After reading what Mark Driscoll said about Australia, I began thinking I should listen to his podcasts to make sure that I was not treating the guy unfairly. This week his sermon was a continuing series on ‘the song of songs’ coming to a portion of scripture known as ‘the dance of Mahanaim.’ It was a sermon on sexuality in the highly erotic biblical book.
I have to begin with the positives of the sermon. Ironically, the end of his sermon provided the strongest part of his sermon. He talked about how porn is destroying the marriage relationship, how men are sometimes too negative, and how performance and fear can sometimes get in the way of a healthy marriage. We do need to recognize that porn is destroying our nation and that the ‘performance’ being all important (as touted in most Hollywood sex scenes) sets an impossibly high standard.
But Driscoll also had an extremely high number of unnerving points in his sermon that made me squirm in my seat. Making the same mistakes as evangelical pastors (such as those who propogate the myth that Charles Darwin recanted on his death bed), he makes a blanket statement, supported with no ‘biblical’ evidence, saying “all men are visual.” It took me a total of five seconds to search on google to find a scientific study that disproved this pop myth social theory, but Driscoll used no scientific studies to back up his claim that “all men are visual.” What is more unnerving is that Driscoll, who is known for using the bible to back up his claims, cited no scripture either in support of his “fact” that men are visual. I am not a fan of proof-texting, but I would think that Driscoll would cite some scripture if he is going to make a claim on half of the human race.
He goes on to make the extremely sexist statement, informed by his “masculine” view on the world, that:
“Men are in a fight every minute of every day. Women don’t understand this.”
Perhaps some don’t, but most do. Most women are also in a struggle every minute of their lives. But this is not the main point. The main problem with saying this is it indirectly encourages sin. When Driscol uses the blanket word “men” and says “fight,” those men who may not feel the same way as Driscoll are now ostracized in his community. What’s more? Women feel that it is abnormal to struggle everyday with sexual issues. Driscoll is institutionalizing the sin that he hates by doing this. Some may think I am being extreme here, but there is a better way to deal with this topic:
Make this a human issue instead of a men’s issue.
Driscoll also keeps mentioning “lust” without defining it. The largest problem in discussing sexuality is the lack of terminology that pastors “assume” people already understand. Then they make analogies like Driscoll made in the sermon to explain Lust. He suggests that looking at a women and considering her beautiful is not lust, but looking back at her a second time is lust. He has just created the arbitrary sin of looking twice at a women. Thus we created men who are afraid to look at women………..
We have to come up with better terms for lust than this. I have many more qualms with the article, but I would first like to open up discussion here:
What is lust and why is it a sin? I’m hoping that people will be as specific as possible. This is a very important topic.
Danny is a part time substitute teacher and a part time In-N-Out employee looking for some kind of teaching job in California. Hopefully someday the state of California will be back in action and ready to rock and roll and hire teachers back. He enjoys long walks on the beach and Star Wars.
I think that the real problem is that lust in all aspects (sexual or not), has the ability to dehumanize. Good ol’ dictionary.com mostly has sexual definitions, which include intense or uncontrolled sexual desire, but it also has a definition that I find more helpful with words like: overmastering, intense, self-indulgent desires (in any topic: lust for power, lust for food etc).
In any cases where you are interacting with another human, these are generally not good qualities. And in sexual contexts, they tend to take the person out of good beautiful sexual desires and makes them “animal” like. But when we use words like lust to describe the way we look at women (or men!) we are using a very strong word and make people feel as though those ARE animal (when they very well might just be normal). Just a few thoughts. I can try to expand more and think through it more later.
What I was referencing in the article was the way that Driscoll defined lust. He seemed to be saying that if I look at a woman twice or look back at a woman (for whatever reason) that I am lusting. I like that you bring in the wider definition of lust here. Lust is something that dehumanized another person (i.e. takes away their humanity).
I simply don’t buy that looking back a woman or looking twice at a billboard is helpful in defining lust. These billboards and the way girls are dressed are designed inherently to attract attention. But I have found that I can look at a woman or a billboard and not be lusting at the same time.
Perhaps a question, “How does dehumanization take place in sexual lust?”
Maybe dehumanization when we look at a person and begin to desire that person sexually in a way that turns them into a commodity. We want the sex, the lips, the body parts, and the sensual feelings. We are no longer concerned about their mind, their soul, their needs, and the relationships already connected to them. Is that a good start?
This is a great start, Amber. Certainly we can both agree that commodization is a negative thing similiar to the what Amanda was saying earlier.
So how do we deal with the ideas of commodities in general? Are commodities the base problem? Do we need to get rid of commodization as a practice in our society? What do you think?
I don’t know about getting rid of it in society (how could we do that? in large scales yes, like prostitution, but not the mental commodization) but I think it should be something that we discuss as Christian, and we respond to. I think on another side of the scale, with “lust” we don’t ever talk about good physical intimacy either. And so all sexual desire is then seen as a bad, or a guilt.
So you are saying that there are good kinds of commodization and bad kinds of commodization? I would tend to agree with this as well. How do we separate the good from the bad? This seems to also go well with your idea that there is good and bad lust, how do we separate the two?
“This study, which itself carries several limitations, and I would argue more than a few major theoretical flaws…” read the whole article next time perhaps?
Question: Are you married? Do you have guy friends? Cause really I don’t need a study to tell me that an orange is orange. It just is. Neither do I need a study to tell me that my wife is less visual than I am… And as a pastor, anecdotally, having done lot’s of marital and premarital counseling I don’t need a study to tell me that it holds true there as well.
Secondly: In the part you are complaining about he was quoting Shaunti Feldman…a woman.
The best definition of lust I have ever heard is simply this. Lust is desire out of control.
good quote. Thanks.
Per the comment a few blocks up, just because a woman states something does not mean that it is then absolutely true…”look this one man and this other woman agree…must be true!”. That would be over justifying sexism for lack of good debate evidence. Do you have further research beyond your own experience that agrees with your stance that men are more visual than women? I would be interested in hearing that, not because I necessarily disagree, but because I haven’t read any and would like to be educated. Many girls masturbate, look at porn, and are turned on by visual stimulus. Take the “Notebook” for example; why do women and men usually both love that movie? 1) happy ending, and 2) great, romantic and hot sex scene.
Understanding that certain churches, schools and para-church organizations/institutions demolish the way that many women look at themselves is something that you might not understand. I believe women and men, generally, work on two different sets of emotions and mode of operations. Then there is me…and a lot of folks I know and we don’t work on those general terms. I have never, my whole life, fit into that box that someone painted for me and folks like you sustain; it is unhelpful to me as a person trying to be responsible of her sexuality and identity in Christ.
HELP ME WITH MY MARRIAGE TEACH ME HOW TO LOVE MY WIFE UNCONDISHANALLY IF IT BE GODS WILL .THE LORD WILLTEACH ME AND GIVE ME AN OTHER CHANCE .LORD PLEASE FOR GIVE ME . PLEASE SHOW ME HOW TO LOVE THE WAY LOVE WAS MENT TO BE BEFORE ITS TO LATE .
The comment about lust being “desire out of control,” is not just a good quote. It is based on the Greek word for “lust,” which is “epithumeo.” “Epi,” meaning “over,” or “above,” and “thumeo,” meaning desire. The universal definition for this word is indeed, “unmanageable desire.”
Jesus states (Mt. 5:28), that “if a man looks upon a woman to lust after her , he has committed adultery. . .” The word here for “woman” is “gune,” which HALF of the time in the New Testament is translated “wife.” One may with equal exigetical composure understand this passage to read, “If a man looks upon another man’s wife to desire her to be his wife, he has committed adultery already . . .”
This translation is consistent with the meaning of “adultery,” which is a violation of the marriage committment. It has nothing to do with the normal, pure, sexual impulse created by God and enjoyed by both genders.
PDM