God of Chastity, Part II

Christopher West's book Theology of the Body for Beginners is an old topic in this blog — see the earlier entries in my Theology of the Body series about the theological outlook espoused by the late Pope John Paul II, as described in West's book — but today I think of it as, for me, new wine in new skin.

John Paul II made it clear that there is nothing profane about combining "theology" with "the body" or "the flesh" ... as in S-E-X. Indeed, the truth is quite the opposite: there is nothing more appropriate to a Christian outlook. There is nothing more important for the Christian to understand than the reason St. Paul could write, in his letter to the Ephesians:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church — for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 6:25-32)

This makes it sound as if Christ and the church have a "one flesh," i.e., a marital, relationship — as indeed they do! Relationships of the "flesh" — sex — image or reflect the mysterious love of the three persons that make up the Holy Trinity for one another: Father, Son, and Spirit. This is the meaning of sex.

West calls this the "spousal analogy." To Catholics, as I hope to all Christians, analogies are profound tokens of truth. True, God is all spirit, and his three inner persons do not have "sex lives." But God's self-revelation in the Bible, whether Old Testament or New, uses a spousal analogy at just about every turning. Paul, for example, cites one of the earliest verses in the Bible, Genesis 2:24:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The idea that Christ, as the Lamb of God, is the "bridegroom" and the church is his "bride" comes to fruition in one of the last Bible verses, Revelation 19:7:

Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

All the way through the Bible, the deep, inner nature of the created world, and of us, is shown as being fundamentally nuptial. "Be fruitful and multiply" is not just something that would be nice for us to do. It is our most basic way of being in conformance with the contours God gave his created universe.


So, yes, I've gone over to "the other side" on some very basic things. In modern parlance, I've had a paradigm shift.

The way I know I've had a paradigm shift is that when I saw, on West's p. 14, "Make no mistake: in the final analysis the abortion debate is not about when life begins. It is about the meaning of sex," I finally got it.

The first two times I read the book, that passage did not even merit being highlighted — though I was assiduously highlighting passages all around it. This time, I thought it deserved highlighting not in my customary blue marking pen but in day-glo pink.

"The meaning of sex." Sex has a meaning? A deep, permanent, nature-of-all-things, fundamental significance, as opposed to what two consenting adults happen to be willing to accord to it, at the moment, if not tomorrow, or next week, or next year? The meaning of sex?

It was like the scene in The Blues Brothers where Jake (John Belushi) sees the light:

Jake: "The band ... the band ..."
Rev. Cleophus [James Brown]: "DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?!"
Jake: "THE BAND!!!"
Rev. Cleophus: "DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?!!"
Elwood [Dan Aykroyd]: "What light?!"
Rev. Cleophus: "DO YOU SEEEE THE LIGHT?!"
Jake: "YES!! YES!! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST ... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!!"

I finally got it. I saw the light. Sex has a meaning. You can't be a serious Christian, not really, until you are willing to admit it. For years, I was unwilling to admit it.

I had all the data at my disposal: how my church wanted its members to act in accordance with that fundamental outlook; how the outlook permeates the Bible. I just didn't see it. I just didn't want to accept that such a contentious, divisive — and, to me, seemingly peripheral — facet of modern-day living as our "right to sexual freedom" should be allowed to divide people, both within the church and outside it.

But it's not peripheral. It's central. It's make-or-break. Marital fidelity, chastity outside marriage, the male-female union as "one flesh" never to be sundered by man, the time of the beginning of life as periperal to the abortion debate, the reason homosexual unions are against God's plan, the reason casual sex, pornography, and masturbation are wrong ... all these hot-button topics of the present day look different to me, post paradigm shift, than they did before.

I no longer think Christians who — such as I myself did, prior to the shift — think they are complete Christians even though they differ with their tradition on issues of sex, gender, marriage, reproduction, and family are actually finished.


Paradigm shifts are funny. Not ha-ha-funny or peculiar-funny. They are funny because you can't really argue about them, or with them. You either see the new paradigm, or you don't.

In a way, I have "understood" what is now my new paradigm for a long, long time. I just didn't get it.

I understood that the church saw issues of the flesh and the body as crucial, where I simply didn't.

I understood that the Bible uses what West calls the "spousal analogy" throughout ... but I thought of old-fashioned analogies as disposable and dispensible, in the modern world.

I understood that God's revelation of his own nature and truth to us in scripture was timeless ... while mentally striking out those ideas that didn't accord with my own way of looking at things!

So I didn't immediately snap to attention the first time or two I read West's sentence about the abortion debate and the meaning of sex. His thought went right over my head. If someone had brought it to my attention, I would have rejected it or tried to explain it away.

A paradigm shift feels like something snapping into place, something seating itself, in your mind, in just the way it is meant to be. You just know, once you have had it, that you'll never be the same. And, sure, you want to share it with everybody. At the same time, mature reflection tells you that they, too, likely have all the data at hand, and unless something just snaps into place for them, they just aren't going to agree with you. They still have that old paradigm, the one you used to have. Paradigm shifts do not lend themselves to easy solidarity.