Sex and the City of Man

Christians, as citizens of the kingdom of God, are wrestling with how to live as citizens of progressive America. Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, both of whom served in the George W. Bush administration, offer their counsel on “How Christians Can Flourish in a Same-Sex Marriage World.” In their Christianity Today cover story, the co-authors of City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era (2010) reject either “calling a crusade or taking a sabbatical” and viewing America as either “a moral cesspool or the Babylon of Christian exile.”

The same-sex marriage defeat, they say, dates back a half century to changes in marriage law and the sexual revolution, so reversing it will take the multigenerational witness of faithful Christian families. True. They suggest we “leverage this moment” with “a new model of social engagement.” We’ll have to defend our religious liberty, but if all we do is defend ourselves we will become merely another aggrieved minority. To earn our neighbors’ attention and admiration we have to focus on “the priority of humans”—their rights, well being, and dignity—everyone from the unborn to the poor and incarcerated to the many victims of the sexual revolution.

Good. But Gerson and Wehner too easily dismiss the importance of what we do sexually and how we understand ourselves in that doing. “When it comes to cultural analysis,” they say, “many evangelicals have sex too much on their minds.” They cite C.S. Lewis on the greater danger of sins that are solely of the spirit, like self-righteousness and vindictiveness.

But the sexual revolution is not just about the licentious freedom to follow our impulses among consenting adults. It is a radical revisioning of what a human being is, namely, a sophisticated beast that is radically autonomous, even self-creating, in a godless universe. Thus, we don’t receive or discover our moral framework. We simply will whatever morality we fancy. We will even ourselves, our identity. So, for example, children are not born boy or girl, but rather at some time choose to identify as one or the other. There is no sovereign Creator-God, only sovereignty over oneself and thus sexual autonomy.

And that’s why so-called progressives are keen on a sexually libertine culture, especially on college campuses, with unrestricted access to abortion, liberal divorce laws, redefinition of marriage to the point of its disappearance, and now transgender rights. The sexual dimension of the culture wars is not ultimately about “sins of the flesh” but about what it means to be human. If Christians don’t speak up on this matter, there is almost no one else who will. It is hard to speak in defense of people’s humanity when the very concept of “human” is in flux.

If Christians do not clearly articulate for themselves—not only in church but also in the public square—how the sexual revolution is evil, self-destructive for everyone who embraces it, and corrosive to all their relationships, it will continue to poison the church and cripple her ability to worship God, love neighbor, and pass on the faith from generation to generation.