Matthias Roberts - Beyond Shame

In memory of Rachel Held Evans:
thanks for being my cheerleader.

There are times when an idea has been around for so long we fail to see it clearly or question its validity. Such is the idea that sex is shame filled. How could that which creates lifeour very heartbeat, the shared experience of pleasure, family, community, love, life on this planet, and all the possibility of the human experiencebe fundamentally shame filled? And yet the deep-seated assumption that sex is shameful continues to create our knee-jerk responses. Why has this belief had such durability? Why has it had us in its grip for so long and continued to rob us of joy?

The answers are simultaneously simple and complex.

We could talk about the mind-body split of the early philosophers, who developed the dualistic idea that the mind is eternal while the body is just a temporal and fading part of us. We could talk about Constantines church leaders, who adopted the mind-body split and taught that the body is evil and will cause you to turn away from God. We could talk about our more recent Victorian ancestors, who spread their sexual repression and obsession to America, teaching that sex for anything but procreation is impure and evil. Or we could talk about the origins of the Purity Movement in the 1980s and early 1990s, when it was no longer good enough to save yourself for marriage, and in addition to being taught physical restraint, youth were told to keep themselves pure in all thought, all desire, and all action until the day of heterosexual matrimony. Of course, if we wanted to take an even closer look at each of these moments in history, we could find the corrupt stories of power and control, men and money, and the forces of manipulation at work behind each of these scenes. But suffice it to say, the loaded message that came down from person to person, generation to generation, parent to child is this: Any body-curiosity or pleasure desire having to do with genitals (yours or anyone elses) is bad, dirty, and perverted. Curiosity or attraction toward anyone other than someone of the opposite sex, or an experience of gender identity other than that which matches the genitals assigned to you at birththat also is bad, dirty, and perverted.

For two thousand years, this body- and sex-shaming religious culture has primarily privileged those who are white, wealthy, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, and male. These are and have been the people for whom all doors of leadership are wide open. These have been the decision makers.

As our country has become more diverse, however, and an appreciation for this diversity has grown, more and more people desire to have their churches be representative of the people and communities in their lives. Over the years, as the church has failed to recognize and respond to the desires and needs of its people, the costs have mounted:

• Currently congregants, especially those under forty, are leaving the organized Western church in droves in search of a more authentic experience of faith and worship rooted in love, justice, and diversity. They speak of a genuine hunger for the reunion of spirituality and sexuality, a hunger still being insufficiently addressed by most theologies of white-dominant Western churches. This silence and ignorance breed profound sexual shame and suffering, impacting core identity, attachment, and happiness. Many peoplemen, women, and queer alikeare seeking to heal from sexual shame and to experience the gift of sexual and spiritual abundance they believe God created them to know.
• Sexual abuse and sexual violence are rampant in the United States (one in three girls and one in five boys will experience sexual violence), with 90 percent of the perpetrators being boys/men in power over those with lesser power. America also has one of the highest teen pregnancy and STI rates of the top fifty industrialized countries. The church has, in large part, failed to provide age-appropriate sex education across the life cycle to equip children, adolescents, young adults, and parents who are desperate for this knowledge. This has left congregants ignorant and vulnerable, without the skills to spot potential danger signs and disempowered in making sexual-health decisions in line with their faith values. I believe the church can speak out about sexual violence; support victims; teach consent and sexuality education; teach sexual responsibility, sexual self-control, and self-discipline to boys (not making girls responsible for boys sexual behavior); and swiftly support the punishment of sexual perpetrators.
• The eligibility of church members for leadership and ordination without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity continues to be a topic of profound divisiveness and oppression in the church, causing immeasurable pain for LGBTQ+ individuals and their family members and robbing congregations of the spiritual gifts and talents these individuals have to bring to their communities.

The desire for a shame-less, liberated, love- and justice-filled experience of worship and service is completely transforming churches across the country. It is time to flip the script and begin to talk about what we can do to create a shame-free, life-giving, grace-filled culture where we can live the life we were created to livean abundant life of connection and pleasure.

I was recently reading Stella Resniks book Body-to-Body Intimacy, trying to answer the question How, physiologically, are we hardwired for connection and pleasure? Resnik shares Harry Harlows experiments with monkeys deprived of sex play in their youth. When the young monkeys did not have access to sex play with their peers, they were unable to engage in sexual activity as adult monkeys, because they could not read the mating signals of the partnering monkeys. Now, I realize we are not monkeys, and though we would never subject humans to such experiments, I see the effects of such deprivations in my office all the time!