Christ and Culture Final: Sexual Ethics and Screwtape Letters

What are the Four Mischievous Theories of Sex according to May?

-Sex as demonic

-Sex as divine

-Sex as casual

-Sex as a burden

Where did the view that sex is demonic come from?

The Manichaeans (Dualists)

What did the Manichaeans/Dualists believe?

There is an equally powerful good force in the world and an equally evil force in the world. The evil force represents darkness and the flesh., including sex.

What does the Cult of Romantic Love believe?

"It always directs itself to the faraway princess--not to the partner you've got, but to the dream person, the remote figure not yet yours...To possess her is to lose one's appetite for her. Love feeds best on obstacles."

A modern example of this would be quick-access pornography.

What character is used as an example for the theory of sex as divine?

Lady Chatterley and the gardner

What example of the sex as casual view was used in class (video)?

Elaine and Jerry clip from Seinfeld

What does the sex as casual view reflect?

The casual attitude toward sex reflects a liberal industrial culture that prizes autonomy above all else, that reduces nature to raw material to be manipulated and transformed into products of man's own choosing, and that correspondingly reduces the body to the incidental--not to the prison house of the dualist, or to the Lord's temple of the monotheists, or to the sacred grove of the mystics, but to a playground pure and simple.

What does Chesterton compare casual sex to?

Polygamy/monogamy, like complaining you can only be born once, "A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it is like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind."

Who conducted a poll based on the view as sex as a burden/nuisance?

Ann Landers...70% said yes

What are the elements of truth in the Casual Theory?

Not all sexual encounters should carry the weight of ultimate significance

What are the criticisms of the Casual Theory?

-Entails pessimism regarding human connection

-Ignores inevitable complications of sexual encounters

-Prudish: denies the cluster of emotions associated with sex

-Fails to recognize all important items in human affairs should be subject to discipline

What are the elements of truth in the Dualist Theory (demonic, bad)?

Sex can sometimes be incredibly destructive, and it can also be a burden and/or addiction.

What are the criticisms of the Dualist Theory?

-While abuse of the activity occurs, the activity itself is good

-Dualists discipline sex because they see it as bad, Christians discipline it because they see it as good.

What are the elements of truth in the Divine Theory?

-Sex does supply us with one of our privileged contacts with ecstasy--the possibility of moving beyond ourselves.

-It provides a new kind of union, oneness, and complete vulnerability

What are the criticisms of the Divine Theory?

-While good, it is human, not divine

-Wanting it to be more than it is causes dissatisfaction with it.

What are the two approaches to the Theologies of Sexual Love?

1. Catholic approach: in the natural law tradition, sexual intercourse is for the natural end of procreation, and anything that thwarts that end is sinful (sexual act would be wrong if anything thwarts it...

2. Expression/Revelation (May's) approach: the natural end of sexual intercourse is for expression and/or revelation; love is the goal (sexual act would be wrong if it thwarts the function by revealing or expressing in a way that made union more difficult or impossible)

What is the context of the Hays on Homosexuality article?

Gary visited the author: he was dying of AIDS and he came to bid the author farewell. They had deep conversations and recognized their misgivings about the pressure the church faces to accept homosexuality as a legitimate Christian lifestyle. Gary presented his intentions to write an article about his own life.

About how many times does the Bible discuss homosexuality?

The Bible hardly ever discusses homosexual behavior. There are perhaps HALF A DOZEN brief references to it in all of Scripture

What does Ezekiel say was the sin of Sodom?

She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but DID NOT AID THE POOR AND NEEDY.

What do the two passages in Leviticus forbid?

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them.

Why does Hays think that quoting a law from Leviticus does not settle the issue for Christians?

Because many of the commandments from the Old testament are deemed obsolete in our culture today. Some ethicists say that homosexuality is just part of the OT's ritual purity rules and can be disregarded in today's times.

What are the two kinds of laws found in the OT, according to Hays reading of the OT laws?

Ritual law and moral law

What does malakoi mean?

It appeared in Hellenistic Greek as, "pejorative slang to describe the 'passive' partners--often young boys--in homosexual activity.

What does arsenokoitai mean?

Robin Scroggs suggests the work derives from the Hebrew term for "lying with a male." It was used to refer to homosexual intercourse.

Where did arsenokoitai originate?

The Septuagint/Greek Old Testament condemns homosexuality as an abomination. The reference in Paul's letters is most likely pulled from this text to restate the condemnation of homosexual acts.

Why does Hays think Paul focused on the sin of "laying with a man as with a woman" from Romans 1?

Because it demonstrates a rebellion towards God--specifically against the creativity of God. Paul's opinion would not have been anything out of the ordinary to his readers.

Why did God "give men over to their sinful desires" in Romans 1:24?

God's wrath takes the form of letting human idolatry run its own self-destructive course. Homosexual activity is not a provocation of the wrath of God, rather it is a consequence of God's decision to 'give up' rebellious creatures to follow their futile thinking and desires.

Does Romans 1:24 indicate that the fallen order is the cause of "God giving us over" or the result of "God giving us over"?

The fallen order of nature naturally lends itself over to sinful desires and reflects the rejection of God's holiness.

Big questions: why did the world go wrong? (Paul)

Part of the brokenness in the world is a result of the wrath of God. God's righteousness is manifest in his wrath about the unrighteousness of people.

What are the 2 kinds of sin?

1. The kind that caused God's wrath: worshipping and serving stuff that isn't God

2. The result of God's wrath: a fallen nature, in which we desire what is shameful destructive, and opposed to what God designed for us

Why are homosexual acts placed front and center here?

Because it is an apt illustration of our fallen state, how things have gone wrong in the world, and how we have come to desire what is not in accord with our design as creatures.

What does Romans 1 serve as?

A diagnosis of the disordered human condition.

Hays's takeaways from the article

1. Paul paid special attention to homosexuality because it is a good illustration of our fallen nature

2. Homosexual acts are not more reprehensible than covetousness or gossip or disrespect for parents.

3. Homosexual acts do not incur God's special punishment.

True or false: Screwtape advises Wormwood to try and think that materialism is true and Christianity is false.

False

Why ( #34)?

Screwtape says, Jargon, not argument is your best ally in keeping him from the church.

In chapter one, what kept the man in the museum from becoming a Christian?

Screwtape distracted his patient by suggesting it was about time for lunch and led him outside away from the questions of 'is this all?' by showing him reality outside through the newsboy and bus No. 73

What are the ways that Screwtape advises Wormwood to make use of the people in the church that he attends as a means of pulling him from the enemy?

He wants Wormwood to point out the reality of the people in the church so that the patient notices his neighbors singing out of tune, having boots that squeak...'If I, being what I am, can consider I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention.

Chapter 3 is about using the patient's relationship with his mom to pull him away from the enemy. What do you think Lewis means by "domestic hatred?"

Domestic hatred causes quarrels from the simplest of misunderstnadings and clouds the perspective of both parties so that they think they are completely innocent.

True or false: Screwtape advises Wormwood that bodily position that makes no difference to one's prayers.

False.

In chapter 5, Screwtape rebukes Wormwood for being too happy about "temporal human suffering." What does he say is the real value of earthly suffering?

It comes from leading a person to question the values and causes that are higher than the self. Screwtape says the real business is undermining faith and preventing the formation of virtues.

What is the "general rule"?

In all activities of mind which favor our case, encourage the patient to be unselfconscious and to concentrate on the object, but in all activities favorable to the Enemy bend his mind back on itself...this implies that the patient will only be concerned with his own affairs whether that be ignoring his sin as sin or focusing on his pride after acts of charity.

What cruel dilemma does Screwtape say faces the demons?

"When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and skeptics."

Why does Screwtape say the Enemy doesn't make himself more obviously aware to people?

God's presence would override the human will and render him useless. Screwtape says that the irresistible and indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of God's being forbids Him to use.

Screwtape says that the patients "spiritual dryness" will be of no real use unless Wormwood makes proper use of it. How does he advise Wormwood to make proper use of it?

He encourages Wormwood to take advantage of sensual temptation while the patient's guard is down. All they can do is encourgae humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced which he has forbidden.

All mortals tend to turn into the thing _____________.

they are pretending to be

What are the four causes of human laughter?

1. Joy

2. Fun

3. Joke Proper

4. Flippancy

What does the following phrase mean as Lewis used it: "the enemy is the one without whom Nothing is strong."

He says, "Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble the the man is only half aware of them.

What happened to the patient on the walk back from the old mill?

He experienced real pleasure and was lost in the beauty of nature. In turn, he was amazed by the beauty and strengthened his ties with the enemy.

What does Screwtape think the Enemy means when He talks of "their losing their selves?"

He thinks he means abandoning the clamor of self-will; once they have done that, he really gives them back all their personality, and boasts that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.

When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they be allowed to ____________.

love themselves as their neighbors.

In the past, the future, or eternity: which of these does Screwtape say that Wormwood should try and fix the patient's attention upon?

Screwtape says it is best to focus on the future because it holds both hope and fear. He says that nearly all vices are rooted in the future and it's a plac that man can place his treasure in.

What does Screwtape say that the demons should try to get a person to do, assuming that it's not possible to "cure" him or her of going to church?

Instead of trying to persuade the patient from going altogether, it is easier to make them look around for a suitable church, making the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.

What is a party church?

A church that makes itself into a sort of faction based on lingo and social norms.

What does Lewis say that gluttony is? Was the patient's mother a glutton?

Gluttony: a determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. It can be in small amounts, not just large amounts.

The mother has a "all-I-want" state of mind...her properly conceals an insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible, platal pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past.

Screwtape says that his Father asked the Enemy why He made humans, and all he received is a "cock-and-bull story" about ________________ ________________.

disinterested love

Screwtape tells Wormwood that, in order to keep the patient feeling irritated and impatient, he should zealously guard what curious assumption?

"My time is my own." Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of 24 hours

In chapter 22, Screwtape says that God is a hedonist at heart. What does that mean?

The root of God's existence is all about pleasure. He is always seeking it and intending for his followers to experience eternal pleasure when they choose him.

What is disinterested love?

God does not have a selfish motivation behind his love. He gives it freely and is not interested in his own being before anything else.

What is "Christianity And?"

It includes all of the subsets of Christianity that makes one different from the other: it Crisis, New Psychology, Vegetarianism...

Generous Conflict Illusion

It is often impossible to find out what either party's real wishes; with luck, they end up doing something that neither wants, while each feels a glow of self-righteousness and harbors a secret claim to preferential treatment for the unselfishness shown and a secret grudge against the other for the ease with which the sacrifice has been accepted.

Screwtape says that dangerous times present a challenge for the demons. What is that challenge? (It has to do with the danger forcing certain issues into the minds of their patients.)

They cannot figure out how to produce virtue. They can only use them as supplied by the enemy--which is a means for him to have a foothold on the patients.

Describe Screwtape's love for Wormwood.

It is a love of consumption, it is not selfless and it is full of ulterior motives.