Volumne 5 No. 2
Two Cheers for the Bishop --
Rethinking Sexual Ethics For Youth and Others
By Marvin Ellison,
Participating Scholar
An excerpt
As
a Christian ethicist, I give a resounding "two cheers!"
to Bishop Joseph Gerry's pastoral letter to Catholic
young people, "Teens Encouraged to Choose Faith,
Not Sex," that appeared in the Portland Press
Herald (March 17, 2001, 1B). The Bishop deserves
credit for getting much right about values and human
sexuality.
At the same time, I want to suggest
another framework for these humanly important matters.Most
faith traditions, and here I speak especially of my own
Protestant Christian tradition, have not served either
teens or adults very well in helping them to come of
age as sexual persons. The choice before people should
never be posed as an either-or choice (between faith
and sex), but as a both and possibility. Aren't
love of God and love of others - including sexual loving
- all of one amazing piece?
The first cheer
What has
the Bishop gotten right? Young people (along with adults)
need ongoing dialogue about human sexuality, its meaning
and place in their lives. Direct conversation is called
for about using this gift responsibly to strengthen communication
and respect for self and others - as well as honest talk
about how its misuse harms, exploits, and alienates.
Productive dialogue requires access to scientifically
sound information along with an ethical framework: what
the Bishop calls a "moral compass."
Equipping young people for decision-making
includes addressing how to integrate sexuality into their
whole lives as responsible, self-respecting persons and
explore the intimate connections between sexuality and
spirituality. Peggy Brick, a sexuality educator has written
on positive approaches to adolescent sexuality. She acknowledges
how young people are often ill-served in this regard.
She dedicates her book to them:
To the young people of this nation who must find their way to sexual health in a world of contradictions - where media scream 'Always say yes,' where many adults admonish, 'Just say no,' but the majority just say nothing."
A second cheer
Yes,
it is incumbent upon churches, synagogues, and mosques
to ffer age-appropriate sexuality education to younger
people and, I dare say, adults. I agree with the Bishop
that congregations are ideal places to offer value-based
sexuality education. Faith-based programs can easily
complement what parents do at home. To my mind, a sexual
ethic must attend to the pleasures, as well as the dangers,
of sexuality and keep both in perspective. When young
people remain ignorant about sexuality, they are at greater
risk of being harmed and doing harm. Such risks run especially
high in this culture that is saturated with sexualized
imagery and in which bodies, especially female bodies,
are so flagrantly commodified and objectified.
Ironically, even though sex talk is
seemingly everywhere, the majority of people remains
woefully ignorant of, and sadly misinformed about, their
own bodies and about sexual matters generally. A few
years ago, when the Kinsey Institute and Roper Organization
tested basic knowledge about human sexuality in a random
sampling of nearly 2,000 US adults, the researchers discovered
that only 5% of those who took the 18-question exam received
an A grade while 82% earned a D or F. Ours is a sexually
illiterate society, and dangerously so.
An added thought
So
the Bishop has it right: dialogue is in order, and faith
communities have an important leadership role to exercise.
But I find myself parting ways with the good bishop about
the moral compass.
To begin with, I believe that the credibility
of religious people on matters of sexuality depends,
to a great extent, on our candor - no, on our confession
and repentance - that we have for too long promulgated
negative attitudes about the body, about sexual differences,
and above all, about women.
We've been terribly skittish about making a really joyful noise. And we've failed to focus on things that really matter.
Patriarchal
religions have only reinforced the fear, shame, and guilt
that many experience about bodily pleasure (including
masturbation) and sexual passion. In the Protestant tradition,
I witness how the gap widens between the Church's traditional
teaching - that the exclusive moral norm is heterosexual,
marital, and procreative sex - and how most people, including
most people of faith, actually live their lives.
Where religious tradition fails young
people (and adults) is by charging ahead without really
questioning outmoded assumptions that somehow, everyone
is heterosexual, that marriage is the only place in which
people can live sexually responsible lives, and that
sex is primarily (or even exclusively) for making babies.
Yes, we need a moral compass. But we also need to revisit
and, when necessary, update the assumptions that undergird
our ethic if we are to speak truthfully and in ways that
can genuinely empower rather than control people.
A contemporary sexual ethic must begin
by affirming that sexuality is a broader notion than
(genital) sex. Traditional Christian morality has been
too preoccupied with figuring out which acts are prohibited.We've
been terribly skittish about making a really joyful noise.
And we've failed to focus on things that really matter,
namely the quality of relationships and how people might
more fully integrate their sexuality into their lives
and values.We've been notorious in our reluctance to
celebrate how God has created a variety of sexualities,
and so we've expressed far too little respect for that
rich diversity, much less shown real delight. The fact
of the matter is that some of us are heterosexual, others
are gay, lesbian, and bisexual, and still others are
transgendered and transsexual. Some of us are even asexual.
Each one of us deserves to love and
be loved, gracefully, compassionately. With such an ethic,
the primary norm will be justice and love in all intimate
connections.When such an inclusive, grace-filled ethic
enters our congregations, families, and communities,
then three cheers will be in order, especially if we
also commit ourselves to teaching that -
* abstinence and marriage are good, but not exclusive
moral options
* sex is moral only when it is loving and just, and not
"simply" procreative.
Do I speak here for all Protestant Christians? Heavens,
no.Do I also have things to learn, as well as critique
to receive about my own viewpoint? Heavens, yes.
For more about adolescents and sexuality, visit "Sex
Ethics and One Billion Adolescents" by Dan Maguire.
About Two Cheers for the Bishop
Marvin M. Ellison, co-chair
of the Maine Interfaith Council for Reproductive Choices,
spoke in mid-June on a Religion Counts panel at
the United Nations/UNICEF conference on the rights of
children. The panel was part of the Third Preparatory
Committee for the United Nations Special Session of
the General Assembly on Children.
The UN invitation followed publication of Ellison's Two
Cheers for the Bishop, a guest editorial in the Portland
(Maine) Press Herald (see story above) in response
to Joseph Gerry's (Maine's Roman Catholic Bishop) pastoral
letter promoting an "abstinence only"
directive for adolescents. Marvin praised the bishop
but he took issue with the bishop's exclusion of gay
youth and for ignoring responsible, caring sexual relationships
outsidemarriage.
A Book Not To Be Missed
Debra
W.Haffner, one of the Participating Scholars of The Consultation,
is an expert on adolescent sexuality. In her book, Beyond
the Big Talk: Every Parent's Guide to Raising Sexually
Healthy Teens (New Market Press, New York 2001), she
acknowledges that the advent of sexual maturity is "terrifying"
to most parents. Yet she shows that communication between
adolescents and parents - however uncomfortable - tends
to delay the time of first intercourse. The issue is
serious. 1 in 4 adolescents who have coital sex get a
sexually transmitted disease.Half the teens in high school
have had sexual intercourse. This book is reassuring
and realistic.