidence, Boswell refers to MinuciusFelix, a third century writer who was answering charges brought against Christians by theirRoman critics. Among the items mentioned by Minucius Felix, Boswell says, is the charge thatChristians engage in "ceremonial fellatio." 26 (The text literally says "worshipping the genitals oftheir pontiff and priest.") Boswell fails to point out, however, that this charge—along with

128others, such as the claim that Christians sacrificed children in the Eucharist—was manufacturedalong with a series of other outlandish and false accusations against Christians. Such ridiculouscharges have summarily been dismissed by historians long ago.According to biblical scholar G. W. Clarke the passage Minucius Felix refers to is a"bizarre story [which] is not found elsewhere among the charges reported against theChristians." 27 Rather, as Clarke points out, it is an invention trumped up by the opponents ofChristianity to be used for "effective rhetorical polemic." 28 It is significant that such a chargedoes not appear in any of the texts written by critics of Christianity. Why then was it mentionedby Felix? Either because this charge of immorality was slanderously passed on the streets todefame the Christian cause or possibly because the obvious absurdity of the charge gaveChristian apologists more compelling arguments. 29This argument by Boswell undercuts his own case in that the passage makes it clear that,for both Romans and Christians, it was assumed that to charge someone with fellatio was todefame him. Not only Christians, but their critics as well, assumed that such behavior is a sign ofmoral depravity. To use such a reference as evidence that the early Christians were tolerant ofhomosexual acts simply defies reason.David Wright in his article, "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality"concluded concerning Boswell's book:"The conclusion must be that for all its interest and stimulus, Boswell's bookprovides in the end of the day not one firm piece of evidence that the teachingmind of the early church countenanced homosexual activity." 30It is of historic significance that while there have been inroads by the Pro-Gay theologyin main line denominations, as a whole its doctrine on human sexuality, that sexual relations onlybelong within the boundaries of marriage, has remained intact. Probably the greatest changewithin the church has been the increasing awareness of the distinction between a person who hasa homosexual inclination or orientation (inversion) and his involvement in homosexual acts.This awareness has made the church more compassionate toward those whose sexual orientationis homosexual (inversion) while it has resolutely condemned homosexual acts as acts that areclearly "sinful" and therefore outside the boundaries of historic orthodox Christianity.Christian organizations have been founded to provide pastoral care for those who wish tofind release from homosexuality.

129PRO-GAY THEOLOGYThe traditional biblical view of human sexuality has increasingly come under fire by"homosexual Christians." Troy Perry, an ordained minister with a Pentecostal background andwho attended Moody Bible Institute, catapulted a pro-gay movement in the "Christian"community as he left his family to form the Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles in1968. This church has mothered scores of daughter churches. Ralph Blair is probablythe most articulate spokesperson of the movement as he serves as president of "EvangelicalsConcerned" (EC). In their pamphlet titled "What is EC?" the answer is:"We believe that Christian gay people are a part of God's kingdom and arebona fide disciples of Christ. . . . Doctrinally, we are evangelical in the historicsense of believing the basics of Christianity as revealed in the Word of God.Some Evangelicals and Charismatics say it's un-Christian and that homosexualsshould ‘get delivered' and if that doesn't work, they should just sit and bequiet and forget about romance and sex for the rest of their lives. People areswallowing this baloney." 31It is the position of EC that the view that homosexuals are sinful and need deliverance orrecovery is obsolete and unscriptural. Pro-Gay Theology maintains it is unbiblical for severalreasons.● There is no biblical condemnation of homosexual behavior so long as it occurs withinthe boundaries of a "loving, committed relationship."● Scriptures commonly supposed to condemn homosexual acts instead condemn onlyhomosexual lust or irresponsible homosexual behavior.● The words commonly translated to mean "homosexual" are generally mistranslatedand should be taken to mean either "idolaters," 'homosexual prostitutes," or"cowardly people." 32Therefore heterosexual Christians should fully accept homosexuality as a viable option.They should accept into their church fellowship homosexual Christians who consider theirhomosexual orientation and desires as legitimate and normal and thus feel free to act upon thosedesires. Homosexual union (marriage) should be accepted as another alternate lifestyle to beaffirmed and celebrated in the life of the church.

130IS HOMOSEXUALITY A VIABLE CHRISTIAN OPTION?Are same-sex relationships a Christian option? The question is whether Scripture orhuman experience is to have the normative role. If Scripture is to have the normative role, thenthe question is: What does Scripture teach?Any study of human sexuality must logically begin with the book of Beginnings:Genesis. It is in the Genesis account that we have the creation of man which forms the basis ofour understanding of human sexuality. Homosexual people are strangely silent concerning thisbasis in their arguments concerning the validity of homosexuality. Mel White, in his book,repeatedly refers to the "six passages" that supposedly address this issue. Mel and otherhomosexual writers leave out the foundational passages, and thus the most important passages,on homosexuality: Genesis 1-2.To study homosexuality apart from its larger context of human sexuality is truncated atbest, and is, in fact, absurd. Any study of any form of sexual proclivity and/or behavior must byits very nature be seen in the light of the biblical account of the creation of man.Homosexuals almost always begin their arguments with the story of Sodom andGomorrah. In fact, Sherwin Bailey in his foundational work, Homosexuality and the WesternChristian Tradition claims, "Consideration of the Christian attitude to homosexual practicesinevitably begins with the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah." 33 Such an approachto the biblical data is suspect from the start.To begin a discussion on human sexuality without the Genesis account is a little liketrying to build a house by beginning with the first or second floor. Without a foundation thatfloor will eventually collapse. The same is true of Pro-Gay Theology which is suspect not only inits theological approach but in the whole theological enterprise as exegesis is given littleattention. Such a theology shows its indebtedness more to the philosophy of the age (amorality—no moral absolutes) than to what Scripture says.THE CREATION OF MANTo gain an adequate understanding of homosexuality we must see it within the largercontext of the biblical teaching on human sexuality. On this point the Scriptures are explicit.Thus homosexuality must be seen in the context of the biblical account of the creation of man.God begins His account by affirming man as male and female:

131"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;male and female He created them" (Gn 1:27).This general account of the creation of the universe and of man affirms the equality ofthe sexes as they both share in the image of God and the stewardship of the earth.Notice man was created as male and female. God did not create man/man or woman/woman. God's image in humanity is incomplete without both man and woman. This means thatthe aim of Christian sexuality is not primarily personal satisfaction, but mutual enrichment(interpersonal completeness).In the second chapter of Genesis God addresses the need of the male for a femalecompanion."The Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helpersuitable for him" (2:18).This helper "suitable for him" was also to be his sexual partner, with whom he was tobecome "one flesh," so that they might thereby not only consummate their love but alsoprocreate children. In fact the first command given to man is to procreate:"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fillthe earth and subdue it" (1:28).It should be acknowledged that Paul qualifies this statement in 1 Corinthians 7 bypointing out that God calls some to singleness and gifts them for such a life (celibacy) which hecalls "good." This indicates that sexual fulfillment does not constitute a good and full life.In the biblical account of Adam's need for a wife we are told that God paraded the birdsand the beasts before Adam (who named them and ruled over them) but he was not able to find a"suitable helper" for Adam among the animals (2:20). As pointed out earlier in this study, theword "helpmeet" or "suitable helper" means someone "alongside of" or "over against" (opposite)in the sense of "weight" in which weights are placed on opposite poles to bring balance. Adamneeded something or someone to counterbalance and complement him so that together with thisother thing or person he might be balanced and thus complete.According to Genesis 1 Adam and Eve were equally created in the image and likeness ofGod. But in Genesis 2 God reveals how they were created. Adam was made out of the dust of theground:

132"And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed intohis nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being [soul]" (v. 7).Eve, on the other hand, was made neither out of nothing like the universe, nor out of "thedust of the ground" like Adam, but she was made "out of Adam." In order to provide what Adamneeded God performed surgery:"So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he wassleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.Then the Lord God made woman from the rib He had taken out of the man,and He brought her to the man.The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall becalled 'woman,' for she was taken out of man'" (vv. 21-23).THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGEThe result of this special creation of Eve is what we now call the institution ofmarriage:"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to hiswife, and they will become one flesh" (v. 24).In this passage we repeatedly (three times) come across the word "flesh." This indicatesnot only union but also reunion. It is not just the relationship as such that is significant, butthe complementary character of the relationship that is significant. John Stott puts it:"It is not a union of alien persons who do not belong to one another and cannotappropriately become one flesh. On the contrary, it is the union of two personswho originally were one, were then separated from each other, and now in thesexual encounter of marriage come together again.It is surely this which explains the profound mystery of heterosexual intimacy,which poets and philosophers have celebrated in every culture. Heterosexualintercourse is much more than a union of bodies; it is a blending ofcomplementary personalities through which, in the midst of prevailingalienation, the created oneness of human being is experienced again. Andthe complementarity of male and female sexual organs is only a symbol at thephysical level of a much deeper spiritual complementarity." 34

133Completeness is the union of opposites, the coming together of such differences aspersonality, temperament, social function and aspiration—all gathered into the physical symbolof gender differentiation. By such a standard, homosexual relationships are incomplete.Heterosexual MonogamyTo experience the "one flesh" union certain conditions are necessary. Scripture showsthat God's ideal is an exclusive union between two individuals: "For this reason a man . . .united to his wife" (Gn 2:24). Marriage also involves a public social occasion: "will leave hisfather and mother" (v. 24). The sacred mystery of marriage involves a covenant of love which isheterosexual and permanent: "and be united to his wife" (v. 24).A sexual union is also necessary if a couple are to be recognized as married: "and theywill become one flesh" (v. 24). The sexual union is a sign and seal of the marriage covenant.The Genesis account shows that such a union is free from shame: "The man and his wife wereboth naked, and they felt no shame" (v. 25).Jesus endorsed this teaching by quoting from Genesis 2:24:"They [some Pharisees] said, 'Moses permitted a man to write a certificate ofdivorce and send her away.''It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,' Jesusreplied. But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.''For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united tohis wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two,but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."(Mk 10:4-9)Heterosexual monogamy is God's design for marriage. It is a public ceremony in whichtwo people (one man and one woman) lovingly commit themselves to each other for life andconsummate their covenant of love in physical union. It is clear from the biblical data that noother kind of marriage or sexual intercourse is ordained by God.The implication is that any kind of sexual relationship which deviates from God's designis automatically displeasing to Him and thus comes under His judgment. This would rule out

134● polygamy (even though it was allowed for a period of time in the Old Testament),● clandestine unions (e.g. common law marriage) since these have no public ceremony,● casual encounters and temporary liaisons,● adultery and thus divorce (unless the person is the victim of his/her spouse'sunfaithfulness—Mt 5:32; 19:19—or desertion—1 Co 7),● homosexuality since it violates the statement that "a man" shall be joined to "his wife,"● bestiality since there is the mixing of mankind and the animal kingdom. 35THE HOLINESS CODEIn the "Holiness Code," which is the heart of the book of Leviticus, the people of God arechallenged not to imitate the practices of neither the Egyptians with whom they had been livingnor the Canaanites with whom they were to be living in the future. God says:"You must obey My laws and be careful to follow My decrees. I am the Lordyour God. Keep My decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them willlive by them. I am the Lord" (Lev 18:4-5).Then Moses lists the following prohibitions:● No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.● Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is yourmother; do not have relations with her.● Do not have sexual relations with your father's wife; that would dishonor your father.● Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or yourdaughter's daughter; that would dishonor you.● Do not have sexual relations with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter;that would dishonor you.● Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born to yourfather; she is your sister.● Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born to yourfather; she is your sister.

135● Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister; she is your father's close relative.● Do not have sexual relations with your mother's sister, because she is your mother'sclose relative.● Do not dishonor your father's brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations;she is your aunt.● Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife; do nothave relations with her.● Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonor yourbrother.● Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexualrelations with either of her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter; they are herclose relatives. That is wickedness.● Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her whileyour wife is living.● Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of hermonthly period.● Do not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself with her.● Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profanethe name of your God. I am the Lord.● Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.● Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman mustnot present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.Moses continues with a warning:"Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations thatI am going to drive out before you became defiled; so I punished it for its sin, andthe land vomit out its inhabitants. But you must keep My decrees and My laws.

136The native born and the aliens living among you must not do any of thesedetestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in theland before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it willvomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were there before you.Everyone who does any of these detestable things--such persons must be cutoff from their people. Keep My requirements and do not follow any of thedetestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defileyourselves with them. I am the Lord your God" (Lev 18:6-30).Strong language! Notice what is included. Bestiality which Moses calls "a perversion" (v.23) and homosexuality (v. 22) which he calls "detestable."Some have correctly argued that heterosexuals focus only on the prohibition againsthomosexuality but fail to notice what else is forbidden in this passage. After all, otherprohibitions are mentioned which many, if not most, heterosexuals ignore such as refrainingfrom sex during a woman's menstrual cycle (19; 20:18), and in the previous chapter (ch. 17),such things as killing animals that are not offered to God as an offering (vv. 3-9) or eating blood(vv. 10-14), or as mentioned in the following chapter, the instruction not to wear garments withtwo kinds of yarn (19:19).There are also numerous offenses that result in death such as cursing parents (20:9),adultery (v. 10), incestuous relationships (vv. 11-12,14-15,17), involvement in the occult (v. 27),prostitution (21:9), working on the Sabbath (23:30), and blaspheming God (24:16).The Pro-Gay people who point out that such passages are not applicable to us today in aliteral sense are partly right. Many of these injunctions are part of the ceremonial law whichdescribes acts that caused a Jewish person to be unclean and therefore unable to enter thecourtyard of the temple for worship.Mel White, in his book, dismisses Leviticus in a rather cavalier way by pointing out thatif we take the prohibitions against homosexuality seriously, then we should also refrain fromeating pork or using the skin of pork in any way. He put it:"By then, I had memorized the Old Testament lines from Leviticus that say a manwho sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be killed. (Of coursea little earlier in the same text, anyone 'who touches the skin of a dead pig' is alsocalled an abomination. There goes 'Monday Night Football.')" 36

137Such an approach is neither logical nor convincing. Such simplistic rationale is usedconsistently by the religious homosexual community. Similarly Pro-Gay writer Ralph Blairstates, "We are not bound by these commands today"? Is this necessarily so? Just because someof these laws or decrees are obviously ceremonial in that they applied to a specific nation at aspecific time in history, this does not mean that all of these commands are ceremonial only. Tohold to such an argument would mean that fornication, adultery, incest, pedophilia and bestialityare legitimate practices. Even “Christian” homosexual people deny this.In the first place, the things to which homosexuals often refer to as prohibited by theHoliness Code is simply not so. The Holiness Code refers to chapter 18 which is introduced andfollowed by extremely strict warnings. Such an introduction and conclusion underlines theseverity of what is being stated. And such dreadful warnings do not accompany the otherstatements in Leviticus, even though their warnings are also quite severe.How then do we determine what part of Leviticus is applicable to today and what is not?We do this by comparing Scripture with Scripture. If decrees are specifically given to apeople but are not repeated at other places in Scripture we may have reason to question itsuniversal validity. The Holiness Code (Lev 18) does not contain any law or decree that obviouslyis not to be applied to today.Some may point to the restriction of sex during a woman's menstrual cycle as such, but isthis necessarily so? Reason and common sense dictates that having sex during a woman'smenstrual cycle easily falls into "uncleanness" (v. 19). Only the most undisciplined people wouldargue otherwise. In such a case it would usually be a man (who is less affected) who would notfind such an act "distasteful." Women, for the most part, I believe, would be bothered by suchundisciplined, insensitive and unloving behavior.Even if there are decrees that may be mingled with ceremonial decrees (which are timebound),and they are also prohibited elsewhere, we have good reason to see their applicationuniversally. As mentioned previously, we certainly do this in the case of fornication (narrowlydefined as sex between singles or a single with a married person), adultery (sex between marriedpeople), incest (sex among close relatives), pedophilia (sex with children—vv. 9-10) andbestiality (sex with animals).Why are these prohibited since homosexuality is equally listed with them as "detestable"?By what hermeneutical principle do we decide one applies and not the other? Could it be merepreference!

138It is also true that this text, as well as Leviticus 20 where homosexuality is forbidden (v.13), are embedded in a context preoccupied primarily with ritual cleanness and the words"detestable" and "abomination" are associated with idolatry. It is argued, therefore, thatdisapproval and disgust is expressed concerning religious truth rather than morality or aesthetics.Does this last point necessarily follow the former assertion (which is correct)? Althoughthe context may be idolatry, it does not logically follow that these are only religious taboos. Theone fact does not necessarily negate the other. It can be both/and rather than either/or. In thelarger context of the rest of Scripture we have every reason to believe it is both/and.To argue that the historical context of the prohibition against homosexual intercourse isthe need for ceremonial uncleanness or the desire to separate oneself from the fertility cults ofIsrael's neighbors and their male prostitutes is extremely unconvincing. There simply is nopositive evidence for cultic homosexuality in Canaanite religions. In the absence of suchevidence, it is reasonable to believe that these Levitical texts consider homosexuality per se assinful, because it perverts the intended sexual and familial relationship for humankind (Ro 1;1 Co 6).This traditional interpretation of the Holiness Code fits Judaism's general teaching onsexuality. This teaching understood sexual intercourse as not only a way of expressing a lovingrelationship, but also as a divinely appointed way of creating new life (Gn 1:28). The judgmenton Onan for spilling his seed on the ground was because of the value that Hebrew tradition puton semen as the source of life (38:10).From the biblical account of the creation of man the only "one flesh" experience which isordained by God is that of the sexual union of a man (male) with his wife (female). In only suchunion does man recognize his partner as "bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh" (2:23).Homosexual "theologians" are strangely silent concerning the creation account of man.Why? Could it be that it provides the theological framework for human sexuality and thusundermines their theology?Pro-Gay people argue that the issue at Sodom and Gomorrah (ch. 19) and Gibeah (Judges19) was not homosexuality but gang rape, idolatry and inhospitality. The idolatry andinhospitality was probably not even committed by homosexual people. TheologianDerrick Sherwin Bailey in his book, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition,reconstructed these stories and claimed, "There is not the least reason to believe, as a matter of

139either historical fact or of revealed truth, that the city of Sodom and its neighbors were destroyedbecause of their homosexual practices." Instead, according to Bailey, the Christian traditionconcerning "sodomy" was derived from later apocryphal Jewish sources.While it may be plausible to believe that Moses was referring to gang rape and/orhomosexual rape instead of homosexuality in general, the view that inhospitality, nothomosexuality, is the sin here condemned seems hardly likely. Why would Lot offer hisdaughters to people who came only with a demand to check on two foreigners? The contextseems clear that the men of Sodom wanted to abuse Lot's visitors sexually. The same is true ofthe similar account of Judges 19.The adjectives used by Moses such as "wicked," "vile," and "disgraceful" (Gen. 18:7;Judg. 19:23) do not seem appropriate to describe inhospitality. The offer of women fits thedescriptions more naturally. Bailey's argument that the statement "Bring them out to us, so thatwe may know them" does not mean "so that we can have sex with them" (NIV) is also weak.Bailey argues that because the Hebrew word for "know" (yada) occurs 943 times in the OldTestament and refers to physical intercourse only ten of those times, and then it only refers toheterosexual intercourse, therefore what Moses has in mind is communication rather than sexualintercourse. According to Bailey a better translation would be "so that we may get acquaintedwith them." 37While it is true that the verb yada (know) is used only ten times in the Old Testament, sixof those times are found in Genesis and one in the Sodom story itself (about Lot's daughters, whohad not "known" a man—19:8). It is, therefore, not unreasonable to interpret this word as sexualintercourse. In fact, in the context, it is the most natural interpretation. 38In the New Testament Jude unequivocally makes reference to the sexual practices ofSodom and Gomorrah:"In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gavethemselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an exampleof those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7).Although homosexual practices were not the only sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, it wascertainly one of its sins.Homosexual people argue that Paul's letters to the Christians at Corinth and to Timothyin which he refers to "male prostitutes," "homosexual offenders" or "perverts" simply do notapply to homosexual relationships that are built on love and commitment. Paul wrote:

140"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do notbe deceived: Neither the sexually immoral [pornoi] nor adulterers nor maleprostitutes [malakoi] nor homosexual offenders [arsenokoitai] nor thieves northe greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdomof God" (1 Co 6:9-10)."We also know that law is made not for good men but for lawbreakers and rebels,the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill theirfathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts [arsenokoitai],for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary tosound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God,which He entrusted to me" (1 Ti 1:9-11).This is a list of sins which is incompatible with the kingdom of God and with the law andthe gospel. One group of sexual offenders are called malakoi which means literally "soft tothe touch." Metaphorically, to the Greeks, this meant males (not necessarily boys) who playedthe passive role in homosexual intercourse. The other group Paul referred to is calledarsenokoitai which means literally "male in a bed." The Greeks used this term to describe theperson who take the active or "male" role in the sexual practices.Pro-Gay people argue that this suggests that in all probability Paul had commercialpederasty in mind in which postpubertal boys were bought and sold by older men for profit forsexual favors. The argument is that this is the most credible interpretation since this was,according to them, the most common pattern of homosexual behavior in the classical world.While it is used in this sense, it is not used in this restrictive sense only. These Greek words areused also in a broader sense to include all homosexual behavior. To the people of Corinth it isa bar to the Kingdom and in 1 Timothy it is an offense to be repudiated by the moral law.

14111. HOMOSEXUALITY Part II

142WHY IS THERE NO BIBLICAL COUNSEL FOR HOMOSEXUALS?The Bible, as we shall see, is replete with counsel on heterosexual relationships. Butnowhere is there biblical counsel on homosexual union. Is it reasonable to argue that God simplyignored the needs of homosexual people? Such a position makes God out to be rather heartless.Could it be that deep down at the core of their being homosexual people are the same asheterosexual people? Could it be that the difference is that they struggle with homosexualtendencies?IS HOMOSEXUALITY NATURAL?The whole thrust of Paul's argument in Romans 1, Pro-Gay theology teaches, is thatpeople should be true to who they really are—whether heterosexual or homosexual. If Paul had aproblem it was with heterosexuals who were false to their true sexual identity by engaging inhomosexual acts.There is reason to believe that the category called "homosexual" is a late 19th centuryinvention. Before that time people did not speak about "the homosexual" or about "homosexuals"as a class of people. While there were men who did "strange" things, including engaging inhomosexual acts, such acts were looked upon with puzzlement, tolerance, or mostly strongdisapproval or disgust. Boswell and other revisionists are right in saying that Paul, Augustine,Aquinas, Calvin and other theologians who lived before the 19th century did not know about a"homosexual community" in which people are involved in "loving, committed, caring same-sexrelationships."Neuhaus takes this argument and asks,"What if Paul did know about homosexuality in the way that it is usually presentedtoday? What if he knew about a significant number of people, constituting a sizable subculture,who engaged only in homogenital sex and found heterosexual relations personally repulsive?"Neuhaus goes on to reason that if Paul were convinced that homosexual acts arecontrary to nature and to the God of nature, it would seem not to make any difference whetherthere are a large number of people whose sexual ideology leads them to disagree as they areengaged in homosexual acts, and supported and encouraged by a subculture that shares theirideology.

143Furthermore, what difference would it make whether Paul knew of what we now call"sexual orientation"? Paul certainly was not a foreigner to ungodly desires. It was he, after all,who wrote:"I do not understand what do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hateI do. . . . What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body ofdeath?" (Ro 7:15,24)Episcopal bishop John Spong is not alone in proposing that Paul was a repressed andfrustrated homosexual. Even if it could be proven that Paul was, this does not legitimizehomosexual behavior in the mind of Paul himself, nor in the Christian community. As Neuhauspoints out, this would then have been one of the "orientations" toward evil against which Paul soenergetically, persistently, and heroically fought. If Paul were a homosexual, as we understandthe term today, then this would mean that Paul knew exactly what homosexuals experience. YetPaul continually urged fellow believers to follow his example in resisting, repenting, and prayingfor grace to resist any kind of inclination toward evil and lead a life worthy of His high calling(Eph 4:1). Such an argument proposed by Spong demonstrates then the very opposite of what hewants to prove.Pro-Gay theology tells us that people should not only affirm, but celebrate, their sexuality"since God made them that way." Two decades ago Norman Pittenger stated that the homosexualperson is "not an 'abnormal' person with 'unnatural' desires and habits." 1 Rather, he arguesthat". . . a heterosexual oriented person acts 'naturally' when he acts heterosexually,while a homosexually oriented person acts equally 'naturally' when he acts inaccordance with his basic, inbuilt homosexual desire and drive." 2Pro-Gay people reason that homosexual behavior is "natural” also because● in many primitive societies it is fairly acceptable,● in some advanced civilizations (e.g. Ancient Greece) it was even idealized, and● it is fairly widespread in the animal kingdom. 3How do we determine what is "natural" and "normal"? Pittenger would have us believethat there are "no external standards of normality or naturalness." 4 If this were true then howcould we condemn any kind of sexual behavior such as pedophilia and bestiality or any otherkind of behavior? Such a position leaves society in utter moral chaos! Literally nothing, bydefinition could be condemned.

144It would also be foolish to let the animal kingdom set behavioral standards for humanbeings (homo-sapiens). As we have already seen, the norm for human sexuality has already beenestablished by God, the Creator, as given in the Genesis account.Not only does the Old Testament call homosexuality "detestable," but so does the NewTestament. Paul, in his letter to the Christians at Rome, addressed immorality at length andincluded homosexuality as "unnatural":"Because of this [the worship of creation rather than the Creator], God gave themover to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations forunnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relationswith women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committedindecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty fortheir perversion" (Ro 1:26-27).The whole context of this passage is Romans 1-3 in which Paul speaks of the fall ofhumanity and its resultant disorders. The apostle argues that "all have sinned" (3:10-23), anduses homosexual practices as an illustration of the disorder brought about by sin. In Romans1:24-27 all human sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is depicted as disordered byman's inherent drive toward self-centeredness, rebellion against God, and the moral and spiritualchaos that the Fall provoked.In Romans 1 verses 24 through 27 Paul describes idolatrous pagans in the Greco-Romanworld of his day. Even though the first impression may be that Paul is condemning homosexualbehavior, according to Pro-Gay theology, such is not the case. Boswell argues that the peoplePaul had in mind are". . . manifestly not homosexual; what he derogates are homosexual acts committedby apparently heterosexual persons. The whole point of Romans 1, in fact, is tostigmatize persons who have rejected their calling, gotten off the true path theywere once on." 5This is the preferred interpretation, according to Boswell and his colleagues, for at leasttwo reasons. One is that while Paul knew nothing of the modern distinction between "inverts"(those who have a homosexual disposition) and "perverts" (those who, though heterosexuallyinclined, indulge in homosexual practices), nevertheless it is only the latter that he iscondemning. It is argued that this is so because the people in question are described as having"abandoned" natural relations with women, whereas no exclusively homosexual person wouldever have had them in the first place.

145Is this a legitimate interpretation? I do not believe so for what Paul meant by "nature"(phusis) is the natural order of things which God has established. This is seen clearly inRomans 2:14, 27 and 11:24:"Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things requiredby the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law."(Ro 2:14)"The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemnyou who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are alawbreaker" (v. 27)."After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contraryto nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily willthese, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?" (11:24).What Paul was condemning, therefore, was not the perverted behavior of heterosexualpeople who were acting contrary to their nature, but behavior which is contrary to God'screated order ("nature").Notice Paul's use of the word "even" in reference to women engaged in homosexualactivity (lesbianism). Paul uses the word theleia which means "female." He does this by pointingto homosexual inversion as an illustration of the extremity of mankind's depravity.Theologian Charles Hodge makes the following point regarding Paul's reference to lesbianism:"Paul first refers to the degradation of females among the heathen, because theyare always the last to be affected in the decay of morals, and their corruption istherefore proof that all virtue is lost." 6It is a well known fact that in most cultures women have been more reluctant than men tobecome involved either in sexual promiscuity or homosexuality. It is reasonable, therefore, tobelieve that Paul mentions women first because their practice of homosexuality is especiallyshocking and dismaying. The idea is that if women will go to that length what will become of therest of civilization.Some argue that homosexual desires must be natural because they feel natural. But anynumber of abnormalities may feel natural. Theologian Thomas Aquinas elaborated how an act, tobe natural, must serve the end which is natural to it. A natural end for sexual relations must

146include having children, since the fertilizing of the ovum by semen is a necessary possibility ofsexual intercourse. Homosexual relations cannot be natural, therefore, since they are anindulgence of lust that does not permit the sex organs to be used for their natural end.If we have no standard other than the shifting standard of our feelings, then any proclivityor mood we experience can be called "normal." If such is the case heterosexuals who areengaged in adultery, incest, pedophilia and even bestiality can justify their behavior by the retort,"I felt like doing it." People are constantly "driven" by feelings to do unimaginable things tofellow human beings. Instead of justifying, and thus encouraging such behavior, a civilizedsociety tries to deal with the underlying causes of such behavior, but also must firmly deal withthe symptoms in order to provide protection to society. What deviants call natural, relativelyhealthy (no one is completely) people call unnatural, which may or may not be criminal."BURNING WITH PASSION"In referring to males Paul points out that they "burned" or were "inflamed" with lust forone another and thus "committed indecent acts with other men" (Ro 1:27). The homosexualpeople of Sodom were so passionately consumed with their lust that they ignored the fact thatthey had been made blind and "could not find the door" into Lot's house in order to pursue theirvile passion (Gn 19:11). These people were so morally perverse that the name "Sodom" becamea byword for immoral godlessness, and "sodomy" also became a term derived from that namewhich became synonymous for homosexuality and other forms of sexual deviation andperversion.It has been reported in the United States and other western countries that it is notuncommon for homosexual males to have as many as 300 sexual partners a year. Marshall Houtsin his book Where Death Delights quotes a New York city forensic expert Dr. Milton Helpernwho testifies to the most bizarre practices of homosexual people. Even though Dr. Helpernmakes no claim to being a Christian and carefully avoids making any moral judgments abouthomosexuality, he does warn people of the horrible consequences of a homosexual lifestyle:"When we see . . . brutal, multiple wound cases in a single victim . . . we justautomatically assume that we're dealing with a homosexual victim and a homosexualattacker. . . . I don't know why it is so, but it seems that the violentexplosions of jealousy among homosexuals far exceed those of the jealousy of aman for a woman, or a woman for a man. The pent-up charges and energy of thehomosexual relationship simply cannot be contained. When the explosive point

147is reached, the result is brutally violent. . . . But this is the 'normal' pattern ofthese homosexual attacks, the multiple stabbings, the multiple senseless beatingsthat obviously must continue long after the victim dies." 7Bob Greene in his Chicago Tribune newspaper article, "Society's Been Given Far TooMuch Rope," refers to a San Francisco coroner who estimates that 10% of his city's homicideswere probably related to sado-masochistic sex among homosexuals. 8 Yet the San Francisco citygovernment has even conducted workshops to teach homosexuals how to avoid serious bodilyharm while engaging in sado-masochistic sex, which by definition is destructive. It is, after all,the very purpose of both sadism (inflicting pain on others) and masochism (inflicting pain tooneself) to do physical harm. Even though such harm may seem minor at first, like all addictionsand/or deviations, they become increasingly serious as there is the "need" for more pain or harm.THE PENALTY FOR IMMORALITYPaul singles out homosexuality not because it is the worst kind of sin, but because it is soobviously unnatural and therefore underlines the extent to which sin takes mankind. Homosexualityis not a sickness, but a sin. And Paul ends his thoughts on this subject with the ominousstatement "and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (Ro 1:27). Thisstatement parallels verse 24 in which Paul says that heterosexually immoral people andhomosexual people "degrade their bodies." Thus God's wrath falls as a penalty on their verybodies.Does this mean that AIDS is the judgment of God on practicing homosexual people?Many Christians confidently declare that this is so. Before we answer this question so quicklyand easily we need to be reminded of Jesus' warning to all self-righteous people (that includes usall):"Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileanswhose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, 'Do youthink that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileansbecause they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, youtoo will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fellon them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living inJerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."(Lk 13:1-5)

148AIDS is and isn't God's judgment on homosexual people. Is this merely double-talk? No.It isn't in that, as we have just seen, we are warned by Jesus not to interpret calamities as God'sspecific judgments upon evil people. AIDS also is not God's judgment in that AIDS victimsinclude men and women who have innocently been infected by a spouse or infected by needlesor blood, and there have been haemophiliacs and children infected as well.The answer is also yes in that people reap what they sow. Paul put it:"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Theone who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction;the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."(Gal 6:7-8)This principle of sowing and reaping seems to have been written into the very structure ofthe moral world. Just as heavy smoking leads to lung cancer, excessive alcohol to liver disorders,and overeating to heart diseases, so promiscuity exposes people to venereal diseases and toAIDS. This principle of cause-and-effect is one of the ways in which God's wrath, His righteousand just judgment on sin and evil is revealed (Ro 1:18-32). Jesus teaches that before God's day offinal judgment there is a process of judgment that is already taking place (Jn 3:18-21; 5:24-29).AIDS, therefore, as other penalties, can be seen as part of God's judgment on society's evils. 9Columbus' sailors introduced a virulent strain of syphilis (the "Great Pox") which spreadto the rest of the world in less than 100 years. Even though this virus existed in many parts ofthe world, this strain was much more serious. Time magazine (1972) stated:"After the ordinary cold, syphilis and gonorrhea are the most common infectiousdiseases among young people, outranking all cases of hepatitis, measles, mumps,scarlet fever, strep throat and tuberculosis put together." 10The sexually transmitted herpes virus infection existed in ancient times, yet today it isepidemic. Time magazine in a cover story in 1982 referred to it as "The New Scarlet Fever." Atthat time the magazine claimed that an estimated 20 million people in U.S. had that sexuallytransmitted herpes. What makes it so deadly is that it is incurable. As Time stated: "It won't killyou, but you won't kill it either." 11 Time also said that the reason for the exponential increase ofthe virus is the escalation of sexual license. 12

149As serious as certain strains of herpes is, they do not compare to AIDS. The long name is"Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome" which makes the patients with the disease lose theirimmunities to disease and eventually die of "pneumocisitis pneumonia" or a cancer called"Kaposis sarcoma." 13Such penalty for perversion cuts both ways. On the one hand it is a dreadful thing toexperience the ravages of sin in a physical way (usually quite immediately). Like Pinocchiowhose nose grew every time he lied, people involved in immorality carry in their bodies variouskinds of diseases. It is estimated, for instance, that there are 32 different strains of the herpesvirus. Where there is sexual contact with a person with herpes there is automatically thetransmission of that herpes to the person involved. There is no escape! This is true whether it isin the case of herpes which can be treated, or in the case of AIDS which has a 100% death rate.Such "due penalty for . . . perversion" is also a merciful thing. Why? Because of thecertainty and the immediacy of the penalty, fear becomes an inducement to refrain from sexuallicense. Some may argue that this obviously is not working since the rate of sexual diseases israpidly increasing. It is true that in the case of some people whose consciences have been"corrupted" (Titus 1:15), and even "seared" (1 Ti 4:2), that they seem oblivious and disdainfultoward any kind of warning. This is not surprising since their "darkened minds" have been givenover to a "depraved mind" (Ro 1:28). There are many people who testify to the fact that it wasn'tuntil they understood the seriousness of the consequences of immorality that they "woke up" andstopped such dangerous and irresponsible behavior.There is also a misunderstanding as to the increase of immorality. The rate of immoralityis not increasing rapidly. It has tapered off and even declined in many places. Also, in the case ofAIDS, its magnitude is often overestimated because of the symptoms that are becomingincreasingly manifest since there is a lag of 5 to 10 years between the time of transmission andthe actual outbreak of the disease. We are now and even more so in the next 5 to 10 years,reaping a whirlwind (a windfall) from the promiscuity that has been allowed, affirmed, and evenencouraged in the last 25 years.LAW & GRACE/ COMMANDMENTS & LOVEAnother argument used by homosexuals to justify their behavior is that in Paul'sindictment on the godless Roman pagans (e.g. Ro 1:26-27), he is depicting reckless, shameless,promiscuous behavior of people whom God has judicially "given up," rather than homosexualpartnerships that are based on commitment and love.

150Pro-Gay theology rightly emphasizes love as the most important thing in the world(1 Co 13). But then they reason that since love is the most important thing, it provides the onlycriterion by which to judge relationships.In his book, Time for Consent, Norman Pittenger lists six qualities of a really lovingrelationship:● commitment,● mutual giving and receiving,● tenderness without coercion or cruelty,● faithfulness with the intention of a lifelong relationship,● hopefulness whereby each serves the other's maturity, and● desire for union. 14The argument is that if a homosexual relationship, whether between two men or twowomen, is characterized by these qualities of love, then the relationship must be affirmed aslegitimate and good. In fact, such a loving relationship rescues people from alienation,loneliness, selfishness and promiscuity. Therefore, it can be just as rich, rewarding and fulfillingas a heterosexual relationship and thus should be considered a viable option for what we call"marriage."Pro-gay revisionists argue that Paul did not consider the possibility of loving, committed,same-sex relationships. Their argument is that since his situation was different than ours whatthe Bible has to say about homosexuality is not relevant for Christians today. In fact, they argue,if he had known about people who were not capable of heterosexual relationships, and if he hadknown about loving, committed, same-sex relationships, he would have approved.Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott in their book, Is the Homosexual MyNeighbor? Another Christian View reason that for those who have exclusively homosexualdrives and cannot change, the most Christian solution is often a committed, responsible, andpermanent homosexual relationship. In their view such an individual is no more sick or immoralthan someone who is left-handed. The Bible, they contend, is silent on the homosexual conditionas such, and therefore its views on homosexuality fail to apply to many homosexual personstoday. What the Bible condemns is certain kinds of homosexual practices such as gang rape,idolatry, and lustful promiscuity, not the idea of "a permanent, committed relationship of lovebetween homosexuals analogous to heterosexual marriage." 15

151No matter how noble the characteristics of love may be, it simply is not the only absolute,the only criterion for human behavior. Love does not abrogate the moral law. Jesus, in HisSermon on the Mount, put it:"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have notcome to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven andearth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by anymeans disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone whobreaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the samewill be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teachesthese commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell youthat unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachersof the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:17-20).Tough medicine for those who take God's Law or the teachings of the prophets lightly!Such an attitude and behavior results in nothing less than damnation (vv. 19-20)!The law is a guide to love. Even though Jesus summarized the Law and the Prophets bylove for God and neighbor (Mt 22:34-40; Mk 12:28-31; Lk 10:25-27), He did not thereby discardall other commandments. In fact, Luke points out that immediately after having summarized thelaw as love, Jesus illustrated what love was with the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37). He also stated, "If you love Me, you will obey what I command" (Jn 14:15). Paul claimed:"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another,for he who loves his fellow-man has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'Donot commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whateverother commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love yourneighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is thefulfillment of the law" (Ro 13:8-10).It was Oscar Wilde who stated:GOD "GAVE THEM UP""When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers." 16Paul warns the people of Rome that the wrath of God "is being revealed from heaven":

152"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexualimpurity for the degrading of their bodies with each other. They exchangedthe truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather thanthe Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their womenexchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the menalso abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lustfor one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and receivedin themselves the due penalty for their perversion.Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge ofGod, He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to bedone. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greedand depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They aregossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they inventways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless,heartless, ruthless. Although they knew God's righteous decree that those whodo such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very thingsbut also approve of those who practice them" (Ro 1:24-32).In each paragraph of this text God says that He "gave them over" (vv. 24, 26, 28).What does that mean? It means that God has abandoned men and women to perversion. The verypeople who desire God to leave them alone now does that very thing. Thus, as Oscar Wilde said,"Their prayers were answered." Ever since Adam (mankind) rebelled in the Garden of Eden hehas fought for his independence and "freedom." Now, says God, he has succeeded. Like thefather of the Prodigal Son, God releases His rebellious children to live life on their own, as theyplease.On the surface such an answer by God might look good. But the very independence and"freedom" that man sought was in reality rebellion and license which led to bondage to sin.God's answer is judicial abandonment of mankind to the consequences of itsrebellion. This is not merely a "hands-off policy" whereby rebellious people are free to do their"own thing." It is rather giving them over to the consequences, the repercussions of their sin.Releasing mankind to sin as they please is like releasing mankind to the law of gravity withoutany other law (like the law of thermodynamics which makes it possible for something heavier

153than air to fly—e.g. airplanes). In every instance such release from God's moral gravity leads to afree fall where there is no safety net (like the prevenient grace and overall protection of God).Such a fall only results in a crash, a moral and spiritual collapse.God's punishment is that He lets mankind do what it wants. The result is that mankind isbreaking under the weight of its own moral degradation. It is the very sin of man, and thus theconsequences of that sin, that actually crushes man himself.Some wonder whether AIDS is God's judicial punishment. While I believe it is apunishment, it is not God's final judicial punishment. Until God's final judgment breaks upon theearth we still live in a day of grace in which we can hear and respond to the GOOD NEWS ofJesus Christ.HOPE FOR THE HOMOSEXUAL!Is there hope for the homosexual? According to Pro-Gay theology there is no need forhope since homosexuals are as normal human beings as heterosexuals. They claim homosexualsare not ill but that homosexuality is merely another form of normal sexual behavior. They claimpeople are born homosexual.Those of us who believe homosexuality is both a sin and an illness also believe thatpeople can change from being exclusively homosexual to being exclusively heterosexual.Healing is possible in this area as it is in other areas. To God all things are possible.Mel White and Ralph Blair categorically claim that there are no "real" cases ofhomosexuals becoming heterosexuals. C. A. Tripp, in his book The Homosexual Matrix statesthat there is "not one case history of recovery on record." 17 To make such claims is the height ofignorance and arrogance. Tripp defines recovery as complete reversal of homosexual tendencies.This is the "all-or-nothing" type of argumentation. It says, "If I can't function as a heterosexualperfectly, then I won't function as a heterosexual at all." This definition of healing means thereversal of people's sexual bias.If healing or recovery is to meet this standard, then there are not a voluminous amount ofhealings and recoveries, though there are several documented cases of complete healing.However, if recovery and healing is defined as the progressive leanings toward the opposite sexand self-mastery—the ability not to give in to sexual desires toward the person of the same sex--then there are countless cases of recovery.

154It is the latter definition that is usually used in any kind of healing or recovery programs.This is certainly true of alcoholism, drug addiction, crime or any other kinds of debilitating orharmful practices. Then why is this not the standard used in the case of homosexual recovery?After all, we are always learning to love more fully, more deeply.CAUSES FOR HOMOSEXUALITYIn the area of causes there are still many questions unanswered. D. J. West, put it:"Research into the causes of homosexuality has left a lot of mysteries unsolved." 18 Yet whenasked whether homosexual people are born that way, he stated:". . . children are not born with the sex instinct specifically directed to one sex orthe other. Exclusive preference for the opposite sex is an acquired trait . . ." 19(Emphasis added)This same question is answered in a similar way by Dr. Armand Nicholi, Jr., Professor ofPsychiatry, Harvard Medical School:"No scientific evidence supports this conclusion. Some suggestive evidence thatgenetics may play a role has been derived from studies of twins, but the overwhelmingevidence appears to be that environmental factors such as earlyparental and peer reactions contribute to a child becoming homosexual.The Harvard Medical Mental Health Letter refers to a series of studiesdemonstrating how environmental factors contribute to development ofhomosexuality. It states that in some cases both heredity and environmentmay play a role. The bulk of clinical research in this area, however, indicatesthat homosexuals are not born that way; rather, they develop their conditionas a result of early and in many cases later life experiences." 20 (Emphasis added)Most experts agree that where there are no outlets for heterosexual sexual expression, asignificant percentage of people end up being involved in homosexual behavior. Prisons areprobably the best and most obvious example of this.John Money in his book, Perspectives in Human Sexuality, states:"The child's psychosexual identity is not written, unlearned, in the genetic code,the hormonal system or the nervous system at birth." 21

155Coauthors Masters, Brown, and Kolodny in their book, Human Sexuality, claim:"The genetic theory of homosexuality has been generally discarded today . . . noserious scientist suggests that a simple cause-effect relationship applies." 22John DeCecco is the editor of the Journal of Homosexuality and was quoted in USATODAY (March 1, 1989) as saying: "The idea that people are born into one type of sexualbehavior is foolish." 23A multitude of theories have been proposed concerning the development ofhomosexuality. Since the time of Freud to the present, theorists have speculated that the causefor homosexuality is a dominant mother, a hostile and/or distant father, an early sexualmolestation, an inordinate fear of men and/or women, excessive masturbation, or anycombination of the above.The theory that homosexuality finds its roots in one's relationship with his parents has themost solid support among psychiatrists (e.g. Drs. Irving Beiber, Lawrence Hatterer, LionelOversey, etc.). 24Dr. Elizabeth Moberly, psychologist and theologian from Cambridge, England, in herbooks Psychogenesis and Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic argues that the homosexualcondition is a "same sex relational need, a same-sex developmental deficit." 25 It is a deficit inthe child's ability to relate to the parent of the same sex. It happens when the individualsuffers a breakdown in relationship with the parent of the same sex at an early age, in a criticaldevelopmental stage.That break may be the result of divorce or separation, or it may be entirely involuntary, asin the case of a lengthy hospitalization. This deficit is then carried over to members of the samesex in general. She reasons that what follows is a defensive attachment, a resistance to restoringthe attachment because of the hurt buried deep within. However, there is also need for love fromthe same sex, a desire for restoration, and it is this reparative urge that moves the homosexual toattempt relationship with the same sex. These two factors in conflict represent same-sexambivalence. The attraction involved in the need for attachment is in conflict with the aversioninvolved in the defensive attachment.

156She theorizes that same-sex ambivalence always marks the homosexual condition. Butshe points out that there is a spectrum provided by the varying degrees of the deficit. Therefore,where it is minimal, the result may be bisexuality, whereas where the deficit is great, transsexualitymay result. In the latter, the same-sex deficit is so marked that there has been genderdislocation, an obvious identity problem.Dr. Moberly is convinced that same-sex love is not the problem, but the solution.Healing takes place when homosexual people develop, and not run away from, a relationshipwith someone of the same sex. This means a healthy relationship where there is no sexualexpression. 26A simple formula should be cautioned against. Human beings are complex. Humansexuality is complex. Therefore, probably the most reasonable explanation is that people areattracted to people of the same sex for a variety of reasons. This does not rule out certain generalpatterns such as:1. A child's perception of his or her relationship to parents or significant others.2. A child's emotional response to those perceptions.3. Emotional needs arising from these perceptions and responses.4. The sexualization of those emotional needs. 27Even though there may be some common denominators, like other problems, the rootcause of homosexuality may very well vary from individual to individual. Studies show thatmore often than not it is not what in fact happened to people in their childhood, but theirperception of what happened, that is most crucial in forming their attitudes in general and theirsexual orientation and eventual behavior in particular. Where people have the perception thattheir sexualized emotional needs were unfulfilled they often become promiscuous, whether ittakes on a heterosexual (e.g. prostitution) or homosexual form.With the new emphasis in the behavioral sciences on a hypothesis that includes aprenatal, hormonal cause, it's not so much the findings themselves that are important as theinterpretation given to them. There are predispositions to sin in all of us. It's a question ofwhether we direct them, and how, that counts.

157ROOT CAUSEWhile the ideas of a harsh or distant father and a dominant or binding mother are strongcauses, they don't go far enough. The primary cause is the spiritual shame that all mankindexperienced as a result of the Fall. The psychic damage from this is immense, and has affectedthe sexuality of every man and woman.When man sinned, his sexuality, not just his sexual desire, changed. How he viewedhimself as a human being was affected at the very core of his being. Now he felt shame, a certainstrangeness about his nakedness, and covered himself. Up to this time before the Fall there wasnothing wrong with his nakedness and thus he felt no shame, but now he was embarrassed andcovered that embarrassment. Now there was guilt. There was a shame and fear that led him tocover very different perceptions of himself and his world.Adam began to cover his true identity. He asserted his independence in sinning againsthis Maker and thus God was put at a distance. He became alienated from God, from hiscompanion Eve as he blamed her for his sin, he became alienated from himself as he failed to behonest about his own responsibility in sinning, and he became alienated from the world as he andhis partner in crime were thrown out of the Garden of Eden.His view of the world was faulty as he saw God as a God of anger that he had to hidefrom. He became anxious and felt condemned and went running from God. His view of God,Eve, self, and the world was now distorted. He saw Eve as a threat instead of a companion as hehid his body from her and demeaned her in order to exonerate himself. This led to a diminishedsense of respect between the sexes which in turn resulted in guilt and isolation.Protection against this guilt and isolation is often found in a mother's close, bindingrelationship with a child. This is especially true if the father is emotionally distant or absent. Thechild will subtly manipulate his lack of relationship with another male. The result years later, is adiminished respect for women.If there is a single-cause theory for homosexuality that is not oversimplified,reductionistic, and unscientific it is the biblical doctrine of the Fall of man. While the fall doesnot fully explain why only some people are homosexual rather than others, it does provide thebasic ingredients that lead to any kind of evil whether committed by homosexual or heterosexualpeople.

158IS HOMOSEXUALITY AN ILLNESS?To the question: Is homosexuality an illness? Dr. Nicholi answers:"How does psychiatry answer this question? Well, if one looks at the AmericanPsychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders,one finds homosexuality listed as a disorder, an illness. It is listed, however, underthe heading 'Ego Dystonic Homosexuality.' By that term the manual implies thathomosexuality is an illness only if the individual is unhappy with his homosexuality.Thus we have the puzzling and confusing situation that if you are homosexual andyou don't like being that way, then you are sick. If you are homosexual and enjoybeing homosexual, then you are well. Many psychiatrists think this to be utternonsense. In the revised DSM-III the term homosexual was removed altogether." 28Dr. Nicholi points out that this change to consider homosexuality normal behavior waspolitical rather than medical:"On December 16, 1973, the National Gay Task Force and the Board of Trusteesof the American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced at a joint newsconference that homosexuality would no longer be considered an illness. Onlythose who felt 'disturbed' over their homosexuality would be considered ill.Hundreds of members voiced alarm over this change, and several hundredmembers signed a petition protesting the change. The issue was put to a vote byall the members of the APA, and the referendum lost by a small majority, withabout fifty-eight percent of the membership voting. Before the vote, a letterthat had been drafted by members of the National Gay Task Force had beensent out to all of the members of the APA. However, the letter was signed bythree physicians who were then running for the presidency of the APA. Thisletter is worded in such a way as to suggest that if the member voted againstthe change, he would be voting against the civil rights of homosexuals.Because psychiatrists tend to feel strongly about civil rights, many memberssupported the change for that reason.The only important point here is that the decision to remove homosexuality fromthe category of illness was based not on new scientific findings, as many havebeen led to believe, but on political considerations.

159Of course, most psychiatrists think the notion of voting an illness out of existenceis absurd. They argue that if this were possible we could quickly get rid of all ourillnesses by simply voting them out of existence. Many doctors also considerabsurd the notion that if you are bothered by your homosexuality, you are ill, andif you're not bothered by it, you're well. Many of the most severely psychoticpeople have no awareness of their illness. A person in a manic phase of a manicdepressivepsychosis may be grossly and overtly psychotic and yet be absolutelycontent, if not elated, with his or her condition." 29Dr. Nicholi continues by making the astounding claim:"I don't think that anyone really believes homosexuality is normal. From my clinicalexperience, no homosexual, whether he accepts or rejects his homosexuality, reallyfeels or thinks he is normal. A man who finds himself in a cold sweat whenever heis in the presence of a woman . . . knows that something about his condition is notnormal. And certainly no physician who has ever treated homosexuality for anysustained period of time thinks homosexuality normal." 30If it could be proven that alcoholism and depression were inborn, this surely wouldnot mean that we would accept them as "normal" states and refuse to treat them.There is some evidence that chemicals are involved in producing at leasttendencies toward alcoholism and depression. Frank Siexas, former Director ofthe National Council on alcoholism, states: "Chemical events are going on in anumber of different ways which will produce alcoholism." 31Even though this may be an overstatement, it is not wholly without evidence.Psychiatrist Herman van Praag claims: "A low level of serotonin seems to be a biochemicalmarker for those depressed people who are most prone to suicide." 32 What leads to the low levelof serotonin in the first place also needs to be looked at. However, the point is, there is evidencefor chemical deficiencies in what we would call abnormal conditions or behaviors.The "predetermined" nature of such conditions or behaviors would not mean that they arenormal and healthy. Similarly, the argument for "inborn homosexuality," even if it could beproven to be true, would not in any way mean that homosexuality is a normal variant of humansexuality.

160The condition of homosexuality (inversion) is an illness, a form of psychopathology thatwarrants medical intervention, whereas the acting out of that compulsion would be a sin, atransgression of God's holy law. Thus homosexuality can be considered both a sickness and asin.The recent statement of the Church of England is accurate:"There is, therefore, an evolving convergence on the ideal of lifelong, monogamous,heterosexual unions as the setting intended by God for the proper developmentof men and women as sexual beings. Sexual activity of any kind outside ofmarriage comes to be seen as sinful, and homosexual practice as especiallydishonorable." 33IS GENUINE CHANGE POSSIBLE?According to Dr. Nicholi the question of whether or not a person who is exclusivelyhomosexual can ever become exclusively heterosexual can be answered "very quickly":"There's a great body of medical and scientific evidence that change can beaccomplished both through psychotherapy and through other methods oftreatment. Among these other methods are religious self-help group movements.One such movement is called the 'Ex-Gay Movement,' and a recent study ofparticipants in this movement was done by Dr. E. Mansell Pattison, Chairmanof the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia.In a survey of members who have successfully completed treatment in thismovement, Dr. Pattison documents fifteen people he evaluates carefully,documenting their change from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality.Dr. Pattison presented his research at the annual meetings of theAmerican Psychiatric Journal of Psychiatry [under the heading "Ex-Gays:Religious Mediated Change in Homosexuality"]. His findings, together with theresearch of many other clinicians and investigators, make invalid the charge'Once a homosexual, always a homosexual.'" 34Psychologist Donald Tweedie has counseled about 300 homosexuals in 25 years ofpractice. He is optimistic about reversing homosexuality, although he doesn't believe a "cure"necessarily implies a life free from homosexual temptation. He explained that many of hispatients have gone on to satisfactory married lives. 35

161Paul testifies to the fact that some people at Ephesus had been saved and sanctified frombeing homosexuals as well as having been saved from being adulterers, prostitutes, thieves,materialists, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers:"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not bedeceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor maleprostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkardsnor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is whatsome of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you werejustified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."(1 Co 6:9-11)Paul is clear: there is hope for everyone! Salvation and sanctification is available to allpeople not matter what form of evil and vice they are guilty of, whether it is committed byheterosexual or homosexual people. Paul put it:". . . that is what some of you were" (v. 11).Paul's statement, "you were washed" in all likelihood refers to the washing ofregeneration through the blood of Christ. Such washing can purge away all guilt and defilementof sin. John similarly wrote: "Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in Hisblood" (Rev 1:5). The prefix apo points to the complete washing "away" of sins. The tense ispast, the aorist referring to a decisive action.Paul also states that they were "sanctified" and "justified." Notice that sanctificationprecedes justification. This is unusual since justification is part of the initial salvation process.Why is the order inverted? Possibly to stress sanctification! It may be to point to the fact that theGod who has justified them will surely provide them with the power needed to carry theirsanctification to completion.Paul refers to both Jesus and the Holy Spirit in this salvific and sanctifying process. Thename of Jesus brings before us all that is implied in the character of the Lord, while the title "TheLord Jesus Christ" brings out the dignity of the one we worship and serve. And the power that ismanifested in this supernatural operation is divine power which is given by the Spirit of GodHimself. Those who are cleansed from the guilt of sin are also those who are sanctified by HisSpirit. All who are made righteous in the sight of God are made holy by the grace of God.Colin Cook, a former homosexual, sees healing or recovery as seeing oneself as aheterosexual and thus being freed from homosexual practices:

162"[Deliverance] . . . is a deep-seated conviction of faith that you are heterosexualBy creation and redemption; it is faith-knowledge that Christ has broken thepower of homosexuality on the cross. It's also a releasing of the soul from guilt,fear, and shame by faith in the atonement of Christ, so that the emotions arereleased for heterosexual love and true affection for the same sex. And it'slearning to live the new identity so that the homosexual habit is broken.But it does not necessarily mean the absence of all temptation. In saying this,I would not want it construed that I am teetering on the edge of neurotic selfrestraint,like the person Alcoholics Anonymous calls a 'dry drunk'--one whohas merely repressed his desire to drink, and badly wants to go back to it. . . .No, the temptations of a person delivered from homosexuality are different.They are mild; they don't have the innate craving or longing because they don'thave the same significance. They pass, and it's knowing how to let them passcalmly. When your new identity is established, your perception of men changes,and there isn't that psychic need to fulfill yourself in another male." 36The following is an account of the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ in thelife of a practicing lesbian, who was part of the street youth culture which characterizedHollywood in the 1960's. This young woman had been faithful to her lesbian lover for five years.Her story of conversion and the gradual healing of her sexuality is a powerful note of hope for allwho are caught in the web of homosexuality."A group of Christians were witnessing for Christ near Hollywood and Vine. Asthey shared the gospel I began to hunger to know God as they did. For the firsttime in my life I understood God's love for me. I was thrilled. God loved me,even me. Jesus loved me so much He gave His life on the cross for me, even me.I received Him on the spot and went home filled with peace. I sensed great joyat the reality of His love for me. Like the woman taken in adultery (John 8:1-11),He did not condemn me but forgave me. To me He spoke those immortal words,‘Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.' (KJV)The people who led me to Christ did not know about my lesbian partner. Theysaid nothing about homosexuality. As I went home, however, God spoke to myheart. I knew the union was unacceptable in His eyes. I knew I would have tobreak off the relationship if I were to live in His kingdom. Though it was one

163of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life, I did what I knew wasGod's will. My partner did not understand. She was heartbroken. I was too, butI left.I associated with the group of Christian young adults who had brought the gospelto me. In time I was able to tell them about my homosexual problem. Theybecame my family and support group; I would not have survived if it were not fortheir support. They taught me the Word of God and how to pray and witness formy Savior.I went through an emotional storm for almost three years. I did not know howstrong homosexual emotions were in my mind, body, imagination, and my verybeing. Sometimes I did not know if I would make it, but by God's grace I did.I abstained from all sexual relationships. When the yearnings came upon me Iwould call out to the Lord for His strength and He was faithful. Also I sharedwith my Christian support group when the temptations became almostunbearable.God slowly began to change my sexual orientation. This meant He had totransform me totally, especially emotionally. Our sexuality is so interwovenwith our emotions, our self-image, our mind, our will, that this transformationwent to the very root of my personality.I realize my sexual orientation was not primarily biological. It was environmental,emotional, and the result of wrong choices I had made over a period of time. ByGod's grace I realized I could change to respond sexually to men, not to women.The change seemed to move through three overlapping stages.First I began to see women differently. They were my sisters, not my lovers.Gradually I began to lose the sexual drive towards other women.Next, I began to 'notice' men in a positive manner for the first time. Some ofthe brothers were so beautiful as men and as my close friends, I began to losethe negative male orientation that I had known before.Lastly, I began to feel sexual attraction towards men. This was a miracle. Thethought of a sexual relationship with a man before this was as repugnant to meas a homosexual relationship is to a heterosexual man or woman.

164I didn't begin to fantasize having sex with every attractive man I met. That toowould have been sinful. But I could now accept the fact that marriage to a fineChristian man would be acceptable. I began to look forward to that possibility asany 'normal' woman does.When this change began, I knew that I was truly a new creation in Christ. Sinhad degraded me into something dishonoring to God. He gave my womanhoodback to me. I love Him with all my heart." 37According to her sister, this former lesbian lived for many years as a godly single youngadult. Then one day as she was working in a ministry to emotionally damaged and disturbedpeople, a Christian man became part of the ministry team. A few years ago they were marriedand now have several children. Both are continuing to be used by the God of grace in ministeringto needy, hurting people.Although there are not numerous cases of homosexual people who are instantly set freefrom their homosexual orientation, there are exceptions. This is especially true if there is a directdemonic dimension to the homosexual problem. Even if the homosexual person is demonizedand homosexual demons are cast out of his life, great emotional, psychological and spiritualdamage has taken place and the rebuilding of his psyche, and particularly his sexuality, is usuallya process, not the result of a few deliverance sessions.FOURTEEN STEPS TO HOMOSEXUAL FREEDOMSince addiction, any kind of addiction, thrives on isolation, a system of support is criticalto the healing process. The Quest Learning Center, which is a branch of "Homosexual Anonymous,"uses the following fourteen steps to homosexual freedom (some steps are obviouslysimilar to the twelve steps of AA):1. We admit that we are powerless over our homosexuality and that our emotionallives are unmanageable.2. We come to believe the love of God, who forgives us and accepts us in spite of allthat we are and have done.3. We learn to see that there is a purpose in our suffering and that our failed lives areunder the control of God, who is able to bring good out of trouble.

1654. We come to believe that God has already broken the power of homosexuality andthat He can therefore restore our true personhood.5. We come to perceive that we have accepted a lie about ourselves, an illusion thathas trapped us in a false identity.6. We learn to claim the only true reality about ourselves, that our identity is heterosexualby creation and that God welcomes us to rediscover that identity in the person of JesusChrist, as our faith perceives Him.7. We resolve to entrust our lives to our loving God and to live by faith, praising Himfor our new unseen identity, confident that it will become visible to us in God's good time.8. As forgiven people free from guilt, we make a searching and fearless moralinventory of ourselves, determined to root out fear, hidden hostility, and contempt for the world.9. We admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of ourwrongs and humbly ask God to remove the defects of character.10. We willingly make direct amends wherever wise and possible to all people we haveharmed.11. We determine to live no longer in fear of the world, believing that God's victoriouscontrol turns all that is against us into our favor, bringing advantage out of sorrow and orderfrom disaster.12. We determine to mature in our relationship with men and women, learning themeaning of a partnership of equals, seeking neither dominance over people nor serviledependence on them.13. We seek, through confident praying and the wisdom of Scripture, for an ongoinggrowth in our relationship with God and a humble acceptance of His guidance for our lives.14. Having had a spiritual awakening, we try to carry this message to homosexualpeople with a love that demands nothing and to practice these steps in all our life'sactivities, as far as lies within us. 38

166Some may think that such a group would have a built-in problem of attraction betweenparticipants. This, according to people who are involved, is simply not so. They explain thatthere is a great deal of loneliness in the homosexual life and therefore it is essential thathomosexuals experience nonerotic friendships. When people come together in a groupcommitted to such high ideals there is a sense of safety that creates an openness toward good,healthy relationships which helps to bring closure on bad relationships.Psychologist Lars Granberg says that successful therapy depends on whether the personreally wants to change. Any kind of significant change will come only when a person believesthat he can change.Presuppositions are crucial in determining even the possibility of healing. If a personbelieves the condition of homosexuality is normal and healthy, then such a person obviouslywould not seek healing. The person who does not believe homosexuality is a sin, but rather a giftfrom God, does not need conversion. One who believes that change is impossible will notgenerally seek for change and, if he were to do so, would not likely find it since faith—belief andtrust—is such an important precursor to change.These presuppositions of the homosexual community is keeping that community fromexperiencing change, healing, recovery!Colin Cook, former homosexual, director of Quest Counseling Center, in Reading,Pennsylvania, and the codeveloper of "Homosexuals Anonymous" shares his vision, burden andhope:"The call to homosexual freedom is grounded in the law of God, not in thepossibility of change. The possibility of homosexual freedom is grounded inthe cross, which leads to change.The issue is this: Is homosexuality right or wrong? The issue is faith that obeysthe call of God. When God calls us, we are not permitted to ask, 'But will it work?'We are called to move forward in faith. If I had waited to know whether a totalshift could be made by me from 6 [total homosexuality] to 0 [no homosexualresponse at all] on the Kinsey scale, I would never have moved.It does not embarrass me to say that I still experience temptation from time totime. But . . . I am not teetering on the edge of neurotic self-restraint. Thatwould be mere repression by the iron force of fear.

167When one's distorted view of the world is broken up, he perceives men andwomen in a new and different way, and temptation does not have the samemeaning anymore. Jesus alone is my true righteousness and heterosexualidentity. We never graduate from Jesus. Freedom starts with faith and endswith faith in obedience to the law of God, not frightened by our inadequacy.Jesus is our perfection. There is nothing hanging over us. So we have theboldness to live our imperfection courageously." 39THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF GODThere is no question but that there is hope for the homosexual person. Even thoughhomosexuality exerts an awful, binding power over the lives of countless men and women, thejustifying, sanctifying power—the transforming power—of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spiritof God is greater still.William Barclay spoke beautifully of this power:"The proof of Christianity lay in its power. It could take the dregs of humanity andmake men out of them. It could take men lost to shame and make them sons ofGod.There is the most amazing contrast between the pagan and the Christian literatureof the day. Seneca, a contemporary of Paul, cries out that what men want is 'ahand let down to lift them up.' 'Men,' he declared, 'are overwhelmingly consciousof their weakness in necessary things.' 'Men love their vices,' he said with a kindof despair, 'and hate them at one and the same time.' He looked at himself andcalled himself a homo non tolerabilis, a man not to be tolerated. Into this world,conscious of a tide of decadence that nothing could stop, there came the sheerradiant power of Christianity, which was indeed triumphantly able to make allthings new." 40God's power is available to all those who are bound in the grip of homosexuality. TheGod who made new creatures out of homosexuals in Paul's day can do the same today. Again itwas to the people of Corinth that He testified:"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, thenew has come!" (2 Co 5:17).

168Someone spoke to John Newton, a man who had been a slave trader and a "slave toslaves" earlier in his life, about a person he considered as a hopeless case. He had run out ofpatience and was ready to give up on him. When he shared this sense of hopelessness, JohnNewton said, "I have never despaired for any man since God saved me." We should not despairand give up on people neither. Rather we should go forward as ambassadors of God's mercy andgrace.CONCLUSION: WHOLENESSGod's perspective on human sexuality is that sex is only a part, though a very importantpart, of life. Contrary to the drumbeat of our age, it is not the be-all and end-all of humanexistence. Since God created us as sexual beings we need to see our sexuality wholly integratedinto our total being. Then, and only then, will we understand in an experiential way what Godmeant when He made the pronouncement:"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness . . .So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;male and female He created them" (Gn 1:26-27)."But for Adam no suitable helper was found.So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep;and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribsand closed up the place with flesh.Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man,and He brought her to the man.The man said,'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called'woman,' for she was taken out of man.'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,and they will become one flesh" (2:20-24).A genuine cause for reverence and celebration!

169FOOTNOTESINTRODUCTION1Time (December, 1985).2Ira Berkow, “Magic, Quayle and A Message,” Sports of the Times, New York Times(Nov. 21, 1996).3USA TODAY (May 10 & 18, 1994),4Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).5USA TODAY (May 18, 1994).6Karen Peterson, “Teens say they regret early sex,” USA TODAY (May 18, 1994), Sec.D, 1.7John Leo, “Learning to say No,” U.S. News & World Report (June 20, 1994), 24.8Janice M. Horowitz, “Bad News,” Time (12/18/2000).CHAPTER 11Sir Edward G. E. Bulwer-Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii (New York: Dodd, Meadand Company, 1946; first published 1834), 26 cited in D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe,If Jesus Had Never Been Born (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994), 123.2PhilipYancey, “The Folly of Good Intentions,” Christianity Today (October 23, 1995),96.3Philip Yancey, “Holy Sex,” Christianity Today (October, 2003), 48.4Roger Scruton, “The Sex Files,” National Review (October 12, 1998), 50.5Laura Vanderkam, “Hookups starve the soul,” The Forum, USA TODAY (July 26,2001), n. p.6Ibid.7Ibid.

1708Ibid.9Ibid.10Ibid.11Ibid.12Ibid.13Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, Vol. I (New York: Harper & Row,1975), 248.14Sherwood Wirt, The Social Conscience of the Evangelical (New York: Harper & Row,1968), 29.15Tim Dowley, ed. A Lion Handbook: The History of Christianity (Oxford: LionPublishing, 1977, rev. 1990), 67 cited in Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? 131.16Will Durant, Caesar and Christ: A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianityfrom Their Beginnings to A.D. 325 (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1944; renewed 1972), 598cited in Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, 131.17Arnold Toynbee, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire cited in McQuilkin, BiblicalEthics, 245.18Ibid.19Merrill Unger, Archeology and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishing Company, 1979), 75 cited in Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? 127.20Ibid.21Durant, Caesar and Christ, 89 cited in Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?129.22Ibid.23Pitirim Sorokin, The American Sex Revolution (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1956), 113-115.24Norman Vincent Peale, “Man, Morals, and Maturity,” 178 cited in McQuilkin, BiblicalEthics, 245.

17125Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966),114,117,127,142,128.26John Montgomery in a debate with Joseph Fletcher at San Diego State College (Feb.11,1971 reported in The Christian News (Mar. 22, 1971), 6,7 cited in Robertson McQuilkin,Biblical Ethics (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1989), 151.27Time (March 5, 1965) cited in McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 156.28“Editorial,” Christianity Today, (December, 1969), 25 cited in Kennedy, BiblicalEthics, 156.29Scruton, “The Sex Files,” National Review, 49.30Ibid., 50.31Ibid., 49.CHAPTER 21Donald Goergen, “Sexuality and Spirituality,” The Sexual Celibate (New York:Seabury Press, 1974), 125.2Dowley, A Lion Handbook: The History of Christianity, 222 cited in Kennedy, What IfJesus Had Never Been Born? 132.3Philip Yancey, “Holy Sex,” Christianity Today (October, 2003), 48.4Ibid., 48-49.5Ibid., 49.6Terry Weir, Holy Sex is cited in Christian Retailing (January 20, 2000), 24.7Jim Conway, “Cheap Sex and Precious Love,” HIS (May, 1976), 34 cited inMcQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 245.8Mark Laaser, “Breaking the Bonds of Sexual Addiction,” Caring for People God’sWay, Center for Biblical Counseling (Forest, VA: 2002), n. p.

172CHAPTER 31Derrick Sherwin Bailey, The Mystery of Love and Marriage (New York: Harper,1952), 118.2Smedes, Sex for Christians, 130.3Bailey, The Mystery of Love and Marriage, 53-54.CHAPTER 41E. J. Young, Introduction To The Old Testament, revised edition (Grand Rapids: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1958 cited in William Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbardand Frederick Bush, Old Testament Survey (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans PublishingCompany, 1981, rev. 1992), 354.2Ibid.3LaSor, Hubbard and Bush, Old Testament Survey, 609.4Ibid., 610.5Philip Yancey, “Holy Sex,” Christianity Today (October, 2003), 49.6Robert Laurin, “The Significance of the Song of Songs,” Old Testament WritingsSyllabus—B32 (Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, n. d.), 7.7Goergen, “Sexuality and Spirituality,” The Sexual Celibate, 121.8David Hubbard, “Old Testament Light on the Meaning of Marriage” (Paper), 4 cited inThe Covenant Companion Magazine (January 1 and 15, 1969), n. p.1Foster, Money, Sex and Power, 114.2Ibid., 154,155.3Ibid., 155.4Ibid., 122.CHAPTER 5

1735Richard Foster, The Freedom of Simplicity (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) citedin Goergen, “Sexuality and Singleness,” The Sexual Celibate, 132.6Heini Arnold, In the Image of God: Marriage & Celibacy in Christian Life (Rifton,NY: Plough Publishing House, 1976), 161.CHAPTER 61Michael Zadig, His (March, 1977), 7 cited in McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 203.2McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1989), 251.3Ibid.4William R. Mattox, Jr., “Aha! Call it the revenge of the church ladies,” USA TODAY(Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999), 15A.CHAPTER 71Richard Foster, Money, Sex and Power (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers,1985), 123.2Archibald Hart, The Sexual Man (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), 144-145.3Ibid., 140-141.4Ibid., 141.5Foster, Money, Sex and Power, 125.6Ibid7Foster, Money, Sex and Power, 127.CHAPTER 81Jill Haak Adels, The Wisdom of the Saints, An Anthology (London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1987), 163.

1742Smedes, Sex for Christians (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,1976), 210.3Lewis, Mere Christianity, 88-95.4Ibid.5Dennis Rigstad, “Is It Love or Lust?” Intimate Deception (Portland, OR: MultnomahPress, 1989) appeared in Psychology for Living (Rosemead: CA: Narramore ChristianFoundation) and is cited in P. Roger Hillerstrom, “Disengaging the Traps,” The Standard (May,1989), 11.6Smedes, Sex for Christians, 94.7Hart, The Sexual Man, 125.8Ibid.9Ibid.CHAPTER 9175.1Hart, The Sexual Man, 1252Charles Swindoll, “Avoiding Adultery,” As For Me and My House, 196-197.3J. Allen Peterson, The Myth of the Greener Grass (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1983),4Hart, The Sexual Man, 145.5Ibid.6James Dobson, Quality Friendship,110-111.7Hart, The Sexual Man, 164.8Paul Tournier, To Understand Each Other (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987), 46.9Ibid.

17510Hart, The Sexual Man, 146.CHAPTER 91Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) cited in New York Times(September 6, 1994), n. p.2“Homosexual Attraction is Found in 1 in 5,” New York Times (September 6, 1994).3James D. Martin, Towards a Theology of Gay Liberation, ed. Malcolm Macourt(London: SCM, 1977), 63 cited in Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 359.4Norman Pittenger, Time for Consent (London: SCM Press, 1970), 2 cited in Stott,Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 359.5Richard Lovelace, Homosexuality and The Church (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1978)cited in Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 360.6David Atkinson, Homosexuals in the Christian Fellowship (London: Latimer House,1979), 118 cited in Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 360.7C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1976), 94-95.8S. I. McMillen and David Stern, None of These Diseases (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H.Revell Company, 1963; revised 1984), 86.9B. L. Bandstra and A. D. Verhey, “Sex,” The International Standard BibleEncyclopedia, ed. by Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans PublishingCompany, 1988), 435.10Henry Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House,1927, rev. 1962), 529.11John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People inWestern Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 27 cited in Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never BeenBorn? 128.12Ibid.

17613Sorokin, Social and Cultural Cynamics, revised one-vol. edition. (Boston: PorterSargent, 1957), 494 cited in Harold O. J. Brown, “The Decline of Morality,” Edited by WilliamBentley Ball, In Search of a National Morality (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), 61.14Richard John Neuhaus, “Sorry, no sale!” Citizen (Colorado Springs: Focus on theFamily, August 15, 1994), 2.15Ibid., 3.16Ibid.17Ibid.18Ibid.19Ibid.20Robert L. Wilken, “Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the ChristianEra to the Fourteenth Century” cited in Neuhaus, Citizen, 4.21Ibid.22Ibid.23Ibid.24Ibid.25Ibid.26Ibid.27Ibid.28Ibid.29Ibid.30Ibid.31“Sometimes a Bunch of Baloney Can Be Very Tempting,” Pamphlet published by theWestern Regional Fellowship of ED, n.d. cited in McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 259.

17732Wright, “Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality,” Encyclopedia of EarlyChristian Tradition (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990), n. p.33Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (New York:Longmans, Green, 1955), 338-340.34John Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell,1993), 339.35Ibid.36Mel White, Stranger at the Gate (Plume, 1995), 49-50.37Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Tradition (Harlow, Eng: Longmans,Green, 1955), 27 cited in Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 340.38Ibid.39Ibid.CHAPTER 111Neuhaus, Citizen, 2-3.2Pittenger, Time for Consent: A Christian’s Approach to Homosexuality, 31-33.3Ibid.4Ibid.5Ibid.6Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1980), 91-118.7Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983 reprint), 42.8Milton Helpern cited in Marshall Houts, Where Death Delights (New York: Coward-McCann, 1967) cited in John MacArthur, Jr. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary,Romans 1-8 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 106.

1789Bob Greene, “Society’s Been Given Far Too Much Rope,” Chicago Tribune (March19, 1981), sec. 2, 1cited in MacArthur, Jr. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Romans1-8, 106.10“Teenage Sex: Letting the Pendulum Swing,” Time, Vol. 100, No. 8 (August 21,1972), 34-40.11Ibid.12Ibid.13Ibid.14R. Kent Hughes, Romans (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1991), 46.15Pittenger, Time For Consent, 31-33 cited in Stott, Decisive Issues Facing ChristiansToday, 350.16Letha Scanzoni and Viriginia Mollenkott, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? AnotherChristian View (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) cited in McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 259,260and in J. R. Spangler, “Homosexual Healing,” Ministry (September, 1981), 14.17Roget’s International Thesaurus (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1953), 532.18C. A. Tripp, The Homosexual Matrix cited in “Homosexual Healing,” Ministry(September, 1981), 10.19Donald J. West, Homosexuality, Third Edition (New York: Duckworth, 1968), 15.cited in John Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 357.20Ibid.21Armand Nicholi, Jr. “Human Sexuality: A Psychiatric and Biblical Perspective,” Godand Culture edited by D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing Company, 1993), 348.22John Money, Perspectives in Human Sexuality (New York Behavioral Publications,1974), 67 cited in Joe Dallas, Desires in Conflict (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1991),91.23Masters, Brown and Kolodny, Human Sexuality (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,1984), 319-320 cited in Dallas, Desires in Conflict, 91.

17924John DeCecco (editor), Journal of Homosexuality cited in USA TODAY (March 1,1989), 4D.25J. R. Spangler,“Homosexual Healing,” Ministry (September, 1981), 5.26Elizabeth Moberly, Psychogenesis and Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic(Cambridge, Eng: James Clarke, 1983), 52 cited in The Exodus Standard (San Rafael, CA: Fall,1985) and in John Stott, Homosexual Partnerships? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), 26.27Ibid.28Dallas, Desires in Conflict, 92.29Nicholi, Jr. “Human Sexuality: A Psychiatric and Biblical Perspective,” God andCulture, 348-349.30Ibid.31Ibid.32Frank Siexas, former Director of the National Council on Alcoholism, quoted in theBoston Globe (August 8, 1983) cited in Dallas, Desires in Conflict, 90.33Dr. Herman van Praag quoted in New York Times (October 8, 1985) cited in Dallas,Desires in Conflict, 91.34Nicholi, Jr. “Human Sexuality: A Psychiatric and Biblical Perspective,” God andCulture edited by Carson and Woodbridge, 354.35Ibid., 350.36McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 257.37Jr. R. Spangler, “Homosexual Healing,” Ministry, 10.38His (October, 1963), 25.39J. R. Spangler, “Homosexual Healing,” Ministry, 12.40Raoul Dederen, “Homosexuality: A Biblical Perspective,” Ministry (Sept., 1981), 13.41William Barclay, The Letters to The Corinthians (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,1956), 60.

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