Opinion: Nathanael Blake
Sexual sin destroys justice.
This is a problem for those on the religious left who insist that social justice (by which they mean the Democratic Party platform) matters more than sins of the flesh—if they even consider those to be sins.
Consider a recent New York Times piece carrying the headline “Pope Leo Chooses Social Justice Over Pelvic Theology.” The author, David Gibson of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, argued that the pope “is trying to shift Catholicism away from the near fixation on ‘pelvic theology,’ or sexual morality, that has come to define Catholicism, especially in Leo’s home country, the United States.”
Near fixation—really? Homilies on what Gibson derides as “pelvic theology” tend to be few and far between even in conservative parishes. But Gibson is interested in advocacy, not accuracy. His goal is to claim the pope for the cause of social justice while sidelining Catholic teachings about sexual morality. Thus, though Gibson admitted that the pope wasn’t changing Catholic sexual teaching, he downplayed that fact, insisting that the pope “was articulating an older tradition of placing justice above personal chastity.”
Gibson presents Christian sexual ethics as a secondary issue that has been blown all out of proportion. Forget the pelvic issues, in other words, because climate change and Medicare for all are what real Christians should be concerned with. This is a standard trope among liberal Christians, but it is nonsense. Gibson inadvertently admitted as much with his complaint that, “The sexual revolution of the 1960s and the loosening of restrictions on abortion in the 1970s turbocharged the push to focus on sexual ethics and sideline social justice.“
But there is no social justice when the law allows human lives in utero to be violently ended by the millions. Nor is this just about “personal chastity”—the sexual revolution wasn’t about privately breaking the rules, but abolishing them. It was a comprehensive cultural revolution remaking our understanding of what it means to be human and how we are to live. Sexual liberalism conquered the culture, but it has failed to deliver on its promises.
Christian sexual ethics are not arbitrary or idiosyncratic edicts. Rather, they are given to us for our good and the good of our neighbors.
The sexual revolution has been a disaster because sexual morality is inseparable from true social justice. Sexual sins are never entirely private; they come with externalities, which is to be expected given the intimacy and pleasure sex offers, along with its capacity to beget new persons. What Gibson denigrates as “pelvic theology” is in fact social justice at its core, teaching us how to live in the very heart of society—marriage and family life.
This is why the early church staged a centuries-long campaign to overthrow the pagan sexual culture with all of its cruelty and exploitation. And this is why rejecting the modern sexual revolution is indispensable to the achievement of genuine justice in society. A revival of Christian sexual morality would be the most effective way to achieve the ends social justice advocates claim to want. The benefits of children being raised by their married, natural parents are enormous and, at this point, essentially, undisputed. And intact natural families are good for everyone else, too.
Faithful marriage is the best anti-poverty program, the best educational program, the best anti-crime program, and the best defense against loneliness and social anomie. Conversely, the sexual revolution has exacerbated these and other evils. There are the abortions, the diseases, the exploitation, the cruelty, the dehumanization, and more. Scripture teaches us to care for the fatherless and the widow, not to multiply their modern equivalents of abandoned children and single parents. And for the budget-conscious, just consider the wealth and resources drained trying to ameliorate the effects of the sexual revolution’s evils.
Furthermore, the sexual revolution does not even deliver on its primary promise—lots of great sex. Decades of escalating sexual liberalism have ended with the average American having less, and less satisfying, sex, though married Christians are doing better than most. This narrative-busting data makes sense on reflection because lifelong sexual commitment has its upside. Christians should not treat this as some sort of sexual prosperity gospel—averages are not a guarantee. But neither should we be surprised that living according to God’s design tends, even in this sin-stained world, to protect us from the self-destruction of sin.
Christian sexual ethics are not arbitrary or idiosyncratic edicts. Rather, they are given to us for our good and the good of our neighbors. “Pelvic theology” isn’t divided from, let alone opposed to, justice. Rather, it is indispensable to its efforts to promote and protect human flourishing. And those eager to denounce “pelvic theology” ought to recall the imagery God gives us in Scripture, where idolatry is constantly likened to adultery, and our union with Christ in heaven to a wedding. Pelvic theology indeed.
About the author Nathanael Blake is a fellow in the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of Victims of the Revolution: How Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All.
