COMMENTARY: Sex and the never-ending Christian adolescence

Thank you, Rev. Erich. Your article was truly encouraging. I wish more Christians would follow the teachings of Jesus instead of looking for the insult or policing their neighbors. If you had been my preacher, I might have a different opinion of the church.

Rev. Erich, I sympathize with your statements concerning the hypocrisy present in the Church, and as a Catholic I am very sensitive to the distinct lack of likeness to Christ that Christians (including myself) often display. That being said, I think there are some significant problems with the core implications of your commentary.

You assert that Christians who oppose abortion don’t really have concern for life, and you provide a really poor list of “proofs”. These statements are generalizations that likely say more about your personal viewpoints than they do about the Christians you are criticizing. I know a number of Christians who are adamant that abortion in any form is wrong, and still hold viewpoints that likely are similar to yours on some the issues you raise. Some of these same Christians walked step by step with our family as my spouse and I both struggled with addictions, and have helped support us for years in our sobriety. Among these Christians some are also adamantly against the death penalty, and some have loving but passionate debates about the justifiability of warfare (I witnessed one of these two nights ago). Christian’s holding the views you are criticizing are more diverse than you would like to acknowledge, and I’m sure my experience is not unique.

You also seem to be implicitly arguing that these Christians are hypocrites and therefore the views they hold on abortion and homosexuality should be dismissed as patently false and obvious bullying. I would suggest that even if your points about the hypocrisy of these Christians are granted that such a conclusion does not logically follow. Surely you have met people that are upset and angry about genocide in one part of the world, but perhaps support one of America’s military interventions (I have certainly met such people). You might suggest to them that you feel their views are inconsistent, but surely you wouldn’t imply that they are wrong to oppose genocide. Taking it one step further, lets say a group of people publicly opposed a genocidal war but only because it interrupted trade to America and raised the cost of common commodities. Obviously their view on this war wouldn’t have life as one of its concerns, but their shamefully placed priorities wouldn’t invalidate the fact that genocide is an issue concerning human life and that it is an evil.

I certainly agree with your points concerning the lack of charity and love present in many Christians. As American Christians we possess a truly vast wealth, and we often use it frivolously and selfishly. It would be a truly insulated life for someone to not personally know many people who are suffering in a variety of ways, and yet we often show cursory or no concern for those individuals. Jesus explicitly binds our salvation to our love for God and for others, so without a doubt our lack of charity and forgiveness will just as readily destroy our own souls. I was struck recently by this quote from St. John Chrysostom, a beloved father of the Church:

“The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.”

This quote has prompted my wife and I to begin re-evaluating how we are using what we have been given, because we are surely using the goods of others. I would appreciate your prayers that we will come out of that process being more faithful to the imperatives of God, and I appreciate your heart and zeal for those who are suffering. I can learn much from you there I am sure.

I surely don’t agree with you in your views on abortion, and likely we have fairly substantial differences in our views on the validity of homosexual marriages as well. I would encourage you to step back and divorce the issues from the hypocrisies (which we all possess) of others, and deal with the issues themselves. There are strong arguments that abortion is indeed an issue of human life, and the fact that many of us are inconsistent, struggling with sin, and still learning how to love properly doesn’t invalidate that.

I agree there does seem to be an overwhelming preoccupation with Sex from an adolescent style viewpoint! Mature, loving, consensual, sensual Sex is totally ignored. I think it is interesting that Hinduism wrote a whole book about Sex and it’s many delights, and recognized that the ecstasy of orgasm can bring one close to God, as in a sacramental act! Many Christians, and especially Catholic Bishops seem permanently stuck in Puritanical mode.

Its not like you are going to bother seeing Christian views on abortion and contraception as anything relating to the women who bear the pregnancies. In all of their discussion, no consideration is ever given to the person who has the burden of bearing a child. The whole point of such stances is to minimize the woman, insult her, patronize her and ultimately control how she lives.

The whole gist of a pro-life argument is that the speaker is on such an allegedly moral high position that they have a god given right to make decisions for other people. No matter how private they are.

I believe Rev. Erich explained the connection between abortion and the obsession with sex thusly: “We claim to care about life, but our views on abortion aren’t about life; they are about women’s freedom to have sex or to be independent.” There’s the misguided belief among some Christians that if you limit women’s access to abortion, or deny it altogether, and they subsequently have to carry all pregnancies to term, they’ll be less likely to engage in pre-marital sex. In this view, pregnancy to term is the punishment, and abortion is like a “get out of jail free” card. Take away the card, and wanton women will be chaste! So goes the theory…

I learned what the abortion debate was really about in my first year out of grad school, teaching the standard general education “applied ethics” course–the abortion-euthanasia-discrimination-yada-yada course.

During class discussion one student said she wanted to defend a “moderate position”: every woman should be allowed one, and only one, abortion. Why? Because stuff happens and one unplanned pregnancy could be accidental. Contraception isn’t perfect. If a woman got pregnant accidentally more than once it was most likely because she and her boyfriend weren’t “being responsible” i.e. weren’t careful about using appropriate contraception. In such cases they should they should bear the consequences of their irresponsibility in the form of an unwanted child.

I was appalled. But many students agreed. I’m not even sure that their opposition to abortion, or at least serial abortion, was about controlling women so much as the idea that both men and women should be forced to bear the consequences for being “irresponsible.”

And expensive.