The image of God in the re-unification of gender

In The Journey of Desire, John Eldredge paints a very noble picture of gender differences and sexuality (Chapter 8, The Grand Affair).

From Gen 1:27 he infers that gender is the means by which God's image is born by us.

God wanted to show the world something of his [sic] strength. Is he not a great warrior? Has he not perfromed the daring rescue of his beloved? And this is why he gave us the sculpture that is man. Men bear the image of God in the dangerous yet inviting strength. Women, too, bear the image of God, but in a much different way. Is not God a being of great mystery and beauty? Is there not something tender and alluring about the essence of the Divine? And this is why he gave us the sculpture that is woman. [p. 136]

I totally agree that these aspects of masculinity and femininity find their source in God and are intertwinned in the character of God. It may be that God needed to create two genders because the richness of all those characteristics could never be expressed by a single creature.

Eldredge quotes Peter Kreeft as saying "This spiritual intercourse with God is the ecstasy hinted at in all earthly intercourse, physical or spiritual." [p. 135] Seeing sexual intercourse as a metaphor for our union with God is key to what makes sex sacred. This has made me think about a further implication: if God had to separate aspects of God's nature to express them in two genders because they could not be contained within a single gender, then the re-unification of those genders through phsyical and psychological intimacy is an even deeper indication of what God is like. The mutual knowing of each other in sex (in ideal holistic sex anyway) – the intertwining of daring and strength and beauty and allure and mystery – is even closer to the image of God than what any of us contain within our single-gendered self.

My problem with the Eldredege quote above, however, is that any attempt to classify the difference between male and female inevitably over-generalises to the detriment of both portraits. Although there are significant differences in the psychology of being male and female and consequently in the ontological categories of masculinity and femininity, defining those differences always seems to me to be unhelpfully stereotypical. Why should daring rescues not be feminine? Why can't being alluring be masculine?

And why does Eldredge continue to use pronouns that imply that the source of these rich gender differences is male? That undermines the key point he seems to be making.

Sex and Social Justice

I stumbled across an article from 2008 by Bruce Wydick titled "Sex and Social Justice". Although he makes a reasonably good case for the Christian ideal of sex within marriage, a key part of his case simply doesn't match my personal experience.

From his perspective as an economist, Wydick considers the act of sex as a type of exchange.

"Seen in the simplest of terms, women are exchanging sex for commitment, and men are exchanging commitment for sex. Based on a male and female's basic biological needs, for males the price of sex is commitment and for women the price of commitment is sex."

That's a position he leads up to rather than assumes, and he emphasises that he is not implying that women don't enjoy sex or that men do not enjoy commitment. So don't take that quote as his whole case.

Wydick draws conclusions from this position mostly for men -- which is quite appropriate given his own gender. But I can't help thinking that a female perspective on this "exchange" may be significantly different.

Anyway, he does make what I think is a good point that this "exchange" has lead to an issue of justice because the prevailing social norm over-values sex and undervalues commitment. (It strikes me that there could be an equivalent issue of justice if the reverse imbalance occurred as well, but that's perhaps not the injustice we see in modern western culture.) In that case, sex becomes "cheap" and the woman in need of commitment is ripped off.

"When a man receives sex from a woman without paying the price of commitment, he takes something for which he has not paid. Put simply, he is stealing. ... Social justice requires that men fulfill their end of the exchange."

The injustice may still occur when a woman "consents", because a wide variety of social expectations may nevertheless be acting coercively on her to force her consent.

My problem with Wydick's position is that it over-generalises on two fronts. From my personal biography, it over-generalises the gender distinction. What if one party (or both parties) value sex and commitment equally? Like many males I know, I have a deep need for connection, belonging, affirmation and for someone to stand by me for the long haul. Two people's discussions about the appropriateness of sex in their relationship can be just as often about "how can we nourish each other with both pleasure and security" as about "how much of the one must I give you in order for you to give me the other."

It also over-generalises what constitutes consent and consequently diminishes personal empowerment of choice. I agree that there is a transaction inherent in sex and there is a power dynamic in the negotiation between the two parties. That happens both within marriage as much as it does without. In a wholesome relationship there could (should?) be honest discussion about what is being exchanged and a set of shared expectations that meet both parties' needs. The needs are the not same in all cases and the relative value of physical pleasure, long term commitment and numerous other "costs" and "benefits" undermine Wydick's simple model. There may be other value in the exchange for women other than commitment, and I would prefer to fully empower a woman to make a real choice than to remove their choice by applying a generalised rule.

Can homosexuals change their sexual orientation/identity?

On Hope 103.2's Open House, Stanton Jones discusses the efficacy of the Exodus Foundation program for changing people's sexual orientation. He presented research to the American Psychological Association recently that sought to demonstrate:

• That at least some people can change sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.
• That conversion programs are not necessarily psychologically damaging.

Jones claims that the beliefs to the contrary are based mostly on anectodal evidence. What research has been published is with very small sample size, short periods of time, and based on therapists input rather than the subjects themsleves. He carried out a longitudinal study of 98 homosexuals in the Exodus program over 6 years.

Setting aside the 33% drop-out rate, the study showed 25% reporting success in becoming heterosexual, 25% decided and succeeded in becoming chaste, 25% remained homosexual and 25% were still in the process and the outcome was unclear.

Although some participants experienced substantial distress during the program, others improved on standard stress scores. The study found no statistical correlation in either direction.

It's useful to read Anthony Venn-Brown's criticism on the Open House blog site.