Thursday, March 14, 2019

Book Review - Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey


Have you ever wondered why society has so strongly rejected traditional morality?  Have you ever asked why people seem to think so differently than they thought even 20 years ago.  Nancy Pearcey, in her excellent book Love Thy Body:  Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, gives us the reasons why society has changed so radically.

Pearcey takes us back to people like Immanuel Kant, the 18th century philosopher who first taught that life is defined by a fact/values split.  Facts are public, objective and valid for all.  Values are private, subjective and relativistic.  The problem is, in our post-modern world, values have come to trump facts in every area.  When this fact/values split is applied to human life and sexuality, the facts of our biological body are set aside in favor of values that may or may not line up with our biological identity.  After laying this fact/values foundation, Pearcey goes on to painfully and exhaustively show how this idea works itself out in daily life.

For example, take the issue of abortion.  In the arena of abortion (and many other places), the fact/values dichotomy works itself out as a body/personhood contrast.  No one on either side of the abortion debate today denies that human life is present very early on in fetal development.  The baby inside a mother’s womb may be life, but post-modern society is quick to deny that it is a person.  Persons have moral worth and legal standing.  Bodies are expendable, biological organisms that can be sold for parts to the highest bidder.  Today being a member of the human race is not enough to qualify as a person.  Rather one must earn that status, something a child in the womb cannot do.       This lack of personhood provides the justification for abortion.

It does not take much thinking to see how this body/personhood split might affect the end of life as powerfully as it does the beginning of life.  Assisted suicide and euthanasia are driven by personhood.  In post-modern thinking, there comes a point when an aging or sick human being is no longer a person, but merely a body with no right to life.  Doctors are now people making moral decisions, not medical decisions.  And when life is no longer valued, the continuance of life comes down to a matter of costs and benefits, not any intrinsic value in that life.

The fact/values, body/personhood split also affects how we see and practice sex.  The hook-up culture that exists in our world is a classic example.  Our bodies are merely means of fulfilling physical needs that are to be divorced from our emotions.  Sex education in our schools is concerned with the health of our bodies, not the health of our hearts or emotions.  Sex becomes a religion, a vision of redemption.  It is also a lie, as human beings are designed to unite not only physically but also emotionally.

Pearcey also addresses Same Sex Attraction and transgender issues.  In these areas, identities are again driven by values, by our feelings and our desires.  Those “values” give us permission to use our bodies in ways that contradict biology.  The homosexual/transsexual/gender questioning person is convinced that their most authentic self can be found only when they reject the biological body given them by God and build their identity somewhere else.  Sexuality then becomes a social construct which is indefinable, able to be manipulated, fluid and severed from biological facts.  This, Pearcey explains, when taken to a logical conclusion, ultimately undermines the basis for human rights.

Finally, she addresses how marriage and family are affected by this change of thinking.  The assumption today is that marriage is no longer a covenant, but a contract defined by terms we choose.  In the Supreme Court’s Obergfell decision, the court reduced marriage to an emotional attachment which was identical to all couples, regardless of biology.  Redefining marriage leads to a redefinition of parenting as a contract as well; a contract an increasing number of parents are opting out of.  Here in Montana, 10 years ago there were just over 1000 children in the foster system, today there are 4000!  The end result is that the state ends up with power over families in ways that were unheard of 50 years ago.

All this is very depressing and worrying.  But Pearcey also has good words to say.  In each chapter, she is quick to remind the church of its response to these things.  Christians ought to be on the forefront of showing compassion to those who are sexually confused and struggling.  We need to communicate a high view of the body as God created it.  Yes it is corrupted by sin, but it also is of such high value that God will one day redeem it and make it new, fit for eternity.  We need to present a picture of a good God who is big enough to bring purpose to suffering and who can turn difficult events to something good.  We need to remind people that sex is not God.  Jesus Christ lived a fulfilled life, a perfect life, being fully human in every way, without sex.  We need to encourage people that our true identities are found in our creation in the image of God and that our biological identities have been given to us by God for good. 

Yes, we live in a very confused time.  But in the gospel and its hope for now and the future, God has given us wonderful truths to live out and to share.  We need to be diligent and see how these timeless, transformative truths can bring life and clarity to our confused world.



Thursday, March 7, 2019

Book Review: Holy Sexuality and the Gospel by Christopher Yuan


One of the great dilemmas we face as Christians is understanding and compassionately yet truthfully addressing the sexual challenges our society throws at us.  How do we respond to homosexuality, transgenderism, the redefinition of marriage and the deconstruction of gender, for example?  How do we find clarity in those things as Christians, as well as a way forward to lovingly address those issues with our family and friends, especially those who find themselves buying into these ideas?

Christopher Yuan, professor of Biblical Studies at Moody Bible Institute, has given us a great resource to begin to answer these questions in his book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel:  Sex, Desire and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story.  I was first exposed to Yuan’s testimony through his autobiographical book, Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son's Journey to God. A Broken Mother's Search for Hope.  I also had the privilege of hearing Yuan and his parents in person at the 2018 Montana Bible College Pastor and Leaders Conference.  The audio and video of those sessions can be found here.

Yuan’s primary premise can be summed up this way – my true identity is in Jesus Christ alone.  While society seeks to redefine sexuality and write gender off as a social construct, Yuan takes us back to God’s design as based in creation.  As he writes, “Clarity [in these issues] comes not by trying to decide which approach is more compassionate but by observing which approach is grounded in the correct version of truth – God’s truth.” (p. 4) 

The book addresses the broad span of human sexuality from a theological perspective.  He examines the issue of personhood.  Sexuality has become not how we are, but who we are.  No other sin is so closely linked to our identity.  Yet the question must be asked, does sexuality really describe who we are or does it explain how we are?  Can we define our identity and personhood by our thoughts and feelings, or is there an overarching identity given to humans by God?

Yuan does a great job taking us on a journey through God’s grand story of salvation.  He begins by examining the idea of the image of God.  He addresses the importance of the fall and original sin.  Often Christians are content to chalk the roots of homosexual behavior up to environment, but Yuan is very clear, “…to claim that the primary root of homosexuality is anything but original sin is to deny orthodoxy.” (p. 37)

The book then turns to focus on what God’s sexual ethic for human beings is.  It addresses desires and temptation.  The book unpacks what the Bible says about sexuality.  God’s sexual design for humans can be boiled down to a couple of biblical themes:  chastity in singleness and faithfulness in covenant marriage.  God’s standard for all is holiness – whether one is single or married.  Unfortunately, believers have not done a very good job of holding up God’s ethic in either of those areas.  Our theology of marriage tends to be muddled and incomplete, centered more on companionship or happiness or even the fulfillment of sexual desire rather than on marriage glorifying God and pointing to the ultimate reality found in Christ and his church.  Singleness has also not been handled well by the church.  While the single person is looked on with pity by some, Yuan makes a powerful case for the goodness of singleness and the fact that single person is just as able to glorify God and reflect a Christ-like identity as a married person.

The book’s last chapters address Christian growth and sanctification as well as providing some great, compassionate loving advice to those with friends and relatives suffering sexual confusion.  How can we love them and yet address biblical truth to their lives when we are given opportunities?  As a man who lived a homosexual lifestyle prior to faith, Yuan knows what approaches reflect Christ and which will not.  The bottom line for him and any other person we may know struggling with sexual identity issues is simple:  Jesus is better.  He is better than same sex attractions, singleness and marriage.  Identity found in him is better than anything found on earth in any sexual relationship.  When all of us understand that, our sexual thinking will begin to transform into something that truly is in line with God’s truth, will and desires.