A myriad of Christians are enjoying better relationships living in Christ's love. However, even those struggle with exactly the same issue. After all, centuries of traditional Christian dogma are hard to overcome. The problem is that the “sex is bad” doctrine partially derives from Biblical word confusion, partially from Manichee Gnostic influence and mostly from non-Biblical canon.
Judaism, from which Christianity grew, never regarded sex as a sin. To the contrary, procreation, and hence the process by which the procreating gets done, was always regarded as a mitzvah, a divine command. The rabbis had so few hang-ups about sex that their directness and openness in the Talmud have struck daintier folk as somewhat reckless. But the rabbis could deal with these matters in no other way. God had chosen a particularly private part of the male body to carry the sign of His covenant with the Jewish people, and the bloodied sheet of a virgin following her wedding night was often hung off the porch in the Jewish shtetl of old. There was never any shame in sexual intercourse between husband and wife. (cf. Sex and the Single Rabbi, and others)
Jesus’ silence on the topic of sex indicates a healthy recognition of Jewish openness about the subject. Christians, who are too often in tune with negativism, are swift to believe that anything pleasurable must be evil. Most Christians never accept their own sexuality. Due to this, a few end up committing crimes of perversion. Sex is not a disease, nor is it a sin. It is a gift from God. Despite the source of the gift, the Law of Love requires us to use it carefully. Many Christians possess psychosexual issues. These souls could solve their troubles by engaging dialogue with fellow Christians who found solutions to the errors created by religious extremists.
Perhaps the most important convert to Christianity is Emperor Constantine, who lived between 272 and 337. It is possible that he thought Christianity would hold the failing Roman Empire together. Although the empire did fall in the next century, the Church stepped up as the central authority. Threats of burning in hell were more effective at controlling the large, diverse population than Rome’s army.
Christians can thank their negative view of sex to the Latin Church Fathers; Saint Augustine of Hippo, Jerome and Ambrose. Ambrose's contribution to this view lay in the conversion of Augustine to the Latin Church. Augustine joined the Manichees, a group of Gnostic Christians, shortly after he turned seventeen. The Manichees took their concepts from Greek Paganism, Zoroastrianism and others that believed that all flesh, creation, is evil. They believed all sex; even in marriage, including the birth of children was evil and sinful. The Manichee philosophy tore young Augustine between his natural love of sex and the sin of sex professed by his mentors. Although the Church of Rome destroyed the Manichees, the Manichees planted the seed in Augustine. He ultimately concluded that sex for procreation is the only valid reason for intercourse. If that obtains your sympathy, you are in line with Augustine and the Manichees, not the Bible or Jesus.
In his day, Augustine shaped a great deal of early theological thought. Thanks in large part to his Manichee roots; he postulated that sex was sinful, even within wedlock, unless the specific purpose was conception. This reflected the need at the time for more children. The economic and political structure demanded family units and infant mortality was high. Likewise, clerical celibacy finds its early roots shaped by fear that offspring would fight over Church property.
Jerome is credited with the conversion of the Hebrew Tanakh into the Latin Vulgate; the Bible the church would quote for thousands of years. Like Augustine, Jerome held sex in the same light. To quote him, "The truth is that, in view of the purity of the body of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean." In 393, Jerome took to respond to a certain man named Jovinianus. Effectively, Jovinianus put forth the heretical idea that all are saved by grace. The same idea that Jesus teaches and Paul expounds on repeatedly in the very Testament that Jerome took to author. Jovinianus argued that Virginity could not be a better state for mankind. To quote Jovinianus, "If the Lord had commanded virginity He would have seemed to condemn marriage, and to do away with the seed-plot of mankind, of which virginity itself is a growth. If He had cut off the root, how was He to expect fruit?" It is of note that Jovinianus was a celibate monk, like Jerome. The difference between the two lie in that Jovinianus was celibate by choice, whereas Jerome felt it was a holy obligation.
Thanks to widespread illiteracy and apathy, whatever the Church said became law. Intercourse was no longer natural and good; sex was dirty and only for procreation. Celibacy was the new standard for the clergy. Sex became a tremendous revenue stream. If you sinned by enjoying sex, you went to the Church for repentance. In turn, the Church required a donation to demonstrate your faith. The Church used what every prostitute in history already knew; sex sells. Everyone became a sinner because of his or her God-given sexuality.
The sexual mores of Christianity came not from Jesus. Instead they evolved from the Church whose interests were power over the masses and profit. Therefore it is vital to identify the source of these sexual mores. It is critical to know when and where they came from and then put them into a modern perspective.
Compared to the rapid change of making sex a sin, making polygamy a sin was a slow process. Even Catholic priests had multiple wives and mistresses. Pope Gregory II wrote in 726 a letter to Boniface. He stated that when a man has an ill wife who cannot discharge the marital function, he may take another, provided he looks after the first one. Polygyny, many wives for one man, was the norm due to the male-dominated society and the fact a man's status was determined by the number of children he fathered. Today, women enjoy equal rights and sex can be for pleasure and an expression of sincere love for all.
Matthew Gerrior - 12/02/2005
Resources
Saint Augustine: Madness and the Christian World-View
The History of Catholic Celibacy
History of Monogamy
Jerome on Marriage and Sex