Sex and the Single Minister
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the Second Congregation Meeting House on Nantucket Island,
Sunday October 20, 2002
***
[Extemporaneous Introduction]
There was a time, in the not-so-distant past when my topic for this morning might easily have been exhausted with a single word: the word "none." That's spelled N-O-N-E, by the way...just to avoid any confusion. Times have changed, of course, not only for ministers, but for our entire society. There are very few today who still believe that sexual activity is permissible only for the purpose of procreation, only within the state of holy wedlock, and then only if you don't really enjoy it. The experimentation of the so-called "sexual revolution" may well have passed, but in its aftermath we are confronted with a plethora of choices (some might say temptations) concerning our sexual ethics and our sexual behavior -- and the contemporary cleric must face these choices just like anyone else.
Well, not exactly just like anyone else. Because you see, all logic and experience to the contrary, people still intuitively expect their pastors to make better choices and fewer mistakes than the average man or woman, to somehow set a "moral example" that others might profit from. Far be it from me to shirk this awesome and sacred responsibility! But first it might be interesting to examine historically how ministers happened to get themselves into this fine mess in the first place.
The theological rationale behind the doctrine of clerical celibacy, and indeed, the source of much of Christianity's traditionally conservative view of human sexuality, comes, of course, from the 7th chapter of Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians, the same chapter in which the apostle condemns the practice of divorce. There are three things about this passage which are worthy of our attention. First, you'll notice that it reflects a characteristic dichotomy between "flesh" and "spirit" typical of much of classical Greek philosophy, and subsequently, Christian Theology: the notion that the spirit is somehow exalted while the body, and all things associated with the body, such as one's sexuality, are base and corrupt. In order to draw close to God, one should deny the body and concentrate on the spirit; flesh is evil, but the spirit must be made pure. Secondly, Paul reveals in this letter his expectation that such a denial won't last for very long; he fully expected Christ to return in glory upon the clouds within his lifetime and the lifetimes of his original readers 2000 years ago. Celibacy is not put forth as a "natural" lifestyle, but rather a temporary discipline to purify oneself for the eminent Kingdom of God. And finally, there is the question of anomia , or “lawlessness,” which Paul is attempting to correct within the Christian Community at Corinth. This is an important point, so I want to spend a little time with it.
One of the problems surrounding Paul's emphasis on the life of the spirit, and his doctrine of "the new covenant" and freedom from Jewish law, was that it created a situation in which those who were living that "life of the spirit" came to believe that they were no longer bound by the old moral strictures: that since what counts is the spirit, the sins of the flesh were somehow unimportant, irrelevant to the "new age." We still see this phenomenon today, in quasi-religious cults founded by charismatic leaders; and it was a problem then in Corinth as well. Paul, through this letter, was attempting to curb some of the more outrageous extrapolations of his own teachings; it was only in later times that his efforts to correct a specific situation became viewed as normative.
You see, Paul never argues directly for a celibate ministry in his letter, nor does he invoke his authority as an Apostle when making these pronouncements -- he merely suggests it as an alternative, as someone who is "trustworthy" in such matters. And his advice, if I may paraphrase, is that he prefers celibacy for himself and recommends it highly to others, since it turns one's mind to God (and with the Second Coming right around the corner anyway why enter into any complicated emotional entanglements?), but if celibacy is not your thing, then by all means marry, since it is better to marry than "to be aflame with passion," (or, in some translations, "to burn with lust"). But let's not get carried away with all this, lets not go around divorcing our wives to marry our stepmothers, because it creates a bad impression in the community. And this advice presumably applies to all Christians, since Paul himself makes no distinction between clergy and laity when making these suggestions. Which is why, in the so-called Eastern Rite churches (the Greek and Russian orthodox, as well as the Ukrainian and Melchite Catholic churches) there has always been a strong tradition of married clergy: only monks, as a rule, have lived under a vow of celibacy.
In western Europe, however, under the control of the Roman Catholic church, it was a very different story. Here Paul's advice was interpreted as normative. Furthermore, the influence of the Rule of Saint Benedict, with its three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, was much stronger in the western church than it was in the east. Celibacy gave Benedictine monks a great deal of religious credibility; since it obviously wasn't normal for human beings to be celibate, anyone who could remain so must be very close to God indeed.
A much more important factor however, particularly as the church grew more wealthy with the progression of the Middle Ages, was the problem of Simony (today we would probably call it nepotism and graft ) as it related to the appointment and investiture of local bishops. Within a feudal economy, the church supported itself to a substantial degree through its real estate holdings...and problems arose when local Bishops would father children (usually outside of wedlock in nominal conformity to the expectation of chastity), and then attempt to pass on church property to their heirs, as though these church lands were part of their personal estates.
A strict vow of clerical celibacy was one way that the Papacy could attempt to keep the clergy in the field on a leash; although for your average parish priest, who probably spoke just enough Latin to say the Mass and relied for his sustenance upon the generosity of the local gentry, the economics of celibacy manifest themselves far differently. Little better than a serf himself, he simply couldn't afford to support a wife and family on the small parcel of land allotted to him.
Feudal economics reinforced the system in other ways as well. Unlike today, when ministers overwhelmingly tend to be eldest or only children, during the Middle Ages priests tended to be drawn from among the younger children of a family, since inheritance laws recognized only the oldest surviving male child (the so-called Rule of Primogeniture). Likewise, “unmarrigable” daughters tended to be shunted off to convents as "brides of Christ," where the church could feed them instead of their hard-strapped parents. These very real economic and political factors combined with this notion that chastity was somehow more "spiritual" than sexuality to make clerical celibacy the norm in the western church, even though it wasn't always practiced as frequently as it was preached.
Martin Luther's posting of his 95 theses on the Wittenburg door helped blow the lid off of this entire, "unnatural" situation. One of Luther’s theses, you may recall, was the insistence that clergy should marry, in order to better model for the laity the ideal Christian lifestyle. Popular history records that one of the first things the Lutherans did in those regions which came under their control was to break down the doors of the convents and match up the nuns there with the local priests. Luther attempted to transform the religious ideal of "moral exemplar" from one of celibate spiritual virtuoso to the alternative of parish minister as “the perfect family man.”
And of course Catholic Counter-Reformers responded by suggesting that this was simply one more example of Protestant antinomianism, and renewing their emphasis on the notion that a true spiritual leader has little interest in anything carnal or worldly. Ironic, since the carnality and worldliness of the Roman priesthood was one of the principle things that Luther, himself a former monk, was attempting to reform.
But that’s probably enough history for now. Let’s switch to sociology.
Sexuality is one of the basic components of human identity. Human beings are sexual beings; it’s a fundamental part of who we are. It all seems so simple and obvious, yet as we all know, it is anything but simple or obvious. Take something so basic as the subtle differences between the concepts of sexual identity, sexual orientation, and sexual preference.
We all have our sexual preferences; we tend to treat them as very private and personal things, and they tend to change over time, as we grow older and more knowledgeable about ourselves and our bodies. Our basic sexual orientation, on the other hand, is determined very early in life -- it may even be genetic -- and therefore is something about which we have very little choice or control. The heart desires what the heart desires; it is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and also one of its greatest gifts.
Sexual Identity, however, is part of our public persona and therefore “socially constructed,” which is to say dependent on contextual cultural “norms” -- a combination of the manner in which we choose to present ourselves to the world, and the ways in which society perceives and understands that presentation.
These three things are obviously related to one another, but that relationship is rarely as simple as we might like. Sexuality is a complex amalgam of choice and destiny, nature and culture, and this is why it defies easy and simplistic prescriptive stereotypes.
In the more enlightened parts of the world (Scandinavia, for instance), people tend to take the view that a person’s sexual preferences are nobody’s business but their own, and that whatever mature, consenting adults choose to do with one another in private, behind closed doors, is up to them. They recognize as well that Sexual Orientation is a gift of God, and are therefore accepting of a broad diversity of Sexual Identities, since they believe that their ought to be an authentic correspondence between who we are in private, and who we are in public. But not all of us live in the more enlightened parts of the world. And no matter how enlightened we may feel ourselves, the realization that the most private and intimate aspects of our personality may at times also be subject to public scrutiny and judgment can be a little inhibiting.
This is true for everyone, but it is especially true for clergy, who live so much of their lives in public view to begin with. For so much of our history, there have basically been only two acceptable Sexual Identities for clergy: the celibate spiritual virtuoso, whose love of God transcends any desire for an intimate, romantic, sexual relationship with another human being; or, in the alternative, the married, monogamous, heterosexual Protestant pastor, happily wed to his (or her) childhood sweetheart (who just so happens to play the piano and make excellent casseroles), and comes complete with a perfect family of 2.3 well-behaved children who can form the core of a successful Religious Education program. Given the enduring power of these stereotypes, the status of single Protestant ministers has remained in limbo. As recently as a generation ago, and in many circles still today, to be a single minister was to be secretly suspect: somehow immoral, possibly promiscuous, perhaps even gay -- and God help you if you’d been divorced along the way.
This double standard has eased somewhat in my lifetime, but vestiges still remain, particularly given the influence of more conservative, evangelical denominations in the overall American religious landscape. Moreover, from talking over the years with many of my female colleagues, I have discovered that single women in the ministry seem to feel this pressure even more deeply than men; the lingering double standard surrounding a woman's sexuality only exacerbates the perceived conflicts about sexuality in the ministry.
Perhaps it's unavoidable that ministers should live in glass houses, and that their private lives should be seen, not only as examples for others to follow, but also potentially the source of a considerable amount of public entertainment, especially on a small island community like Nantucket! The mystique of clerical authority has been a long time evolving, and the separation between our private and our public life will probably never be as distinct as one might wish, particularly when religion is understood as something to be practiced, and not merely mouthed. But the pressure to be always on one’s best behavior can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, especially when you recognize that the consequences of perceived misbehavior not only reflect badly on you, but on the entire religious community you serve.
The on-going scandal concerning sexual misconduct in the Roman Catholic church vividly illustrates how damaging it can be to an entire religious institution when only a handful of individuals violate the trust that has been placed in them as spiritual leaders. The Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association has specific guidelines intended to help our clergy recognize and avoid this kind of unethical behavior. Our Code of Professional Practice explicitly states that: “As a sexual being, I will recognize the power that ministry gives me and refrain from practices which are harmful to others and which endanger my integrity or my professional effectiveness. Such practices include sexual activity with any child or with an unwilling adult, with a counselee, with the spouse or partner of a person in the congregation, with interns, or any other such exploitative relationship.”
But apart from the one glaring omission in this list -- its silence on the issue of whether or not it is ethical for clergy to engage in sexual activity with the spouse or partner of someone who is NOT a member of their congregation -- there is a larger and more important ethical principle which exists at the center of this statement which I believe is valuable to us all: the insight that, in order to maintain our integrity, we should never take advantage of a position of power, or trust, or authority in order to exploit another person’s vulnerability for the sake of our own personal gratification. Yet even as I say this, I also recognize that mutual trust, and mutual vulnerability, are the foundations of true intimacy; and that unless we are willing to trust someone enough to risk being hurt by them as well, our relationships will always remain somewhat shallow or superficial.
A close emotional relationship with another human being often times seems like a foot race between intimacy and disappointment, between the comfortable closeness and ease of interaction which comes of long familiarity with another individual, and the restless boredom that all too easily grows of that same familiarity when it lacks that mutual vulnerability that can only exist in the presence of mutual trust. It's a risky proposition, the deep knowledge of another. And yet when we put too much pressure on ourselves to live up to an expectation, to either set a good example, or to follow one, rather than accepting the probability that we will sometimes make mistakes, the natural tendency is to err on the side of caution, to forsake the risk of "why not?" for the relative safety of "why bother?"
I've often wished that the Apostle Paul had had the good sense to mind his own business when it came to questions of sexual intimacy. It bothers me, for example, that he should present marriage as an alternative to desire, that he should give lust such a bad reputation. Intimacy should be the key for unlocking passion, and passion, likewise, the vehicle by which intimacy is achieved. But when we deny to ourselves the freedom to explore our passions and discover what works for us, when we wrongly assume that one size fits all, we lose the opportunity to create that most precious of human experiences -- the true union of two unique individual souls in the intimate partnership of love.
at the Second Congregation Meeting House on Nantucket Island,
Sunday October 20, 2002
***
[Extemporaneous Introduction]
There was a time, in the not-so-distant past when my topic for this morning might easily have been exhausted with a single word: the word "none." That's spelled N-O-N-E, by the way...just to avoid any confusion. Times have changed, of course, not only for ministers, but for our entire society. There are very few today who still believe that sexual activity is permissible only for the purpose of procreation, only within the state of holy wedlock, and then only if you don't really enjoy it. The experimentation of the so-called "sexual revolution" may well have passed, but in its aftermath we are confronted with a plethora of choices (some might say temptations) concerning our sexual ethics and our sexual behavior -- and the contemporary cleric must face these choices just like anyone else.
Well, not exactly just like anyone else. Because you see, all logic and experience to the contrary, people still intuitively expect their pastors to make better choices and fewer mistakes than the average man or woman, to somehow set a "moral example" that others might profit from. Far be it from me to shirk this awesome and sacred responsibility! But first it might be interesting to examine historically how ministers happened to get themselves into this fine mess in the first place.
The theological rationale behind the doctrine of clerical celibacy, and indeed, the source of much of Christianity's traditionally conservative view of human sexuality, comes, of course, from the 7th chapter of Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians, the same chapter in which the apostle condemns the practice of divorce. There are three things about this passage which are worthy of our attention. First, you'll notice that it reflects a characteristic dichotomy between "flesh" and "spirit" typical of much of classical Greek philosophy, and subsequently, Christian Theology: the notion that the spirit is somehow exalted while the body, and all things associated with the body, such as one's sexuality, are base and corrupt. In order to draw close to God, one should deny the body and concentrate on the spirit; flesh is evil, but the spirit must be made pure. Secondly, Paul reveals in this letter his expectation that such a denial won't last for very long; he fully expected Christ to return in glory upon the clouds within his lifetime and the lifetimes of his original readers 2000 years ago. Celibacy is not put forth as a "natural" lifestyle, but rather a temporary discipline to purify oneself for the eminent Kingdom of God. And finally, there is the question of anomia , or “lawlessness,” which Paul is attempting to correct within the Christian Community at Corinth. This is an important point, so I want to spend a little time with it.
One of the problems surrounding Paul's emphasis on the life of the spirit, and his doctrine of "the new covenant" and freedom from Jewish law, was that it created a situation in which those who were living that "life of the spirit" came to believe that they were no longer bound by the old moral strictures: that since what counts is the spirit, the sins of the flesh were somehow unimportant, irrelevant to the "new age." We still see this phenomenon today, in quasi-religious cults founded by charismatic leaders; and it was a problem then in Corinth as well. Paul, through this letter, was attempting to curb some of the more outrageous extrapolations of his own teachings; it was only in later times that his efforts to correct a specific situation became viewed as normative.
You see, Paul never argues directly for a celibate ministry in his letter, nor does he invoke his authority as an Apostle when making these pronouncements -- he merely suggests it as an alternative, as someone who is "trustworthy" in such matters. And his advice, if I may paraphrase, is that he prefers celibacy for himself and recommends it highly to others, since it turns one's mind to God (and with the Second Coming right around the corner anyway why enter into any complicated emotional entanglements?), but if celibacy is not your thing, then by all means marry, since it is better to marry than "to be aflame with passion," (or, in some translations, "to burn with lust"). But let's not get carried away with all this, lets not go around divorcing our wives to marry our stepmothers, because it creates a bad impression in the community. And this advice presumably applies to all Christians, since Paul himself makes no distinction between clergy and laity when making these suggestions. Which is why, in the so-called Eastern Rite churches (the Greek and Russian orthodox, as well as the Ukrainian and Melchite Catholic churches) there has always been a strong tradition of married clergy: only monks, as a rule, have lived under a vow of celibacy.
In western Europe, however, under the control of the Roman Catholic church, it was a very different story. Here Paul's advice was interpreted as normative. Furthermore, the influence of the Rule of Saint Benedict, with its three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, was much stronger in the western church than it was in the east. Celibacy gave Benedictine monks a great deal of religious credibility; since it obviously wasn't normal for human beings to be celibate, anyone who could remain so must be very close to God indeed.
A much more important factor however, particularly as the church grew more wealthy with the progression of the Middle Ages, was the problem of Simony (today we would probably call it nepotism and graft ) as it related to the appointment and investiture of local bishops. Within a feudal economy, the church supported itself to a substantial degree through its real estate holdings...and problems arose when local Bishops would father children (usually outside of wedlock in nominal conformity to the expectation of chastity), and then attempt to pass on church property to their heirs, as though these church lands were part of their personal estates.
A strict vow of clerical celibacy was one way that the Papacy could attempt to keep the clergy in the field on a leash; although for your average parish priest, who probably spoke just enough Latin to say the Mass and relied for his sustenance upon the generosity of the local gentry, the economics of celibacy manifest themselves far differently. Little better than a serf himself, he simply couldn't afford to support a wife and family on the small parcel of land allotted to him.
Feudal economics reinforced the system in other ways as well. Unlike today, when ministers overwhelmingly tend to be eldest or only children, during the Middle Ages priests tended to be drawn from among the younger children of a family, since inheritance laws recognized only the oldest surviving male child (the so-called Rule of Primogeniture). Likewise, “unmarrigable” daughters tended to be shunted off to convents as "brides of Christ," where the church could feed them instead of their hard-strapped parents. These very real economic and political factors combined with this notion that chastity was somehow more "spiritual" than sexuality to make clerical celibacy the norm in the western church, even though it wasn't always practiced as frequently as it was preached.
Martin Luther's posting of his 95 theses on the Wittenburg door helped blow the lid off of this entire, "unnatural" situation. One of Luther’s theses, you may recall, was the insistence that clergy should marry, in order to better model for the laity the ideal Christian lifestyle. Popular history records that one of the first things the Lutherans did in those regions which came under their control was to break down the doors of the convents and match up the nuns there with the local priests. Luther attempted to transform the religious ideal of "moral exemplar" from one of celibate spiritual virtuoso to the alternative of parish minister as “the perfect family man.”
And of course Catholic Counter-Reformers responded by suggesting that this was simply one more example of Protestant antinomianism, and renewing their emphasis on the notion that a true spiritual leader has little interest in anything carnal or worldly. Ironic, since the carnality and worldliness of the Roman priesthood was one of the principle things that Luther, himself a former monk, was attempting to reform.
But that’s probably enough history for now. Let’s switch to sociology.
Sexuality is one of the basic components of human identity. Human beings are sexual beings; it’s a fundamental part of who we are. It all seems so simple and obvious, yet as we all know, it is anything but simple or obvious. Take something so basic as the subtle differences between the concepts of sexual identity, sexual orientation, and sexual preference.
We all have our sexual preferences; we tend to treat them as very private and personal things, and they tend to change over time, as we grow older and more knowledgeable about ourselves and our bodies. Our basic sexual orientation, on the other hand, is determined very early in life -- it may even be genetic -- and therefore is something about which we have very little choice or control. The heart desires what the heart desires; it is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and also one of its greatest gifts.
Sexual Identity, however, is part of our public persona and therefore “socially constructed,” which is to say dependent on contextual cultural “norms” -- a combination of the manner in which we choose to present ourselves to the world, and the ways in which society perceives and understands that presentation.
These three things are obviously related to one another, but that relationship is rarely as simple as we might like. Sexuality is a complex amalgam of choice and destiny, nature and culture, and this is why it defies easy and simplistic prescriptive stereotypes.
In the more enlightened parts of the world (Scandinavia, for instance), people tend to take the view that a person’s sexual preferences are nobody’s business but their own, and that whatever mature, consenting adults choose to do with one another in private, behind closed doors, is up to them. They recognize as well that Sexual Orientation is a gift of God, and are therefore accepting of a broad diversity of Sexual Identities, since they believe that their ought to be an authentic correspondence between who we are in private, and who we are in public. But not all of us live in the more enlightened parts of the world. And no matter how enlightened we may feel ourselves, the realization that the most private and intimate aspects of our personality may at times also be subject to public scrutiny and judgment can be a little inhibiting.
This is true for everyone, but it is especially true for clergy, who live so much of their lives in public view to begin with. For so much of our history, there have basically been only two acceptable Sexual Identities for clergy: the celibate spiritual virtuoso, whose love of God transcends any desire for an intimate, romantic, sexual relationship with another human being; or, in the alternative, the married, monogamous, heterosexual Protestant pastor, happily wed to his (or her) childhood sweetheart (who just so happens to play the piano and make excellent casseroles), and comes complete with a perfect family of 2.3 well-behaved children who can form the core of a successful Religious Education program. Given the enduring power of these stereotypes, the status of single Protestant ministers has remained in limbo. As recently as a generation ago, and in many circles still today, to be a single minister was to be secretly suspect: somehow immoral, possibly promiscuous, perhaps even gay -- and God help you if you’d been divorced along the way.
This double standard has eased somewhat in my lifetime, but vestiges still remain, particularly given the influence of more conservative, evangelical denominations in the overall American religious landscape. Moreover, from talking over the years with many of my female colleagues, I have discovered that single women in the ministry seem to feel this pressure even more deeply than men; the lingering double standard surrounding a woman's sexuality only exacerbates the perceived conflicts about sexuality in the ministry.
Perhaps it's unavoidable that ministers should live in glass houses, and that their private lives should be seen, not only as examples for others to follow, but also potentially the source of a considerable amount of public entertainment, especially on a small island community like Nantucket! The mystique of clerical authority has been a long time evolving, and the separation between our private and our public life will probably never be as distinct as one might wish, particularly when religion is understood as something to be practiced, and not merely mouthed. But the pressure to be always on one’s best behavior can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, especially when you recognize that the consequences of perceived misbehavior not only reflect badly on you, but on the entire religious community you serve.
The on-going scandal concerning sexual misconduct in the Roman Catholic church vividly illustrates how damaging it can be to an entire religious institution when only a handful of individuals violate the trust that has been placed in them as spiritual leaders. The Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association has specific guidelines intended to help our clergy recognize and avoid this kind of unethical behavior. Our Code of Professional Practice explicitly states that: “As a sexual being, I will recognize the power that ministry gives me and refrain from practices which are harmful to others and which endanger my integrity or my professional effectiveness. Such practices include sexual activity with any child or with an unwilling adult, with a counselee, with the spouse or partner of a person in the congregation, with interns, or any other such exploitative relationship.”
But apart from the one glaring omission in this list -- its silence on the issue of whether or not it is ethical for clergy to engage in sexual activity with the spouse or partner of someone who is NOT a member of their congregation -- there is a larger and more important ethical principle which exists at the center of this statement which I believe is valuable to us all: the insight that, in order to maintain our integrity, we should never take advantage of a position of power, or trust, or authority in order to exploit another person’s vulnerability for the sake of our own personal gratification. Yet even as I say this, I also recognize that mutual trust, and mutual vulnerability, are the foundations of true intimacy; and that unless we are willing to trust someone enough to risk being hurt by them as well, our relationships will always remain somewhat shallow or superficial.
A close emotional relationship with another human being often times seems like a foot race between intimacy and disappointment, between the comfortable closeness and ease of interaction which comes of long familiarity with another individual, and the restless boredom that all too easily grows of that same familiarity when it lacks that mutual vulnerability that can only exist in the presence of mutual trust. It's a risky proposition, the deep knowledge of another. And yet when we put too much pressure on ourselves to live up to an expectation, to either set a good example, or to follow one, rather than accepting the probability that we will sometimes make mistakes, the natural tendency is to err on the side of caution, to forsake the risk of "why not?" for the relative safety of "why bother?"
I've often wished that the Apostle Paul had had the good sense to mind his own business when it came to questions of sexual intimacy. It bothers me, for example, that he should present marriage as an alternative to desire, that he should give lust such a bad reputation. Intimacy should be the key for unlocking passion, and passion, likewise, the vehicle by which intimacy is achieved. But when we deny to ourselves the freedom to explore our passions and discover what works for us, when we wrongly assume that one size fits all, we lose the opportunity to create that most precious of human experiences -- the true union of two unique individual souls in the intimate partnership of love.
posted by The Eclectic Cleric at 2:29 PM
