Sexuality as Babel I. Introduction A. Few issues are as complicated and fraught with difficulty as sexuality B. God in Christ through the Bible and the creation establish not only a healthy sexuality but also robust connections between theology and sexuality 1. Genesis 1:26-29, 2:24: God made man and woman in His image, commanded them to be fruitful and multiply 2. Romans 1:18-19: God’s divine nature manifest in the creation, thus, in man made in His image 3. God as one in relational unity (perichoresis; John 17:20-23) 4. What relationship most closely approximates that level of unity? When a man and a woman, being two, yet become one flesh (Matthew 19:4-6) 5. The analogy of sexual intimacy and spiritual intimacy is made explicit in Ephesians 5:31-32 in terms of Christ and the church 6. Human sexuality was created good, and still has its good purpose in the covenant of marriage of a man and woman becoming one flesh, a glimpse of perichoretic unity which reflects the relational unity within the Godhead (Genesis 1:26-31, 2:24, Matthew 19:6, John 17:20-23, Romans 1:20, Ephesians 5:32-33, Hebrews 13:4) 7. Procreation is a consequence of human sexuality, and children remain embodied representations of how the two have become one flesh, reflecting the characteristics of both mother and father, just as God shared in love and created “offspring” made in His image (Genesis 1:26-29, Acts 17:26-29) 8. The Bible thus has much to say about healthy sexuality, and connects it very powerfully to how we understand ourselves as made in God’s image! C. Our culture, meanwhile, espouses very different views about sexuality, considering less than healthy behavior as perfectly acceptable, glorying in brokenness: such is counterfeit sexuality, suggested to be good and beneficial and healthy, yet truly broken, degraded, and impoverished! D. A productive comparison/illustration of many of the attitudes and practices in modern Western culture regarding sexuality and related issues can be seen in the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) E. Let us explore the story of the Tower of Babel, its meaning, and how it may relate to the counterfeit forms of sexuality prevalent in our culture today II. The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) A. Mankind after the Flood, after God punished the world for man’s iniquity (Genesis 6:5-9:17) B. Yet man still shares one language (Genesis 11:1)! C. The Tower 1. Humanity gathers on the plain of Shinar (Genesis 11:2) 2. They make bricks, plan to make a tower to make a name for themselves, lest they be scattered over the whole earth (Genesis 11:3-4) 3. God sees it, confuses their language; they stop building the Tower (Genesis 11:5-8) 4. From that time on the place is called Babel, because God confused language there (Greek Babylon; Genesis 11:9) D. The Tower of Babel experience will define Babylon throughout 1. Jeremiah 50:1-51:64: condemnation of Babylon under the Chaldean Neo-Babylonian Empire as having arrogated against God, vaunted over His people 2. 1 Peter 5:13, Revelation 17:1-18:24: Rome as Babylon, the great whore, drunk on the blood of the saints and prophets, thus arrogating against God, vaunting over His people E. Thus Babel -> Babylon maintains its status as an embodied metaphor of man’s resistance to God’s purposes, the limitations God has imposed upon His creation, and the way God would have things ordered F. What, then, is the relationship between Babel and human sexuality? III. Babel and Sexuality A. In truth, the Babel illustration can be used for a wide range of subjects and themes in which modern humanity, through civilization, technology, etc., attempt to make a monument to their own greatness, fight against the limitations God has imposed on the creation, and to maintain a sense of control B. Yet, for our purposes, let us restrict our exploration to the area of human sexuality and related issues C. In truth, many of the modern cultural trends in sexuality are only comprehensible in light of the ability to “control” and “manipulate” elements of sexuality and its consequences in a way that is reminiscent of Babel D. Caveat/Disclaimer 1. Before we go further it is good to have a disclaimer 2. It was not wrong for humanity to cook bricks and make buildings at Babel 3. The problem was their attitude, mentality, and purpose 4. And so it is with many of the trends we will discuss: some are not inherently sinful, and many Christians have participated in some of them to various degrees 5. Nevertheless, we do well to explore if certain things have been taken too far, if we have sought to exercise control beyond our standing, and what has been lost in the process! E. Contraception / Fertility Treatments 1. Ancient cultures celebrated sexuality on account of fertility; modern Western culture celebrates sexuality by attempting to restrict and control fertility 2. Modern cultural expectations about sexual behavior and relationships are only possible because of widespread use of contraception 3. For the first time in history childbearing is a “choice” for married couples, not the consequence 4. Young people are given the impression that they maintain full control over their sexuality, the consequences of their sexual behavior, and how and when they will develop a family a. Marriage is pushed off; whereas many would marry around 20-22, now people are waiting, on average, until their late 20s b. Not a few imagine they can “enjoy” their 20s, get serious in their early 30s, and have children in their late 30s/early 40s c. If there is a “mistake,” and a woman gets pregnant, they can get an abortion so that they are not “unduly burdened” until the time is “right” in life to have kids 5. If there are complications and difficulties getting pregnant there are all sorts of fertility treatments available a. Why are there complications and difficulties? While the “fertile range” for human females might be from menarche to menopause, often from about 15-45, the body is best designed for pregnancy from 20-35 b. Culture is able to promote extended adolescence through most of that time! c. Thus, fertility must be restricted until later; by the time later comes around, it is no longer the best time for the female; culture must step in again with technological development 6. “Gay families” can be made, but only through either adoption or, more likely, some level of surrogate parenting, an idea only made possible through modern technology 7. Even when one has children there is “family planning,” giving all control as to size and nature of family to the mother and father 8. This is not a blanket condemnation of contraception and fertility treatments, nor an appeal to return to some mythical “glory days” in the past a. Through modern medicine humans have already put their “thumb on the scale” in terms of population b. Responsibility and stewardship in terms of childbearing and raising are significant issues and demand a reckoning (2 Thessalonians 3:15, 1 Timothy 5:8) c. The planet cannot reasonably sustain constant human multiplication...but it does have built-in features against which humans will run at some point 9. But we do well to consider how contraception and fertility treatments can be as Babel in terms of human sexuality! a. At Babel man sought to maintain control against God’s purposes for him b. And so it is often with contraception and fertility treatments: the attempt to control procreation, to make it “fit” in with people’s expectations, as opposed to having people’s expectations “fit” around children c. Contraception allows for the exercise of sexual lasciviousness without one of its most potent consequences; in so doing many treat sexual behavior with much less concern and significance (1 Corinthians 6:13-20) d. Not for nothing is the “pro-abortion” position called “pro-choice”: it is not much of a leap to go from choosing when to have children to making children themselves the “choice”; “choices” can be rejected or eliminated without much concern e. Fertility treatments in various forms allow many who are in relationships where they otherwise would not be able to have offspring to do so; the “natural order of things” is so thoroughly upset as to render the concept meaningless culturally 10. What about contraception and fertility treatments in light of what God has revealed in the creation and in Scripture? a. In the Bible, celibate people are childless, but for understandable reasons; the barren are childless, and their grief is to be alleviated and comforted; but non-infertile married couples are presumed to be having children (1 Timothy 3:1-12, 5:14) b. Are we manifesting healthy sexuality if we prove more than willing to enjoy the glimpse of perichoretic relational unity in intercourse but always inhibit the consequence of offspring bearing the image of both in one (Matthew 19:4-6, Acts 17:28)? c. There is no doubt that children are very challenging and difficult at times; but are there not plenty of lessons to be learned that can only be learned through the experience of parenthood, or at least the attempt to try? d. What does it say about us if we go along with culture as it stands against God’s purposes manifest in the creation and in His Word, denying the blessedness of childbearing and resisting God’s timeframes? e. On the other hand, contraception and fertility treatments have provided benefits and relief to people around the world; we no longer live in an agriculturally-dominant society beset by plagues, famines, and war; is it best for Christians to be multiplying at excessive rates? 11. Difficult questions indeed, but ones with which we must grapple! F. Gender Identity / Transformation 1. Humans now take for granted the idea that they exercise control over the consequences of their sexual behavior; many now believe that they exercise control even over the expression of gender 2. Many in the feminist movement strongly believed that gender did not actually exist but was culturally conditioned; on a scientific basis, at least, such a suggestion is not taken seriously, for there is a genetic basis for gender, even though many elements of what goes into gender identity is often culturally conditioned 3. The new flash point issue of dispute in our culture is the condition and standing of those who believe themselves to be transgendered or transsexual: those who manifest one gender physically but believe themselves mentally, emotionally, etc. to be of the other gender 4. Thanks to new hormone therapies a person with such feelings can “transition” from male to female or female to male to some degree or another 5. The days may not be too far off in which a person can decide for him or herself which gender s/he would like to be and be able to go through a full transitional experience 6. What shall we say to these things? a. As with sexual desire, so likely with one’s understanding of gender: there are biological/physiological aspects, and there are developmental aspects b. Romans 5:12-19, 8:18-22: sin and death entered the world, and corruption and decay along with it; just as sexual desire might get misdirected on account of such corruption, it is not beyond impossible to imagine that in some gender identity “wires” might get “crossed” c. There are a few people who are born with both sets of genitalia possible and a doctor must choose which gender to express, and s/he may have chosen wrongly d. Thus we do well to consider having compassion on people in such difficulties, but we must also affirm Genesis 1:27-28: God made us in His image, male and female He made us e. In the sight of God there are only two genders! 7. In many respects gender identity is treated as its own form of Babel: man fighting against the “restrictions” God has in place, striving against biology 8. Often man celebrates that struggle and that fight as heroic, yet is it not, in its own way, a monument to our greatness, a complete lack of concern for the realities under which we live? G. These are difficult issues made even more challenging by the ungodly and anti-godly attitudes often manifest in those who have made a Babel out of their views on sexuality! IV. Conclusion A. We have examined the illustration of Babel in light of human sexuality 1. The Tower of Babel as man arrogating against God, attempting to strive against the limitations under which he lives, looking for greatness through his endeavors (Genesis 11:1-9) 2. We have seen how this tendency can be manifest in how people in culture look at contraception, fertility treatments, and gender identity B. As building is not inherently condemned, neither are contraception, fertility treatments, or struggling with gender identity issues; nevertheless, as Christians, we have no right to fight against God’s purposes as manifest in His creation, rebelling in the name of control and living up to cultural standards C. Instead we have the most difficult task of considering what may be the appropriate use of such things without allowing them to turn into a new Babel among us D. May we seek to glorify and honor God and His purposes for His people in all we think, feel, and do! E. Invitation Scripture, Meditation, and Application 1: And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). At Babel humanity attempted to build a monument to their own greatness and resisted God’s purposes for them. God would confuse their language and they would scatter but the tendency was established. To this day many continue to make their own “Babels,” monuments to their own greatness contrary to God’s purposes. Let us seek God’s purposes and not our own! 2: I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household, give no occasion to the adversary for reviling (1 Timothy 5:14). For most of human history people had little to no control over procreation. Contraception and fertility treatments have changed that. But how should we responsibly use such control? May we not find ourselves building a Babel against God! 3: For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature (Romans 1:26). With fertility treatments, in vitro fertilization, hormone therapies, etc., humans have developed ways to go beyond natural limitations in many aspects of human sexuality. Arguments from “nature” are mocked; what is “natural” anymore, after all? Such is what happens when people build a Babel against the purposes of God! 4: That each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor (1 Thessalonians 4:4). As Christians we must never forget God’s will for our sanctification, let alone for our sexuality: to abstain from sexually deviant behavior and to maintain our bodily vessels in sanctification and honor. Our culture resists such standards and views; we must, in turn, resist culture and the Babels it builds. May we always strive for God’s purposes and holiness in all things!