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.
Lust And Legalism
The “Sola Scriptura” Christian’s approach to sexual matters is all about avoiding whatever is explicitly prohibited in the Bible; so stuff like homosexuality, fornication, and adultery. In other words, you’re mostly cool if you’re married. It’s not so much “do not defile the marriage bed” (St. Paul) but more like “whatever you do on the marriage bed can’t defile you”. Of course, many protestant Christians are still traditional in their sexual mores. But there’s a disturbing trend among “Mega Church” pastors to bless the sexual spirit of the times, and Sola Scriptura is their justification.
If “the Bible didn’t say I couldn’t” approach to sex was a Christian’s only defense for their soul’s purity, it would come tumbling down like the Wall of Jericho under lust’s trumpet blasts.
Christians complain that sex isn’t talked about in church, so to compensate they completely miss virtue’s mean and run straight for the opposite extreme of being all hip and cool about “hot” sex and sexual practices that more ancient Christians preferred to think of as sins against nature. That doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the Megachurch approach to sexual purity.
Neither do the books coming out by pastors like Mark Driscoll blessing every manner of unchaste filth that find its exemplar not in scripture but in Los Angeles–the porn capital of the world. Nor do “Christian Sex Toy” shops, or online “ministries” by Christian women who proudly refer to themselves as nymphos and seriously think that Jesus loves the shameful things they do and teach.
A Senseless Approach
These Christians don’t seem to see the contradictions in their legalism and private interpretations. If homosexuality is wrong, how is marital sodomy okay? Is it being married that makes the difference? And why not homosexual marriage then, if sodomy can be wholesome and Godly?
And if porn and lust and sexual fantasizing is wrong, how is it okay to sell Christians sex toys and bedroom mirrors so spouses can turn themselves into a porn show? You can’t watch it, but you can role-play it? You can’t lust for other men and women, but you can turn yourself and your spouse into an ‘other’ for your sexual excitement?
Fornication and adultery are wrong, but contraception and condoms are permissible even though all sex that has no intentional connection to procreation is identical in its narcissistic prison? There’s a reason why such things have been called “marital fornication”. But it’s fine because you’re married? Lust doesn’t recognize exclusive relationships like marriage–it’s not in its vocabulary.
There’s also the logical problem with such legalism. The Bible only directly addresses a very small fraction of the virtually infinite set of moral problems that a person might find themselves in during a lifetime. What Christians need is not a list of “don’ts”, but a theory of sex, a meaning of sex, the whys of sex. The Christian needs principles that he can apply to new situations and circumstances. Otherwise, the Christian is left helpless against the winds of licentiousness that blow in all directions these days, fanning the flames of evil desires into a destructive fire.
A Catholic Solution
Such a theory or meaning of sex can be derived from scripture, but many Evangelicals just don’t read it that deeply or holistically. For example Ephesians 5 on the allegorical nature of spousal love could go very far in setting boundaries and conditions for sex based on its essential connection to the kind of love that Christ has for his church. But that’s probably too Catholic.
It’s too bad, because only the Catholic church today (of all the Christian churches) refuses to back down in its defense of the virtue of chastity and sexual purity.
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