I am trying to be open minded, and humble enough to listen to disparate views, but if I am honest, I am just plain curious. So, I have been tuning into the sermons from the church we left in Indiana; left partly because we found ourselves questioning, frustrated, and even hurt by what we were hearing, and partly because I took a new job hundreds of miles away. Anyway, I’m in the midst of listening to a series on “deconstruction“. And let me tell you, it’s a wild ride listening to it all from this side.
I found it very peculiar that the tactic to convince me to not “deconstruct” rested on the promise that the next several topics in the series included sermons on gender dysphoria, LGBTQ+ issues, and sexual behaviors. I found it curious that the “hook” was about sexual issues, not Jesus himself. Jesus didn’t seem to hang his ministry on examining or criticizing sexual beliefs or behavior, yet here we are, with the church presuming that all of my angst rests on the moral positions surrounding sexuality.
Nonetheless, I decided to buckle up and listen through. The first sermon considered the authority of the Bible. Yep. I believe the Bible can be trusted. But also…I worship Jesus, not the Bible. So, there’s that. Then I listened to a sermon about the three major stumbling blocks for us when it comes to sexual expression: “hook up culture“, the “sexual revolution“, and porn. While I don’t disagree that there are emotional, spiritual, mental, and physicial consequences to laissez faire sexual expression, I was struck by the wholesale villianization of the sexual revolution. As a Christian, I agree, there are concerns. “Free love” is complicated, and perhaps harmful, when sex is divorced from emotion and commitment. But what struck me so profoundly was the silence about all of the other important outcomes from the sexual revolution. During that time period, gay and lesbian people lived deep in the shadows, but this revolution provided a voice and a space, albeit small and still dangerous, that nurtured the first inklings of acceptance and affirmation. Also, women, with the wide spread availability of the Pill, first gained control over their sexual expression to be for pleasure, not just procreation, whereas men throughout all of history quietly, (or not so quietly), leveraged sex for pleasure without responsibility.
It’s easy for a white, middle-age, heterosexual man to stand on a church stage and disparage the sexual revolution. If it never existed, he had nothing to lose. He would still wield power. But as a woman, a Christian, a child of God, I know that the “evil” sexual revolution was an essential part of the process of the church loosening its hold on women and laid the groundwork for women to be held as equals in the church, just as Jesus honored us as equals.
Listen to what they DON’T say. Listen to narratives surrounding the history and stories and culture that claim to “protect” us, but in all reality silence us. Listen to the void; to the empty space. Listen to all the parts they are too timid to say out loud. Listen to silence. And then don’t be afriad to speak.
Disclaimer: My viewpoints are not necessarily reflective of my employer, or any local, regional or national organization that I belong to. As a matter of fact, I pretty much just speak for myself. Please keep that in mind.
