Posted on 09/16/2016 5:17:24 AM PDT by Petrosius
Sexual progressives claim to be ushering in a “brave new world” of freedom. But their “new” morality is as old as the hills.
How often have you heard sexual progressives claim that those of us who hold to traditional sexual morality and marriage are “on the wrong side of history?”
But as one new book points out, it’s the proponents of the sexual revolution who are embracing a sexual morality that history left behind millennia ago—in the dusty ruins of the Roman Forum.
Yes, today Western civilization is undergoing a dramatic cultural shift. In just a few short years our society has fundamentally altered the meaning of marriage, embraced the notion that men can become women, and is now promoting the idea that grown men should be welcome to share a bathroom with women and young girls. Not unexpectedly, we’re also seeing movement toward the normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, and incest.
It’s precisely in times like this that we need some historical perspective. Which is why Lutheran pastor Matthew Rueger’s new book, “Sexual Morality in a Christless World,” is a timely godsend. In it, Rueger shows how Christian sexual morality rocked the pagan world of ancient Rome. The notions of self-giving love, sexual chastity, and marital fidelity were foreign, even shocking to the people of that time.
Citing existing scholarship, Rueger details the Roman sexual worldview that prevailed for hundreds of years. Women and children were viewed as sexual objects; slaves—male and female--could expect to be raped; there was widespread prostitution; and predatory homosexuality was common. Christian sexual morality might have been seen as repressive by the licentious, but it was a gift from God for their victims.
Rueger writes that “Claims in our day of being progressive and moving forward by accepting the ‘new prevailing views on sexuality and same-sex marriage' are horribly misinformed … Contemporary views about sexuality are simply a revival of an older and much less loving view of the world.”
But they are also a revival of an older and impoverished view of human beings. Imagine the reaction of a pagan Roman slave girl who learned for the first time that she had value—not monetary value as a piece of goods to be enjoyed or discarded by her owner—but eternal value because she was made in the very image of God.
Or imagine the pang of conscience felt by an unfaithful Roman husband when he learned that God became incarnate, and took on human flesh, and that how he treated his own body and the bodies of others mattered to God. Mattered immensely.
Folks, we can’t look away and ignore this unholy revival of pagan sexuality and its cheapened view of human beings. But we also can’t wring our hands in fear or throw them up in defeat. As Rueger points out, Christ and His Church radically transformed a far more sexually cruel and chaotic world than ours.
Look to those ancient believers who went before us: Rather than succumbing to or accommodating the spirit of the age, new converts in the early Church came to understand, as Rueger writes, that “Christian morality is based on Christ’s all-encompassing purity and self-emptying love…Christians could no longer live as the Greeks or Romans. Their worldview and self-view was distinctly different. They were now one with Christ in heart and soul.”
Now, their distinctiveness, as Rueger writes, “would not spare them from suffering; it would invite suffering.” It’s pretty clear now that the same holds true for us. Will we bend the knee to this revived pagan sexuality, or will we hold out to a needy world the freedom of God’s plan for human sexuality?
bkmk
Great reference - thanks.
So many times the nations have been warned. So many times. And the dog returns to it’s vomit.
Leviticus 18:
24 “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.
25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27
for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
II Kings 17:
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7 For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
8 And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
II Kings 17:
19 Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
20 And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
21 For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin.
22 For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them;
23 Until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
Traditional Judeo-Christian morality is an excellent reinforcement of our instinctive natures.
In other words, you're an atheist, but you support religion because of its utilitarian value.
Disgusting. No wonder the world (and conservatism) are in such a mess.
bump
Good point. And animals don’t indulge themselves at the expense of everything else.
Sums things up perfectly, thanks for posting.
It is so true, God’s law is a blessing and a protection, not a hardship.
You certainly read between the lines quite well. I don't think I'm an atheist (but whatever I am, I admit it isn't a good Christian.) I don't see anything wrong with pointing out that Christianity has great utility in the here and now. How do you get people in the door if you don't have something to offer?
I like to think that you need people like me to help in the fight. When the worldly liberals close their minds to you and refuse to think of you as anything other than a crazy flat earther, I always argue on your behalf, and I always will.
If you are really serious about Christ, those liberals are not the enemy, they are people who need to see the truth. I try to start them down the right path: Just as you do.
As for your disgust, please continue. I want to know why you say that.
Some male animals take life and death risks in mating competitions. Young bull elephants, for example, will challenge an established herd bull in order to gain access to a female. However, this obviously has the immediate outcome of a stronger and more genetically diverse species.
Those contests are seldom to the death, although they do expend a great deal of energy.
An identical pattern can be seen in humans. The difference there is that the female may or may not elect to breed with the dominant male, despite his biological superiority.
Homosexuality in animals is tolerated — they have no moral code, after all — but is self-correcting. Homosexual animals don’t reproduce. If their behavior is a consequence of aberrant genetics, they die with him. If they are the result of other factors, they disappear when the driving stimulus is removed.
Few animals are exclusively homosexual for any length of time.
True. It's interesting, though, how much effort - as well as the occasional goring or traumatic amputation - some mammal species put into this competition. The displays of birds of paradise are less damaging!
Few animals are exclusively homosexual for any length of time.
None, I should imagine, although a male in the throes of the hormonal drive may try to mate with just about anything.
I don't know a whole lot about mammalian reproductive physiology --- so I don't know if this is always true, often true, or only occasionally true.
FReeper zoologists: do the above generalizations about male-on-male behavior make sense, from what you've learned or have observed?
#32, tax-chick?
She used to frequently "mount" the male, although that was biologically impossible. A "dog whisperer" my wife (bless her soul) hired, told us that that was hierarchical behavior, not sexual.
Thankfully, we got rid of those two worthless animals.
That seems very reasonable. Certainly there’s no possibility of male-on-male penetration in most species, although I suppose it’s within the realm of possibility among some primates, as an act of dominance ... rather like humans under some circumstances.
Iirc, young male elephants can go into “musth,” a state of violent sexual arousal, even when there aren’t females around. It seems to be an environmental response to too many males’ being unsocialized. The book on elephant behavior was extremely interesting. Among other things, the researchers tracked hormone levels by analyzing the droppings.
One observation was that when there was plenty of water, young male elephants tended to live singly or in groups of a few same-age peers. In these conditions, they were more likely to have fights and other behavior problems. If water and food were scarce, older males would organize the younger ones into “coalitions,” and then the young males’ testosterone levels would be suppressed, resulting in compliant behavior that helped keep them all alive.
Mammals do have a utilitarian moral code. Anyone who has owned more than one pet knows that they soon teach one another the consequences of trespassing personal boundaries or stealing food or other belongings, toys, baskets, etc. Most mother cats actively teach their young basic sanitation regarding where and where not to poop. Dogs and cats are capable of feeling shame and display it when they know they've trespassed and get caught. I've seen cats and dogs express embarassment and resentment; it follows that they have the basic understanding of "self-other" and ego. I've seen cats think and make choices. All of us have noticed the heroics of dogs and even cats who have recognized that they love another being and then will take steps to protect, help or comfort their companion human or animal.
“Moral” implies the ability to differentiate good from evil. While animals can be trained (by humans and others) that certain behaviors are rewarded and others punished, I don’t think that rises to the level of conscience.
If you believe animals are capable of more “morality” than learned response and instinct teach them, then I’m afraid we’ll just have to disagree.
It isn’t a black and white issue, with a bright dividing line between humans and animals. They have a degree of morality and of course they learn as they go; but not all choices among animals are the result of human interactions or training, but rather of interactions with one another in their pack, or with thier mothers. Among other mammals like lions and wolves, the fathers also train the young.
Your post implies that humans are born with morality and not also formed by training. That is also an empirically invalid assertion.
I’m saying that animals have a development in the direction of morality and knowing that they are not the only creature in the world; there are others who must be respected at times.
Humans have a capacity for a higher degree of learning, as well as literature and scholarship about morality. It’s a continuum and a difference of degree, with neither the animals exhibiting a lifelong lack of moral awareness nor the humans universally endowed at birth with high moral understanding.
An animal cannot be taught to differentiate right from wrong. They have no concept of good and evil, although they may learn the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.
Whether humans would develop a sense of good and evil in the absence of a teacher is subject to debate. That they have the capability is what sets them apart from the beasts.
Your stating it in absolute terms does not make it so. I"ve been very patient in describing that there are limited contexts in which animals do, in fact, learn the moral ethos of the groups in which they live. It's not a black and white issue. But if it makes you feel more secure or superior, go ahead; persist in your rigid point of view..
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