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Question I
Why has Christianity rejected many expressions of sexuality as antithetical to spirituality while various
Eastern traditions — Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism — have been more accepting of sexuality, have
even embraced sex as a vehicle for spiritual transcendence? What do you think about the connection, if any,
between sexuality and spirituality? In the Christian view, is Shakespeare's mortal coil, Milton's perfidious
bark, just a weight holding us down, preventing us from achieving greater divinity, or is the body, as Blake
explains, a portion of the soul discerned by the five senses?
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I
think that the challenge to live with a body, with spirit and with a soul is universal — every person and
every community has to struggle with these three areas all the time. Christianity has often focused so
narrowly on the spirit that the body has been neglected, even seen as an obstacle. But our modern culture
has missed the mark, too. We have created a materialistic, technological wonderworld, but we have
neglected to cultivate the spirit except in an ecclesiastical reaction against secularism. We haven't
developed spirituality in the world of our everyday lives. We want computers in every school, but no one is
raising a voice for beauty or compassion. We are worried that our children may not have the resources to
live a comfortable life, but we don't concern ourselves much about their vision or their ethics — their souls.
Most traditional societies have had a spiritual approach to government, but we try to do it with
reasonableness and rationality. The recent public hearings on the Clinton scandal — a mixture of moralism,
sentimentality and ambition — made it clear how weak and limited those resources are.
From our materialism we tend to think of sex as biological, and from our habits of thinking
psychologically about ourselves we also think of it as a form of communication. But the religions of the
world show that sex is deeper and greater in scope. As we work out our sexual lives, we are finding
meaningful structures, values and purpose. I see sex fundamentally as the joy and challenge of being alive,
full of desire, and moving ahead into the many possibilities we have in our short lives. Sex is vitality. If we
have a good sexual experience, we may feel totally alive and inspired. Have a bad experience, and
everything looks dull. Working our way through our sexuality is a path toward meaning and fulfillment in
general.
It's in the nature of spirituality to seek purity and control and to live in hierarchies and with simple
rules: Ten Commandments, Benedictine Rule, the Noble Eight-fold Path. If our spirituality, whatever its
brand, doesn't have heart and soul, these tendencies will no longer serve positively but will become rigid.
We see rigidity in Christianity, Islam, Judaism — in all spiritual movements. In our religious rigidity we
don't like the messiness of actual life and so always try to get it under control. Religion has a habit of reducing morality to the reining in of sex and then forgetting about other moral
issues or making them secondary. No one’s threatening to impeach the President for the use of violence to
resolve conflicts or for supporting injustice.
Some religions do portray sex as a way to reach divinity. They recognize that our sexual desire is
never fulfilled with a human partner, but that our interpersonal sex can be a way of opening up to a deeper
and vaster kind of love and connection. I don't think we have to spiritualize our sexuality. All we have to do
is be an honest, generous, present partner. If we did nothing else, our spiritual lives would increase.
Needless to say, there is no reason why anyone could not be a good Blakean Christian, simply
choosing not to participate in the anti-sexual, anti-body anxiety of the church. There is nothing inherent in
Christianity that is negative about sex. My favorite source of a pro-sexual view of Christianity is Oscar
Wilde's wonderful letter from prison, De Profundis. In it he not only provides the outlines of a
Blakean but also a Romantic Christianity. He moves Christianity from cool to warm, from anxious
moralism to deep wisdom about passion, sin, and pleasure.
Francoeur responds and
Moore adds more
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