Cultural Changes at Warp Speed

Boldly going where?

As a culture, our understanding of sexuality has changed at warp speed in the last 18 months. While other generations may have trekked this terrain in the past, it seems we are quickly and boldly going where no Western civilization has gone before.

When the sexual revolution launched in the 1960’s, our culture began changing rapidly. Perhaps more quickly than most of us baby boomers realized. But in 2015, Captain Kirk, Picard or someone shifted us into hyperdrive. Now it seems that common points of cultural reference are streaking past us. 

There has been so much in the news of late that is alarming. And I don’t want this blog to be bogged down with cultural war content. It simply distracts us from the task of reaching the sexually addicted, abused and confused. But there are well-funded forces at work which see Christianity as the source of all oppression. They are aiming to take down Christian colleges, and no doubt the photon torpedoes will be aimed at pastors and Christian counselors before long.

This I know for certain: We absolutely must be grounded in a sound theology of sexuality AND minister out of deep compassion. BOTH are absolutely essential for what lies ahead.

So why my repeated “Star Trek” allusions?

Theologian Stanley Grenz was the first to write about how the transition from “Star Trek” of the 1960’s to the series “Star Trek: Next Generation” so interestingly mirrors the recent societal shifts. The key drivers in the original show were the alpha-male Kirk and emotionless Spock. The interplay between them was humorous and infectious. Spock found the feelings of his colleague both “highly illogical” and problematic. Logic and power were supreme.

But the next generation of space travelers evidenced a noticeable shift in the emotional dynamics. The more thoughtful Picard would never take decisive action without consulting the ever empathetic Counselor Troi. And the synthetic member of the crew, Data the android, fast became one of the most popular characters for his continual quest to understand human emotion. Unlike Spock, he had no human DNA in his circuitry. Always on the outside looking in, he attempted to find some grasp of emotional experience, at times spending hours in the holodeck to catch a glimpse of emotive interplay.

Grenz maintains that this mirrors our own culture as we have shifted into post-modern mode. Within modernity, reason was king. All belief had to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt or else it could not be seen as Truth. 

But in the post-modern climate, very little needs to be proven. If it feels true, then it must be true. 

This is the tsunami soup in which we minister to the sexually broken. We cannot change the culture anytime soon, and trying to change it by focusing on the levers of political power will only wreak havoc. But each of us as pastors and counselors need to know what we believe to be true about sexuality and why. Parishioners and counselees will walk through our doors who have been tossed about with all kinds of rhetoric. We cannot lean on a few selected Bible verses or a handful of quotes from famous authors. We must know our theology and be able to communicate it compassionately.

A lady was referred to me for an addiction to BDSM (Bondage, Discipline/Dominance, Sadism/Submission, Masochism). Right out of the box, she asked, “Where in the Bible does it say this is wrong?” Good question. There isn’t a single verse in the Bible which addresses the use of pain or role playing in achieving orgasm. None.

For this lady, and for many others in her group, the BDSM sexual experience was euphoric as the torture-induced endorphin rush merged with the natural excitement of orgasm. The frequent “play time” had boosted her self-esteem. She was more at peace with her body than at any other time in her life. Her “master” and the others she met with stated plainly that this was who she was, and that she would never be able to quit. Others had tried exiting, but could not.

Immediately, I referred to theology. Not a prooftext. Not a testimony of someone who found Jesus and left that practice. Not a heavily highlighted book of quotes.

By pointing her to the Garden of Eden, I explained how God designed us as sexual beings. Dominance and submission resulted from the Fall. The infliction of pain was not part of the Garden encounter. The purpose behind sexual intimacy was not to reach some orgasmic pinnacle, but to join two hearts together with loving bonds.

Is this an extreme example? Maybe it was twenty years ago. But with the tsunami of porn videos, teens are seeing violent sexual behavior as normative. Kids are experimenting with this stuff. Even Christian husbands and wives have spoken to me about how this has impacted their marriage and have wondered what to do. 

Pull yourself away from cable news and internet distractions. Begin to study. Here are some sound sources:

Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West summarizes Pope John Paul II’s teaching on the place of the human body in God’s grand design for this created world.

For the Body: Recovering a Theology of Gender, Sexuality, and the Human Body by Timothy Tennent is a more recent text. Written from a Protestant perspective, it is a carefully crafted understanding of why God made us the way we are, and how he speaks through our very bodies. One strength of this work is a great chapter on singleness and friendship.

And then there’s my book Into the Light. Four chapters scattered throughout its pages provide an easy to read and more narrowly focused theology of sexuality which takes you through the familiar categories of Creation, Fall, Restoration, and Glorification.

Sci-fi lore says that hyperdrive will take you into hyperspace—a place in the universe beyond the third dimension. The “next generation” of post-modernists have fueled their own journey with an inward gaze at fluid and developing attractions and dysphoria. For Christian caregivers, this will be an unexplored galaxy.

Space may be the final frontier, but the current culture seems hellbent to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and to boldly go where pagan cultures have gone long before. This is no time for hiding behind deflector shields and escaping to some 20th century scene in the holodeck. There are those in need of the healing hands of Jesus, despite our turbulent journey through cosmic debris.