TWO CONTENTIONS

 

TWO CONTENTIONS

 

A Reasoned Response to HIV West Yellowhead

 

 

 

It was Socrates that advocated learning through dialogue. To that end I am glad to read of HIV West Yellowhead’s invitation to discourse (consider it accepted); in this we are on the same wavelength and saves me a phone call. So, although there are many other pressing matters I would rather turn my attention to than modern sexual mores (not a pre-occupation of mine), since this issue had generated so much heat from numerous replies, as well as verbal commendations from people on the street, may I attempt another fumbling exposition of the 2 reasons that I find the secular stance of Harm Reduction deficient?

 

After reading numerous articles printed over the last few years by various HIV West Yellowhead staff and volunteers (who I am sure are sincere and well-meaning folk - I am speaking against a philosophy, not a person), there are two repeated sub-texts in every piece, which pertain to the replacement of the traditions and wisdom of our Judeo-Christian heritage with secular humanism, yet the end result within the field of sexual health is an abysmal failure.

 

 In a nutshell, today’s sexual health professionals and advocates are addressing a crisis in our society with a mechanistic, band-aid approach that actually furthers the undermining of our society, while subtly attacking the more comprehensive view of human sexuality championed by the Judeo-Christian faith. It is this argument that I want to communicate and unpack.

 

Employing the limited tools of one-sided information and contraceptive devices (often times including the extreme “remedy” of abortion), they have designed a system that only addresses the biological aspect of human sexuality, taking aim at minimizing disease and unwanted pregnancies, but neglecting the constructive role of sexuality.

 

Should we seek to minimize disease and unwanted pregnancies? Yes, of course! But this is largely achieved without outside interference within marriage, as extolled for millenia by the Judeo-Christian faith. Should we then seek to minimize the impairments to a successful and fruitful marriage, as a safeguard against disease and a fitting place be pregnant? Yes, of course! This would help place society back on a solid foundation. Yet secular humanism, and neo-paganism, by their commitment to their own anti-authoritarian world-views are determined not to be governed by such biblical wisdom, the abandonment of which in the twentieth century unleashed the rash of disease, divorce, abortion and other social ills from which we now all suffer. In neglecting a more holistic, responsible view of human sexuality, HWYs approach to the problem cannot meaningfully re-direct the person involved in risky sexual behaviour -and by extension, the community-  towards the longer term goals of heterosexual marriage, with all of its benefits to both the individual and to society of stability and pro-creativity, if at the same time their philosophy and mechanisms enable such a one to heedlessly persist in undermining the social and spiritual dimensions of sexuality. Rampant individualism is always to the detriment of the community!

 

Statistically, the more casual sex before marriage, the less able to commit to a spouse, the more exposure to disease, the more sexual dysfunctions, the greater chance of depression. Also, the increase in uncommitted sex in society further erodes the stability of those marriages that have taken the high-calling of remaining faithful “til death do us part”. Yet, to the frustration of many citizens, the repeated sub-text aimed at all of us in many of these articles is: people do what they are, and certain people are individuals who engage in risky behaviour, so who are you, as just another individual, to question this? The humanistic philosophy of giving people license to carry on with the least amount of measurable harm, armed with leaflets and latex, ignores the reality that non-marital sex has other ways of harming not only the individual, but all of us.

 

Sexuality straddles the intensely private and the communal space for the simple reason that if their was no romantic coupling there would be no community - no marriages, no families, no societies, no civilizations. It is at one and the same time both the business of the couple and yet also of the community. If we get sexuality wrong, if it becomes corrupted and subjugated to mere selfish urges, then we begin to unravel the fabric of society in which we all have a part. The continued association of sex with the concepts of disease, death, self-gratification and perversion, and the viewing of conception as an undesirable outcome of sexual intercourse devalues the essence of sex and its place within marriage. All societies before us recognized that the powerful force that is sexuality requires parameters, for a river un-channeled can become a ruinous flood, and a fire untended can burn down the house. 

 

 Irresponsibility in this special area of our lives already costs us all. Think of the amount of time and money spent to investigate kiddie porn on the internet, the prosecution of prostitution rings, the apprehending of sexual abusers and rapists, the national court costs for divorce proceedings stemming from infidelity, the research and hospital treatment for HIV/AIDS and other STDs, the operating of foster homes, orphanages and abortion clinics. Some of these are necessary evils, some are heroic enterprises, but should we truly prefer bigger and better police forces, courts, labs and abortion clinics, over and above cultivating a better personal management of one’s own body, a renewed esteem for the sanctity of marriage, and the restoration of the virtues of purity, chastity, fidelity and self-control! This is just a sampling of the social costs stemming from unbridled sexuality. We need to speak out about this!

 

 But the truly tragic thing about the response of secular society to the crises of HIV/AIDS, of millions of broken homes, of the multi-billion dollar porn industry, of the homosexual movement, the slaughter of the unborn, and of sexual predators is that we so easily accommodate or even promote these warning signs, for surely that is what they are. How have we failed to recognize the symptoms of a dying society that no longer has a sense of purpose, of belonging and the love of God? We are not meant to live this way! It’s not just the homosexual or randy college jock suffering from an impaired immune system, the whole neo-pagan, postmodern world has AIDS. We are dis-eased, desperate for some meaningful partnership and an undying ecstacy, yet carrying the contagion of an anti-God stance within us that leaves us isolated, broken and shunned. We are in a hole, but we console ourselves with the hope of decorating it with something fresh from Sears or whoever we might meet at the bar. What we don’t seem to want is the presumptuous violation of someone dropping a rope down our hole to help us out. Yet it is not love behind this wholesale sex, it is lust and desperation. We are paying an inflated spiritual cost for this so-called “freedom”. If our hearts are in the right place, so too will our genitalia be.

 

Hence, the other sub-text I want to respond to: that sexual health advocates won’t judge what you do, even if it leaves you too scarred to enter into a lifetime marriage commitment or leaves you sterile or impotent or debased or diseased or demonized, and as if, by implication, those from a Judeo-Christian conviction can only conceive of shipping sexual victims and “misfits” to chill out on Baffin Island, while warming them up with Bible verses about Hell. Me? I serve the holy God who designed us male and female, who instituted marriage and who applauds ordained sex. Yet I can quote from memory one of our most sacred hymns: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” I believe in the One at the high end of the rope dropped down into my hole. I believe He will do the same for anyone else who asks. I believe He is right when He tells us that some uses of our body will hurt us and others, and separate us from real Love until we don’t know which way is up.

 

So my contention is, do your devices, none of which are 100% effective, really save the day? If not, then why not benefit from those who can help round off a holistic approach to sexuality? We are all being torn apart by the sullying of sex and marriage. We all ache from the brokenness. We all want a love that will last and a home that won’t be packed up and sold. We all are degraded until such time as we can stand up and cry “no more! No more! No more being enslaved to my loneliness, my cravings, my sex-appeal, my woundedness, my perversion, my co-dependency. I am a soul as well as a body. I want to be clean. I want to know how to love and to be loved! I want to create, and not destroy! I want to live, and not die!”

Band-aids may be good, but not for internal bleeding.

 

 

 

Pastor Richard Bowler

Jasper park Baptist Church