was sure to disappoint. It broke only a few hours later. It is frustrating and depressing to be sold on false advertising, especially when you don’t know any better. The particular lie in the way sex is sold today is this—sex is primarily about fulfilling my desire. One Catholic theologian put it this way: “All particular temptations are expressions of this one original or ‘primordial’ temptation. It is the temptation to believe that the fulfillment of the desires of the human heart depends entirely on us.” Pornography, in particular, reduces sex down to arousal and pleasure. Hooking up and casual sex without commitments are now mainstream and lifelong commitments of marriage are in great decline. One of the most amazing gifts the Church has to offer today is this—the good news that our deepest desires and fulfillment will actually come from the selflessness of others and by the grace of God. This includes our sexual desires and longing for intimacy. Today we’re living with the cultural conclusion that it is easier to drop marriage but keep sex. Sex is used as a shortcut to intimacy and fulfillment of desire without a longterm commitment to another person. It’s a terribly truncated perspective. If the Church is going to succeed in casting a more convincing vision of sex, we will have to move beyond our messaging of just abstaining from sex, to actually promoting sex as a vital part of life and even spirituality. I’m convinced that sex is a sort of ‘bounded’ good, in the sense that is experienced most fully in the context of marriage. At the same time, marriage is not the only intersection of sex in the Church. Sexual desires, not to mention the way we understand
22 SEVEN NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2015
SHAME CAN SUBTLY MOVE US FROM WHAT WE’VE DONE TO WHO WE ARE. BY SHAPING OUR IDENTITY AROUND WHAT WE’VE DONE, IT KEEPS US IN AN ENDLESS LOOP OF DISHONOUR. and think about sex, intersect at many other points in peoples’ lives. We actually need a “boundless” theology of sex that engages these intersections positively and pastorally. It is often said that the best way to manage weeds in the garden is to grow good things where weeds might otherwise grow. The Church’s work is similar. We need to combat an inadequate understanding of sex by filling that space with a fuller, more robust celebration of it. This means intentionally planting conversations about sex where needed—among young adults and married couples, but also among singles, divorced, or widowed. We all desire sex and intimacy. This is simply the way we are made. It is actually a taste of God himself, a taste of full communion and intimate understanding without selfishness. The world profanes it, and we must win in back in all its fullness.
CONFRONTING SHAME A seasoned pastor recently told me, “I hardly remember the last time I married a couple who was not already living together or sleeping together.” This is the reality of the world today, but it is also an opportunity. Each couple that comes to us to be joined in marriage is an opportunity for pastoral care and guidance. This often includes the task of unpacking and confronting shame that has accumulated around their sexual journey. Shame is an amazingly powerful thing. It doesn’t deny goodness or righteousness. It actually points to them. But, once we have fallen, we often hear: “You see what you did! This is who you are now.” Thankfully, this is only partially true—Yes, you did fail, yes you are responsible, but poor moral choices can be confessed and forgiven. Shame can subtly move us from