The Myth of a Christian Religion

by Gregory A. Boyd

  So too, when Jesus raised people from the dead and was himself raised from the dead, he was revolting against the reign of death and the one who holds the power of death. And in doing this, he was pointing to a time when “the last enemy” would be utterly destroyed and death would be no more.

  Jesus’ ministry, we see, was a sustained revolt against the corruption of nature and the Powers that are behind it.

  THE ONGOING ABUSE OF CREATION

  While the mustard seed of the Kingdom has been planted, it obviously hasn’t yet taken over the entire garden (Matthew 13:31 – 32). We continue to live in an oppressed, corrupted world. We live in tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” Not only this, but we who are the appointed landlords of God’s earth continue to live in rebellion against God and abuse our God-given authority over the earth. Our first mandate included taking care of the earth and animals, and I’m convinced this continues to be a foundational benchmark for how we’re doing as a human race. Unfortunately, this benchmark suggests we aren’t doing well at all.

  For example, it’s well known that the welfare of the earth’s ecosystem significantly depends on tropical rain forests. Yet we are currently cutting down an area of tropical forest the size of Greece each year. Some estimate that up to eighty percent of earth’s rain forests have already been lost, the majority in the last one hundred years. A good percentage of this deforestation could be eliminated by relatively minor lifestyle changes by people in the Western hemisphere who benefit from this deforestation the most. We simply lack the will.

  So too our apathy toward the environment as well as toward the suffering of the poor is largely to blame for the current clean-water crisis humanity faces. Because of pollution, irresponsible land use, hoarding, and a myriad of other factors, over a billion people on the planet have inadequate access to potable water. Preventable water borne diseases kill approximately 10,000 children each day. In Africa alone, 150 children die every hour from illnesses attributable to the lack of clean water. All told, approximately 10 million people die each year because their water is unclean.

  If our present computer forecasts are remotely accurate, and the earth continues to warm, this catastrophe will be magnified several times over in the coming decades. We possess the technology to significantly remedy this situation, if not correct it completely. But relief efforts have been limited because of our general reluctance to modify our water usage, lack of funding to develop wells and irrigation systems in water-deprived regions, and political and tribal conflicts in the affected regions.

  We are proving ourselves to be poor landlords, and we and the earth are suffering accordingly.

  Our care for animals is even more dismal than our care for the land, in my estimation. Largely due to our poor stewardship, thousands of species of animals have already become extinct or are being pushed to the brink of extinction. According to most experts, the populations of over half of all animal species are in decline. Some estimate that in the next thirty years as many as one-fifth of all species still alive today will become extinct. At our current rate of tropical forest deforestation, it’s estimated that from 5 to 10 percent of all tropical forest species become extinct every decade.

  But in my opinion, the single most telling piece of evidence that shows how poorly we’re manifesting our call to care for animals is the recent creation of factory farms. Over the last century we have, to a large degree, reduced farm animals to commercialized commodities whose only value is found in how efficiently we can produce and slaughter them for profit. Consequently, more than 26 billion animals each year are forced to live in miserable, overcrowded warehouses, where there is absolutely nothing natural about their existence and where they are subjected to barbaric, painful, industrial procedures. 11 This is a far cry from what God meant when he told us to exercise “dominion.”

  If our care for the earth and animals is a fundamental benchmark for how we’re doing as a human race, I think we can agree that we are in serious trouble.

  THE KINGDOM CALL TO EXERCISE MERCIFUL DOMINION

  Were this like most books on the environment and caring for animals, I would at this point express my opinion about how readers should vote, what industries they should boycott, who they should lobby, and so on. I’m not opposed to these activities, mind you. But this is a book about the Kingdom, and as in most political matters, there is simply no unqualifiedly “Kingdom” position to take on these issues. I’d actually like to pronounce my own opinions “the Christian view,” but it would be arrogant and disingenuous of me to do so.

  Issues surrounding what governments should do regarding the care for the earth and animals intersect with a myriad of other weighty and controversial issues that makes these matters incredibly complex and ambiguous. This is why intelligent and caring people understandably disagree about them.

  Being a follower of Jesus gives us no special wisdom to resolve this complex problem. What being a follower of Jesus must do, however, is motivate us to individually and collectively live in a way that reflects God’s original design for human dominion while revolting against everything that is incongruous with this design. Regardless of what scientific or political opinions may be in vogue, and regardless of whether the earth continues to warm or starts to cool, our call remains the same. We’re to manifest God’s tender care for the earth and demonstrate God’s merciful love toward animals.

  This means we must think critically about things like the energy we consume, the water we use and the waste we throw away. It means we must be informed about the effects our lifestyle choices—and eating choices—have on the earth and on animals.

  Insofar as it is possible, we’re to manifest—in the present—the harmonious relation between God, humans, animals, and the earth that will characterize the cosmos when the Kingdom is fully come. This is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be part of a Kingdom that manifests the beauty of God’s original design for creation while revolting against everything that corrupts it.

  Viva la revolution!

  CHAPTER 13

  THE REVOLT AGAINST

  THE ABUSE OF SEX

  Flee from sexual immorality….

  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.

  Therefore honor God with your bodies.

  1 CORINTHIANS 6:18–20

  SEX AND RACQUETBALL

  I once saw an episode of the sitcom Friends in which Monica asked a friend whom she’d begun having sex with, “Can we still be friends and have sex?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “It’ll just be something we do together—like playing racquetball.”

  These days I believe the phrase is “friends with benefits.” I’m told it’s rather common.

  This episode nicely sums up the contemporary Western view of sex. Sex is widely considered a morally neutral recreational activity, essentially no different from racquetball. Of the several hundred implicit or explicit sexualized scenes the average American views each week on television shows, commercials, or in the movies, only a fraction are between people who are in committed relationships, and less than one percent are with married couples (and most of these are to poke fun at it).

  The message is not only that it’s okay for sex to be enjoyed recreationally but that it’s best when it’s done outside of marriage. This view has so permeated America and Europe that for many—including, sadly, many Christians—the very concept of “chastity” or “sexual morality” sounds antiquated and prudish.

  SEX! SEX! SEX!

  The pervasiveness of the recreational view of sex is reflected in the behavior of the masses. For example, roughly 65 percent of American teens today engage in sexual intercourse before graduating from high school, while an additional 10 to 12 percent engage in oral or anal sex without intercourse. (Most young people today don’t even regard these latter activities as “having sex.”) By the time they get married, only about one in four women and one in five men are still virgins.

  Sadly, as with all
other facets of American life, statistics on the sexual behavior of professing Christians do not vary significantly from the general populace. Research suggests that being involved in an extracurricular sport does more to lower the rate of sexual activity among teenagers than does attending church. Evidence suggests that Christian abstinence programs like True Love Waits delay the average time teenagers first engage in intercourse by about eighteen months, but these programs don’t generally motivate people to wait until they’re married. Even more concerning, a number of studies reveal that teenagers who make abstinence pledges tend to engage in oral or anal sex more than others who don’t, and they tend to use protection less when having intercourse. The undeniable fact is that young Christians have absorbed the recreational view of sex about as thoroughly as non-Christians.

  Since sex has become largely severed from morality, it’s hardly surprising that it’s also become the culture’s main tool for advertising. While advertisers have used sexuality to sell products for more than a century, the pervasiveness and explicitness of sex in advertising has taken a quantum leap since the sexual revolution of the sixties. One only has to glance through the catalogs of youth-orientated clothing stores like Abercrombie & Fitch to confirm this fact. Today’s advertising could have been marketed as soft-porn only a few decades ago.

  It’s also not surprising that sex has become one of our culture’s main tools for entertainment. Most television shows and movies (especially those orientated toward young people) now incorporate increasingly explicit sexual content, and the porn industry has virtually exploded. When I was a kid we had to sneak around to find our dads’ stash. Today the kinkiest sex you can imagine is one click away.

  The statistics on the use of porn in our culture are startling. Revenues from the porn industry topped 13 billion dollars in 2006, which is more than the revenue from professional football, basketball, and baseball combined. For the last several years, “sex” has been the single most common word fed into Internet search engines. Every second, 372 new people log onto porn sites, and it’s estimated that more than half of these new users are under-aged. Whereas porn was once assumed to be a male thing, today one in three visitors to porn sites are women.

  Here too, sadly, research suggests that the habits of Christians vary little from those of the general population. For example, some recent research suggests that about half of all Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women viewed porn in the last year. A survey of several Christian college campuses revealed that almost 70 percent of the male students had viewed porn within the last year. And a 2000 Christianity Today survey revealed that about a third of all clergy had visited porn websites within the last year.

  The undeniable reality is that this recreational view of sex now permeates the Church as well as the broader culture. It would not be an overstatement to call it a crisis.

  As in all things, disciples of Jesus are called to imitate him by submitting their sexuality to the reign of God. Jesus was fully human and tempted in every way that we are, yet he did not sin. Whether we are single or married, Kingdom people are called to manifest the beauty of God’s original design for sexuality and revolt against the debauchery of our culture and the dehumanizing Powers that fuel it. In our sex-addicted culture, this is one of our most formidable challenges.

  To be motivated to live in accordance with God’s design for sexuality, I believe we need to do more than simply review the hundreds of prohibitions against sex outside of marriage found in the Bible. This is the typical approach taken by churches, and it frankly doesn’t seem to be doing much good. We need to go deeper and see why sex is such a “big deal” to God and why his prohibitions are not prudish or puritanical but beautiful.

  I don’t believe most will be motivated to adhere to God’s strong no to sex before and outside of marriage until they can fully appreciate God’s even stronger yes to the beauty of sex within marriage. In what follows we’ll flesh out three biblical teachings that express and explain God’s strong yes to sex.

  THE CREATION OF “ONE FLESH”

  First, God designed sexual intercourse to create a new, sacred oneness between a man and a woman that is intended to never be broken.

  At one point in his ministry the Pharisees tried to lure Jesus into a controversial debate over what constituted a permissible divorce. Moses allowed for a man to divorce his wife if he found “something indecent about her.” The question was, what did “indecent” in this passage refer to? One school of thought held that virtually anything a man found displeasing in his wife could be considered “indecent.” Another school taught that only something sexual in nature could be considered “indecent.”

  As always, Jesus refused to get entangled in this controversial quagmire. He rather appealed to God’s ideal expressed in Genesis 2. He said,

  Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. (Matthew 19:4 – 6)

  Jesus then went on to remind the Pharisees that the only reason God permitted divorce was because of the hardness of peoples’ hearts. Jesus was thus pointing out that all divorce involves sin, for it dissolves something God himself joined together. It destroys the “one flesh” relationship God intended for a husband and wife—a union that was supposed to last as long as their flesh survived.

  Jesus’ wasn’t revoking the Old Testament’s permission to divorce in saying this—as though people’s hearts were less hard in his day than they were in Moses’ day. His point was rather to expose the self-justifying motive of the questioners. Given that a new “one flesh” reality is created by God when a man and woman come together, no one can feel righteous about divorcing their wife, regardless of why they do so. 1

  According to Jesus, when a man and woman come together in sexual intercourse, something profound, mysterious, and spiritual is going on. God makes the two into a new one. Paul says this mysterious oneness is created whenever a man and woman come together, regardless of how recreational their liaison might be.

  Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:16 – 17)

  Even sex with a prostitute creates a “one flesh” relationship that is supposed to never be broken! Clearly, from God’s perspective sex is never merely recreational.

  THE “ONE FLESH” RE-UNION

  To fully grasp the depth of this “one flesh” relationship, we should pay attention to the context of the Genesis 2 passage that Jesus and Paul refer to. God had just created Eve out of Adam’s side to find him a fitting helper. There’s a long chauvinistic tradition of assuming “helper” (ezer) implies that Eve was created as Adam’s subordinate, but the term actually has no such connotation. For example, Psalm 121 refers to Yahweh as our helper (ezer) (vv. 1 – 2), and I seriously doubt anyone would want to argue that Yahweh is our subordinate. The term rather has the connotation of one who brings strength.

  In any event, in creating Eve, God made two persons out of one. This is why when Adam sees Eve he exclaims, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

  Then, most significantly, the passage immediately adds, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” The reason why a man and woman are to leave their homes and family and form a new social and spiritual reality is that their sexual complementarity is reflective of, and grounded in, an even more primordial oneness. It’s appropriate for a man and woman to become one because they originally were one.

  As God made two out of one, so now through sexual intercourse he makes one out of two. The new union is, in this sense, a re-union, and God is as much involved in creating the latter as he
was in creating the former.

  I believe this is why Paul tells husbands and wives they should no longer consider their bodies to be their own but should willingly surrender them to their spouse (1 Corinthians 7:1 – 5). When husbands and wives continue to consider their bodies to be their own possessions, they’re simply not thinking accurately. The couple really is a re-united body and they should think and act accordingly.

  The sanctity and beauty of the “one flesh” reality God creates is honored and protected when it’s reserved for people who have pledged themselves to each other for life. But it’s desecrated and destroyed when people engage in sexual intercourse outside of this sacred context.

  THE SIGN OF THE HEAVENLY MARRIAGE

  Second, God designed sexual intercourse to be a sacred sign of Christ’s relationship with his bride, the Church.

  In the course of giving instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul reminds them that all followers of Jesus are to submit to one another, regardless of social standing, gender, or ethnicity. So a husband and wife must submit to one another (v. 22). Whereas marriages under the curse tend to be characterized by power games in which each party tries to rule and control the other (Genesis 3:6), Kingdom marriages are to be characterized by doing the opposite. A marriage reflects the Kingdom insofar as husbands and wives are Christian—Christlike—to one another.