Sex as Salvation

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Steve Foster

Ernest Becker wrote The Denial of Death in 1973. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its psychological insight and its honest assessment of life.

Becker’s basic premise is that, as humans, we are both blessed and cursed. Blessed with a conscious awareness of ourselves and of life…but at the same time cursed with an awareness of our weakness, insignificance, and mortality.

We are simultaneously worms and gods. Or to put it more graphically, we are gods with anuses (51).

This tension is too much to bear so we compensate by lying to ourselves, denying our own immortality, and creating systems and cultures in which we can find some sense of heroic significance (think of our present-day over-fascination with sports).

Another solution is what Becker calls the romantic solution (160).

The love relationship of modern man is a religious problem. …If you don’t have a God in heaven, an invisible dimension that justifies the visible one, then you take what is nearest at hand and work out your problems on that.

Is self-consciousness too painful, the sense of being a separate individual, trying to make some kind of meaning out of who one is, what life is, and the like? Then one can wipe it away in the emotional yielding to the partner, forget oneself in the delirium of sex, and still be marvelously quickened in the experience (162).

Without God, we look for a romantic relationship or a sexual experience to give us a sense of identity, significance, and meaning to life. Our love partner takes the place of God. And sex becomes a type of worship.

It becomes our religion. Our salvation.

This is not unique to our culture. Ancient societies have often idolized sex and made it into a god or goddess and worshiped at its altar.

After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to the position of God? We want redemption—nothing less. We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know that our creation has not been in vain (167).

We hunger for a sense of transcendence. We want to lose ourselves in something greater than ourselves…yet at the same time maintain our own identity. Sex and romance seem like an oasis in this lonely desert so we run toward them. Pursue them. Sing about them. Fantasize about them. Worship them.

But as Becker notes:

Sex is a “disappointing answer to life’s riddle,” and if we pretend that it is an adequate one, we are lying both to ourselves and to our children. …In this sense, “sex education” is a kind of wishful thinking, a rationalization, and a pretense: we try to make believe that if we give instruction in the mechanics of sex we are explaining the mystery of life. We might say that modern man tries to replace vital awe and wonder with a “how to do it” manual (164).

The sexual partner does not and cannot represent a complete and lasting solution to the human dilemma. …No wonder. How can a human being be a god-like “everything” to another? No human relationship can bear the burden of godhood, and the attempt has to take its toll in some way on both parties (165-166).

So when sex and romance disappoint, do we run toward God? No. We run after another relationship. And then another. Holding onto the illusion…to the lie…that if only I find the right person, or maybe even the right sexual identity or gender, then I will be satisfied.

But the hunger remains. And soon sex becomes just another addictive drug to numb the pain of life.

The spiritual burdens of the modern love relationship were so great and impossible on both partners that they reacted by completely despiritualizing or depersonalizing the relationship. The result is the Playboy mystique: over-emphasis on the body as a purely sensual object. If I can’t have an ideal that fulfills my life, then at least I can have guilt-free sex—so modern man seems to reason (168).

The progression is fairly obvious:

  • God is rejected.
  • I search for a substitute.
  • Sex becomes my god, my salvation.
  • When it disappoints, I search for another partner or another experience.
  • When this fails, I give up.
  • Sex becomes my drug, my addiction.
  • Eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow I die.

As much as our culture worships, exalts, and seeks to promote sex without limits, it won’t satiate the thirst of our souls.

Becker concludes:

Redemption can only come from outside the individual, from beyond, from our conceptualization of the ultimate source of things, the perfection of creation. It can only come…when we lay down our individuality, give it up, admit our creatureliness and helplessness (168).

Becker sees the desperate condition of humanity. He sees our limits. Our lies. Our false gods. Our utter helplessness.

Yet he cannot see any solution.

Having given up on religion as another illusion, he simply has no place to turn.

The most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something—an object of ourselves—and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force (285).

Becker ends his book worshiping at the altar of the Unknown God.

But this God has revealed Himself in real space-time history, in the person of Jesus Christ. And He can be known by those willing to humble themselves, admit their creatureliness and helplessness, and trust Him.

There is no other hope.

And no other salvation.

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The Denial of God

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Steve Foster

Interesting quote from Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death" (1973):

The Russians could not let go of Lenin even in death and so have entombed him as a permanent immortality-symbol. Here is a supposedly 'secular' society that holds pilgrimages to a tomb and that buries heroic figures in the 'sacred wall' of the Kremlin, a "hallowed" place.

No matter how many churches are closed or how humanistic a leader or a movement may claim to be, there will never be anything wholly secular about human fear. Man's terror is always 'holy terror.' Terror always refers to the ultimates of life and death.

An "enlightened" culture often thinks that it can dispose of God and live in humanistic freedom and security. There is no such thing. Ultimately a person has to confront his utter powerlessness before life and death and his fear of insignificance and non-existence. If we reject God, then we automatically erect another one to take His place. There is no escape. We either bow before Him in humility and gratitude or fight against Him in our self-deluded pride.

I have bowed before the Lord Jesus Christ because He is the only One who has demonstrated unimaginable love in taking on human flesh to die for me and unconquerable power in defeating death by rising from the dead.

Who's your Lord?

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The Church in a Sexualized Culture

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Steve Foster

How is the church of Jesus Christ to respond to the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage?

There is no doubt that our culture has changed. What was once unquestioned and taken for granted—marriage as the union of one man and one woman—has now been redefined and expanded to any two individuals (and feasibly more) of whatever gender or gender identity.

Marriage is no longer an objective, established institution that we affirm. Rather it is a subjective entity that we can define any way that we please.

It is the ultimate postmodern dream. There are no clear lines. There are no real distinctions. Everything is blurred, ambiguous, open to individual interpretation. We can not only redefine marriage but also gender, sex, family, identity, truth, even life itself.

Christianity, by its very nature, will stand against such a culture…not because it seeks to be oppositional but because it affirms a Creator who defines reality regardless of our personal opinions on the matter.

A church which believes in and is committed to objective Truth will inevitably clash against a culture which believes in and is committed to subjective truth as defined by each individual or by political correctness.

So how should we now live in this present culture?

We must follow Jesus Christ.

When Jesus walked this earth, He both preached Truth and practiced Love.

Perhaps no story in the Gospels illustrates this balance better than the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. The religious leaders cart this woman in front of Jesus looking to force His hand and make Him choose between truth and love, between law“ and compassion.

Will He deny truth in order to show compassion? Or will He uphold truth and allow the woman to be stoned to death without compassion?

In the face of this dilemma, Jesus calmly bends down and writes in the dust. There is much speculation about what He wrote. Scripture simply does not tell us. I tend to think that He began to write out the sins of those around Him. But whatever He marked out in the dust, it brought about conviction on those standing there.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

If we are going to live boldly, wisely, and compassionately in this present culture, then we must first acknowledge our own sin and our desperate need for grace. There is no room for pride or arrogance in the heart of a believer in Jesus Christ. Our own sin condemns us apart from the redeeming blood of our Savior.

Next, after the religious leaders have all dropped their stones and departed, Jesus speaks a simple message to the wayward, adulterous woman.

I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more.

While religious leaders can often forget their own sin and need for God’s grace, our present culture confuses love and compassion with affirmation of practically every sexual impulse and desire.

The message of religion is “We condemn you so stop sinning.”

The message of our culture is “We don’t condemn you so continue doing what you are doing.”

The message of the church of Jesus Christ must be “We don’t condemn you. You are made in the image of God and valuable in His eyes. He gave His own Son to die for You and to offer You new life. And we love you too much not to tell you of the devastating, destructive, deceptive nature of sin and to help you walk in the path of holiness and wholeness.”

This is Christ’s message of hope to those who will inevitably be wounded, deceived, and confused by our culture’s increasing affirmation of sex without boundaries.

May the church of Jesus Christ not only speak it but live it.

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A Brief History of Thought

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Steve Foster

I picked up A Brief History of Thought based on a recommendation online by Tim Keller. It was a best seller in Europe for several months and just recently made its appearance in the U.S. The author, Luc Ferry, is a philosopher at the University of Paris.

The book attempts to give an overview of the major theories of thought from the Greek age to the present. It is a layman's guide to the great philosophical movements of history.

Ferry identifies the goal of philosophy as "the quest for a salvation without God" (12). Philosophy is composed of three parts: theory (how we should think about the world?), ethics (how we should live?), and salvation (how do we deal with the inescapable reality and fear of death?). Ferry believes that religion offers too quick and too easy of a solution to these big questions while "philosophy wants us to get ourselves out of trouble by utilising our own resources, by means of reason alone, with boldness and assurance" (10).

Greek Thought

The Greeks were the first to theorize about life from a non-religious perspective. Thus, they are considered the founders of philosophy.

Greek Theory. The Greeks were essentially pantheists. They viewed the cosmos (world) as being harmonious, orderly, rational, perfect, and essentially divine.

Wherefore the universe must be wise, and nature which holds all things in its embrace must excel in the perfection of reason [Logos]; and therefore the universe must be a God, and all the force of the universe must be held together by nature, which is divine. (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods)

Greek Ethics. If the universe is divine, then to live rightly is to live in harmony with the order of the universe.

Broadly speaking, the good was what was in accord with the cosmic order, whether one willed it or not, and what was bad was what ran contrary to this order, whether one liked it or not. The essential thing was to act, situation-by-situation, moment-by-moment, in accordance with the harmonious order of things, so as to find our proper place, which each of us was assigned within the Universal. (31)

Thus, the rationality of the Universe [called the Logos] governed our lives, determining how we should live and what place we had in society. Some were born kings, some were born slaves. It didn't matter. You just had to sense the harmony of the universe and seek to live within its rhythm.

Greek Salvation. Just live in the moment. Forsake the past. Stop hoping in the future. Yes, death will happen. But you will merely transition from one part of the universe to another. Yes, you will cease to be what you are, but become something else of which the universe then has need (Epictetus). You will transition from a self-conscious individual to a non-conscious particle of space dust enveloped by the vast universe. So stop attaching yourself to this world or to anything or anyone in it. Just close your eyes. Be serene. And act like nothing really matters. Don't worry, be Stoic.

Christian Thought

Ferry doesn't classify Christianity in the realm of philosophy but at the same time he recognizes that it cannot be ignored. Christianity dominated Western thought for 1500 years so it demands attention, even from the atheist. Surprisingly, Ferry gives a very fair hearing to Christianity and seems to understand (and even wrestle with) its major beliefs.

Christian Theory. The Logos of the Universe–all that is rational, powerful, harmonious, perfect, and complete–became incarnate in a single Man, Jesus Christ. The God of the Universe is both transcendant and immanent, eternal and personal, omnipotent and loving. Ferry explains how a Greek Stoic would read chapter one of John's Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made. [Up to this point, all is well, and the Stoics could still be in agreement with John, especially with the notion that the Logos and the divine are one and the same reality.] And the Word was made flesh [things start to take a turn for the worse!] and dwelt among us [quite unacceptable–the divine has become man, as incarnated in Jesus, none of which makes sense to a Stoic]. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth [sheer madness for the Greek sages…]

Christian Ethics.  Faith becomes pre-eminent…not a faith devoid of rationality but a faith dependent on the revelation of Another, the Logos of God. Every person is created by God. Every person is loved by God. Every person stands accountable to God. Thus, every person has value. And every person has a choice to make between the humility of trust and the pride of self-reliance. "It is no longer the case of thinking for oneself [philosophy], but rather of placing trust in another [Christ]" (63).

Though he is not a Christian (or even religious), Ferry recognizes the immense value of Christian thought and ethics.

…The idea of the equal dignity of all human beings makes its first appearance: and Christianity was to become the precursor of modern democracy. Although at times hostile to the Church, the French Revolution–and, to some extent, the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man–owes to Christianity an essential part of its egalitarian message. We see today how civilisations that have not experienced Christianity have great difficulties in fostering democratic regimes, because the notion of equality is not so deep-rooted. (72-73)

Christian Salvation. Ferry admits that nothing in philosophy compares to the salvation of Christianity–eternal love in Jesus Christ, individual immortality, the hope of bodily resurrection and the future restoration of our world. Ferry even acknowledges that all of this rests on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, "unique amongst all of the major religions" (85). "The resurrection is, so to speak, the alpha and omega of the Christian doctrine of salvation" (88).

The Christian response to mortality, for believers, at least, is without question the most effective of all responses: it would seem to be the only version of salvation that enables us not only to transcend the fear of death, but also to beat death itself. And by doing so in terms of individual identity, rather than anonymity or abstraction, it seems to be the only version that offers a truly definitive victory of personal immortality over our condition as mortals. (90)

One almost gets the sense that Ferry wants to believe…but he can't. The answer seems too simple to him, "too good to be true" (11). And, as a philosopher, Christianity requires him to trust in the power of Another and not in his own intellect and resources. This is too much for Ferry to sacrifice…even for the hope of eternal life.

Humanistic Thought

Ferry traces the beginning of humanistic thought to the publication of Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies in 1543. From that time forward, old presuppositions were challenged and discarded for the scientific revolution.

Humanistic Theory. Man is the center of the universe. He must depend on his own reason and construct his own meaning in the world. There is nothing divine or harmonious about the cosmos, "rather it is a world of blind forces and collision" (102). And there is no longer a dependence on revelation or religious authority, rather man is to adopt "an attitude of doubt and a critical spirit" (94).

…All ideas inherited from family or state, or indoctrinated from infancy onwards by 'authorities' (masters, priests) must be cast in doubt and examined in complete freedom by the individual subject. He alone is capable of deciding between true and false. (130)

Humanistic Ethics. Man is free and not "imprisoned by any natural code or historical determinant" (113). "His aim is to create himself by remaking the world, to transform it into a better place by the sheer force of his 'good will'" (126). "The human subject becomes the foundation of all thought, and the agent of all change" (131).

Humanistic Salvation. Man must create his own salvation or his own utopia on earth. He must live and die for a cause greater than himself. Ferry calls these pursuits the "religions of earthly salvation" (136).

Here are the three ways of saving one's life, or justifying one's death, which come to the same thing, by sacrificing it for a nobler cause: whether that means the revolution [communism], the homeland [patriotism] or the truths of science [scientism]. (136)

Ferry personally finds these notions to be "faintly ridiculous."

Postmodern Thought

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)–"the master of suspicion, the most abrasive thinker" (141)–marked the end of modern philosophy and the beginning of postmodernity.

Postmodern Theory. Nietzsche sought to destroy all ideas of a God, cosmos, or "rational, objective thought." There is no absolute truth. All the world is one big blind force of fragmented, alogical, destructured chaos.

Nietzsche's most profound insight, and one that will underpin his entire philosophy is that there does not exist, categorically, any perspective external to or higher than life itself… There can be no "objective" or "disinterested" value judgments–independent of the vital interests of the speaker–which devastates the classical conceptions of law and ethics–and there can be neither autonomus and disinterested judgments, nor objective and universally valid "facts." …According to one of Nietzsche's most celebrated statements, "There are no facts, only interpretations." (152-153)

Postmodern Ethics. There are no "ideals," no universal standards or principles, thus there is no right or wrong, good or evil. And there is no valid reason for compassion or love.

To proclaim a unversal love of humanity is, in practice, to acknowledge the preferment of all that is suffering, ill-constituted, degenerate. …For the wellbeing of the species, it is necessary for the ill-constituted, the feeble, the degenerate to perish. (168)

As Ferry notes, "it is no accident that Nietzsche became the cult philosopher of the Nazis" (149).

Nietzsche's ethics, if they could be called that, evolved into a "spiritualization of enmity"–it is good to have enemies so as to feel necessary and to have a means for becoming greater–and to "will to power" or "to will to will"–to live life with full intensity doing whatever you want without "fear, remorse, or regret" (176-177).

Postmodern Salvation. There obvioiusly is no meaning, purpose, or immortality outside of this physical life so the only ideal of salvation is living a life "entirely free of guilt" (191).

If striving gives you the highest feeling, then strive! If rest gives you the highest feeling, then rest! If fitting in, following and obeying give you the highest feeling, then obey! Only make sure you come to know what gives you the highest feeling, and then spare no means. Eternity is at stake! (Nietzsche's 1881 Notebook)

In other words, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:32).

Conclusion

Ferry brings his book to a close by trying to recapture some sense of theory, ethics, and salvation after Nietzsche. Without God, the cosmos, or even human rationality, what is left? Ferry tries to rebuild on the rubble of postmodernity but seems to struggle to gain footing. In the end, he cannot not dispense with all aspects of transcendence. Even though he has no real basis for love, rationality, consciousness, or freedom of choice (after all, if we are just blind forces in a chaotic, meaningless world then how can these concepts have any meaning?), he still knows that they exist in some sense. He has experienced to many "moments of grace" (as he calls them) that beckon him to see life from a grander scale, with a higher purpose and meaning. The best that Ferry can come up with is that we are simply here to expand the horizons of our thoughts, to see life through the perspective of another person's eyes. When we do such, we experience a type of salvation. We touch transcendence. We find the "wisdom of love" (264).

Ferry's closing chapters were the most verbose, self-contradictory, and disappointing. But then again, this does seem to be the end of philosophy. If there is no God, no Creator, no Designer, no Sustainer, no Savior…then what is reasonably left? We are mortal beings with limited knowledge stuck in a meaningless world. We are products of blind chance or impersonal forces. Our own thoughts are merely chemical juices flowing over neurological synapses. We are matter…and nothing else matters. This must be the conclusion of the honest materialist. If nothing else, Nietzsche rightly understood where a godless world leads–to a world with no authority, no meaning, no purpose, no morality, no salvation.

The sad thing is that Ferry knows the good news of Christianity. He wonders at its doctrines, admires its ethics, longs for its salvation. But somehow he still misses its Risen Savior, Jesus Christ. The story, to him, is too good to be true. And it requires him to trust in a Person, in a God who loved him enough to enter this world and die for him, rather than in his own power, reason, and intellect.

Ferry wants to believe but he can't.

Because he has the mind of a philosopher.

And not the heart of a child. 

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Jesus Christ, Matthew 11:25-30)

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Proud Specks before an Infinite God

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Steve Foster

This is what the Lord says—the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: “Do you question what I do for My children? Do you give Me orders about the work of My hands? I am the One who made the earth and created people to live on it. With My hands I stretched out the heavens. All the stars are at My command." (Isaiah 45:11-12)

As humans, we are a funny bunch.

We like to think that we are in control of our lives, that people should cater to our will, that God should do things our way. We forget who we are. We are mortal, weak, limited creatures who did nothing to gain our own life and can do little to extend it. We are specks with a blip lifetime on a speck planet in the vast universe. And we think we are gods, masters of our own fate, who can give orders to God.

That's funny.

And pretty sad.

The Proverbs say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (1:7). We don't really know anything yet if we don't know who we are and don't have reverential respect for who God is.

He is the Holy One.

He is the Lord of the universe.

He is the One who stretched out the heavens and who calls the stars by name.

And He is our Creator, our Maker, our Designer, our Sustainer.

We can reject Him, fight Him, ignore Him, deny Him. But how dumb is that? In Him, we live and move and have our very being (Acts 17:28).

The better choice is to acknowledge Him, humbly bow before Him, listen to Him, trust Him.

And in so doing, we find that the One who is our Creator, who stretched out the heavens with infinite power, is also our Savior, who stretched out His hands with infinite love…

On the cross.

For us.

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