Moving Beyond Evangelical Sexual Fundamentalism

Although Colon and Field do not describe it in these terms, what they address in their Lust and Avoidance chapter is a certain kind of evangelical sexual fundamentalism that reduces all sexuality and sexual drive to eros and genital fulfillment.  Not all evangelicals are sexual "fundamentalists" but many evangelical communities embrace it. 

This is something to really ponder:

"If you look at the messages singles receive regarding relationships between men and women, is it any wonder that we have so much trouble connecting, even as friends?  When Christian singles are repeatedly warned to avoid all temptation from the opposite sex, how are they supposed to get to know each other, let alone develop a relationship deep enough to lead to marriage?"

Another dangerous message singles receive in the evangelical church:

If you are celibate, you are not sexual.

"When all sexual desire outside of marriage is seen as lust, singles are viewed as either immoral or asexual.  The assumptions tend to be that either Christian singles are filled with uncontrollable desires and must marry as soon as possible, or they have been given 'the gift of celibacy' and no longer have any desires at all."  They quote Joshua Harris asserting to singles that unless God has removed one's desire for sex, one is supposed to get married. 

Colon and Field respond to this.  They believe this is problematic at two levels:

1. The first is the belief that God bases his callings on our desires.

" Imagine for a moment a married Christian assuming that God wants him or her to be single because he or she no longer wants to be married. "

2.  The second is the belief that we are not sexual beings unless we have sex.

"We are all sexual beings, and to some extent, most of us have sexual desires.  Unfortunately, we too often accept the secular world's message that these desires cannot be controlled.  In the evangelical community, this often leads to disturbing messages about lust and temptation.  Christian singles are told to avoid everything that might make us stumble, to be extremely careful in our interactions with those of the opposite sex, to pursue marriage tenaciously so that we finally have an outlet for our desires, and to deny that we are sexual beings until we are married.  Not only does this approach fail to recognize God's power to help single adults resist sexual temptation, but it also fails to acknowledge that sexual temptations do not disappear once you marry." 

My response to this kind of sexual "fundamentalism" Colon and Field are addressing reduces all embodied sexuality and sexual desires to eros and genital fulfillment.  In this view of sexuality, the "one-flesh" marital bond satisfies our deepest sexual yearnings.  For example, (I could pick out hundreds of examples from typical evangelical books on marriage) Lewis Smedes uses the language of the "total experience of love," or how the sexual act is the "complete sexual experience."  When evangelicals use the grammar of "complete" and "total" to describe the male-female sexual experience they ironically reduce sexuality and sexual desire to a fundamentalistic parts and plumbing sexuality.  As Colon and Field (as well as some other thinkers) observe, this creates tremendous relational problems, challenges, pressures, and frustrations for unmarried men and women who are sexual beings.  This also creates huge relational roadblocks and discouragements for married individuals to form and sustain intimate friendships with the opposite sex. 

This brand of sexual fundamentalism in our faith communities reduces meaningful, passionate, life-giving communion or union, to just the male-female sex union in a marital relationship in contemporary relationships.  For centuries though, Christians believed there was an intentional union or communion-bond between saints outside or beyond marriage.  This was true for same-sex or cross-sex friendship.  Fourteenth century Franciscan Bernardino of Siena described deep bonds at his friend's funeral:  

"He was always so closely united to me and loved me with all his soul.  In religion he was an older brother to me; in love he was another self." 

This fundamentalism (as has been noted here on faith dance) leads to all kinds of fears of relating too close to the opposite sex, getting too close with our bodies, getting too emotionally close, etc.--for both singles and for married individuals who want to relate to individuals of the opposite sex outside of marriage.  Colon and Field point to author Matt Schmucker who counsels a single man should not do anything with a single woman that a married man should not to do with a woman who is not his wife.  This includes, "sharing a meal, meeting for a cup of coffee, and having extended conversations about each other's lives." 

Colon and Field ask, "Given that so many people find erotic overtones to sharing coffee and conversation, are we surprised that so many singles are faced not only with the confusion of whether to date not but also with loneliness and a lack of Christian community?"

Stanley Grenz among others, gives us a deeper vision of sexuality to move beyond this form of sexual fundamentalism.  He states, "Although marriage emerges in the second creation narrative as the primal relationship, it is by no means the only male-female relationship.  Their fundamental maleness and femaleness impels persons to come together in the many relationships that characterize the human community." 

He furthermore helps us when he suggests that there is an important distinction between sexual desire and desire for sex.  "Sexual desire" he writes, " refers to the need we all share to experience wholeness and intimacy through relationships with others.  It relates to the dimension often called eros, the human longing to possess or be possessed by the object of one's sexual desire.  Understood in this way, eros ought not be limited to genital sexual acts, but encompasses a broad range of human actions and desires, and it participates in the religious dimension of life in the form of desire to know and be known by God.  For many people the desire for sex, the longing to express one's sexuality through genital acts (venus), is psychologically inseparable from sexual desire.  Nevertheless for the development of true sexual maturity, a person must come to terms with the difference between these two dimensions and learn to separate them both in one's own psychological state and in overt action."  

Understanding this distinction opens the door for abundant life, healing, union, communion in the vast area of male-female relationality situated between platonic friendship/acquaintance and marriage.   Friendship between men and women--including singles and married--opens "up new spaces for affection, tenderness, fidelity, camaraderie, and companionship and so reveals the emotional emptiness of the tyranny of sexuality." Jeremy Carette in Religion and Culture

Comments

[Julie]

Dan,
I've been reading your posts for a while and they've prompted several questions. First, do you believe there's such a thing as emotional adultery? Just because we don't cross a line physically doesn't mean a relationship isn't inappropriate.
Second, shouldn't the boundaries for singles be different than for those who are married? A single person doesn't belong to anyone else and therefore has more freedom in relationships. But, a married person belongs to his or her spouse. Any relationship that threatens or hinders the marital bond again seems inappropriate.
Third, how do the relationships you advocate appear to the world? I Thess. 5:22 instructs us to "abstain from all appearance of evil." If these extra-marital cross-gender relationships raise eyebrows for believers, what must they communicate to the world?
I'm sure these questions are nothing you haven't already considered. But, I'd appreciate knowing how you answer them. Thanks.

[Maria Kirby]

Dan,
I have observed that the people you are describing have difficulties relating to emotions in general. For them, the hint of unwanted feelings is the equivalent of sin, therefore they do their best to control their feelings. However, instead of managing their feelings so as to prevent sin, they end up suppressing their feelings, making it much more likely that they will act out their hidden desires and rage.

Bring our feelings to the light in constructive ways, allows us to explore our needs and hurts, to lay them at the alter for Christ to fulfill them in his time and his way. Being vulnerable, honest in community, keeps us from sin through encouragement and their gift of love.

[Dan]

Hey Julie,

Thank you for your questions and interest! Wow. Okay, let me give you a brief response.

The short answer to your first question is absolutely yes! My long answer to your first question is it depends on how one defines "emotional adultery." For instance some evangelicals like Dennis Rainey asserts that emotional adultery is "an intimacy with the opposite sex outside of marriage."

Could we reach a universal Christian consensus that an expressed intimate vulnerability or one's inner world is, in fact, morally prohibited by a committed, loyal, faithful relationship? And for the moment, let's just not divide this along genders. I don't think emotional vulnerability, disclosure, or even "attachment" has to be in all cases, a betrayal of the intimacy of a committed, faithful, intimate, marital relationship.
Emotional adultery is not based on physical acts as you observe, but on crossing the lines of deep emotional fidelity within marital intimacy. Why would emotional depth, disclosure, or even an "emotional commitment" to the opposite sex betray fidelity?

Is it possible it could support fidelity? Good loyal friends can be very supportive of their friend's marriage.

A rather interesting thing to think about is this: What would it have meant for a first century Jewish wife who was faithful to her husband and family--a Jewish wife--to have heard a single Jewish man say, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls."

Second question: Boundaries for singles who want to date, who want to seek a marital mate would indeed be different than those are married. At the same time however, it is still a sin for a single individual to lust after someone of the opposite sex. Lust is not just a sin for those who are married. Along these same lines, those singles who are committed to celibacy they are committed to chaste relationships. So they would choose to stay away from certain behaviors that would correspond with a level of commitment towards a marital union. But that commitment to celibacy would not prohibit from them going deep in friendship with the opposite sex.

A single person may feel free to dream and fantasize about a married future with someone from the opposite sex. A married individual must absolutely refuse to fall into the grass is greener on the other side when it comes to emotional primacy. A married individual could not follow the same imaginative path of a single. Two different kinds of intimacies--but ordered in mind, body, and hope.

For the married individual, it would be working out what it means to be committed to a "network of preferential loves" with one's spouse as the highest priority and highest preferential love. There is a lot of emotional richness and depth within ordered preferential loves without falling into an unhealthy emotional-relational dynamics. Its not the absence of passion that signifies unhealthy dynamics in opposite friendships (contra evangelical sexual fundamentalists like Rainey) but the disorder of love in preferential loves. I would agree with you that any relationship that threatens the marital bond is inappropriate. Certainly there is a sexual exclusivity that must be guarded, cherished, and nurtured within marriage.

Your third question, must have a Gospel-centered imaginative response. That verse has been used by Christians in past centuries to keep social order in communities--justification for slavery, racial segregation/behaviors, etc. It has also been used by fundamentalist Christians to insist Christians avoid alcohol, dancing, certain dress codes, movies, etc. Its interesting Julie to see the parallels between cross-gender friendship today and conservative Christian responses to unchaperoned dating among Christians 100 years ago.

Actually, the "world's" response is not at all black and white--incredibly diverse and complex. In the early church, Christian men and women called each other "brother" and "sister" and pagans accused them of incest and immorality as a result. Yet, the Christan story stood for a different interpretation of their community and behaviors.

[Dan]

Hi Maria Kirby,

Thanks for your comments! I think you are spont on!

[Jennifer]

Julie,

I know I'm a little late on this, but I just read your comment. I hope you're still reading along.

I am a married woman and a seminary student and most of my peers are men (mostly married, but not all.) It has been such a joy to me to form close, even vulnerable relationships with some of them. We have quiet, private conversations where we dream, pray, debate, share, and even say difficult intimate things for the sake of each other's growth - all the things that emotional bonds are made out of. I love their presence in my life. We go to coffee, and go on walks, and do normal friend-stuff. Emotionally connetected relationships? Very much so. Emotional affairs? No. My husband recognizes the place they have in my life (and my heart) and blesses it because it makes me a better person.

I know that male-female friendship is hard to imagine if you've not seen good examples of it, but I'm living it in many areas of my life, and am so blessed by the presence of my male friends.