John H Armstrong

The Stain That Stays: How Should We Respond to the Sexual Misconduct of Pastors/Leaders?

What should happen to pastors who fall into sexual misconduct? Should they return, repentant, to their pulpits/leadership within weeks or months - or should they return at all?

Around the world sexual misconduct is defeating ministers and destroying ministries. As the numbers of fallen leaders grow it is crucial to know what should happen to them - for their good and for the good of the Church. Does the Bible and church history give us any help with these kinds of questions?

In the 1990s, when sexual misconduct among some rather well-known evangelical pastors in America reached major proportions, I began to question the practices of various churches and organizations in how they handled a major moral problem. I also studied abundant evidence that suggested this problem was massive in scale and scope. Very few were interested then but the evidence I gave then has only grown more obvious over time. We have a crisis and few want to talk about it. I remain curious as to why this is true. 

I am persuaded, more than a decade after writing The Stain That Stays, that this book is more needed now than it was then (the first edition appeared in 1995). I seek to provide a biblical, historical, theological and ethical framework for dealing with morally fallen leaders. I make some rather bold suggestions about a correct response. I do not think I would change more than a paragraph or two if I wrote this book in 2012. Sadly, it is needed more than ever. 

Though this book is extremely valuable for elders/deacons (church leaders) who are required to deal with the issue in hard times the real value is that all leaders read and study it in advance of a failure. When it first appeared several seminaries used it to train future leaders. Sadly, I see no class on pastoral theology or practice that even deals with this problem now. Is it me or is this still a major problem that we wish would go away? We seem to have little or no conviction about dealing with it before or after the breakdown. 

For the record, mainline churches deal with this problem better, and more easily, than evangelical and extremely conservative churches. I have some theories about why this is so but I would love to hear what you think. Copies are available from Amazon at $17.99. I encourage leadership groups to study it. I would love to help you if you ask. 

 

When Jesus Met Mary: A Conference on Friendship with a Unique (and Controversial) Emphasis on Friendship with the Opposite Sex

Can men and women be close friends without the sex part getting in the way?

Can men and women who are married enjoy opposite sex friendships?

What would our marriages, our friendships, our churches, and our communities look like if men and women were not afraid of connecting with each other in deep ways?

What would male-female relationships look like in marriages and friendship if every man and woman could know the spiritual richness and beauty of oneness between genders?

These are the kinds of questions that grew out of my reading of a fine book I reviewed extensively on this site, December 21-24, 2010. I wrote long blogs about Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions, a ground-breaking and courageous book written by my good friend Dan Brennan. I believed then that it had something extremely important to say about real friendship to our modern over-sexualized culture, especially inside the Christian church. I believed, and believe even more now, that the absence of real friendship is destroying the life of the Spirit among us. This book is an important work that addresses the need for healing in this area of life together. 

Dan and I go back a very long way. I was his pastor in the 1980s. Quite honestly we had a tragic break in our relationship. That break lasted for more than a decade but after some years this broken friendship was beautifully healed. We were totally and completely reconciled and thus have enjoyed, for several years, a great (and very healthy) friendship. I tell you this story because it underscores an important point about my friend Dan Brennan. He practices what he preaches/writes! He is so refreshingly honest that some people do not like him for it. Plus, his understanding of a controversial subject is truly unique. But Dan is a man who makes friends and values his relationships very deeply. Like me he can be, and has been, hurt by friends who have turned against him. He has proven to be a true friend to me. I hope this friendship will continue to be the treasured by him as well. It is a powerful evidence of the kingdom to celebrate friendship with a person you once loved and then lost, only to regain that relationship with much greater depth and richness. 

This weekend I have the great privilege of sharing in a one-of-a-kind conference that Dan has planned for some months: When Jesus Met Mary: A Conference Exploring Friendship Between Men & Women. The event publicity says that it will seek to promote understanding, demystify the opposite sex (as if that were entirely possible, eh?), desexualize interactions between men and women, guide us in overcoming sexism, help us to tap into our deep longing to reflect the image of God and help us to enter into the deep unity and communion that God desires. 

I will speak on unity at the end of the event on Saturday afternoon and assist in serving the eucharist in the closing session at 3:40 p.m. The event begins with dinner at 6 p.m. this Friday evening, April 27. The speaker lineup includes some wonderful writers and thinkers, a few I know and more new people that I look forward to meeting. The meeting place for the conference is Life on the Vine, located at 5105 RFD, Arlington Heights Road, Long Grove, Illinois. 

You can register now. I urge you to do so and then attend this weekend. I'd love to see many of my Chicago friends. I do not believe that you will regret coming to this event. Even if the topic frightens you, and it does for many great people, come and learn. Listen, ask questions, think deeply. The price is reasonable and the fellowship and topic will both be truly unique. 

 

Is It Necessary to Be Sexually Active to Order to Be a Healthy, Flourishing Person?

This is a rather amazing piece of popular television dialogue. You will clearly note that Tim Gunn does not take a moral position about sexual practice in his comments. So, at least for a moment, please leave the moral questions off the table. Watch this short clip for what it says and how the speaker actually says it, as well as the context in which he says it. His words clearly challenge the regnant modern Western idea that sexual experience is as necessary (almost) as food, clothing and shelter. If you are a sexual person, and all of us are created as sexual persons, then the argument generally made by our culture is that you should either be having sex or preparing and planning on having sex sooner than later. Why? Sexual expression is normal and human. It is argued that it is thus a part of who you are and without experiencing it you cannot express yourself in serious relationships. If you choose to remain celebrate then you are abnormal, or so much of the culture seems to say in our modern debates about this issue. It is this thesis that I believe we should profoundly and patiently challenge, regardless of our moral perspective. We need to seek common ground where we can find it and this is genuinely a place to start a serious conversation. We might disagree about some verses of Scripture (as serious Christians do) but the question remains: "Must normal adults with strong sexual inclinations be sexually active in order to be healthy people with great friendships and full lives?" The dominant answer is clear! But should we listen to the Tim Gunn's narrative and consider seeing this question differently?

   

You will note that Tim Gunn is still a homosexual by his own definition yet he has not had an active sexual relationship for 29 years. Watch the response of the panel and see how they are "silenced" by the clarity and integrity of Tim's simple narrative and earnest response. I wonder if they thought to themselves, "This guy is really strange!" (I'm not taking a shot at the persons on this program but their body-language, and what one says just before Tim tells his own story, is rather clear.) I wonder if the hosts of this show, and many viewers, were stunned to actually realize that a person can be a healthy and normal human person (in this case a homosexual person) without having sex? I would love to have seen this question discussed openly. I hope we can inject this type of discussion into the sexual narrative that we communicate in our culture. 

I suggest that this entire debate (whether about homosexuality or heterosexuality) needs to move toward the discussion Tim Gunn's narrative creates if we are to get away from the perspective that we have so widely accepted as completely normal. 

When Jesus Met Mary: A Sacred Friendship Gathering

This unique event, hosted by my dear friend, author and speaker Dan Brennan, will feature several interesting and engaging speakers, including yours truly. It will present a great opportunity for a kind of dialogue not generally welcomed in the church at large and includes a special opportunity to meet new friends in genuine conversation and fellowship. Please consider attending. Here is more information:

 

When Jesus Met Mary: A Sacred Friendship Gathering

Chicago, Illinois

April 27^th-28^th, 2012

A Conference Exploring Friendship Between Men and Women

Contact: Dan at [[email protected]]

When men and women come together, are the only options romance or danger?  Is sex the subtext of every male-female friendship?  Is true male-female friendship ever possible without uncomfortable tension, cynicism or second-guessing?

When Jesus met Mary in the garden, it was in friendship.  In the Gospel of John, before marriage, family or community, the risen Christ first attended to friendship.  Is it possible that we can learn to do the same - to build and attend to deep friendships for their own sake?  What would our marriages, relationships, churches and communities look like if men and women were not afraid of connecting with each other in deep friendship? 

On April 27^th and 28^th in Long Grove, Illinois, (a Chicago suburb) gather together with Kathy Escobar, Jim Henderson, Meredith Efken, John Armstrong, Katie Driver and Dan Brennan for a conversation about the power and potential of spiritual friendships between men and women. Join with other Christians who believe that Jesus has called us to a third way of being together, beyond fears, skepticism, myths and stereotypes. Together we will learn to be more like Jesus and Mary in the garden.

For more information, go to [http://sacredfriendshipgathering.com/]

Join us on Facebook: [https://www.facebook.com/events/227759470633542/]

 

The Three-Ring Circus Some Call the Evangelical Church

I thought I had seen it all, at least in terms of the veritable three-ring circus that we might best call the "edgy" evangelical mega-church. Then I realized that their are frontiers yet to be explored by very sincere pastors who have turned public gatherings into whatever they decide to make up as they seek to attract more people to church, their ideas and their new books. And some people actually wonder why young evangelical adults, who deeply love Jesus Christ, are now leaving evangelical churches in increasing numbers to go to more ancient churches. 

Ed and Lisa Young, founders of Texas-based Fellowship Church, will spend 24 hours in bed on the church roof next week and stream themselves live on the Internet to encourage married couples to see firsthand the power of a healthy sex life as prescribed in their new book, Sexperiment.

Two days after their book, Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse, to be released today, the Youngs will take part in a 24-hour “bed-in,” which will be streamed on the book’s website as they engage the audience on issues related to intimacy in marriage.

The book encourages married couples to have sex for seven straight days – a challenge that made headlines in 2008 when Pastor Young first introduced it to his church – with the promise that the “amazing results” will last far beyond the week.

“Tragically, culture has kicked the bed out of church and God out of the bed,” says Ed Young, who has been “happily married” to Lisa for almost 30 years. “It’s time to bring God back in the bed and put the bed back in the church. That’s what this bed-in is all about.”

If this all seems like a parody I assure you that it is not. Check out the full story. Sadly it is all too true. While the world wonders what Christians have that makes a real difference on the margins, where people are poor and truly broken, we come up with something that even Barnum & Bailey could never imagine at their best. 

 

Sexual Influences Upon the Church

Young Adults are clearly surrounded by sexual influences like never before. I cannot imagine how I would cope in this context if I were 21 again. I am sure I would need exceptional grace to remain chaste and pure if I were single.

A new Barna Group study reveals that a growing number of young people are leaving the church because their church experiences related to sexuality are too simplistic. This particular study found that young adults question how to live in purity while immersed in a culture that values hyper-sexuality over wholeness. Turning to the church for answers too often results in a list of forbidden activities with very little explanation about how to keep from doing them. Students and youth pastors say if the church is going to reach young adults, it must focus on the internal instead of the external. 17% of young Christians who responded to the Barna study said they made mistakes involving sex and felt judged within the church as a result. My personal experience says that this number is likely much higher. 

How can we change this? I suggest we develop a better understanding of anthropology, i.e. the doctrine of humankind. I also believe that we must regain a deep commitment to the real humanity of our Savior who was tempted in every way common to us. When we believe human persons are made in God's image and that Jesus is the ideal human person who lived in love and faith (and of course purity) then we are at least headed in the right direction again. Jesus did this by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit given to us to live in faith, hope and love. 

“Say It Ain’t So Joe!”

This famous line in my title comes from the infamous Black Sox baseball scandal that occurred early in the twentieth century. As the story goes a young lad, who loved “Shoeless Joe” Jackson of the Chicago White Sox, could not believe his hero has cheated. In the movie version of “Eight Men Out” the boy plaintively said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

That’s about how I felt last week as we watched the Joe Paterno story unfold through every news medium possible. In this case even a sports story became a national tragedy. Not only did the actions of a famous coach (or his non-action in this sad case) make global news but it galvanized a whole new conversation about sex abuse. And well it should. But how could Joe Paterno, a decent and good man by every account, have failed to deal with this tragedy and thus allowed children to be molested by a predator? How could he not report this crime when he had clear eyewitness information about Jerry Sanduksy’s behavior? We will not know for sure until we hear from Joe. And we may not hear from him for days if the attorney he has hired tells him to remain silent. That is truly sad because I want to think the best about Joe. I also want to grasp how he could have failed to do what was obviously the right thing to do.

One of my favorite opinion writers, the conservative Ross Douthat of the New York Times, concluded in a brilliant article he penned last week:

It was precisely because Joe Paterno had done so much good for so long that he could do the unthinkable, and let an alleged child rapist continue to walk free in Penn State’s Happy Valley. Bad and mediocre people are tempted to sin by their own habitual weaknesses. . . . But good people, heroic people, are led into temptation by their very goodness — by the illusion, common to those who have done important deeds, that they have higher responsibilities than the ordinary run of humankind. It’s precisely in the service to these supposed higher responsibilities that they often let more basic ones slip away.

For now I believe Douthat has explained Joe’s behavior as well as anyone I’ve read or heard. A good man, but a man just like you and me, had high responsibility and was always on his guard in the big moments he faced. The danger is that he, and we too, could let down our guard and the most basic ones can slip away. The Song of Solomon 2:15 says:  “Take us the foxes, THE LITTLE FOXES, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.” In Joe’s case it seems that what appeared like “little foxes” were much bigger than he knew and his judgment was seriously impaired. The results are tragic.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Questions for the Author (Part Three)

Today I complete my three-part personal interview with author Dan Brennan about his engaging and controversial book, Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. I would encourage you to not only read this online interview I’ve posted but to visit Dan’s web site and even sign up for his Facebook page. There you can engage with him more personally and discuss his ideas openly, in a manner that is non-threatening and truly gracious.

One reviewer of Dan’s book recently wrote:

Gendered stereotypes blocking friendship are notions like emotionally intimate, vulnerable friendships are for girls/women or gay men. In evangelical communities where romantic relationships are on a pedestal and friendships are inferior, gendered stereotypes and straitjackets are common.

My questions to Dan concluded with the following dialog.

Wouldn’t “face to face” intimacy in friendship threaten marriages and leave one vulnerable for a sexual fall?

We have to do a little tweaking of the metaphor to get some distance from romantic idealizing or gazing. For centuries prior to Freud intimacy in friendship meant emotional, spiritual intimacy, transparency, vulnerability, delight, and sweet language and affection—all of which we would now describe as characteristic of “face to face.”

“Face to face” in sexuality is as much about having friends as it is having lovers as Ronald Rolheiser says. Why is that? Sexuality is not limited or confined to a contemporary romantic version of love-- between men and women where emotional intimacy, companionship, delight, vulnerability, and commitment are only contained within marriage. Sexuality is not about idealizing certain body parts in marriage. Communion in sexuality is more than just experiencing orgasms between married lovers. It is embracing our divine calling to love our neighbor, our cross-gender neighbor as ourselves, and as Christ has loved us.

This has always been a concern in nurturing a face to face friendship with someone of the opposite sex to whom you are not married. In other words, the concern is that face to face leads to sexual intimacy with someone other than your spouse.

This has always been the concern for intimate friendship for the same sex friends or opposite sex friends. This was the concern for some in Saint Aelred’s time when he wrote on intimate platonic friendship. I think we can see where chastity was more complex among many communities in the monastic tradition. Some communities were fearful of “particular friendships” and enforced strict rules. A man could not spend time alone with a male friend.

In other communities, there were numerous stories of dyadic friendships full of mutual tenderness, mutual sweetness, and “heart-to-heart” transparency where sex never happened. Bernard of Clairvaux slept with men in the same bed. He also held hands with men.

In romantic love, face to face intimacy means we don’t impose our agendas on each other; we don’t use each other for our own instrumental purposes. Our care for each other is born out of face to face. Out of goodness and beauty expressed in face to face intimacy between husband and wife, the capacity to love others in face-to-face intimacy is born. Both spouses have to be on the same page or trust in each other as they nurture close bonds with others beyond the marriage. This trust can develop early on in the dating relationship as they discover the important relationships in each other’s lives.

Seeking to love others face to face requires us to address our deepest fears. It challenges our deepest, ingrain cultural stereotypes about relating to each other both in romantic relationship and non-romantic. Most of us (both men and women) in evangelical communities have been trained to act in a stereotypical masculine way toward members of the opposite sex: control, order, superficial emotional connectedness, very limited (if any) physical contact/affection. To move past that means we will have to probably experience some weirdness.

Loving one another face to face in non-romantic friendship transforms lust into healthy and maybe even passionate attraction for the good and beautiful in the other. It dismantles sexism in the relationship and serves as a model for all. Appropriate and healthy responses to embodied beauty in friendship intimacy draw us to a healthy, robust, deep communion.

You reach out to singles in your book and invite them to intimate platonic friendships. You yourself are close to a couple of single women. Can singles find satisfying intimacy in friendship sans sex?

As you know, John, singles are a huge part of our churches and society now. I think intimate cross-gender friendship presents itself as a powerful expression of intimacy for singles. It is possible to enjoy communion with an opposite sex friend while one is single and waiting to marry. In friendship, singles choose to truly open themselves up to the beauty of others in face to face intimacy. Many adult men and women know how to express tenderness and sweetness toward the member of the opposite sex only within a romantic relationship.

But in so much of the evangelical sub-culture singles are discouraged from giving themselves fully, from giving their hearts fully within platonic friendship. Most singles in the evangelical sub-culture are taught to see the opposite sex in two groups: either romantic possibilities or married (off limits or having no friendship currency). They are taught to maintain a guarded distance with their heart with exception of the person they are dating. Is this the only alternative for singles within the evangelical community?

What does the virtue of chastity look like for singles in the evangelical sub-culture when most evangelical communities insist that friendship with the opposite sex is inherently sexualized? Margaret Kim Peterson and Dwight Peterson, in their newest book, lament how many young people on the verge of adulthood think that romance/marriage is the only possible relationship in which to experience deep and lasting friendship. What they are observing is how the evangelical community has created its own subculture of sexualizing friendship.

I think evangelicals need to seriously rethink culturally-bound stereotypes of chastity, distance, and fear. Beginning with Jesus the call to love one another is not sex-segregated. Nor is it a call to accept “second-best” options until one finds the “one” in a path of romantic friendship. Al Hsu and others have pointed out that in the New Testament friendship is the highest virtue, not romance.

This is not to reject romance altogether. But the virtue of chastity calls us to love one another and is critically evaluate romantic scripts. I would argue that singles are called to love—and learn to love others for their sake, with their full hearts ready to engage in loving, authentic, life-giving friendship.

Chaste love for singles would not mean leaving their sexuality or their hearts at the door of friendship. Sexuality is a deep, beautiful, good, desire/energy that is expressed in a longing to know and be known by others at intimate levels in marriage and friendship. Friendship is not about repressing our sexuality as we love our friends. How would we do that? How would we define and parse out what parts of us are sexual in friendship and what parts are not? The immediate popular answer in evangelical circles has tended toward a genital-focus with a list of specific behaviors relating to sexual arousal or hopeful outcome of sex (dating).

But can we isolate sexuality in ourselves that way? How healthy is it? I see chastity in the 21^st century calling us all—men, women, married and single—to embrace embodied sexuality in marriage, friendship, and community. Is there not a place for fully engaged and fully present emotional and physical tenderness in non-romantic relationships?

I am in agreement with David Benner and others that our embodied sexuality is an ever-present invitation – indeed, a call – to passionate life and love in our relationships beyond the one with whom we share a bed. The biggest issue in sexuality and friendship for singles is the same one married people encounter once the fantasy of romance diminishes: Can we learn to love members of the opposite sex face to face? Are we able to let go of our fears and our culturally-bound romantic stereotypes and evangelical stereotypes to truly learn to receive beauty from the other and to truly give beauty to the other? Face to face intimacy is always powerful, transforming, and life-giving with or without sex.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Questions for the Author (Part Two)

Today, I continue with the questions I began in yesterday’s interview with author and friend Dan Brennan. Here are some more questions I posed in my online interview about his very important book. 

Why would it be wise and chaste to nurture authentic communion (“face to face” and “side-by-side”) beyond your spouse, with your cross-gender friend?

I would suggest this is where we have to think more deeply about chastity and communion in our communities. The notions of union or communion are making a comeback among evangelical theologians like Scot McKnight, Kevin Vanhoozer, and yourself. What does oneness and chastity look like for men and women? I would argue it’s in the nature of robust and wise chastity to seek communion. Kenda Creasy Dean made this observation “chastity seeks communion.” The Catholic Catechism states that chastity leads to deep spiritual communion between members of the same sex or opposite sex.

As we nurture and cultivate chastity in our marriage and in friendship, chastity actually will mean desiring more not less. We desire more of the new creation (love, trust, mutuality, vulnerability) in relationship and less of the old (sexism, lust, power, objectification, and so on). If we seek to nurture a face to face intimacy with our spouses we are less likely to see them as replaceable even in the presence of a dearly loved cross-gender friend whom we’ve come to know as also “irreplaceable.” We will see their spiritual beauty, and our attraction for them will deepen beyond sexual/romantic attraction.

Oneness is what Christ prays for us (John 17). Christ came not to just reduce the old disorder of lust, violence, and oppression between men and women, but to usher us into a new world of embodied communion with each other. Intimate platonic friendship is a particular expression of oneness, an embodied witness to something different than idealized sexualized friendships. The phrase “intimate platonic” sounds like a contradiction to most contemporary evangelicals. But this is where evangelicals have so focused one on a single expression of oneness (romantic sexuality) to the neglect of chastity and a flourishing oneness in community.

Lisa McMinn states that in our fundamental longing for unity, communion, and intimacy we are reflecting the image of God. We are all hard-wired for communion and intimacy—not just in marriage but beyond.

But surely you’re not suggesting every spouse run out tomorrow and strive to develop an intimate cross-gender friendship?

No. The virtue of chastity is an authentic practice of love and the sacred expression of sexuality in marriage, friendship and community. Chastity is the goal for all people single or married alike, no matter where they are. Not everyone is in the same place. Chastity is the virtue to love others and not use them. This virtue doesn’t drop out of the sky and zap us into chaste relationships. It takes practice and growth in relationship. It is about learning to love others well and honoring them including your spouse.

Seeking to cultivate a close bond with a cross-gender friend because of an unhappy marriage is red flag territory. Also, seeking to be transparent with your cross-gender friend when your spouse is not on the same page with you is a red flag. For some, certain high boundaries need to be in place.

Chaste love embraces the complex reality of seeking the well-being of another, seeking the good of another, seeking to love others for who they are instead of using them for our purposes. It is one thing if you are married and don’t have any strong cross-gender friendships. The married person must consider their spouse’s feelings on their cross-gender journey. That is not an issue if you are single with no close cross-gender friendships. In either case, one expression of chastity is about nurturing trust and safety with our neighbor (including our spouse).

But chastity also recognizes the sexual brokenness between men and women including unhealthy romantic absorption. What does chastity say to us about the myth of our romanticized soul mate culture? Has chastity nothing to say but “yes” to a hyper-sexualized culture where sexual chemistry and intense romantic intimacy are the true markers for “real” love? Isn’t C. S. Lewis’ definition of “face to face” love vulnerable to creating an inward-looking couple constantly seeking to recreate romantic self-absorption between each other?

Furthermore, chastity recognizes that for most of human history men have been considered to be the superior ones for leadership, friendship, and ministry. Chastity is not about maintaining the status quo and remaining stuck in repeating old stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Questions for the Author (Part One)

Last year (December 21-24) I wrote a series of blogs reviewing a controversial but extremely important book on friendships. This book, Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Engaging the Mystery of Friendship Between Men and Women, is written by my friend Dan Brennan. I mentioned at the time that I did not particularly want to delve into this subject, knowing quite well that some would react against the book and even against my giving it this kind of attention. I also mentioned my concerns and cautions but these seemed to have been missed by critics.

I’ve thought a great deal about this book, and discussed it even more with the author and others (including some critics), since the end of last year. I believe that Dan is saying a great deal of very important stuff about friendship that is too easily missed by the controversial subject matter of males and females as close friends. As a result of a continuing dialog I decided to put some of my questions to Dan and ask him to respond.

What follows is an interview that will prompt more thought about what Dan is saying, and not saying, in this important book.

The most provocative point in your book, is that the Christian story is calling men and women to live in deep relational unity. In other words, you argue that men and women are called into authentic loving communion not just in marriage but in nonromantic friendship as well.

Yet, the United States has one of the highest divorce rates in the world. Conventional wisdom would say it would be unwise to risk one’s marriage for an intimate cross-gender friendship given we live in a divorce culture.

How do you respond to such statistics?

Great question! On the surface, it would seem counterintuitive. However, I would suggest we need to pause and ask what the virtue of chastity means in the 21^st century. Lauren Winner’s book, Real Sex addressed certain aspects of chastity. So did Christine Colón and Bonnie Field in their book, Singled Out. Toward the end of the book they look to what Catholics have thought about the virtue. Several years back before I wrote Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions I discovered the rich depth of the virtue by reading what Pope John Paul II, Ronald Rolheiser, Vincent Genovesi, and others had to say on the subject.

Although it’s popularly misunderstood to mean the same thing as celibacy, it is not. To be chaste as Rolheiser observes, means to experience reverence, reverence for other, reverence for the power of sex and sexuality, reverence for sin. Chastity does not require a list of universal, once-and-for-all thou shalt not’s. (“You shall not be alone with a member of the opposite sex, you shall not ever be physically affectionate and tender toward someone from the opposite sex, etc.). In fact, as I have studied what others believe about chastity (Protestants, Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox) it is not about developing a list of overly-scripted rules for the leaders and everyone in the community to follow. The virtue of chastity resists uniformity.

Jesuit author James Martin declares that the main goal of chastity is to love as many people as deeply as possible. Genovesi talks about chastity as under the control of love with tenderness and full awareness of the other. Prior to my research I never associated chastity with tenderness and presence—awareness of the other. Chastity in my mind meant not having sex—having very little to do with the bigger issues dividing men and women. Ever since then I have sought to integrate deep tenderness in my friendships.

I saw then that the virtue of chastity addresses issues of our culture which contribute to the high divorce rate. It is not just about avoiding inappropriate sex. It is that, but it is much bigger, deeper, and broader than that. What does it mean for men and women living in the 21^st century to deeply love each other with tenderness and full awareness of the other? That’s what the virtue of chastity deals with.

In this vein, chastity is mission between men and women in this world and how we are to love each other within our communities. Hollywood exalts sexualized friendship as the be-all, end-all for living on the one hand (since their characters never experience communion with God, sexualized friendship in the moment is the only communion to experience) and hardly ever portrays men and women who passionately love each with no sex or romance in their relationship.

Yet, ironically, I don’t think it is too farfetched to say this same thing is happening in most evangelical communities. Evangelicals preach romance and marriage. Beyond that, are heavily-scripted rules reinforcing what Hollywood depicts—very few non-romantic friendships. This is an area where we are truly called to not be conformed to the patterns of this world. We are not called to be hyper-romantic conformists. In this sense, we are called to nonconformity. Chastity is a big Yes! toward authentic, life-giving love in friendships.

The virtue of chastity then, addresses the big issues of friends with benefits, hooking up, gender differences at home, workplace, and church, romanticized Freudian sexuality (which I would argue contributes to the high divorce rate even among Christians) and overly-scripted rules of fear and boundaries between those who are not in a romantic relationship.

So, you would argue that a robust view of chastity integrates “face to face” and “side by side” in friendship?

Many present day evangelicals accept C.S. Lewis’ gendered division of romantic love and friendship love. In his book, Four Loves, Lewis writes, “Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest.”

Yet, not all “face-to-face” intimacy is romantic love. Many female friendship scholars attest to the reality that female friendships are face to face. In many evangelical popular books, deep, face to face friendships are encouraged among evangelical women. Evangelical author Dee Brestin in her best-selling book, The Friendships of Women believes there is a distinction between marriage (“one flesh”) and “one soul” friendship. The latter is a union of hearts and minds, but not of bodies.

Historically, before Freud and the cluster of Eastern European sexologists (such as Havelock Ellis) in the 19^th century, deep friendships were face to face and side by side—even alongside marriage. William Wirt wrote to his bride in 1803, “O! my Betsy, my soul assures me that we were indeed made for each other… How delightful it is thus to love you!” Yet in his very close friendship with Dabney Carr, Wirt wrote to Carr, “My heart is so friendly feminine that I can’t hold out [from writing to you]…To be sure, we are both married—but is that any reason why we should cease to love each other? Answer, ‘no.’”

While Wirt was expressing great happiness with Elizabeth in their marriage years later, he wrote to Carr that filing away his old letters was “one of the purest, tenderest, holiest banquets that the heart of man can know.” He wrote to Carr again and told him that his letters were among his “most valued treasures.”

Tomorrow: More Questions