“Obsessed” With Abortion, Homosexuality and Birth Control
The church is “obsessed” with abortion, homosexuality and birth control.
That comment by Pope Francis a few days ago made global headlines. It’s no mistake that all three bugbears are physical, of the body, sexual.
Little-mind religion seizes on the carnal sins and makes avoiding them a cardinal virtue. That’s because it is mostly preoccupied with purity codes (especially where bodily temptations are concerned), and achievement systems where I can tote up the “good” I have done and feel superior to “sinners” who have not abstained as well as I have.
Jesus was not much worried about carnal sin. He was sharply rebuked for fraternizing with “sinners and tax collectors,” drunks and publicans and prostitutes (Mark 2:16). He warned people not to becomes “slaves of sin” (John 8:34) because it is clearly destructive, for ourselves and for others, and because it clouds our inner vision, blinding us to the ever-present reality of God within us. But, in Francis’ terms, he wasn’t “obsessed” with carnal sin.
Jesus understood that our sins are inevitable, necessary and important to our salvation. If we can allow our faults and failures to break down our pride and arrogance, blow up our perfect little DIY salvation project, our sins can actually flip us into salvation. (Hence Luther’s dictum: “Sin boldly.”)
This is why Jesus was a friend of sinners. It’s also why he scorched the self-righteous and fought bitterly with the most highly religious people of his day.
Want to be a friend of Jesus? Be an awake and aware sinner.
David, thanks for this post. A little scorching every so often is a good thing.
I was intrigued, too, with the Pope’s remarks on this subject, his critique of the church. My first thought, God protect this man.
You are absolutely right: we do major on the sexual sins; we make the carnal cardinal. I have a feeling it’s fear and power driven. What is most powerful in human life–we either worship it or ban it. We have a hard time being level-headed in the face of awesome power.
Thanks for the post, David. I want to be a friend of sinners, starting with me.
Right–the powerful things we either worship or ban. With violence, e.g., we have little impulse to ban, and so we worship.
In the spirit of discussion, I’m a bit troubled by this post.
First — and this is not a critique of the thread, but rather the hullaballoo that prompted it — I believe the Pope’s words were somewhat taken out of context. The interview from which Pope Francis’s comments were ostensibly taken was conducted in Italian, and then translated into English by five separate experts; this minutiae is detailed in an editor’s note prefacing the interview itself (http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview). A (translated) variant of “obsess” appears precisely once in the interview, and it was not related to the subject we’re discussing. And don’t think I’m being a language pedant here; in the interview, Francis himself speaks about gerunds, for crying out loud.
The interview begins with Pope Francis being asked: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” To which he responds: “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” Within this broader context, I do not believe the Pope was being dismissive of sin — at least not quite to the degree that the sensationalized headlines might suggest. And while I’m no Catholic apologist — the Pope and I have many theological differences — I stand with him in stating that I too am a sinner. I will undoubtedly continue to sin. I do not, however, want to sin, nor do I want to condone it in any way, shape, or form.
The soundbyte comments appear about halfway through the interview, where Francis asks rhetorically what a confessor is supposed to do in response to a now-happy, remarried woman with a history of abortion that continues to pain her. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” he answers. In fact, he then states that the church’s teaching on those issues is “clear,” and he is “a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.” I humbly agree.
No doubt there are other theological nuggets than can be sifted out of the long interview. My point is that the Pope unequivocally believes in the concept of sin, as well as the church’s teaching on the three sins in question (abortion, homosexuality, and birth control). The difference is in how to deal with it, which to my way of thinking is not really different than the evangelical mantra of loving the sinner, but hating the sin.
Before moving to the thread itself, one other point needs to be clarified: the “church” to which the Pope refers here is the Roman Catholic church — not the Christian church at large. This is somewhat self-evident by the easy observation that one would be hard-pressed to find an Evangelical or mainline Protestant “obsessing” about birth control (though that wasn’t always the case). While the Pope might be the most recognized Christian through the eyes of the secular world, he does not (nor does he purport to) speak for Christianity at large.
With that background, I believe the original post is more faithful to the headline than to Pope Francis’s words themselves, and heads down an increasingly slippery slope from there. I do not believe that sexual sin or sin “of the body” can be relegated to “little-mind religion,” “purity codes,” or good works fodder for someone’s “DIY salvation project”. On the contrary, the Bible refers to the body as a temple (1 Cor 3:16,17; 6:15-20; 2 Cor 6:14-18; 1 Pet 2:5). We are called by God to be holy (Lev 11:44,45; 19:2; 20:7; Isa 35:8; 1 Pet 1:15,16).
Further, I cannot agree with the characterization that “Jesus was not much worried about carnal sin.” To state that his fraternizing with prostitutes supports this view is, I believe, misguided. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Mar 2:17). And textual issues of the Pericope Adulterae (Jn 7:53-8:11) aside, there is little ambiguity to Jesus’ admonition to “go and sin no more.”
And of course “Luther’s dictum” here is among the most controversial words of an already polarizing figure (at least from Catholicism’s view). And Luther certainly isn’t scripture, nor are his words divine mandate.
To paraphrase Paul in Rom 6:1,2: “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” Nor, I believe, should we suggest that others do the same. We should not trivialize sin, even by suggesting that we shouldn’t obsess over ones that may be controversial.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Ric. I stand with you, brother: I am a sinner.
Thanks for that well stated response RAD. I appreciated it and found it refreshing.