Sex and the City
Here’s a great post from Doug Hayes’ blog, republished here with his permission.
When Rich Bledsoe was with us at Family Camp he mentioned a paper he wrote: Sex and the City, [PDF] which we have now placed on the RCC website. It is an interesting piece of biblical social commentary worth thinking about.
Bledsoe contrasts the great ancient cities with the great city of God, the New Jerusalem and their respective sexual commitments and activities. At the base of his comments is the presupposition that it is important for us to think about cities because “the entire planet is ‘metropolizing.’ Everywhere, human beings are leaving their rural roots and are moving into the city.”
He says that, biblically, cities are portrayed as and symbolized as women. “Both of the cities at the Bible’s end are feminine, and both are symbolized by women… The first city [in Revelation] is Babylon the Great who becomes the Whore of Babylon [metaphorically, Jerusalem]. The second is the new Jerusalem who becomes the Bride of Christ… The power of sexual relationship, and the fact of metropolis belong together. The city is the great trysting place, the place of renewal or destruction of relationship, the place where souls and bodies are bought and sold, or where truth and fidelity create new life.”
What is so helpful in this article is the assertion that “the sexualization and exclusiveness of marriage was the gift of the Torah and of Judaism… the model for both parenting and for marriage as found in the Old Testament is found in Jehovah’s relationship to Israel and Jerusalem as Father and finally as Husband. All peoples model themselves on their gods, and Israel likewise modeled herself on the God she belonged to.”
As post-Christian society has emerged in the West, corresponding Christian sexual morality has been receding as a foundation for cultural morality. Christian ethics is being replace by pagan “polymorphous sexuality” that is reflective of ancient worldviews and practices. And just as Christianity has always been intolerant of other religious and ethical systems, so too, modern society is increasingly hostile toward both Christ and Christian morality. Just as most ancient pagan cultures used sex as an expression of their religious commitments and cultus, so too, modern cultures use sex as an expression of liberation from Christianity. Again, Bledsoe:
Both of these cities (in Revelation: Babylon the Great and the New Jerusalem) are now active historical powers… Real cities in the real world partake of the reality of both of these cities right now… A city that worships like Babylon the Great, will be a city that models its sexual relationships after the harlot and the beast and the kinds. A city that worships as a part of the new Jerusalem will model its marital covenant after the Bride and her Husband. The question is which city will dominate in any given city in the world in which we live. One city is corrupt..and is under judgment…given to destruction. The other city is the city of the glory of God and the glorified humanity… where ultimately all human potentialities are fulfilled… The first city is marked by sexual debauchery… the second is marked by fidelity and love in the bonds of marriage.
He goes on to demonstrate that any culture that lacks sexual discipline and commitment to monogamous marriage will be unable to sustain their cultural energy and creativity, resulting in weakness and decline. True cultural greatness requires moral and intellectual discipline and focus that is undissipated by meaningless and distracting sexuality. Without a committed and future-oriented sexuality – no culture has any meaningful future to anticipate.
