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Is sex inherently evil? A Muslim would be surprised
by this question. Such a thought would never cross his mind. But the relevance
of this question to Christianity and the Western world will become clear
from the following pages. In the last eighty years, especially after the
two World Wars, the sexual morality of the West has undergone a great change
which is commonly described as the "sexual revolution. " On the
ruins of the dying Christian morality, the west is trying to build a liberal
sexual morality known as the "New Sexual Morality". To understand
the social and historical background in which the new morality is emerging,
we must study the sexual morality of the Christian Church.
A. CHRISTIAN
SEXUAL MORALITY
Although Christianity is commonly thought to be a religion based on Jesus
Christ's teachings, I use the word "Christianity" in this book
for the teachings of the Church establishment. I am justified in doing so
because the Bible has recorded nothing from Jesus Christ on marriage and
sex. The exception being the sermon condemning visual and physical adultery:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matthew, 5:27-29)
The first person in Christianity to talk on sexual
morality was St. Paul. He says, "It is good for a man not to touch
a woman." (Corinthians I, 7:1) In simple words this means that
the Christian Church teaches that celibacy is better than marriage, and
that the human body is not for sexual pleasure but for the Lord only. "The
body is not meant for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the
body...Do you know that your bodies are members of Christ? (Corinthians
I, 6:13,15)
St. Paul knew that celibacy means suppressing human nature but human nature
cannot be suppressed. He knew that if marriage is totally forbidden, then
people will still indulge in sexual gratification unlawfully. So he says,
"Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife
and every woman have her own husband."(Corinthians I, 7:2) Then
as if to prevent the people from forgetting the holiness of celibacy, he
continues: "I say this by way of concession, not of command. For I
wish that all men were as I myself am...Therefore, I say to the unmarried
and the widows that it is good for them to remain singles as I am. But if
they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry: for it is better to marry
than to burn." (Corinthians I, 7:6-9) So marriage, when compared
to fornication, is the lesser of two evils!
St. Paul further goes on to describe that marriage means distress: "Now
concerning the unmarried...I think that in the view of the present distress
it is good for a person to remain as he is...Are you free from a wife? Then
do not seek a wife. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries,
she does not sin. Yet those who marry shall have trouble in flesh."
(Corinthians I, 7:25-28)
According to the Bible, marriage and pleasing God are antipathetic to each
other. St. Paul says, "I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried
man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord, but
the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife
and his interest is divided...The unmarried woman cares for the affairs
of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit; but a married woman
cares for worldly affairs, how to please her husband. I say this for your
own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order
and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." (Corinthians
I, 7:32,35) He concludes the Christian position as follows: "So
that he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains
from marrying will do better." (Corinthians I, 7:38)
So the Christian view on marriage, in its original form, can be summarized
as follows:
(a) celibacy is good and should be adopted;
(b) in order to refrain from fornication, marriage is allowed; but it is
regrettable and one should try his or her best to avoid it;
(c) marriage retards salvation and is antipathetic to pleasing God.
Three centuries after St. Paul, came a theologian known as St. Augustine.
Like his predecessor, he believed that sex was a threat to spiritual upliftment:
"I know nothing which brings the manly mind down from the heights more
than a woman's caresses and that joining of bodies without which one cannot
have a wife."(Basic Writings of St. Augustine, p. 455.) He went
even further than St. Paul by associating guilt with sex. He acknowledged
that was essential for reproduction but argued that the act of sexual intercourse
itself was tainted with guilt because of the sin of Adam and Eve. Sexual
intercourse was transformed from something innocent to something shameful
by the original sin of Adam and Eve, which is passed on from generation
to generation.
In his The City of God, St. Augustine says, "Man's transgression
[i.e., Adam and Eve's sin] did not annul the blessing of fertility bestowed
upon him before he sinned, but infected it with the disease of lust."
(The City of God, p. 21) In short, he preached that: (a) sex was
something shameful because of the original sin of Adam and Eve; (b) chastity
and celibacy was of a higher morality than marriage; (c) celibacy was a
prerequisite for priests and nuns.
B. THE VICTORIAN
ERA
There is no doubt that the survey of the Christian sexual morality is essential
for understanding the sexual revolution of this century; but to fully comprehend
the historical background in which the new sexual morality has emerged,
it is equally important to look at the Victorian era.
"While the Christians in the pre-Victorian era were content with restricting
sex to marriage, Victorians were concerned with how best to harness sex
and rechannel it to loftier ends. For Victorians a moral man abstained from
sex outside of marriage and was highly selective and considerate in sexual
expression within marriage. And a moral woman endured these sporadic ordeals
and did nothing to encourage them. Pleasure was not an appropriate goal
for either sex, but especially not so for a woman." (Fundamentals
of Human Sexuality, p. 483)
The following can be stated as the sexual morality of the Christian West
in the nineteenth century: (a) sex is morally degrading compared to celibacy;
(b) sexual passion in human beings is a result of the original sin, therefore
sex for pleasure is sinful; (c) sex without pleasure is allowed only with
the intention of procreation. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the
prevalent view was that sex is inherently evil and is acceptable only as
a lesser of two evils of fornication and marriage.
C. THE SEXUAL
REVOLUTION
What you read above was a brief historical and social background of the
Christian West against which the New Morality was emerging. The Church made
a serious error in suppressing the most natural urge of human beings, the
very means of their perpetuity. And it is obvious that natural urges can
never be suppressed. 'Allamah Rizvi writes:
If a religion shuts its eyes to the intricacies of family problems, its followers, sooner or later, will revolt against it, destroying all religious tenets in the wake of the rebellion. . .Christianity ignored the claims of human nature, extolling the idea of celibacy. Many zealous people tried to live up to that ideal. Monks and nuns shut themselves in monasteries. For a short period, this scheme worked well. Then nature took its revenge; the monks and abbots cultivated the idea that they were representatives of Christ, and the nuns were given the titles of 'brides of Christ.' So with easy conscience they turned the monasteries into centres of sexual liberties. (The Family Life of Islam, p. 8)
Commenting on the attitude of the Christian clergy,
Russell writes, "It was only towards the end of the thirteenth century
that the celibacy of the clergy was rigidly enforced. The clergy, of course,
continued to have illicit relations with women..." (Marriage and
Morals, p. 64) Pope John XII was condemned for adultery and incest;
the abbot-elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, in 1171 was found to have
seventeen illegitimate children in a single village; Henry III, Bishop of
Leige, was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five illegitimate children.
The writers of the Middle Ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were
like brothels, of the vast multitude of infanticides within their walls,
and of incest among the clergy which forced the church to announce that
priests should not be permitted to live with their mothers and sisters.
(History of European Morals, vol. II p. 350-351)
This and nothing else could have been the consequence of an unnatural sexual
morality. Those who could not suppress their natural urges, indulged in
sinful acts secretly; others, like Martin Luther, revolted against the church
and started the reformation movement which abandoned celibacy.
And when the Christian Church lost its influence in social affairs of the
Western world and a separation between the Church and the state took place,
even the lay man revolted. This revolt gained momentum after the two World
Wars; and the Christian West started the sexual revolution in reaction to
the sexual suppression. A reform movement takes the society from extremes
towards moderation; whereas a revolution, in its early stages, takes the
society from one extreme to the other. ' Allamah Rizvi comments, "Nature
can be compared to a steel spring which, when pressed down, jumps back with
equal force. When it took its revenge upon Christians, it turned Christian
societies into the most permissive, libertine and undisciplined ones the
world had ever seen." (The Family Life of Islam, p. 8-9)
Thus the New Morality emerged in the West and leaped to the other extreme.
From the extreme of suppressing natural desires, some preachers of the new
morality went to the extreme of unrestrained sexual freedom which is the
realm of the animal world. They propounded the idea of "sex for fun,"
"sex for its own sake" and "free sex" which eventually
would have completely destroyed the concept of family, the fabric of human
society. In the late eighties, it can be said that the spring of nature
is returning to its normal position. Katchadourian and Lunde, writing in
1980, say, "The morality of 'sex for fun' or 'sex for its own sake'
never appealed to even the majority of the young. The romantic ideals of
marriage, fidelity, and a stable home life for rearing children were still
very much alive and influential in American life. A new synthesis of values
is arising. Many of the changes in sexual attitudes of the 1960s have been
retained, but the more radical beliefs have been found to be unacceptable
by most people. Many individuals are willing to approve of premarital exploration,
but they want to be certain that no one gets hurt. Many have found that
'sex for its own sake' was not as gratifying as it looked when it first
became popular; and others have seen so many people hurt by irresponsible
sex that they are asking for a new morality of responsible sex." (Fundamentals
of Human Sexuality, p. 420)
* * *
To summarize, we can say that firstly, the West traveled from one extreme
(that of sexual suppression exemplified by the Christian Church) to the
other extreme (that of free sex and sex for fun exemplified by the liberal
sexual morality). Secondly, the West has realized that free sex and sex
for fun is not acceptable to human sensibilities. Finally, after jumping
from one extreme to the other, the West is longing for "a new morality
of responsible sex." In our view, the morality of responsible sex is
the balanced sexual morality of Islam to which we shall turn soon.
* * *
The reason why I discussed the religious and social background in which
the sexual revolution has taken place is to let the Muslims In the West
and the East know that this revolution was not a by-product of science and
technology per se (although some scientific technologies like contraceptives
have made it easier); rather it was a reaction to the suppressive sexual
morality of the Christian Church. This, I hope, will also break the myth
among many Asians and Africans, especially the elite class, that every behavior
and norm of the West is based on sound scientific reasons!
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