I agree with the theory that people who are sexually repressed are those most likely to repress others. This has happened with predictable regularity in the modern era. It applies to the English in the Victorian era, the Boers in South Africa and in equal measure to the Religious Right in America. To take one example, I can find no other explanation for the fury of the fundamentalist attacks on gays and lesbians in this country. Not only are gays out of the closet but sex is out of the closet, and now that gays are an assertive public presence, some Americans are profoundly uncomfortable.
There is, of course, a Biblical case to be made against gay rights. I understand this case, even if I do not agree with it; my own view is that that our comprehension of Biblical verses -- and of all sacred texts -- develops and grows over time. Still, even if we recognize the point made by fundamentalists, the Bible, both Hebrew and Christian, has far more to say about caring for the poor, loving one's neighbor, and justice in the world than about eradicating sexual sin. Sexual obsession is the only explanation that I have for their focus on a range of sexual issues -- homosexuality, pre-marital sex and abortion -- to the exclusion of virtually everything else.
The encouraging news is that Americans are no longer buying this truncated version of religious belief. We have known for some time that fundamentalist religion is not growing in America. Indeed, it reached its peak membership in the early 1990s and has been slowly declining for almost two decades.
A primary reason for this decline is that Americans, who remain a deeply religious people, have set aside the sexual obsessions of the Religious Right. While they see personal morality as an important religious concern and respect those with sexual mores of a more traditional kind, most of them have simply lost patience with efforts to turn the moral clock back to the 1950s. This is especially true for younger Americans, who have cast off the repression of an earlier era. (Aging baby boomers often agree with them, even if they are more conservative in other ways.) Worried about their jobs and struggling in a depressed economy, they have been forced to delay marriage and find absurd the idea that pre-marital sex is unacceptable for adults. Furthermore, they are committed to diversity, and most have friends of all sexual orientations; the last thing they are interested in is passing judgment on gays and lesbians.
Younger Americans are also appalled by what they see as the hypocrisy of conservative religious leaders who demand a certain moral standard for others but not for themselves. All of the major religious traditions -- Jewish, Catholic and Protestant -- have been shaken by sexual scandal in the last decade, and none has responded with moral distinction. In addition, most Americans, buffeted by hard times and looking for comfort and support, crave religious teaching that is richer, deeper, more spiritual and more embracing than what they have been hearing. They feel, instinctively and correctly, that religion has a broader mandate, and that if it is narrowly focused on sexual restrictions, it is distorting authentic religious values.
Does this mean that the only alternative is a moral free-for-all? Hardly. In these difficult days, Americans need a religious teaching that begins with the premise that sexuality is linked to blessing, commandment and God; that focuses on holiness and self-respect; and that sends the message that each of them is a person of irreducible worth, made in the image of God. And if they will not get this message from the preachers of the fundamentalist world, it is up to liberal religious voices to fill the void.
But the 1950s are over, never to return. As the Religious Right has discovered, a "just say no" approach will not work and will leave Americans alienated and alone. It is time for others both to expand religion's horizons and to offer thoughtful and sophisticated thinking on matters of sex.
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I still hear and see so much of it in American life today. It thrives on ignorance and hate.
I hope the next generation can banish it back to the dark ages where it belongs.
The author's statement that "In these difficult days, Americans need a religious teaching that begins with the premise that sexuality is linked to blessing, commandment and God; that focuses on holiness and self-respect; and that sends the message that each of them is a person of irreducible worth, made in the image of God" just isn't true. We need sane leadership that works on the social problems that we are experiencing, and we need to leave sexuality to people that are involved in consensual relationships. If someone chooses to follow a religion, that is their choice, but that choice needs to remain within church walls, and out of my government.
Unfortunately, the waking up from this unconscious condition is an act of grace. There is nothing we can do to ‘get’ creativity for ourselves, or even to make ourselves conscious. A person can draw down a higher consciousness by making themselves sensitive to beauty or by trying to write a book on the effects of climate change. When the sexual energy is combined with a higher consciousness, ‘productivity’, rather than destruction, is the result. In these times of growing crudeness, both goals and leaders seem to be lacking.
I am hopeful that they are setting aside the sexual obsessions of religion period, which are quite detailed in the OT, which begins with the premise that women are "unclean", and sinful, deserving suppression, setting the precedent for thousands of years.
"In these difficult days, Americans need a religious teaching that begins with the premise that sexuality is linked to blessing, commandment and God"
Commandment of God? Back to square one, suppression.
Well, you're great and I love reading your comments!
In Bible school, there were some people joking around with silly sermons and one of them was titled "Beware of Dogs" and making suggestions of what that could mean.
Homosexuality changes everything. It changes your entire outlook on life. Jewish people have been somewhat more free with it as with sex in general but it is a bad dog.
what I saw were caring and loving people and many had gone through many struggles and hardships with their sexuality.
I saw no evidence it is some kind of choice. we know little about it but yet we judge as if we are experts.
and the bad dog reference what is that all about.
when someone says such things about homosexuality I suspect that person is dealing with their own sexuality. I find nothing in my research that supports your statements.
americans are interesting people they get all upset over homosexuality but have wars for corp profits where hundreds of thousands even a million people killed in battle and they are silent.
now that is a choice by a society to have such wars for profits.
our prisons are overflowing and one of those significant variables is our religious teachings on sex.
there are others but this idea of original sin is in errror that did not come about for a couple hundred years after jesus. actually original sin needs to be replaced by original innocence. now the human ego will have none of that. :-)
we were not created perfect but with innocence. the adam and eve story is a very good story describing our original innocence.
but we humans take to guilt and culpability like a duck takes to water. ie ego thing. ie if I take personal responsibility and I am culpable for my sins then therefore guility then indeed I exist separate from all others. ie ego thing/ self confirmatory ideation.
sin and evil have one thing in common: ignorance of our being an imperfect expressions of infinite. ie perfectly imperfect thing. :-)
our soul's journey did not start with perfect intelligence but innocent that we are expressions of the infinite whatever you want to call the infinite. ie the word god has a ton of baggage.
the culprit of our errors is always ignorance, no exceptions. as the soul attains more divine intelligence it errors less and less. think of ignorance as unawareness the ego likes the term unawareness better than ignorance. ie less resistence.
"A primary reason for this decline is that Americans, who remain a deeply religious people, have set aside the sexual obsessions of the Religious Right."
"As the Religious Right has discovered, a "just say no" approach will not work and will leave Americans alienated and alone."
Do you live in some *other* America? In the one I live in, a *majority* of Americans (who remain a deeply religious people) votes *against* gay people every chance they get.
It'd be more accurate to say that a thin majority of voters in some elections vote for anti-gay candidates when agitated for various reasons, only some of which are anti-gay 'Values votes.'
It hardly adds up to a majority voting at *all* 'every chance they get, actually, never mind a majority of those who *do* voting for the purpose of being anti-gay.
Though there is enough of it to swing elections, it's hardly as you say.
It's certainly bad enough, but the anti-gay hysteria in government represents being beholden to a minority bloc, not actually majorities of the population being so motivated.
Admittedly, some of those anti-gay people seem perfectly willing to vote even against their own interests if someone tells them they can self-righteously harm LGBT people in the process.
But, yeah, it's some other America you live in if you say that.
Being 'deeply religious' *doesn't* have to mean 'virulently homophobic.' Certainly not in my religion, and apparently not in all branches of yours.
Or maybe we simply don't need religious teachings about sex. People would be far less repressed about sex if they started with the "teachings" of the Bloodhound Gang:
"You and me baby we ain't nothin' but mammals / So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel"
Admittedly that needs a bit of refinement, too :-) but it's far, far closer to the truth than anything the Abrahamic faiths teach about sex.
And our genes have the exact same purpose as those of all other life on earth: to create copies of themselves.
Evangelicals would do well to understand that better.
How do you define your worse of the word "better"? For that matter, how do you define the word "properly"?
Are all homosexuals who are unable to marry but have been in monogamous, loving, committed relationships for decades "worse" than those who were wed in a church but after 5 years of marriage end up divorced? Are those who due to need for Medicare benefits, scholarship opportunities, or other such benefits for the betterment of their own lives and their children "worse" than the same divorcing but married couples? The focus on marriage as the be all and end all of adult responsibility and attainment instead of on stable, loving, and lasting relationships is (at least in my opinion) is the very reason so many of those same marriages so often fail.
Agreed. The "show stoppers" that will keep a person out of heaven is to fail in charity. The two great commandments pertain to charity.
In that context, sexual sin can be viewed as a failure of charity; if the sin is such that it is a selfish seeking of pleasure. In that context it is not entirely necessary to make a list of sexual sins; ANY that is not charitable -- seeking the pleasure, comfort of someone else, is sin by omission at the very least.
The sin of homosexuality is called "confusion" in the old testament. By that I understand it not to be "wrong" per se, not like stealing or murder, but "confusion" -- it diverts the intended purposes of love and sex into unproductive ends.
Might it be the other way round?
What is a "21st century view" -- YOURS?
At any rate, in 40 years from now, whose views are going to matter? Answer: The views of whoever is still bearing children; Moslems, Hispanics; but NOT politically correct New Englanders and a great many people on the Left Coast.
It is Darwinian. It is scientific. It is compounded interest rate at 600 percent per generation. In only two generations, people with a more fertile "think" will outnumber your descendents 36 to one.