The Conclusion of the Sexual Revolution: Volume Iii of Sex and the Bible: Restoring the Foundations of Human Sexuality

By Wylark Day

This is a book about sexual morality. Not a morality based on shame or tradition, however; but one based on combining the most up-to-date findings of sex researchers, with the most ancient teachings of the Judeo-Christian Bible. In this book, you will find that:

Private masturbation and public nudity are the two Pillars, upon which all healthy attitudes towards Sex must be based.
Faithful heterosexual monogamy is God's Plan for Sex, but a minority who deviate from this Plan (such as homosexuals) are nonetheless necessary for a whole society.
And that Virgin Sex for young adults - which means enjoying sex play while rejecting intercourse - is the Key to: true romantic passion, equality between the sexes, and even to the very Future of Humanity.

At last! A book that tells the truth about Sex and God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 18, 2004
• ISBN: 9781465327505

Wylark Day

Wylark Day is a successful biochemist and biological sciences educator; who has worked in 4 major U.S. zoological parks. Mr. Day has also served as a Biblical theology instructor, with over 25 years experience in studying the Holy Scriptures. His co-author and mentor, the "Goddess Yeshua", has long been a professional in the field of human sexuality; who has until now kept her identity hidden.

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Copyright © 2003 by Wylark Day.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

THE END OF THE MATTER

CHAPTER 12

POSTSCRIPT

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II:

REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Psalms 11:3: Ifthe foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Isaiah 58:12: And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

It is sex. How wonderful sex can be, when men keep it powerful and sacred, and it fills the world! Like sunshine through and through one!

—KATE, IN THE PLUMED SERPENT, BY D. H. LAWRENCE.

INTRODUCTION

Today we are blessed to live in a world of sexual freedom. We also seem to be cursed to live in a world of teenage pregnancies, AIDS, abortion, struggling single parent families, gender confusion, and frighteningly extreme pendulum swings from seemingly absurd excesses of sexual liberality to equally absurd excesses of conservatism, and back again. Faced with all this pain and confusion regarding sex, many people are now turning away from the Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s, and turning to the Christian Church. Unfortunately, once in the Church, they soon see beyond the attractive pro-family stance the Church preaches, and run up against the extremely anti-sex attitudes that the Church has held for nearly 2000 years; the attitudes which gave rise to the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s in the first place, causing most young Americans to leave Christianity, and leading to America’s first predominantly non-Christian generation.

Why is the Church so anti-sex? Can’t we find some sort of middle-ground in this area, solving most of the above sexual problems, which bedevil our society, while at the same time preserving some of our cherished sexual freedom? Yes we can! And the answer lies, not with the Christian Church, but in the Bible, God’s Holy Word, itself!

The purpose of Sex and the Bible is to take a close, complete look at what the Bible really teaches about Sex. In so doing, you will see how the Christian Church has badly misinterpreted and misunderstood the message of God’s Word regarding sex. You will also learn how to enjoy your sexuality in a way that is moderate and pleasing to God; avoiding both the pitfalls of sexual excess, and the misery of sexual repression.

This book is for anyone who has any interest in knowing the Will of God; and is written especially for single Christians. I didn’t write it to offend anyone. However, the freedom it shows that God allows regarding sex will doubtless greatly offend conservatives everywhere, so if you are conservative, don’t read it! Likewise, God’s

Word will never allow everyone to do everything that they would like to do sexually, and the sexual restrictions of the Bible will doubtless offend liberals everywhere, so if you are liberal, don’t read it! There. Now that I know that nobody will read this book, I’m happy to say that I haven’t offended anyone ( but if someone does happen to read it, and gets offended; all I can say is, "Hey, I’m just reporting what the Bible really says about sex; please take any complaints up with the real author!").

THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN SEXUALITY

In this, the third and final volume of Sex and the Bible, we now turn to the findings of modern research into human sexuality; and combine the most up-to-date findings of scientists, with the most ancient insights from the original Foundation of Western Civilization, the Holy Bible. In so doing, we will at last answer our World’s remaining moral questions about the four controversial areas of: masturbation, pornography, premarital sex, and homosexuality. And, in answering these questions, we will at last restore a true understanding (and a practice?) of how God made our sexuality to function and mature naturally; from its first awakenings in childhood, to its final fulfillment in happy and productive marriages.

So this book is actually a how to guide, dedicated to restoring the most intimate foundations of human sexuality; foundations of understanding which have been seriously disrupted, since at least the end of the Neolithic Period. As we shall learn in the final overview of Human Sexual History given in Chapter 12, it was this ancient disruption in natural human sexuality which distorted the original dynamics of relations between the sexes. This change then altered the very nature of the Family. The alteration of the Family from God’s Plan then corrupted all human societies; which inevitably resulted in repression and warfare becoming the new norm for human interactions. The Bible actually records this in the book of Genesis as the Fall of Man; and with this disruption of the sexual foundations of Human Civilization, recorded history begins.

TRUE MORALITY: Repression vs. Natural Law (Righteousness)

Our undeniably puritan society can countenance chastity or pornography, but little in between. It seems we have a problem with the issue of control, and that we cycle from conservative to liberal excesses like a child with two sets of toys: joy with the new giving way to boredom, at which point the old is produced to our amnesiac delight.

It is an atmosphere productive of pleased tattletales and uneasy libertines—a puritan country, in short.

—David Mamet, playwright

And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!

But wisdom is justified of all her children.

—Jesus Christ, Savior

As Human Civilization has progressed and grown, it has continually had to struggle against the evil effects of the Fall in order to do so. For this reason laws, philosophies, and religions have been created, to teach people how to behave according to rules of morality. In looking back over the last 4,000 years of Humanity’s efforts to control people’s morality, however, we can see two distinctly different ways in which we have gone about this. First, we followed a fundamental belief that the simple denial and repression of human desires was the only key to truly controlling them. In the West, this attitude can first be seen as it was spread by Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Socrates. On into the Hellenistic and then Roman Periods, this attitude spread; until it was adopted by the Christian Church, to become their fundamentally anti-pleasure doctrine of Asceticism. Today, most Christians (as well as many Conservative non-Christians, and even Liberals) still base their fundamental moral outlook on this belief in the crucial importance of Repression for morality; often without even realizing it. This philosophy was taken to its logical conclusion by science fiction writers in the 20th Century; where it was at last followed to perfection by the make-believe alien race known as the Vulcans. Oddly enough, it is in the totally repressed, emotionless behavior of the Vulcans that most people today can understand and relate to this philosophy of Repression of Desire, rather than in the writings of the historical Stoic philosophers, who really existed; and who would surely have seen the Vulcans as their ideal for what Humanity should strive to become.

Yet the very Star Trek television series which introduced the Vulcans to us has itself never held them up as the ideal for what Humanity should become. Why not? It is because Western Civilization began to be disillusioned with this belief in

Repression of Desire as the key to morality, way back in the Renaissance Period. For Christianity reached a pinnacle of power in the Catholic Empire at the end of the Middle Ages; and then it proceeded with ever-increasing vigor to try and enforce its philosophy of the Repression of Desire on all the people of Western Europe. Yet, rather than leading to increasing morality, it soon became clear that all their efforts were only hurling all of Western Europe into an ever-widening abyss of hypocrisy, and rampant immorality. Because of this, the new Humanist intellectuals of Europe at last began to head Humanity in a whole new direction in our search for moral guidance.

If human morality could not successfully be based on the Repression of Desire, then how could it truly be brought about? What the Humanists did was to envision that God had made people to live according to a Natural Law; much as He had also created all living (and even non-living) things to follow certain natural rules for how they should behave. This belief in natural law had actually been created by the Scholastic Philosophers of the Late Medieval Catholic Church (with roots going all the way back to Ancient Greek philosophers); but it was the Humanists of the Renaissance who really began to run with it. According to them, Nature was not evil, and our natural desires were therefore given to us by God; to help serve as guides, to lead us into God’s natural law for our lives. In the search for the natural laws governing all of Creation, the discipline known as modern science was created. And, as an ever-increasing attempt to look at our sexuality in a scientific way has progressed, an ongoing Sexual Revolution has been produced in the West; going back as far as 500 years, but especially taking place in the last 100 (as was discussed in more detail in the first volume of Sex and the Bible). Yet this Sexual Revolution is not an attempt to destroy sexual morality (as is commonly believed); but is an attempt to truly understand God’s Natural Law for Human Sexuality. God’s Natural Law, in turn, is referred to in the Bible as Righteousness; and is the key, not only for personal fulfillment, but to the peaceful functioning of all human societies, around the World.

Using both Science and the Bible, this book now presents the finished product: God’s Complete Natural Law for Human Sexuality. And, in so doing, it brings (or it would, if its 4 Truths were followed) the 500 year old Sexual Revolution to its final Conclusion.

The Key to Righteousness: Overcoming LUST

In the previous volume, The Law of Love, it was revealed that all Sin comes from Lust. Yet we also saw that the term lust in the Bible does not refer to sexual desire, as it is commonly defined today. Rather, Biblical Lust refers to a Covetous Need to possess something, whether it is sexual in nature, or not.

Now, since all sin comes from such Covetous needs, then the Key to overcoming all sexual sin must lie in making sure that we somehow avoid developing any covetous needs for sex. This is far easier said than done, however; for sexual desires arise from our most primal biological instincts, and thus are notoriously powerful and difficult to control. In the first two volumes of Sex and the Bible, we have constantly seen that the normal Christian solution to this problem is an attempt to simply repress our sexuality. Therefore, things that encourage sexual desires—especially fantasy, masturbation, and public nudity—have all been viciously condemned and savagely repressed by Christian moralists, throughout history. As we have seen, however, all such attempts at repressing natural sexual desires have only succeeded in stirring up sexual lust (covetous need). Then, since lust is the source of all sin, Christian repression has only succeeded in increasing the one basic sexual sin of fornication (see The Law of Love), along with hypocrisy, to cover it up.

obviously, a new approach to overcoming sexual lust is needed, instead of sexual repression. This approach comes from God’s Natural Law for Sex, which has been increasingly revealed by the sex researchers of the Sexual Revolution. What is this Natural Law for Sex, and how can it help us overcome sexual lust? It can be seen in our sleep; when our conscious minds finally relax, and so relieve us of the falsehoods about sex which we have taught ourselves for millennia. For when we dream, scientists have found that we regularly experience sexual erections (men) and lubrication (women). This tells us that it is, in fact, part of God’s Natural Law that humans should experience sexual excitation and pleasure on a regular basis. And, when we follow God’s Law, and go get such regular sexual pleasure, we find that sexual desires tend to remain easily controllable desires; and seldom become out-of-control lusts, which can drag us into sin. So the key to overcoming lust lies not in repressing our natural sexual desires, but in regularly satisfying them. In the first two chapters of this book, we thus present the two Pillars, which are necessary supports to healthy attitudes towards human sexuality; for they are the only way to keep our God-given sexual desires from becoming sinful sexual lusts. This they do by keeping those desires well-satisfied; and yet satisfied without resorting to extramarital sexual intercourse, and therefore committing the sin of Fornication.

CHAPTER 8

MASTURBATION & FANTASY: KEYS TO A GOOD SEX LIFE

INTRODUCTION

(Note: This book starts with Chapter 8. For Chapters 1-3, see the first volume: Sex and the Bible: Creating a War Between Love and Repression. For Chapters 4-7, see the second volume: The Law of Love: What the Holy Bible Really Teaches About Sex and Morality. Neither of those volumes is needed in order to understand this book, however. For The Conclusion of the Sexual Revolution stands alone, as a work dealing specifically with practical questions on how to deal with specific, and frequently troubling, areas of our God-given Human Sexuality; while The Law of Love is similarly complete, as a thorough philosophical Bible study of what God’s Word has to say about the topics of sex and morality, in general; and the first volume of Sex and the Bible is complete as an introduction to Christian Sexual History.)

A QUESTION: WHEN DOES SEX BEGIN?

For nearly 1,500 years, Christianity stressed that virginity was a preferable, and more Holy, state to be in; because it avoided the defilement of Sex. Then the Protestants arose, bringing with them the First Sexual Revolution (which soon had a profound effect on Catholics as well, albeit to a lesser degree). Protestant Christians, as well as Evangelical and New Reformation (Charismatic) Christians generally, have taken great pride in their support for human sexuality, ever since. This fact surprises many people, who think of Fundamentalist Christianity as being characterized by its extreme antagonism towards Sex.

Yet go into almost any enthusiastic Evangelical church today, and you will hear claims, and find educational materials to support those claims, that they are very concerned about human sexuality; and that they want everyone to have good, erotically fulfilling sex lives. Look a little closer, however, and you will find that all this concern for good sex has one very important qualification: it must only exist between properly married couples. For Evangelical Christians are not so much pro-sex, as they are pro-marriage. They strongly support good sex in marriage, because it can then be used to strengthen the relationship of the couple. Outside of marriage (and heterosexual monogamous marriages only, at that), however, Fundamentalist Christians (including nearly all Evangelicals) have nothing but condemnation for human sexuality. Indeed, any and all expressions of sexuality which are not directed exclusively towards a husband or wife (one’s own husband or wife) are usually considered to be abominable sins. It is for this reason that Christians condemn masturbation, pornography (or erotica, to use a less judgmental name for it), and even most sexual fantasy; unless you are careful to only fantasize about your spouse!

To many people, including many non-Christians, this Christian emphasis on marriage and the family seems like a very good thing. Indeed, even among those with little regard for morality, few people can be found who will honestly defend sexual promiscuity as a better lifestyle. Yet simply choosing marriage over promiscuity is actually a failure to see the real issue here! For Christians have here been guilty of believing and spreading an enormous LIE about human sexuality. And, like most lies, this one has negative consequences; consequences which inevitably end up harming sex in marriage, and thus hurting marriage itself, at least as much as it harms sexuality among the unmarried. What is this LIE? It is the belief that God made people to be non-sexual until marriage. It is the belief that children live in a natural state of asexual innocence. It is the belief that post-puberty young adults, although tempted, can and should struggle to maintain the sexual innocence of their childhood, until they get married. And, finally, it is the belief that after marriage, it is normal for spouses to restrict all their sexual desires to each other, only. The problem is that none of these beliefs are true.

The Christian belief that human sexuality can be (and should be, and normally is) shut off until the honeymoon, or at least until you fall in love with someone, and can then be turned on; is nothing but an enormous falsehood. But if this is all a Lie, then what is the Truth? The TRUTH is, that we are all sexual from birth. We can no more turn on our sexuality at marriage, than we can wait until marriage to begin eating, drinking, or even breathing. But does this mean that we have to be sexually promiscuous before marriage? Not at all! (as we shall see, in Chapter 10). Nevertheless, the Truth is that we all begin our sexual journey long before marriage; and many of us will end it long after marriage’s end, as well. It is for this reason that this first of the following four chapters of Sex and the Bible begins by looking at our sex lives as single human beings. So, this chapter is not concerned with the normal Christian preoccupation with sex as something which exists for the purpose of helping our marriages—or is it?

THE FIRST KEY: MASTURBATION

SECTION I: MASTURBATION DEBUNKED: THREE REASONS CHRISTIANS BELIEVE THE BIBLE CONDEMNS MASTURBATION, EXPLAINED

Ask any Christian why they believe that masturbation is a sin, and one of the most likely explanations you will get is the claim that the Bible condemns it. Yet, as we saw back in Chapter 4 in The Law of Love, the Bible actually says absolutely nothing about masturbation. Because of this great discrepancy between perception and reality with regards to what the Bible teaches about masturbation, the first issue we need to discuss is why Christians think that the Bible condemns this common practice. Three reasons for this misconception are listed and briefly reviewed here. For more detailed discussions of these reasons, I refer the reader back to Chapter 4 (for Reasons #1 & #2), and Chapter 6 (for Reason #3), in volume 2 of Sex and the Bible: The Law of Love: What the Holy Bible Really Teaches About Sex and Morality.

Reason #1: Onan’s Sin.

Sometimes you will hear religious people (especially older religious people) refer to masturbation with a peculiar name: Onanism. This term was invented long ago by the Catholic Church, and was later adopted by Protestants, as well. It is the product of an intense search of the scriptures to find some example—any example!—that could be used to support the Church’s condemnation of masturbation. The sin of Onanism is based solely on one Old Testament Bible story, found in Genesis 38:

Genesis 38:7-10: And Er, Judah‘s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, „Go in unto thy brother‘s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. „ And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother‘s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.

First of all, the most obvious problem with using this story to condemn masturbation, is that it isn‘t even talking about masturbation; but about the use of coitus interruptus (withdrawal) as a form of birth control. For centuries, however, the Catholic Church, and Protestants, as well, have argued that God killed Onan because he wasted his seed (semen), instead of using it to try and achieve pregnancy. This would mean that God possesses a deadly anger, not only against all birth control, but against all masturbation, as well; for both practices involve enjoying orgasm-produced ejaculation of semen (for men), while avoiding pregnancy. Nowhere else in the Bible does God condemn birth control, however. Because of this, we need to look more closely at onan’s story, and find out the real reason that God was so pissed off with him.

The source of God’s anger with Onan can be found in the Law of Moses:

Deuteronomy 25:5-10: If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husbands brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother. Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

When the widow described above spit in her unwilling brother-in-law’s face, she would doubtless do so with considerable feeling. But why? What self-respecting woman would want to be simply given to her ex-brother-in-law (who probably already had a wife of his own), like so much property, anyway? To understand all this, we need to realize how very different a woman’s lot was in this ancient patriarchal society than it is today, in our own post-Feminist Victory society. Back then, a woman usually had no right to own property on her own. If her husband died, she could lose everything; unless she had a male child (Note: in the Law of Moses, God actually introduced a pro-Feminist clause, which allowed property to be handed down to a daughter if a man had no sons; but it is clear from the context that this was an unusual provision for Hebrew society at that time, and, as such, it was likely seldom followed: see Numbers 27:1-11). With a son, all her property could legally go to her son; and she could then retain her house and lands, acting as her son’s representative until he came of age. Because of this fact, God in His mercy made an exception to His normal laws against sex with relatives, for this type of situation only; as we can see when we read Leviticus:

Leviticus 20:21 : And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

The law in Deuteronomy 25 thus stands as a glaring exception to this more general law against sex with (former) in-laws; an exception which God allows specifically to help widows, by allowing them to keep their lands and their positions in society, by having a son.

With the background knowledge we now posses, it becomes easy to see why a God of Love would be so pissed off with Onan; and it has nothing to do with the fact that he spilled his seed (except indirectly). Onan’s sin was that he wanted to enjoy sex with his former sister-in-law (thus violating the spirit of Leviticus 20:21), while avoiding the only reason he was allowed to do it in the first place, which was to give her a male heir. In fact, if Onan continually failed to impregnate his sister-in-law Tamar, it is he himself, as the nearest male relative, who would doubtless end up inheriting her land (see Numbers 27:9; not that the Law of Moses existed yet in Onan’s time, but these customs were already in place). Then Onan could have gone on to enjoy Tamar’s land and possessions; while she would either have to return to her parents, impoverished, or would be forced into a miserable life of prostitution and early death. So Onan was likely trying to take all that Tamar had out of sheer greed; while enjoying sexual sport with her, in an otherwise prohibited relationship with his ex-sister-in-law. Moreover, adding insult to injury, is the fact that Onan was in a direct line to be an important ancestor of the future Messiah, Jesus (the honor went instead to Pharez, Tamar’s son by her father-in-law, Judah: don’t ask!). No wonder God killed him! So we can now see the true definition of the Sin of Onanism: viciously transgressing God’s Law of Love, by trying to take everything someone has, all while using them for sexual sport.

Obviously, this tells us nothing about how God really feels about either masturbation or birth control; and the ages-old use of Onan’s Sin by the Church to address these issues is therefore nothing but ignorance at best, and deception at worst. And yet, in the end, onan actually tells us a tremendous amount about how God feels about these issues. For if the story of Onan was the best that generations of vehemently anti-masturbation and anti-birth control clergy and Biblical scholars could come up with to attack these practices; then it is clear beyond all doubt that a legitimate prohibition of either masturbation or birth control must not exist, anywhere in the Word of God!

Reason #2: The Sin of Uncleanness.

We have now seen that the Bible nowhere mentions masturbation. Yet many Christians will complain that my argument is based on nothing but semantics. For it is widely believed that the Bible does speak of masturbation; only the word for it has not been translated into the English word masturbation, but into the more euphemistic word uncleanness. This is not a far-fetched argument. For, in fact, the Bible does continually use euphemisms when referring to sex (often colorful ones, such as: knowing your wife, going in unto, and uncovering the nakedness of). Because of this, the fact that the word uncleanness in the Bible is translated directly from original Greek and Hebrew words that simply mean unclean (or foul, or impure), still does not in any way prohibit the possibility that it is being used specifically as a reference to masturbation when it is used in a sexual context. In Chapter 4 of The Law of Love: What the Holy Bible Really Teaches About Sex and Morality, however, we did a detailed study of how the word uncleanness is used in both the old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible. There we found that in neither Testament was it used as a reference for masturbation. In the Old Testament, it was referring to a ceremonial condition, and didn’t even have anything to do with sin or wrongdoing. While in the New Testament, it was a reference (one of several different ones) to the sin of fornication (sexual intercourse without commitment), rather than having any verifiable association with masturbation. I will make a brief review of these points below; but I refer the reader back to Chapter 4, if a more thorough discussion is desired.

Old Testament Uncleanness

In the ancient text of Leviticus, we find this verse:

Leviticus 15:16: And if any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even.

This verse certainly makes it look like masturbation, if not outright sinful, is at least an unholy act. But let’s read on:

Leviticus 15:18: The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the even.

Now we are talking about sex between a couple; including married couples. So marital sex, which Evangelical Christians value so highly, is here seen to be just as unclean as masturbation. Now, let’s go on to the next verse:

Leviticus 15:19: And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even.

Here we are now talking about menstruation; which God created, which women have no control over, and which is necessary for the creation of new human life. Obviously, therefore, these Old Testament laws regarding uncleanness have nothing whatsoever to do with sin. Indeed, they don’t even have anything to do with being holy; not as New Testament Christians understand the term, at least, which carries with it an implied moral judgment. So, according to the Old Testament Bible, single ejaculation (verses 16, 17), which presumably most often occurs due to masturbation, is every bit as morally good as marital sex is, or as other natural, God-given physical processes are (e.g.—menstruation).

New Testament Uncleanness

It is the word uncleanness in the New Testament, included in lists of sexual sins in various letters from the Apostles, which is generally regarded by Christians to be a reference to masturbation. But how does the New Testament itself define the meaning of uncleanness? A couple of Bible verses will serve to answer this question nicely.

1 Thessalonians 4:3,7: For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.

Revelation 17:4: And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness ofher fornication.

(The word filthiness here is the Greek akathartes, which is essentially the same as akatharsia, which is the word translated as uncleanness in the New Testament).

These two scriptures make it plain that the New Testament relates uncleanness to fornication (intercourse without commitment) when that word is used in a sexual context, and not to mere masturbation. In fact, nowhere in the New Testament is uncleanness, or any other word, for that matter, related to masturbation (see Chapter 4, for a more detailed discussion of the use of the word uncleanness in the New Testament).

The truth is, that Christians have simply assumed that masturbation is a sin, despite a total lack of Biblical evidence to support that assumption. Then they have looked for a condemning sexual term in the New Testament, on which to pin masturbation as a definition; and many have simply settled on uncleanness as the most likely subject. After all, many people consider the male ejaculation produced by masturbation (and, to a lesser extent, female lubrication) to be filthy; so the word uncleanness in the New Testament would seem to be a natural match for masturbation. The Bible itself, however, does not support the use of the term uncleanness for any sexual activity other than fornication. For the simple truth of the matter is that the writers of the New Testament—surrounded as they were by a careless acceptance of fornication, prostitution, homosexual pedophilia, adultery pursued as a game, and vicious sexual extortion and violence; at a time when respect for life mattered but little, and people’s bodies could be bought and sold like so much beef—simply had no interest in even addressing a practice as minor and harmless as mere masturbation.

Reason #3: The Sin of Lust.

In 1987, after a dozen years of intense study of the Bible (including writing a summary of the entire New Testament, while still in high school), it suddenly dawned on me that the Bible nowhere condemned masturbation (or public nudity, for that matter: see Chapter 9). Since this sin is universal, and has been a major topic of condemnation within the Christian Church for most of its history, this seemed very peculiar. Combined with knowledge of the Law of Love (see Chapter 7), and the freedom to enjoy life given by the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ (see Part III of Chapter 5), it seemed clear to me (finally) that mere masturbation could not be a sin.

Yet one obstacle remained to my declaring masturbation to be sinless: the Bible‘s condemnation of Lust. For how can anyone possibly masturbate, without feeling sexual lust? This was an argument which I frankly could not overcome, and it left me „stranded"; caught on the horns of uncertainty, for the next ten years. Finally, in 1997, I saw the answer; after an extensive Bible study to find out exactly what the Bible was talking about, when it condemned the sin of lust. The answer to this most crucial of questions within Christianity makes up the material covered in Chapter 6, in The Law of Love: What The Holy Bible Really Teaches About Sex and Morality; and I here refer the reader to that chapter. For the sake of those who would prefer the quick answer now, however, I will here give a few scriptures which make plain the problem; followed by a brief explanation of the solution.

Matthew 5:28: But I (Jesus) say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Romans 7:7,8: What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

1 Thessalonians 4:2,4,5: For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel (body) in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.

The above scriptures (and several others) would seem to make it impossible to masturbate without sin, after all; for who can masturbate without feeling sexual lust for someone, as an integral part of the process? Yet here I found myself a victim, as most Christians are, of nearly two millennia of anti-sex church propaganda; which has warped the very meaning of the term lust in Western societies, until it has come to be practically defined as meaning sexual desire. Yet the word lust, as used in the Bible, means much, much more than mere sexual desire! A few more scriptures will serve to illustrate this:

Revelation 18:12-14: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

Acts20:33: I have coveted (the same Greek word elsewhere translated as lust: epithumeo) no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel.

1 Timothy 6:9,10: But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

As these scriptures reveal, the Bible uses the word lust to refer to many things besides sex. But it is no sin to desire, or even to enjoy fantasizing about, any of these things! (how many sermons have you heard condemning fantasizing about getting a bigger house, or a better paying job, for instance?). Yet there is absolutely no difference in the words which the Bible uses when it condemns lusts for possessions, and in the words that it uses when it condemns lusts for sex. This being the case, how then can it possibly be a sin to desire or fantasize about sex, when it is so clearly not a sin, to desire or fantasize about money, or houses, or clothes, or anything else?

In fact, the Biblical Sin of Lust is not referring to mere desire or fantasy, for anything! So just what, exactly, is the Sin of Lust? In the New Testament Bible, to lust after something means to covet it, rather than to merely desire it. Indeed, in the second scripture quoted above, Romans 7:7,8, the words covet, lust, and concupiscence are all fundamentally the same original Greek word, epithumeo; which means to set your heart upon something (specifically: covet in verse 7 is epithumeo; while lust in verse 7, and concupiscence in verse 8, are both the variation epithumia, which has essentially the same meaning). This is particularly significant, in light of how epithumeo is here used in quoting the Old Testament Ten Commandment law, Thou shalt not Covet. For this transforms this scripture’s meaning from a more narrow, exclusively sexual interpretation—as the deliberate (and unjustifiable) use of the word concupiscence, in particular, would seem to indicate—to one that is much broader. For we understand that it is sinful to covet anything; because to covet something is much more serious than to merely desire or fantasize about it. This is because we can desire or fantasize about something, and enjoy the fantasy, without ever feeling that we need to possess the object of our desire. It is a passing fancy (such as we experience constantly, whenever we go shopping), not an obsessive need. Yet when we covet something, then an obsessive need is exactly what we have.

That is why lust in the Bible is a sin: because it means must have covetousness. It is never used to refer to a mere desire or fantasy! Of particular significance, this means that the word lust in the Bible is therefore never used to refer to mere sexual fantasy, as well; despite the fact that this is what most people automatically think of, when they hear the phrase: the sin of lust. Indeed, when you separate lust in the Bible from its unfortunate association with sexual desire, you can see that it is actually one of the Bible’s most important teachings, as the following two scriptures reveal:

2 Peter 1:4: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

James 4:1,2: From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

In the above two scriptures, we see that it is lust, properly understood as the obsessive needs which are produced by covetousness, that is responsible for our entire corrupt, greedy, war-torn World.

Finally, now that we understand what the Bible means by lust, we can understand what Jesus meant in the Bible’s most sexually vexing scripture:

Matthew 5:28,29: But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust (epithumeo: covet) after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

This scripture is not saying that "whosoever looketh on a woman to sexually desire her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." We are free to sexually desire, and to fantasize about, people as much as we want, without sin! But when we begin looking at people to covet them, then we are in trouble. Indeed, if you look at someone to covet (lust) after them, then you will no longer be satisfied by merely fantasizing about them; for covetousness will never let you have peace, until you have possessed them. This is why Jesus says here to go to any lengths to nip covetousness in the bud; for covetousness will inevitably lead to sin (I believe, however, that our Lord means that we should only figuratively pluck our eyes out, by forcing ourselves to remove our eyes from the source of our temptation).

With this understanding, we can now see that it is no sin to look at someone, or to sexually fantasize about them, unless such fantasy transforms into an actual covetous need to possess them; at which time it then becomes necessary to pluck our eyes away from them, and to get ourselves back under control.

With this more accurate understanding of the Sin of Lust, the last perceived Biblical barrier to guiltless masturbation has at last been removed. For it is obvious that hardly anyone ever masturbates because they have an obsessive covetous need for someone else. Indeed, such strong desires normally lead to more concrete attempts to actually obtain physical contact with the person or persons desired; and damn the consequences! No, masturbation normally involves only ephemeral sexual fantasies about people (sometimes about only parts of people), which are swiftly forgotten afterwards. And, as we can now see, this obviously doesn’t even come close to the Biblical definition of the Sin of Lust.

SECTION II: WHY CHRISTIANS REALLY BELIEVE MASTURBATION IS A SIN

In Section I, we saw why Christians believe that the Bible condemns masturbation as a sin. As you may have noticed in that Section, Christians have actually spent many hundreds of years warping their understanding of the scriptures; until their very understanding of the meanings of Onan’s Sin, Biblical Uncleanness, and the Sin of Lust were all altered, to fit their pre-existing anti-masturbation prejudice. So now we have another, more fundamental question to consider: namely, why have Christians always possessed such a basic, intrinsic hatred, for such a natural biological function (see Section III, Proof #3) as masturbation? A hatred so powerful, in fact, that it has caused them to violate their own most Holy possession, the Word of God itself (or at least to violate their understanding of the Word of God), just so they could use it to try and condemn masturbation! There are actually two answers to this crucial question. The first answer is Asceticism, which is a largely endemic to the Christian Religion; while the second answer—Body Shame—they share, to greatly varying degrees, with the rest of the World‘s peoples.

Answer #1: THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN ASCETICISM

Throughout the 3 volumes of this book, and especially in Chapter 3, we have seen the enormous impact that Ascetic Beliefs have had on Christian doctrines and history. These beliefs have origins in both the Hebrew concern with holiness (which originate from the Old Testament Laws of Cleanness and Uncleanness, in particular), and in Greco-Roman and Persian philosophies which seek to separate the body from the spirit (such as the teachings of Plato and Zoroaster).

In what must rate as one of history’s most ironic twists of fate, it was Christianity’s greatest preacher of Freedom from legalistic bondage, who ultimately became most responsible for plunging Christianity into the even worse bondage of Sexual Asceticism. I am speaking, of course, of the Apostle Paul. The greatest early spreader of the Christian Faith, Paul fought tirelessly against the legalistic rules which many of his fellow Hebrew Christians sought to impose on the rapidly growing army of non-Jewish converts; rules which themselves often bore the mark of Ascetic Repression (as was discussed at the end of Section I of Chapter 7). Indeed, many of Paul’s writings, including virtually the entire book of Galatians, speak eloquently in defense of Christian freedom to enjoy ordinary physical pleasures (as we saw in Part III of Chapter 5, in particular).

Yet Paul, although he was a Jewish religious leader (a Pharisee), was also highly educated in the learning (and the prejudices) of the Greco-Roman Society of his time. As the Apostle to the Gentiles (non-Jews), Paul therefore doubtless desired to make Christianity seem respectable to intelligent citizens of the Roman Empire. One way in which he tried to do this, was to talk about the Hebrew concepts of Sin and Righteousness in terms that pagan Romans might understand more easily. Now, educated people of that time tended to think in terms of people being fundamentally divided between their bodies, which were thought of as being imperfect, weak, or even bad; and their spirits or minds, which were perfect, incorruptible, and even good. The philosophy of Stoicism, in particular, was very influential among some of the most powerful and respectable segments of Roman Society at that time; and many of its beliefs were similar to those held by Jews and Early Christians, as well. Stoics supported the idea that natural human desires, which they called the Passions, were what led to excessive and evil behaviors, and so to pain and harm. They therefore taught that the body and its desires needed to be strictly controlled, and even denied, according to the principles of Divine Reason. With the potentially enormous benefits that might come from making Christianity more comprehensible to these respected Stoics, as well as to other Roman citizens of his time, it is therefore hardly surprising that Paul began to associate Sin with the passions of the physical body (the natural desires of the weak and corrupted flesh of Roman philosophies), and Righteousness with the Spirit (comparable to the Divine Reason of the philosophers), in his writings to early Christian churches. A good example of this can be seen in his Epistle (letter) to the Romans:

Romans 8:1-8: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded (and so following Divine Reason; as a Stoic might interpret this passage) is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

As countless Christians over the centuries have noticed, New Testament passages such as the one above are all unnecessarily confusing. For we are all in the flesh, simply because we aren’t dead yet! But this flesh vs. spirit dichotomy was nevertheless doubtless very appealing to Paul’s more intellectual contemporaries (and back then, long before universal public education, if you could read Paul’s letters in the first place, you were probably what we would call an intellectual today, and had at least some knowledge of philosophy). Neither the Old Testament, nor even the teachings of Jesus Himself, really support this flesh = bad, spirit = good dichotomy, however. In fact, this concept is actually un-Biblical; as the totality of the Bible denies that the human body can be fundamentally bad, because it was created by God. Rather, the true message of the Bible (of both Testaments) is that Sin comes from Rebellion against God (which includes rebellion against God’s Natural Laws; which our bodies were created to follow, and which our natural desires reflect); while Righteousness comes from following God, and obeying His Law of Love.

(Note: Greco-Roman philosophies such as Stoicism also brought un-Biblical anti-sex teachings into Christianity directly, because they taught the importance of the denial of sexual urges. Indeed, the sexual goals of many philosophically-inclined Romans included: to have intercourse with their wives be a relatively passionless and reason-directed affair (because it was thought that this would produce children that were intelligent and self-controlled; whereas wild sex would produce wild children); to discourage variety in sexual foreplay (because it was thought to be animalistic, and against reason); and even to discourage sexual release through masturbation, as that was considered to be a harmful waste of a man’s Vital Essence (meaning the root source of his strength and abilities; obviously, the Greco-Romans thought a little too highly of the importance of their semen—and not nearly highly enough of the importance of their wives). So we now see where many of Christianity’s most ancient anti-sexual prejudices come from: from the Greco-Roman philosophies that the Early Christians were influenced by; and not from the Jewish Old Testament Bible, which they read.).

However, when the Apostle Paul thus introduced Greco-Roman philosophy into the Bible, he was being neither heretical nor stupid. For a close look at his writings will show what he is really saying. For Paul uses the terms flesh and spirit as a kind of symbolic code. Following the flesh actually refers to being self-centered and selfish; following your own lusts (covetous obsessions) to the exclusion of concern for the needs of others. Following the Spirit, however, actually refers to selflessly following and serving God, and other people out of service to God; instead of just doing your own thing. So Paul isn’t really saying that our bodies are bad, and our spirits are good, as some Greco-Roman philosophers might teach. Instead, he is teaching the very Biblical message that being selfish and self-centered is Bad, while serving God and other people out of Love is Good; all while clothing his message in terms that his contemporaries might more readily understand. Indeed, as we saw in The Law of Love, Paul actually helped to expand on the Bible’s explanation of the origins of Sin (it actually does come from the weakness of our flesh (starting with our imperfect genes), which then keeps us from approaching life with the necessary self-control, so that we fall into self-centered self-indulgence; just as the Stoics taught), and on its revelation of how to obtain true Righteousness (not by merely following Old Testament laws; but by using Faith to follow the actual Spirit of God, by filling our minds and hearts with Love (for God is Love)).

Unfortunately, however, this flesh = bad, spirit = good terminology didn’t end with Paul. The other Apostles, who had yet to take Jesus’ Great Commission (to preach His Good News) outside of Israel, were mightily impressed by the energetic, courageous, and intellectual exploits of Paul (for most of them had been simple fishermen, not scholars like Paul was, as you may recall). By the time they finally began to write letters of their own to the churches, they had therefore apparently already begun to mimic Paul’s style; and so were likewise referring to the flesh as bad.

Then the greatest threat Christianity has ever faced began to make itself felt: the first of the Gnostic teachers. These teachers created a myriad of weird beliefs, with which to lead Christians astray. They did, however, all have one thing in common: the heavily Ascetic belief that the body was fundamentally Bad, and the spirit was fundamentally Good. In the latter letters of the New Testament, you can see the Apostles already beginning to wage serious battle against the earliest of these Gnostics; particularly in 2 Peter 2, and in Jude (Note: in these passages, you will see that the Apostles primarily condemn the Gnostic teachers as sexual libertines.

This is because the Gnostics’ extreme Asceticism gave rise to a belief that anything done with the flesh was bad, including marriage, eating, etc.; so many of them came to the conclusion that what physical acts you did just didn’t matter. They then felt free to abandon themselves to sexual excess; in the belief that their spirits were always pure, and whatever their bodies did was all bad anyway, and so didn’t matter. Throughout Christian history, you can see a similar pattern of sexual excess; thanks to Christianity’s adoption of Ascetic beliefs.).

Unfortunately, Christianity was already seriously compromised in its efforts to fight the Ascetic Gnostics. For Christians by now just naturally thought in terms of the flesh being bad, and the spirit being good, themselves; thanks to the use of this symbolic code by nearly all of the Apostles (following the example set by the scholarly Paul), in nearly all of the New Testament writings (with the notable exception of James, who, as accepted leader of the Hebrew Church, doubtless had somewhat of a natural suspicion of Paul; and who thus did much to bring balance to Paul’s teachings, in his one New Testament book. His epistle teaches that it is not physical desires per se which are sinful, but rather the covetous desire to be rich). Because of this, early Christian leaders just saw the Gnostics as either doctrinal heretics or as sexual libertines; and they condemned them accordingly. Yet they never even saw the real threat posed by the Gnostics; which allowed their Ascetic influence to continually spread, more and more, over the young Church. Eventually, therefore, the Christian Church ended up succumbing almost totally to Gnostic Asceticism; until most Christians forgot that the real message of the New Testament is Love vs. Selfishness (Lust), and not Spirit vs. Body! Thus the Early Christian Church went on to become the loveless and repressive (and Spiritually dead) Orthodox (and later Catholic) Church.

Once Asceticism reigned supreme over the Christian Church, then the human body, and with it all physical desires and pleasures, began to be automatically seen as Bad. In this repressive climate, natural human sexuality soon came to be looked at with undisguised revulsion and condemnation by the leading voices of the Christian Church (some of whom, such as Origen, even had themselves castrated). Inevitably, this situation led to the ability of people to enjoy sexual pleasure in Christian societies becoming ever increasingly condemned and prohibited, more and more, as each century passed. Indeed, by about 500 A.D., most of the clergy were finally being required to be celibate. And by 1,000 A.D., monasteries had mushroomed across Europe; and monks and clergy were busy teaching everyone the evils of women, marriage, and, above all, Sex.

In this atmosphere of total sexual repression, it is hardly surprising that the most vicious condemnations were reserved for masturbation. After all, masturbation is about as Anti-Ascetic as you can get; for it is sex done purely for pleasure, without reproduction, or even a relationship, to justify itself. The Victory of Asceticism in Christianity (which both the First Sexual Revolution, in the 16th Century, and the Second Sexual Revolution, in the 20th Century, have been battling ever since) thus led from a suspicious tolerance of masturbation in the Early Church; to the situation a millennium later, where a monk caught masturbating could be suspended in an iron cage in the monastery, until he died of hunger and thirst (all while the sin of fornication among the supposedly celibate clergy was widely tolerated; to add insult to injury).

This is the most fundamental reason why Fundamentalist Christians cannot bring themselves to do anything but condemn masturbation; despite the tremendous wealth of evidence which the Second Sexual Revolution has uncovered since the late 19th Century, proving masturbation to be both natural and harmless. For these Christians stand on top of an enormous mountain of Christian Tradition, which has totally condemned masturbation as the most fundamental transgression of its most cherished Ascetic Beliefs, for literally hundreds and hundreds of years.

Answer #2: THE ORIGIN OF BODY SHAME

For many Christians, their negative views of masturbation are learned as they get more involved in the church culture of their local congregation or denomination, and are exposed to Christianity’s ancient Asceticism-induced revulsion to the practice; whose origins we just looked at. Very many other Christians, however, do not fit this pattern. Instead, when they first hear it taught that masturbation is a sin, it merely serves to confirm what they had always somehow known.

In fact, many of these people had experienced personal problems with the sin of masturbating, ranging from the occasional practice to the chronic habit, ever since their early childhood. They had always viewed it as a shameful bad habit, something done in strictest secrecy; which they wished they could stop. For them, Christian condemnation of masturbation only served to confirm the shame and fear which they had always lived with. And, for very many Christians, the existence of this innate shame with regards to masturbation makes all my preceding arguments—about Christian Asceticism and the lack of any Biblical condemnation of masturbation—seem like moot points. For neither history nor the Bible really matter, they conclude, as long as their own individual consciences tell them that masturbation is wrong.

This is a crucial point. For Christians believe that the human conscience acts as a direct agent of the Spirit of God; acting to preserve our souls by warning us away from sin. As Paul tells Timothy:

1 Timothy 1:19: Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.

The conscience is therefore seen as a more fundamental teacher than churches, or even the Bible, by many Christians. For teachers can deceive, and the teachings of the Bible itself can be warped and twisted (as we have seen has indeed been done by the Church, with regards to both Lust and Asceticism); but nobody can touch the conscience! Our consciences therefore make Christianity into a truly individualistic religion; with everyone, presumably, following the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit directly, as that guidance is revealed in the inner voice of their