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Ask Theophilus: Thank God for Guilt

THANKS, BUT NO THANKS

Reader One: Thanks.
Dear Professor Theophilus: I must say that I'm extremely grateful for your columns. A couple of things you've written really caught my eye and shook me inside. They've given me a lot of clarity in thinking about my romantic friendships. I especially appreciate how hard-hitting and to the point you are about issues that so many in my generation are going through with eyes closed. It's terrifying just how little some of our parents have taught us and how big our spiritual blind spots can be.

Reader Two: No Thanks.
Dear Professor Theophilus: Your article "What If We Love Each Other" irked me. Instead of making us feel guilty about wanting what's natural, instead of telling us that we're too young, instead of making us separate until we're done with college, how about encouraging us to develop together, even if we are young, with God's plan for marriage always in mind, always as the goal? Those who want to use sex in an unmarried commitment, like this boy and his girlfriend, shouldn't be told that their commitment isn't good enough. I didn't sleep with my former fiancé. But who knows, maybe that physical connection would have given us the little bit more motivation we needed to carry on together, even though other people and outside circumstances were making it difficult. Anyway, I do not believe that sleeping with him and still breaking up would have had some horrible, incredibly more heart-breaking, godless effect on my life. Young adulthood is confusing enough without guilt trips from other people. God promises us ultimately good lives, and they can't be anything but good lives, even if we make some imperfect decisions now. Stop telling us we're completely wrong, when we are so obviously trying to do it God's way.

Reply

Reader One, many thanks for your gracious words of appreciation. They hearten me to answer reader two.

Reader Two, where shall I start with you? First of all, I didn't say anything about being too young or not being finished with college; I wrote about not being married. For more about marrying young, click to this column and scroll down to the letter titled "Racing to the Altar."

But never mind that. Let me ask you some questions — to be exact, nine of them. Ready, set, go.

1. What makes you think that casual sex is natural?
2. What makes you think that God's instructions are goals and not commandments?
3. What makes you think that violating the commandments is a step toward fulfilling them?
4. What makes you think that sex is something to be "used"?
5. What makes you think that having no commitment is a kind of commitment?
6. What makes you think that sex without commitment produces commitment?
7. What makes you think that breaking up with someone with whom you have had casual sex wouldn't be painful?
8. What makes you think that awareness of guilt, when we have really done wrong, is something bad?
9. What makes you think that God promises all of us good lives?

I'm sure these questions have irked you. In the same order, here are the answers. They'll irk you even more, but I can't help that.

1. Of course sexual desire is natural, but it doesn't follow that all ways of satisfying it are natural. Put your touchiness aside and think. Hunger is natural, but eating too much will kill you; thirst is natural, but drinking polluted water will make you sick. The natural way to satisfy our natural desires is in ways that fulfill their inbuilt purposes, and we weren't designed for hooking up.
2. Even if we didn't know a thing about how God has made us (though we do), we know what He has told us. He didn't tell us to keep in mind purity as a goal while in the meantime indulging impurity; He commanded us to be pure. St. Paul tells us that the very impulse to impurity must be "put to death."¹ I think that's pretty clear. Don't you?
3. Besides, it's not even possible to pursue purity as a goal through acts of impurity. Proposing that is like saying "Let's work toward courage by being cowardly," or "With moderation always in mind as a goal, let's be gluttons." The way to become virtuous, with the help of His grace, is to practice acts of virtue.
4. Sex is not something to be "used." When a husband and wife have intercourse, they aren't "using" something external to themselves, like a hammer or screwdriver (or they shouldn't be). They are expressing the mutual and total gift of their very selves.
5. "Unmarried commitment" is a contradiction in terms; the correct name of the committed sexual relationship is "marriage." Without it, what would you be committed to? Committed to sex? You've made no promises. To have a commitment that ends when you say is to have no commitment at all.
6. Sex between you and your former fiancé might have produced feelings of commitment, but it wouldn't have produced the reality. That wouldn't have been a recipe for closer union, but for self-deception. Sociologists Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels tell us that men and women who have sex before marriage are significantly more likely to divorce.² Another scholar reports that "Cohabiting couples are less satisfied than married spouses with their partnerships, are not as close to their parents, are less committed to each other, and, if they eventually marry, have higher chances of divorce."³
7. The very fact that sex does produce feelings of union makes breakup painful — or were you perhaps thinking of sex among Martians? Serial sex with a long string of partners may eventually make breakups hurt less, but only by dulling the capacity for the bond itself — and then you have another kind of pain to deal with.
8. Once when I was small, I laid my palm on a hot burner. If it hadn't hurt, so that I jerked away, I would have lost my hand. Thank God for the pain, and thank God that my mother, hearing my shrieks, came running and treated the injury. But we need the moral kind of pain for much the same reason as the physical kind: To alert us to spiritual injury that would otherwise pass unnoticed. By the way, after tending to my hand my mother told me off for playing with a hot stove. Would you have scolded her "Childhood is confusing enough without 'pain trips' from other people"? I hope not.
9. I'm sorry, my dear, but God doesn't promise that we will all have good lives no matter how we behave. What He promises is the help of His grace if we try to be good. The New Testament declares "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him,"⁴ but it also states "And this is love, that we follow his commandments."⁵

Since you dislike guilt trips so much, I'll leave the last question for you. Here it is: What is so "obviously" godly about your "way"?

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

RANTERS

Dear Professor Theophilus:

I go to a medium-sized public university. Every year in May, a group of preachers come to rant in various locations around campus. They spend about two hours a day screaming that we are all sinners, while insisting that because they have the power of God, they no longer sin. They scream a lot about other subjects too. Lots of people gather around to hear them, and lots of shouting matches ensue. Last year a student hit one of them, so this year's event included barricades and campus security. A girl I know read passages of Scripture through a megaphone and debated with them. A guy brought a dictionary, so that he could throw their words back at them with corrected definitions. A homosexual activist group handed out bottled water and snacks.

After the event, I chatted with a couple of Hindu students who were totally confused. One of them asked me if these preachers' actions were required by their religion. I explained that what these men were saying didn't reflect real Christianity. We had a great conversation, and I left knowing that now they knew that not all Christians were like that.

What is a good Christian response to this type of event? I think talking with people and emphasizing that the love involved in true Christianity is the most important thing.

Reply

Your visitors remind me a little of the Ranters, a mid-seventeenth century group whose members claimed to be sinless. The original Ranters were also full of condemnation. What they meant in claiming sinlessness for themselves was that because they were "in the Spirit," their sins didn't count as sins. Neat trick, eh? It would be interesting to find out whether your own campus screamers mean the same thing — that is, if it weren't such a waste of time.

Why do I call it a waste of time? Because in most cases, the best response to loudmouthed religious nuts is to ignore them. As you've already discovered, the more seriously they're treated, the more their rants discredit authentic Christian teaching. Responses that draw even more attention to them than they are already enjoying merely play into the hands of people who want Christians to look like yokels, like the activist group that you mention. So don't make your visiting haranguers seem worthy of debate by shouting rebuttals through a megaphone. That lets them set the terms of discussion and drags the true Gospel through the mud.

On the other hand, once the mudslide has begun, it's a little late to ignore it. Your screamers have already been treated too seriously, and the confusion of the two Hindus with whom you spoke shows how much harm that can do. By the way, I like your response to those two students. It was quiet and respectful, addressed their confusions directly, and didn't call further attention to the ranting preachers at the other end of the quad. Though the circumstances were different, it reminded me of Philip's conversation with the confused Ethiopian eunuch.⁶

I'm not convinced that you need to do anything different. But suppose you did. For instance, suppose your student Christian fellowship group printed out fliers to pass out unobtrusively at the outskirts of the crowd. The fliers might say something like "Offended? We don't blame you. Disgusted? So are we. Confused? We can help. If you'd like a quiet, logical and dignified presentation of what the Christian faith really teaches, come to our next meeting."

That seems reasonable, right? But there is a risk. The problem with that sort of response is that it invites further scandal. The original Ranters had a bad habit of disrupting the meetings of other groups. What would you do if the screamers themselves showed up at your meeting? Or if other campus screamers did? Or if all of them did? Whose cause would you really be serving?

For that reason, I think you are better off continuing as you've begun. One can imagine cases in which a public response might be necessary, but I don't think this is one of them. You and your friends should be content to chat with confused persons privately, not forcing yourself upon them, but making yourselves available. As Peter urged, "Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame."⁷

One more thing. You're absolutely right to emphasize love in conversation with people mixed up by screamers, but you'd better not assume that they'll understand what Christians mean by love. In this fallen world, the concept of love has been spun, warped, distorted, bent and twisted in a hundred different ways. Don't forget to explain what it really means.

Does anyone care to ask?

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

C O F F E E  S H O P

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