An Assessment of Pagan Sexual Morality

As we approach the beginning of the third millennium following the earthly life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah, it certainly is obvious the general culture surrounding the American church is turning ever farther away from the standards of human sexual morality revealed by God in scripture. In the place of Christian sexual ethics tied by faith or tradition to the Bible, the culture is eagerly embracing a number of different views, each of which is fundamentally opposed to biblical moral norms.

To date four alternatives have emerged, and these can be categorized as the playboy, romantic, therapeutic, and pagan approaches. Each suggests a different way for realigning the morality of human sexual behavior. But these four alternatives each assume sexual ethics must be shaped to fit natural human desire, so each in a different way constructs arguments to justify sexual behavior the Bible repudiates as sin.

In this paper, I will concentrate only on the most recent newly emerging alternative now arising in our culture, that being pagan sexual morality. But, while it presents a fresh new challenge in contemporary culture, the contemporary freshness of pagan sexual morality is highly ironic for paganism is also and always has been the most ancient alternative to God's moral revelation. I will first identify and very generally describe the most obvious features that characterize pagan sexual morality. Then I will assess pagan sexual morality as judged from a biblically based Christian moral framework.

But before going further I wish to note how relevant this topic is to the theme set for this year's meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society—the theme of eschotology. If the relevance is not obvious, then remember what we are warned in the Bible to expect in the last days. Peter tells us "in the last days scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires" (2 Peter 3:3). And these scoffers will include "slaves of depravity" who will appeal "to the lustful desires of sinful human nature" (2 Peter 2:18,19). In John's apocalyptic vision in Revelation 17, the woman riding the beast while "drunk with the blood of the saints" is identified as "The Mother of Prostitutes," and she holds a cup that is "filled with the filth of her adulteries" (Revelation 17:3-6). In the end, John also tells us that one reason for eternal exclusion from the New Jerusalem will be the practice of magic arts and sexual immorality (Revelation 22:15). In other words, before Jesus Christ returns we are told to expect an explosion of sexual immorality that will be stirred up by the seductive appeal and perverse spiritual power of a reenergized new form of ancient paganism.

For this reason an assessment of pagan sexual morality—especially pagan sexual morality as it is reemerging in late 20th century western culture—is highly relevant to any contemporary discussion of biblical eschatology.

Sexualized “Gods”: A Description of Pagan Sexual Morality

Pagan sexual morality is the diabolical opposite of the biblical morality of sex. Ironically it is also, at the same time, nearer to the biblical approach than any other alternative. Why? Because pagan sexual morality centers on the critical importance of the spiritual dimension of human sexual behavior. Pagan sexual morality is about spiritual achievement and the role that sexual behavior has in affecting spiritual development. The overriding goal of the pagan approach is spiritual power reached through sexual experience, and an entire framework of moral thinking about human sexual behavior is structured around ignoring, removing or destroying barriers that stand in the way of maximizing this vision of sexual spirituality.

So as to be sure we represent nothing more that what proponents are now advocating in favor of a pagan approach to sexual morality, we will here simply follow the way one modern proponent, Thomas Moore, presents pagan sexual morality in his recent book, The Soul of Sex.^[1] At its core, pagan sexual morality stresses the deep spirituality of sexual experience claiming that the soul is fully empowered only when it encounters "God, the infinite, or whatever we want to call the object of religious concern." But pagan morality does not stop at saying that sex has deep spiritual meaning and purpose for human participants. It goes on to claim that men and women actually access ultimate spiritual power (i.e., they encounter "God" or whoever they think is "God") through sex. Like replacement engineers dropped in at the throttle of a speeding locomotive, they are tapping into and in some sense even directing the spiritual force that powers the universe when they experience sexual arousal and physical union. Moore tells us, "The highest levels of spirituality are made accessable through sex."^[2]

According to pagan sexual morality, sex gives human beings access to God, and for this reason the more intense, unrestrained and overwhelming sexual experience becomes, the more intensely spiritual and moral it becomes as well. On this Moore says, "The whole pleasant work of sex is to incarnate, to call down the spirit that will quicken our physical world and give home to eros." He goes on to explain that "lovemaking is a ritual that invites the goddess of sex to be present." Ultimately the object of sex is achieved when "we lose ourselves in the oblivion of sex and find our soul in the spiritual place that is accessable through openhearted passion. This is Venusian spirituality, a transcendence of self achieved through intense, pleasurable union."^[3]

According to the pagan approach to sexual morality, the erotic is about salvation. It is about the ultimate goal for which all human souls are striving—a sort of salvation that is not only reached through but that also consists of sexual experience. Calling on the names of ancient Greek or Roman goddesses such as Aphrodite, Artemis, Diana, Venus or Hera, Moore says,

A man or woman can inspire such deep fantasy and emotion that through the loving embrace of our partner's body we may break through the limits of the human condition to touch upon another level of reality. The sex spirits come to us as from another world and can't be reduced to pieces of human personality. Sex with soul is always a form of communion with another level of existence, and that quality alone may be a major reason for its compelling attraction.^[4]

Pagan thinking about sex sees little to no distinction between the spiritual and natural universe. Because the spiritual connects with the natural, they believe the power of the spiritual universe can be accessed and manipulated by sexual experience in the natural universe. According to Moore, "Whatever makes a flower glow with enchantment is the essence of your own sexuality." And, why is this so? It is because "eros is nothing less than the magnetism that holds the entire universe together, and human love in its many forms is simply a participation in that great eros." Thus the passion human lovers realize by engaging in sex is "the go-between spirit said to keep the planets in orbit and the seasons on track. What we seek in sex is not only bodily satisfaction, but a response to the soul's need for all that eros offers, for a world that holds together."^[5]

But, because pagan morality believes sex is a matter of encountering and manipulating the ultimate source of spiritual power in the universe, and because it is about tapping into the "soul of the world," it turns out that sex never really is about a relationship with another human being. Human partners in sexual activity are no more than interchangeable functionaries used for achieving the desired spiritual experience. What is important is not the human partner but the sex spirit, the goddess, what sometimes is called the "mystery lover," encountered through whatever human partner, or partners, may be involved in the bodily experience. Moore says "the soul craves the mystery lover, who inhabits and transcends the known partner. . . this world, including our flesh-and-blood lover, is not necessarily an obstacle but offers a positive route to the eternal and spiritual realm." ^[6]

In line with this understanding, pagan sexual morality justifies and strives for sexual experience without limits. The pagan approach asks the question: "Can we be sexually creative and free and at the same time sexually moral?" The answer it gives is an emphatic, "Yes!" For pagan sexual morality, unlimited sex—sex completely given to following felt personal desires wherever they may lead—is moral sex, and the more unrestrained the more moral.^[7] Thus it ends up the only immoral sex is sex that is in any way restrained, whether within by conscience or without by convention, social pressure or law.

To the pagan mind, the body-produced, spiritual ecstasy of intense sexual experience is its own moral justification. It is itself the thing that defines moral purity or "holiness." Says Moore, we discover "the deepest secret of sex" when we learn "that it is life itself, precisely in its holiness."^[8] No indulging of human sexual desire can be wrong because the experience of sexual arousal and passion is what defines sexual right and wrong for pagan morality. The experience is itself the thing that makes sex "holy;" and the more passionate the experience, the more "holy" it is. In the pagan approach to sexual right and wrong, morality follows (is produced by) sexual experience. Sexual morality does not come before, so can never shape or limit, the pursuit of sexual desires. It says "we can accept that every sexual fantasy is valid and makes sense. No desire needs to be repressed."^[9]

Godly Sex: A Christian Evaluation of Pagan Sexual Morality

Pagan sexual morality is thoroughly anti-biblical and anti-Christian, and although this orientation is sometimes left implicit it is very often unapologetically explicit. Its underlying goal really is, as Professor Peter Jones says, "to join all the opposites that Christianity held apart."^[10] As seen by those who advocate pagan sexual morality, Christianity is anti-sexual and the mission of pagan sexual morality is to free the world from its anti-sexual influence. For example, Moore claims, "It's widely recognized that Christians may have special trouble with sex . . . . But any religion or philosophy [i.e., like Christianity] that defines itself against the values of paganism may find sex challenging."^[11] In his view, the influence of biblical sexual morality upon Western culture has removed sex from its proper spiritual dimension. He says, "Our rejection of pagan sensibility leads us to place sex in a category far removed from genuine piety and seriousness."^[12]

While it may seem highly ironic, honest Christian criticism of pagan sexual morality has much at first to affirm. Indeed, it is hard to properly understand how the pagan approach goes wrong, if we do not first see where it starts right. This is why we earlier said that pagan sexual morality is the diabolical opposite of the biblical sexual morality, but is also at the same time nearer to the biblical approach than any other alternative. Of all people, Christians should be the first to admit that pagan morality is right to affirm that sex is spiritual and that we encounter a spiritual dimension when we participate in a sexual relationship. It is also right to recognize that the spiritual dimension is not just one of several equal dimensions of sex but is, in fact, the most important dimension of all. Moreover, the pagan approach is right to recognize that sex is holy; it is right to understand that sexual conduct affects the state of our soul; and it is right even to affirm that our participation in physical acts of sex can and does inevitably impact the relationship we have with God. Finally pagan sexual morality is right to emphasize that sex is powerful, not just biologically or emotionally or psychologically but spiritually. It is right to perceive that sex involves power of a spiritual sort that is very closely connected to its morality. So, with all this right, where does pagan sexual morality go wrong?

First, we must be clear that pagan morality ends up opposing each of the moral qualities God in the Bible says are essential for engaging in sexual behavior his way. One could easily develop a long critique by examining the way pagan sexual morality denies moral qualities God deems essential. For the for purpose of summarizing we will here only note that whereas God has designed human sexual relationships to be personal, exclusive and intimate, paganism makes sex impersonal, inclusive and psychologically distant. God also means sex to be fruitful, selfless and complementary, but paganism makes sex sterile, selfish and barren of vital distinctions.

On just one quality, the quality of complexity, paganism seems actually to accept the creator's design. But we should not be deceived. While paganism does recognize that human sexuality is complex (i.e., has multiple dimensions), it nevertheless scrambles the way its various dimensions interrelate so that what results thoroughly distorts God's original intention. Of course because paganism rejects what God deems essential, it also diminishes the moral status of marriage by treating this important human institution as though it were nothing more than a temporary social convenience.

Second, while paganism stresses the importance of the spiritual dimension in human sexual relationships, it also all but erases any actual distinction between spirit and body. For paganism, the spirit realm so infuses the material body that the physical actions of a material body (by acts of sex) can actually manipulate and direct spiritual powers controlling the universe. In this way, pagan sexual morality reverses the biblical understanding that, while the material and the spiritual certainly relate, the spiritual realm is nevertheless distinguished from the space-time-material universe. And they are distinct because the spiritual realm transcends all that is merely material. Biblically speaking, we understand that moral living means that the body must be disciplined and directed by the spirit, not the spirit by the body.

Third, pagan sexual morality reverses the moral relation between honor and shame. It glorifies what God abhors as disgraceful. It commends as a matter of spiritual growth sexual behavior God defines as degrading. It praises as a matter of moral achievement what God despises as outrageous. It celebrates sexual sin but loathes sexual purity, often mocking it as immature, abhorrent or even corrupt. In matters of sexual intimacy, it delights in exposing what should hidden and displaying for public review what should be kept private. For example, Moore hopes for a day when "we can have graphic erotic imagery around us and not . . . feel a compulsion to stare."^[13]

Fourth, pagan sexual morality substitutes the idea of sexual spirituality for spiritual sexuality. These terms may seem very nearly the same, perhaps even synonymous. But in fact they are polar opposites. Of course, it is thoroughly biblical to recognize the spiritual importance of sex, to recognize that whenever human beings participate in acts of sex we always touch on matters of spiritual significance as well as physical, emotional and psychological significance. So, human sexuality is essentially and unavoidably spiritual. But that is not what pagan sexual morality is about. At least that is not its main concern.

What biblical Christianity says is that, because sex is profoundly spiritual, this means we must be very careful about avoiding sexual sin. If not, then our misbehavior will surely produce spiritual disaster. By contrast, pagan sexuality focuses on the idea that the best most desirable sort of spirituality is sexual, and that every kind of sexual desire and any sort of sexual experience are of themselves spiritual in a morally good sense.^[14] What paganism means by sexual spirituality is that the highest levels of spirituality are reached through sexual acts performed in the body. It believes every sort of sexual experience is an instrument for spiritual enlightenment. And, if spiritual enlightenment is always a good thing, then any and every sort of sexual experience can be defined as "moral."

By contrast, sexual morality defined in the Bible opposes the idea that any spirituality is morally self-justifying. In fact, the worst recesses of evil are just as truly "spiritual" as the highest reaches of good. As a category, "spirituality" does not alone tell us anything about distinguishing between what is moral or immoral. It only increases the stakes at odds between what is right and wrong. In scripture we find out that the way human actions affect the morality of spiritual life is by means of obedience—by how well our wills and actions conform to God's moral law. Jesus says, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love" (John 15:10). Thus the spiritual dimension touched by human sexual behavior is judged good or evil, righteous or sinful, depending on whether or not it conforms to the moral standards God has fixed for human sexual behavior. Mere recognition that sex is spiritual reveals nothing at all about whether any particular sex act is moral or immoral. Perhaps nowhere in scripture is the connection between obedience and spiritual purity stated more clearly than where Peter urges Christians to "Keep your souls holy by obeying the truth . . . you have been born again [i.e., spiritually], not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Peter 1:22-23). ^[15]

Fifth, pagan sexual morality confuses sex with holiness. In paganism, holiness is so closely identified with sex that it ends up defining holiness by sex. For Moore, the "deepest secret of sex" is that sex is life "precisely in its holiness rather than its secularity."^[16] Rather than holiness being a fixed moral measure to which human participation in sex must conform in order to be moral, pagan morality reduces the holiness of sex to nothing other than sex itself. Hence, because all sex—any sex—is holy, there can never be any sex act that is not "holy" according to the pagan definition. For biblical Christians, how we practice sex and the way we express our own human sexuality are enormously important to God, and because they are he insists that human sexual behavior can qualify as moral only when it is holy. But the holiness of sex as God defines "holiness" is not something that arises from sex itself. Rather, it comes from something higher than sex, something that sets a standard to which the practice of sex must conform. For Christians, the holiness to which sex must conform to be moral comes from the very character of God. God says "Be holy, because I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16; also Leviticus 11:44,45; 19:2; and 20:7). Moral sex is holy because sex is from the one true God who is himself the perfect measure of all holiness. Sex is holy only when it is practiced God's way. It is holy only when human sexual behavior is in line with the holy character of God.

Sixth, the pagan approach to sexual morality, while glorifying the significance of union with the divine, ends up reversing the biblical idea of divine incarnation. In scripture the awesome mystery revealed in the gospel is that in Jesus Christ God took the penalty of human sin upon himself. Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God. He is the second person of the Trinity, fully God and fully man, and anyone who identifies with Christ by repenting of sin and confessing faith in his work on the cross is saved by the power of God and given hope of eternal life. Paganism affirms divine incarnation as well. But it turns from incarnation initiated and accomplished by God and in its place substitutes the exact opposite—the idea of incarnation initiated and accomplished by human beings. Any man or woman by his or her own initiative can manipulate divine power by uniting with the divine being through the body of a sex partner. Thus pagan sexual morality rejects the legitimate grace of God's actual incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ, and instead legitimizes sexual sin by redefining it as an act of self-initiated divine incarnation.

Seventh, pagan sexual morality, redefines the meaning of joining human life with the life of God. As revealed in scripture, sin has alienated man from his creator. But God in love offers a way for us to be reconciled to himself despite sin. The moral alienation caused by sin can be removed by faith in Jesus Christ and forgiveness made possible by his atoning work on the cross. In fact, God now calls us to be united with him through Christ. Jesus said, "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Later Paul by inspiration of the Holy Spirit promises, "If we have been united with him . . . in his death, we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection" (Romans 6:5).

Pagan sexual morality actually comes very close to this same idea. It comes so close in fact that great care must be taken to distinguish one from the other. With biblical Christianity, paganism also emphasizes the importance of uniting with deity. But paganism perverts the idea of moral and spiritual relational reconciliation between God and redeemed humanity by substituting an instrumental view of sexual copulation. Pagans claim that men and women are actually united with deity through sex. One either reaches deity through the body of a human sex partner, or a spirit deity comes to inhabit the body of the human sex partner so that sex with that human partner turns into an act of sexual union with the spirit deity itself. In either case, pagan sexual morality makes sex between human partners an instrument for gaining spiritual power with God.

Paul writing to Christians in first century Corinth was writing to young believers just saved out of paganism, and they were all too familiar with the belief system that supported pagan sexual morality. Corinth was dedicated to the worship of Aphrodite the goddess of sex, and men of the city patronized prostitutes who served in the temple of Aphrodite believing they were uniting with the goddess herself and directing her power in their favor when they did so. Against this background Paul explains that Christians are united with Christ in a way so comprehensive that our union with Christ is immediately affected when a Christian participates in a sexual relationship with another person. Indeed, Christians are told even our physical bodies are now "members of Christ himself," and the union of our bodies with Christ is so profound part of the offense involved if ever a Christian patronizes a prostitute is that sex of that sort involves uniting "the members of Christ" with her (1 Corinthians 6:15). For Christians, an adulterous act that engages the body in sexual sin also violates the integrity of the unique union whereby we are united with Christ in spirit (1 Corinthians 6:16-17). Thus we must acknowledge—in fact we dare not deny—that there is a very profound and absolutely unavoidable connection between union with Christ and bodily union with another person in a sexual relationship.

There is, indeed, a profoundly significant moral and spiritual difference between the role of sex as it affects the God-man union revealed and defined in scripture and the role of sex serving the man-divinity union of paganism. So, where exactly does the difference lie? The Christian understands that he or she is related to Christ in sex, but not by sex. By contrast, paganism ends up justifying and commending the exact opposite. Faithful Christians must always oppose the pagan idea that sex is or can be a means by which men and women enter into the life and power of God. Even though we should agree with pagans who affirm that sex is a profoundly spiritual act that truly does affect the spiritual relationship one has with God himself. It does impact the integrity of a profoundly intimate relationship between redeemed humanity—the Church—and he who is the only true power behind the universe. Sexual union between human partners really can earn the favor of God, can genuinely reflect his holiness, and can express the highest purposes God intends for human beings in relationship with each other and with himself—when it is practiced morally. But this capacity also means that sex is just as deeply and profoundly offensive in God's sight when it is perverted by sin.

Finally, the eighth reason pagan sexual morality goes wrong is that like every other alternative challenging the biblical approach to sexual morality, pagan sexual morality does not deliver what it promises. Indeed, the tragedy of the pagan approach is so great it truly is beyond measure. Not only does it fail to deliver on what it promises. In the end it leads to the very opposite of that which makes it seem at first attractive. Pagan sexual morality promises a quick and self-indulgent way to spiritual life and power. It promises a way to derive maximum benefit from the most profound dimension—the spiritual dimension—of sexual experience. But in the end, it puts one in direct opposition to the ultimate source of lasting spiritual power, and it leads to eternal spiritual death. While it promises a form of personal salvation by over turning the meaning of sexual sin, the redefinition does not fool God and he has eternally decreed, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:20 KJV).

The terrible irony of pagan sexual morality is that by glorifying the spiritual power encountered by men and women at the ultimate level of sexual union, it actually leads to the ultimate loss of spiritual power that results from spiritual death. It drives them away from union with the only spirit being who truly is omnipotent. By contrast the biblical approach to sexual morality is joined through moral obedience to the blessing of eternal life, and it gives access at the same time to resources of spiritual power that come only to those who by moral purity maintain intimacy with God.

Conclusion

In closing I wish to note how very different the morality of sex God's way is from any alternative offered by the culture. All alternatives now challenging the biblical approach to sexual morality (playboy morality, romantic morality, therapeutic morality and pagan morality) begin with one common assumption: that man's earthly nature is good so that natural human desires can be trusted to shape and define the moral norms of sexual behavior. By comparison, biblical morality stands apart from every other because only the Bible insists that, because man's earthly nature is perverted, we can never find true moral norms for human sexual conduct unless we look in another direction entirely. Only in the Bible are we told we must "put to death . . . whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming" (Colossians 3:5-6). Rather than trusting what our earthly nature desires, we are told we must instead put this earthly nature to death. If not, then its desires will surely lead us into eternal spiritual death.

True sexual morality comes from who God is and what he decrees. And because it does, sex is truly and profoundly spiritual. But its moral meaning and definition does not come from unregenerate human nature, natural sexual feelings or any variety of personal sexual experience. According to God's moral revelation, we must "not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do" (1 Peter 1:14-15). Indeed, Dorothy Sayers said much the same thing when she warned believers in Christ to remember "it is not the business of the Church to adapt Christ to men, but to adapt men to Christ."^[17] Evangelical Christians now standing on the threshold of the third millennium face enormous pressures from the influence of popular alternatives that oppose God's standards of sexual morality, and of these none is more powerfully and directly opposed than the pagan sexual morality now reemerging in our culture.

We will teach and practice sex God's way, only so long as we stand to defend the distinction given in 1 Peter 1:14-15 and repeated in the warning given by Dorothy Sayers. Sex is meant to be holy. But it is in fact "holy" only as human sexual conduct is made to accord with the perfect moral purity of Jesus Christ. And since the moral purity of Christ remains forever unchanged, this means the moral integrity of a Church that is abiding in unadulterated union with Christ can never reset sexual moral norms to accommodate the desires of unregenerate men and women—however earnestly they may proclaim the "spirituality" of their sexual desires.