"...and the two shall become one flesh"
What happens when sex meets “Sola Scriptura”–that pillar of Protestant doctrine that says that scripture alone (and the individual’s interpretation alone) is the authority on what Christians are to believe? What happens is pretty predictable. Scripture ends up blessing whatever the hell we want it to, because in a culture of lust what we want often comes straight from Hell. Read More
In a dialogue with an imaginary atheist who found it impossible to believe and asked how he might believe in God, the French philosopher Pascal replied that he should do what believers do; have masses said, genuflect, make the sign of the cross, etc. Pascal promised that the atheist would soon believe and would be amazed. Pascal’s advice shows great insight into the relationship between our actions and our beliefs. Read More
Remember the older Hollywood love scenes? A man and woman are wrapped in each other's arms in front of gently billowing curtains and moonlight as they tenderly and lovingly kiss and caress each other--beautiful music playing in the background--for what seems like hours of intimate bliss. Today, we might laugh at such a romanticized picture of lovemaking and object that the reality is much different. We might note Read More
For our cultural contraceptive mentality, where fertility is divorced from sex and no longer seen as an essential aspect of it, sex ends after intercourse ends. But in reality, the nature and significance of sex reaches far beyond the individual act of intercourse. And only by seeing it in relation to everything it affects as a whole, does one really see what its true nature is. We might say, then, that sex ends Read More
The metaphor of “bearing fruit” indicates something different than the mere production of something. “Production” is a manufacturing metaphor, but “fruit” is a metaphor taken from the world of living things. Life has been traditionally defined as anything having a principle of growth, motion, and reproduction originating from within itself. That “vital force” is intrinsic, it comes from within, not from Read More
Evangelical Christianity seems to be harboring two conflicting approaches to sex, which might be called the spirit approach and the flesh approach. The spirit approach refers to the Evangelicals who are questioning the nearly universal embrace of contraception that occurred after the 1930 Lambeth conference. According to Dr. Albert Mohler, young Evangelicals "are doing their very best to rethink the basic questions and, Read More
In the famous Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken,” a traveler comes to a fork in the road. He chooses a path, but knowing “how way leads on to way,” considers with some sadness the road not taken. Eros (sexual love or attraction) is also a path on man’s journey where two roads diverge. The Spirit and the Flesh St. Paul names these roads “Spirit” and “flesh.” Paul tells us to take the path of the Read More
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