Sex (All of It Hetero, Homo, and All Variations) and the Christian



Not surprisingly, the recent Vatican statement addressing the growing phenomena of governments giving legal recognition to homosexual relationships has caused quite a stir. Add to it the President speaking out against it and hinting at some law needed to prevent it. Then top it off with the extensive coverage given to the New Hampshire Episcopal candidate for their Episcopacy who is divorced and openly living in a homosexual relationship.



Here is a shocker for some of you more traditionally minded Christians. The world is a fallen place and as such everything that had meaning originally is a little off center. As Jesus said in reference to marriage and divorce “it wasn’t supposed to be that way in the beginning.” We live in a fallen world and as such all activity is rather confused and suffers from a “meaning” gap that was part of the original plan but because something other than God has become the central focus of life is lost on us as much as we make whatever isn’t God, god in our lives.



Of course for Christians, Jesus has made possible the restoration of the Kingdom of God. Christians shouldn’t be like the rest of people living in the “fallen” world, but they should be a “light”, a “leaven”, “salt” that those living in the meaningless, fallen world can look to and say “see how they love one another” (the early amazement recorded in Acts of the Apostles).



For a variety of reasons though modern Christians have become rather indistinguishable from the rest of the world. In some ways like members of an Elks club they still go through the rituals at their weekly meetings but when it comes right down to it there is little that would separate them from the “world” that they live in.



So when it comes to understanding the teaching of the Catholic Church on any of these issues of sexuality, not surprisingly those of us who are very attached to our corner of the fallen world just don’t get it. We want the followers of Christ to burn incense to the emperor just like we are. It bothers us that someone can still think that sex of whatever ilk is disordered in anyway (although even the fallen world still has its standards). But of course for the Christian there is the knowledge that even our “minds” share in this fallen condition so that we do not see clearly what is good and what is bad for us.



The modern world is littered with the psychological baggage of those who have acted on their desires and impulses. Most end up in Twelve Step programs that aim at helping them recover by acknowledging their powerlessness and their need to embrace a “higher power” so that by taking one day at a time they might live a new life.



Many of us act like spectators at a demolition derby wondering who of our acquaintances will survive all of the self-destructive behavior that we witness on the side lines of their lives. We would never think of offering them something better, frankly because we haven’t found it ourselves.



What the world needs now is the witness of a new people restored by the grace of Christ. People who have repented from their way of thinking with a fallen world and have been raised to see the “way” things were meant to be. When all of us witness the life these people live we too will want what they have, but unfortunately they are few in the days in which we live. Mainly because the followers of Christ have forgotten who Christ is and the power that he offers to those who believe “trust” in Him.