My sister Jeanine tells me that she never really
understood what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek until she came out.
She says she never really had to show grace—unmerited favor and regard—toward
people who hate her until she discovered she was suddenly the despised “other.”
What did the hating look like? Excommunication. Bullying. Religious
double-speak such as “we love you unconditionally, but…” Hearing her long term,
monogamous relationship and her beloved described as an abomination, and worse,
all “in the name of Jesus.”
Coming out in an exclusive, shaming Christian
world is the very means by which she has had to wrestle with and choose, again
and again to pray Jesus’ prayer: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We have talked about the irony of this turn of
events a lot over the years, partly because I am a theologian and she is a
therapist. We know from our own journeys and from our work in tending hearts
and souls, that what passes as teaching on human sexuality in most churches is
woefully incomplete and often just plain wrong. The problem, we think, is that
the wrong set of questions shapes the discussion. Are you homo (bad) or hetero
(good)? Having sex with anyone besides your own spouse (bad)? Married (good) or
single (highly suspect)? These questions are too simplistic and too dualistic.
They assume too much and ask too little.
It is past time to ask new, better questions
about sexual virtue and sexual vice. The springboard for the new questions is
not genitalia but imago Dei, the inherent sanctity and dignity of human life.
The homo that has our attention is homo sapiens.
Do we understand ourselves and others as human beings made in the image of God?
The question of sexual orientation that concerns
us is not whether people are hetero but are vehemens, having an orientation
toward violence.
I believe sexual vice is behavior that in some
way does violence to self or others sexually. This kind of vice can be physical
or verbal, and as Jesus reminds us, mental and emotional. It is always
spiritual. Abstinance from sexual vice is far more challenging than resisting
fornication.
Sexual vice is sinful first and foremost because
it violates, exploits, objectifies, manipulates, takes advantage of, and uses
human beings. It treats humans made in the image of God, as commodities.
Sometimes sexual vice is carried out to give pleasure to the perpetrator of the
sin. Often it is an act in which domination is the goal, rather than sex per
se. Sexualizing others, internet bullying around sexuality, sexual abuse of all
kinds, sexual domestic violence…these are just a few of the possible sexual
sins. So much of the fruit of sexual vice is sexual self-loathing, self harm,
and self deception about one’s sexuality.
Sexual sin goes on all the time within the bonds
of marriage including rape, sexual shaming, forced marriage between little
girls and grown men in some cultures, and many other dehumanizing actions.
Violence against sexual minorities because of
their sexuality is yet another area of sexual sin.
Corporate sexual sin is the name of the game in
the advertising industry that objectifies and exploits the bodies of women and
little girls to sell everything from jeans to plumbing. Ditto for the
entertainment industry in which entire television programs are built around
shaming women’s bodies. There is the cancerous, lucrative, soul-destroying
universe of porn which feeds on images of human bodies, and yes, real humans
are harmed in the making of porn.
Sexual sin objectifies and stereotypes men
through cultural norms and expectations that reward the bifurcation of emotion
from sexual activity, and that sexualize men to the point that every man is
viewed as a potential sexual predator.
In light of sexual sin as a violent orientation,
what then is sexual virtue? Is it not a deep integrity, respectfulness, and
authenticity in how one lives one’s sexuality? Does it not begin with a
fundamental respect for one’s identity as someone made in the image of God and
then extend outward to other persons? Is it not inherently reverent of embodiedness?
Sexual virtue neither begins nor ends with
genitalia, but with fully accepting, loving, and wisely stewarding our whole,
embodied life as human beings. It begins with a deep commitment to the
theological concept of imago Dei and loving one’s neighbor as oneself. It grows
with a daily commitment to first do no harm and second, do all the good we can
to ourselves, our neighbors, and our enemies.
If we will address sexual virtue and sexual vice
with a new and better set of questions, we will find our way out of the morass
of violence against the sexual “other.” We will be able to move forward
into a deeper, more human and ultimately more holy understanding of embodiment.
We will become better practitioners of sexual virtue.
Elaine A. Heath, Ph.D., M.Div.
Co-Founder, Academy Director | Missional Wisdom
Foundation
McCreless Professor of Evangelism, SMU Perkins School of Theology
Dr. Elaine Heath is a visionary leader and
theologian, a mystic, an instigator, and passionate believer in the power of
the Holy Spirit. Elaine is the initiator of New Day and the Epworth Project,
which are networks of new monastic, missional communities in the Dallas/Ft.
Worth Metroplex. She holds a B.A. in English, Oakland University, a Masters of
Divinity from Ashland Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. Theology from Duquesne
University. Dr Heath is an elder of the United Methodist Church.
