American
Orthodox Christians find themselves at the beginning of the 21st century
encompassed by a cultural milieu that is post-Christian, secular, and foreign
to the mind of the Church. Nowhere is this reality more evident than in the
area of human sexuality. Sex has been violently torn from its proper context,
and, isolated from the wisdom and blessing of the Church, contemporary man is
adrift in sexual confusion. On the one hand we know more about the practice and
mechanics of sex than ever before, yet on the other hand we know very little
about the purpose, meaning, and control of sex in God's grand design.
The
sexual revolution of the 1960s is the mother of much contemporary thinking
about sexual relations. From it have arisen the following erroneous ideas. Sex
is absolutely vital to full human development and happiness. Virginity is an
unfortunate and incomplete condition. The sexual needs and drives of men and
women are the same. All sex is good, as long as it involves love or at least
refrains from "injuring" someone else. Traditional Christian notions
of sexuality are repressive and incongruous with personal freedom.
Thinking
like this has led to immense sorrow, and the bad fruit of the sexual revolution
over the last thirty years are obvious: the exponential proliferation of
domestic violence, adultery, venereal disease, unwed pregnancy, abortion and
divorce. Living according to the mores of the sexual revolution neither
glorifies the Holy Trinity nor promotes the dignity and salvation of men and
women.
We
Orthodox Christians must know more than what we are against. We must know what
we are for. What exactly does the Orthodox Church teach about sexual relations?
First,
sex is not essential to full human development and happiness. Mankind was not
created for sex. Sexual relations as we know them today did not exist in
Paradise. Adam and Eve lived without sex, and did so in unutterable bliss.
Sexual relations began only after mankind fell into sin, and was stripped of
its pristine glory and the Holy Spirit. This is the teaching of the Book of
Genesis, "Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of
Eden...And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived" (3:22-4:1).
The Holy
Scriptures also teach that when mankind is resurrected into the Kingdom of God
there will be no sex in the new heavens and new earth. Answering an objection
from the Sadduccees, whose argument implied that the earthly norms of marriage
and sex would continue in heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ taught, "For in
the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the
angels of God in heaven."
That sex
is not essential to a healthy and full life is also evident by the example of
the life of our sweet Savior Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect
human being, and yet He never had sex. He denied Himself the blessing of
earthly marriage, and successfully trampled upon all sexual temptations in
order to ceaselessly do His Father's will, which was His very food and drink.
Far from being essential to human life sex is a reminder of the loss of our
spiritual refinement and dignity due to our fall into sin. Sex is designed for
good in this fallen world, but it is in no way at the core of human development
and happiness.
Second,
consecrated virginity is the highest way of life. Far from being an unfortunate
and incomplete way of life, chastity is the highest expression of love and
devotion to God. Such a life has only been made possible by the ennobling of human
nature by the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on human flesh on the Holy Day
of Pentecost.
Since
that time humanity has been radically changed, altered, and unshackled from
earthly attachments. The Church's virgins, most typically our monks and nuns,
are the very proof of the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth and a sign of
contradiction and hope in this fallen world. When St. Athanasius the Great was
asked by a skeptic to prove that Jesus had brought the Kingdom of God to earth,
he answered by pointing to the virgins of the Church as the irrefutable proof
of the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth.
Prior to
the Incarnation of our Master Jesus Christ, life long virginity as we have it
today in the Church was unheard of. Our Lord Jesus Christ recommended and
modeled such a life, as did the Great Apostle Paul. Our greatest saints, the
Most Pure Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary and the Holy Forerunner and Baptist John,
while honoring the noble estate of marriage and its sexual components,
renounced sexual relations and consecrated their chastity to God's service.
Since
that time until today an innumerable multitude of virginal saints have filled
our One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Anyone who can successfully
embrace such a beautiful way of life should, and in so doing wed not an earthly
bride or bridegroom, but Jesus Christ Himself. Even for those with the gift of
marriage virginity is a precious treasure to be guarded and bestowed in tact as
a love offering to one's spouse, with whom one is first joined in the Mystery
of Christian marriage.
Third,
sexual relations are good only when used according to God's design. God has
designed sexual relations for three basic reasons: to avoid fornication, to
unite the husband and wife as a powerful adhesive, and to bring forth children
to be raised to worship God and for the upbuilding of the Church. St. Paul
wrote, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own
husband."
Since our
fall from grace our passions have been disordered. For most people this
disorder is particularly noticeable in powerful sexual drives.
Sexual
relations in marriage provide a safe and calm harbor to tame and redirect these
unruly passions and desires. Sexual relations are also designed to serve as
marital glue. "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife: and the two shall become one flesh." The
physical union of intercourse is designed to strengthen the marital bond by
both enacting a very real physical unity and by producing a child, who is a
creation not from only husband or wife alone, buy from both the husband and
wife together.
For this
reason this powerful sexual relation is not to be accomplished with anyone but
one's God-given spouse. Sexual relations are also designed to bring forth
children. For the married sexual relations are not only an unspeakable blessing
but one of the main ways to fulfill God's commandment to "be fruitful and
multiply." The procreation of children is the duty of Christian spouses,
and can no more be avoided or tampered with than can the other purposes of
sexual relations.
Those not
prepared to assume the responsibility of sexual relations ought not engage in
them. The intense pleasure of sexual relations are designed by God to promote
the procreation of children, since the difficulties inherent in childbearing
and Christian parenting might otherwise tempt spouses to avoid this solemn
responsibility.
Today's
contraception culture strikes at the heart of the God-designed unity of
pleasure and responsibility, opting to embrace pleasure while avoiding the
responsibility of childbearing and calling it "family planning." Such
planned parenthood and family planning is in reality planned barrenhood and
family banning, and as such has been vigorously forbidden by the Holy Fathers
throughout the history of the Church. St. Paul teaches that married women find
their salvation in and through childbearing.
***
Having
documented what the Church says is the God designed purpose of sexual relations
let us conclude by noting what sexual practices are clearly outside that
purpose, and thus are sinful.
Homosexual
relations are forbidden as a perversion of the created order, and as an assault
upon God-ordained heterosexual marriage. Persons with strong homosexual
dispositions, that have proved resistant to reorientation, are urged by Christ
to struggle against this passion in the embrace of chastity, and, if at all
possible, to enter the monastic vocation where life can be lived in a community
of persons.
Masturbation
is censured as self-abuse, the waste of seed and its procreative intent, and an
improper turning inward and rejection of the marital context of sexuality. It
is always sinful.
Sexual
relations prior to marriage are strongly condemned as fornication, a
sacrilegious defilement of the Temple of the Holy Spirit, a defrauding of one's
future spouse, and are detrimental to the development of a stable future
marriage. It is no coincidence that the rise in pre-marital sex has been
paralleled by the rise in divorce and marital unhappiness. To take the very
sublime things of marriage out of their context of grace, perpetual commitment,
and the Church's blessings is a recipe for disaster.
Marriage
itself does not make legitimate all forms of sexuality. The sexual intercourse
of the married is to be modest, and within its proper limits. Moderation is
determined both by regulation of time and method of sexual relations. Relations
on fast days, on the eve prior to one's reception of Holy Communion, and on
days on which one receives the Holy Gifts are forbidden as an illegitimate
indulgence to the flesh. Anal and oral intercourse, as well as the use of
pornography and sexual toys, are sexual perversions and are always sinful, even
for married Christians. The unnatural prolongation of sexual desire, through
the use of drugs such as viagra, is forbidden. On the contrary, such decline in
sexual desire is to warmly welcomed by aging Orthodox Christians as a divine
help in one's life long preparation for departure from this life.
An article by Fr. Josiah Trenham
Source: http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/frjosiah_sexualrelations.aspx
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