Sexual Virtue

An Approach to Contemporary Christian Ethics

Richard W. McCarty

• Editorial: SUNY Press
• Año: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781438454306
• Categoría: Théologie et religion
• Categoría: Sexualité et genre dans la religion

Richard W. McCarty offers a compassionate and inclusive conception of sexual virtue, one that liberates Christians from traditional patriarchal requirements for heterosexuality, marriage, and procreation. Daring to depart from ongoing debates about what Aristotle or Aquinas had to say, this book sets a new course centered on virtue ethics. It employs new insights from the sciences, biblical scholarship, analyses of church traditions, and revisionist natural law thinking. Eschewing simple deconstruction of traditional Christian norms for sexual morality, McCarty offers constructive ideas about what might count as real human goods for people in a wide variety of sexual relationships. Recreation, relational intimacy, and selective acts of procreation are three ends of sexual virtue that promote human happiness and can be appreciated in a broad Christian framework. While primarily referencing the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition, McCarty's work is also vital and accessible to those from Protestant backgrounds. Addressed to LGBT and straight readers, Sexual Virtue provides a compassionate sexual ethics for our time.

Part I

Getting Situated

One

Sexual Positions

Twists and Turns

… once the erotophobic Christian ideologies were removed, the other resources were able to become powerful tools for recognizing the original blessing of sexuality.

—Robert Shore-Goss

Traditionalists Versus Sexual Liberation

Whenever the call for change includes reform to codes of sexual morality, there is almost always resistance. In our time we especially hear this resistance coming from particular and well-established traditionalist Christian leaders and institutions. Appeals to the Bible, to church teaching, and to nature have all been used to prop up the argument that sex is only for marriage, narrowly defined as between a man and a woman, with a strong emphasis on procreation. Christians who hold to this norm are convinced that it alone allows sexual activity to realize sexual virtue. Admittedly, it is not difficult for such Christian traditionalists to accessorize this view with examples and arguments from antiquity, attempting to show us that “this is the way it has always been.” Such Christians usually insist that the heterosexual and marital norm is a sacred and well-preserved tradition, warning that any departure from it is a dangerous step on a slippery slope toward sexual and social anarchy. When one listens carefully to their concerns, there is no question that these religious traditionalists appear ready to fight to keep this the norm not only for themselves or their given religious communities, but for all people.

With a particular view of sexuality and morality in mind, a confederation of resistance cells in this country (and elsewhere) wage a struggle that they call a “culture war.” They do so under the banners of “traditional morality” and “defending the traditional family.” This they champion, not only in their churches, but also in society through ballot measures or acts of legislation. They tell us that the heterosexual and marital norm was established by God, affirmed by Christ, and therefore is not only good for personal morality, but for the ordering of society through law. Never mind that American democracy is constitutional (not theocratic), this religiously informed norm, they say, is the standard of sexual morality (and thus virtue) for all people.¹

The facts, however, get in the way of their narrative.

The heterosexual and marital norm was actually not the preferred definition of sexual morality for many Christians. History clearly demonstrates that a number of the early Christian movements grew in the direction of sexual asceticism.² This fostered deeply negative views not only about sexual activity, but sexual desire as well—especially the desire for sexual pleasure. There is a certain irony, then, when some Christians (today) praise heterosexual marriage as the grounding of good society, or the place to fulfill “God-given” sexual desires. What many of them do not know is that they stand apart from a number of their Christian predecessors. To some early Christian leaders, today’s traditionalists would likely seem sexually permissive.³

For example, when St. Gregory of Nyssa interpreted the biblical Eden narrative (Genesis 2–3), the theologian argued that sexuality was alien to the human creature before the “fall” of humankind into sin. As Phil Sherrard describes it, Gregory believed that life before the fall was defined by “immortality and incorruptibility”; and thus St. Gregory assumed that “the presence of these two qualities [required] the absence of sexuality.”⁴ In Gregory’s view, the perfect image of God in the human being could not also include a sexual dimension. But this ancient Christian ideal is remarkably absent when we contrast it with many contemporary Christian views on marriage and family, including conservative Christian views. For example, Focus on the Family (a conservative evangelical American-based ministry) goes so far as to declare that God “made” sex for humans. In one advice column, Focus on the Family celebrates sexuality this way:

God created it—sex is remarkably sacred and ultimately about seeking that which God made us for. We must understand that God’s interest in human sexuality is so much more than merely making sure people behave themselves. … God, and those who follow Him, take sex very seriously, and the Christian picture of sexuality is much more serious, vibrant, and well … sexy … than any other view held in the larger culture. As a result it’s far more fulfilling.⁵

This conservative evangelical teaching is very far removed from St. Gregory of Nyssa. What is more, even contemporary Vatican teachings disagree with Gregory about the nature of human sexuality. What this example reveals, then, is that Christians (even conservative Christians) have a track record of revising views on human sexuality, given different theological or moral perspectives.⁶

And so, while many contemporary traditionalists claim to defend “Christian sexual morality”—as if it is one monolithic thing—it is more accurate to say that the definition of sexual morality has always been in an ongoing state of redefinition. That is not to say that longstanding views on sexual virtue failed to develop and remain in place. They did. However, it would be incorrect to suggest that Christians have only ever agreed on one definition of sexual morality. When we pull back the covers on just some of the sexual norms and practices in Christian history, what we find will likely encourage us to reassess our assumptions and expectations about sexual morality, as well as our definitions of sexual virtue. What is more, when we take a short look at what used to be prevailing Christian views on sexual morality it may very well give some people the permission that they need to ask critical questions about certain teachings today.

I invite us, then, to make a short side trip through history. It will be selective, and it will be brief. It will not include everything in the archives that one might include. But it will nevertheless demonstrate that amending religious and moral teachings about sexuality is not of itself alien to Christianity. In fact, when we take a closer look into these issues, I would wager that a good number of today’s Christians (both traditionalist and progressive) will be glad that their predecessors went about the business of redefining sexual morality.

An Unfortunate Truth: Christianity’s Legacy of Sexual Suspicion

Christian concern for sexual morality has been present ever since groups began organizing around the teachings of Jesus. For example, between the years 55 and 57 CE, a convert to the way of Jesus wrote to a Christian community in the city of Corinth. His name was Paul. He told the Christians of Corinth that in light of some “impending crisis” and “the passing away of this present world,” it was best for them not to marry, unless they were aflame with sexual passion. He even told them that it was better to be a virgin, or become celibate, as he was (or had become).⁷ Within the same set of years, this Paul would write to another Christian community, this time to a group of Christians in Rome. He wrote that polytheism had disordered God’s creation. He cited the example of polytheistic men and women going “in excess of their nature” by engaging in unnatural sex acts (whatever those turned out to be) as well as same-sex activities (which in first century Rome often included rape and/or the instrumental sexual use of slaves and prostitutes).⁸ Within these letters (and others), Paul also warned Christians to avoid “sexual immorality,” but without ever providing a detailed explanation of what qualified sexual vice from sexual virtue. Centuries later, these letters were canonized as scripture and Christians were charged with the difficult task of interpreting them well.⁹

Paul was not the only early Christian to weigh in on sexual matters in an ascetic leaning way. As the religion and sexuality scholar Rosemary Radford Ruether has well documented: some second and third-century Christian leaders taught that marriage (and thus marital sex) was actually a threat to the Christian lifestyle. The theologian Tatian is notable. In 150 CE, Tatian converted and studied under the influential theologian Justin Martyr. In his own ministry, Tatian began teaching that true Christians must renounce sexual activity in order to be baptized and to walk best in the way of Christ. Tatian’s teachings were not out of place among his contemporaries in the various Christian sects. With Tatian, many other Christian teachers denigrated sexual desire and assigned sexual activity no place (or low place) in the Christian life.¹⁰

The early centuries of Christianity were certainly a peculiar time for Christian views on sexual morality. But they were also a tumultuous period in which a wide range of theological differences between the various Christian movements sponsored competition for legitimacy and authority. Some of these became recognized as “orthodox” (meaning, of the right belief). The “others” were labeled as heterodox or heretics, teaching outside of the authorized tradition. The scholarship of Ruether (and others) shows us that when we step into the third and fourth centuries, a number of “orthodox” teachers were addressing the moral and religious status of sexuality in the Christian life. One such theologian, Clement of Alexandria, said that sexual activity did have a place in the Christian life, but only insofar as it was ordered toward procreation early in marriage, and then with “dignified motions” (whatever those turned out to be).¹¹ He even encouraged Christians to give up sexual activity as marriage progressed in years so that the spouses might better contemplate God.¹² The idea that sex—in and of itself—somehow disrupts a person’s relationship with God might seem unsubstantiated now, but its broad acceptance by early orthodox church leaders fertilized the ground that would grow the tradition of required celibacy for religious leaders.

Within this current of sexual asceticism the influential theologian Augustine emerged. As part of his legacy, Augustine solidified a low view of sex as the preferred Christian view. After engaging in a life of sexual hedonism in his early adulthood, as well as exploring a number of religious and philosophical traditions, Augustine converted to Christianity and pursued the life of a cleric and theologian. He too found sexual desire—and much about sexual activity—to be a thorn in the side of Christian living. In his authoritative role as a bishop, Augustine affirmed that the best Christian life was the one lived in virginity and celibacy. But he could not bring himself to deny that procreation was a natural good in God’s creation, and so he named it the “one worthy fruit” of intercourse, even if sexual activity was motivated by less than righteous sexual desires. Augustine provided space for the married-sexual life, but awarded it second place in the “kingdom of God.”

At the same time, Augustine evaluated marital companionship a very good thing insofar as it provided social order (albeit, patriarchal order) and mutual care between spouses. Nevertheless, the theologian still insisted that those who pursue marriage do so—in particular—because they cannot control their sinful sexual desires for sensual pleasure. Indeed, the writings of Augustine even imagine a world in which all are celibate: bringing the generations of the human race to an end and Christ’s return hastened. But this ideal, he realized, would not likely resonate with the lived experiences of most people. Therefore, Augustine maintained celibacy and marital procreation as the paradigm of sexual morality for the Christian community. His view was upheld as orthodox teaching among members of the emerging church hierarchy. Indeed, Augustine’s marital norm and procreative priority have been preserved in many Christian communities to this day.¹³

Drawing on the teachings of Augustine and theologians like him, the tradition of clerical celibacy was championed by many in the church hierarchy. Although it was resisted by many priests (and their wives!), required clerical celibacy was formalized in the twelfth century.¹⁴ In 1139 the First Lateran Council established that priestly ordination was a sacrament that could be received only in celibacy.¹⁵ As a result, the belief was institutionalized in Western Christianity that the holiest people cannot also be sexual people. Yes, the church continued to allow for married, sexual lives among the laity, but such people were not regarded with the same measure of spiritual purity as those who remained virgins, or celibate. For them, sex was indeed dirty.

The medieval scholar and theologian Thomas Aquinas pushed back a bit on this enduring sexual asceticism by reframing sexual pleasure and activity as natural to the human condition—albeit as part of our “lower” nature. Sex (and sexual pleasure), Aquinas said, participated in our animal nature and required reason and church teaching to be well ordered.¹⁶ However, he could not deny his predecessors’ teachings that human sinfulness permeated all things, including sexuality. As a result, he taught that sexual desire was especially difficult to chastise, and that sexual virtue was practiced (when engaged in genital contact) only by married partners who ordered sexual desires and activity in such a way that procreation was not contravened. Aquinas’s fellow scholastic theologians agreed, and subsequent manuals on sexual morality further secured the procreative norm (or celibacy) as a matter of attending well to Christian sexual morality.

Thus, in its first millennium of formation, institutional Christianity was clearly dominated by an evolving synthesis of sexual asceticism and what we would now call heteronormativity. It fixed a notion in many Christian minds that sexual desire and activity are especially related to sin, potentially scandalous, and in need of severe restraint—whether by celibacy or obedience to the marital/procreative norm. In short, the Christian narrative for sexual morality idealized celibacy and tolerated heterosexual marriage, so long as the goal of procreation redeemed the “immodest” pleasures of sex. Apart from these options, all other forms of sexual expression and relationships were regarded (by the church) as unnatural and sinful. And by certain civil standards, “unnatural” sex acts were punishable by death.¹⁷

Against the celibate church hierarchy the Protestant Reformation would rise, but even the Reformation did not wrest sexual shame and suspicion away from church teachings. Sixteenth-century Protestant reformers such as Luther and Calvin were willing to challenge the tradition of clerical celibacy, and yet they largely preserved procreation as the moral norm of sexual activity. They would even retain a number of suspicions about sex as spiritually polluting.¹⁸ In fact, it would not be until 1930 that certain Protestant denominations would begin to officially consider contraception as an exercise of prudence, freeing people to consider other valuable reasons for engaging in sexual activity.¹⁹ Where Protestants took the lead on contraceptive use, some Catholic theologians hoped to follow. In 1963, a special commission was appointed by Pope John XXIII to study contraception.²⁰ Many of those appointed to this commission came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church should also permit the use of some contraceptives by married couples, as a matter of family planning.²¹ But the hierarchy of the Catholic Church would ultimately disagree.²²

The Vatican reacted strongly against contraceptive-using Christians, declaring through papal encyclicals (and other official statements) that procreation was still the finality of sexual union that had to be respected and pursued only in sanctioned marriages.²³ But even as official Roman Catholic teachings on sexual morality rejected artificial birth control, the Catholic Church did accept that marital love is a valid end to pursue in sexual relations—but only as an indissoluble end with procreation.²⁴ The Catholic Church would even learn to accept natural family planning (i.e., the rhythm method) as a way for couples to enjoy sexual intimacy at a time when conception is not likely. Namely, the church (now) accepts that God designed the natural rhythms of fertility and infertility, in the ovulation cycle, such that heterosexual spouses can plan when to enjoy sexual activity for its contribution to marital intimacy (and not reproduction), while at the same time avoiding a “contraceptive will.”

But contraception would be j...

Índice

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: To Reclaim Sexual Virtue
• Part I: Getting Situated
• Part II: A Moral Framework of Virtue
• Part III: Religious Sources of Moral Authority
• Part IV: Ends of Sexual Virtue
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover