Spirituality and Desire
I came across an interesting book review in the latest issue of The Way. Sadly, it can't be found online, so I searched around and found another review of the book at the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, so I could share it with you guys :-). The book is Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Theology and Cinema by Gerard Loughlin, Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, UK.
In this dense theological study, Gerard Loughlin flies in the face of many mainstream Westerners’ assumptions by asserting that sex and Christianity are not inherently opposed but are, in fact, a match made in heaven. Using popular film as a dialogue partner, Alien Sex develops a daring new Christian body theology that defends human sexuality—whether hetero- or homosexuality—as the sphere of life where we encounter the divine most powerfully .... Although the audience capable of fully appreciating Loughlin’s wide-ranging cultural interests, his passionate championing of human sexuality, and his firm foundation in Christian theology is a small one, Alien Sex is a significant accomplishment in the field of contemporary theology.
- read the review by Christine Hoff Kraemer, Boston University
The idea of spirituality and sexuality being entwined rather than opposed is atypical, but not unheard of. William A. Barry SJ, in his book, With an Everlasting Love, has a chapter titled Eros, Sexuality, and Intimacy with God. Fr. Barry writes of the romantic mystical spirituality of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and also mentions the Song of Songs ...
Both Jewish and Christian writers have argued that this book speaks of the love between God and God's chosen people, and between God and the individual. Yet the book seems to be a collection of love poems that speak in starkly erotic, sensual and sexual imagery of the love between a man and a woman.
Carl W. Ernst writes in his article, Interpreting the Song of Songs: The Paradox of Spiritual and Sensual Love ...
Countless Christian writers expanded on the spiritual significance of the Song of Songs. Bernard of Clairvaux compiled an extensive series of sermons on the text. The English mystic Richard Rolle (d. 1349) wrote an intensely lyrical commentary on the three first verses of the Song. The Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross is directly inspired by the Song of Songs .... About 1573, St. Teresa of Avila wrote a little book on "Concepts of the Love of God" based upon the Song of Songs, which was fortunately saved from the flames to which it had been condemned.
Later religious writers were not exempt from equating desire with love of God, as this John Donne poem shows ...
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
labor to admit you, but, oh, to no end;
reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain,
but am betrothed unto your enemy:
divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
take me to you, imprison me, for I,
except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Finally, an excerpt from the review of Loughlin's book in The Way sums up the connectedness of love , desire, and spirituality ...
Whereas some writers have wanted to make a radical contrast between agape - divine love - and the erotic, Loughlin does not. He is following a distinctly different trajectory: it is through, and not in spite of, sexual desire that we are caught up into God's desire as Creator for us as creatures .... We learn to embrace sexual desire, not as the will's mastery of something negative and dangerous - a frequent enough understanding within the Christian tradition - but rather as a positive embrace, which is nevertheless not innocent of the danger involved. Loughlin attributes this positive embrace not just to those who are sexually active but also to celibates, whose love for God the tradition has so often expressed through the language of physical desire.
- review by Greey O'Hanlon SJ
To wrap up, I think this is a subject that's not often discussed but which is worth reading up on, for as Fr. Barry writes ... Our gender and sexuality have a profound influence on all our relationships, including our relationship with God.
In this dense theological study, Gerard Loughlin flies in the face of many mainstream Westerners’ assumptions by asserting that sex and Christianity are not inherently opposed but are, in fact, a match made in heaven. Using popular film as a dialogue partner, Alien Sex develops a daring new Christian body theology that defends human sexuality—whether hetero- or homosexuality—as the sphere of life where we encounter the divine most powerfully .... Although the audience capable of fully appreciating Loughlin’s wide-ranging cultural interests, his passionate championing of human sexuality, and his firm foundation in Christian theology is a small one, Alien Sex is a significant accomplishment in the field of contemporary theology.
- read the review by Christine Hoff Kraemer, Boston University
The idea of spirituality and sexuality being entwined rather than opposed is atypical, but not unheard of. William A. Barry SJ, in his book, With an Everlasting Love, has a chapter titled Eros, Sexuality, and Intimacy with God. Fr. Barry writes of the romantic mystical spirituality of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and also mentions the Song of Songs ...
Both Jewish and Christian writers have argued that this book speaks of the love between God and God's chosen people, and between God and the individual. Yet the book seems to be a collection of love poems that speak in starkly erotic, sensual and sexual imagery of the love between a man and a woman.
Carl W. Ernst writes in his article, Interpreting the Song of Songs: The Paradox of Spiritual and Sensual Love ...
Countless Christian writers expanded on the spiritual significance of the Song of Songs. Bernard of Clairvaux compiled an extensive series of sermons on the text. The English mystic Richard Rolle (d. 1349) wrote an intensely lyrical commentary on the three first verses of the Song. The Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross is directly inspired by the Song of Songs .... About 1573, St. Teresa of Avila wrote a little book on "Concepts of the Love of God" based upon the Song of Songs, which was fortunately saved from the flames to which it had been condemned.
Later religious writers were not exempt from equating desire with love of God, as this John Donne poem shows ...
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
labor to admit you, but, oh, to no end;
reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain,
but am betrothed unto your enemy:
divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
take me to you, imprison me, for I,
except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Finally, an excerpt from the review of Loughlin's book in The Way sums up the connectedness of love , desire, and spirituality ...
Whereas some writers have wanted to make a radical contrast between agape - divine love - and the erotic, Loughlin does not. He is following a distinctly different trajectory: it is through, and not in spite of, sexual desire that we are caught up into God's desire as Creator for us as creatures .... We learn to embrace sexual desire, not as the will's mastery of something negative and dangerous - a frequent enough understanding within the Christian tradition - but rather as a positive embrace, which is nevertheless not innocent of the danger involved. Loughlin attributes this positive embrace not just to those who are sexually active but also to celibates, whose love for God the tradition has so often expressed through the language of physical desire.
- review by Greey O'Hanlon SJ
To wrap up, I think this is a subject that's not often discussed but which is worth reading up on, for as Fr. Barry writes ... Our gender and sexuality have a profound influence on all our relationships, including our relationship with God.
posted by crystal | 11:47 PM
5 Comments:
I don't think the idea of "eros" leading to "agape" is quite as unusual as you might think. Certainly Benedict's encylical had that for a theme, and the basis for the Marriage Encounter program is that the love between couples is one of the best previews of the love between God and man in heaven.
One might also note that marriage is a sacrament, which would seem to mean that there is some spirituality there :). And the only requirements that the Church imposes is that one be free to marry (i.e not already married, not a priest, etc.) and that the couple be capable of and have sex. Sterility is not an impediment, but impotence is. Does make one think a bit, doesn't it :).
Mike L
Hi Mike. I think you're right. There's the idea of the feelings between people and God being romantic, too ... that's very interesting.
Well dear girl, you've got me preaching here.
Witness (confession): as a young man I was into casual sex, a sailor with a girl in every port. (Some of my friends practically had wives in every port.)
Then the light came: spiritual and sexual attraction to Ellie. At the altar in a filled church standing there I felt there were really only three present: not me, her, the priest; me, her, and God.
Marriage is the highest sacrament. God gave it to us to learn how to love everyone (I don't mean physically here), but sex is the cement that kept our relationship vibrant.
Nuns are married to Christ: it means various things to various people.
The Song of Solomon celebrates sex, love, God.
The church historically disowned this fundamental truth, and we are slowly recovering from that terrible fault, person by person.
Hi Larry - thanks for dropping by. I hope someday I can have a relationship as great as the one you have with Ellie :-)
Hi Fr. Basil :-) as Mike pointed out, the Pope's Deus Caritas Est supports the idea that physical love is not a bad thing. For myself, I'm more wondering about ... if we strive for a relationship with a living God, what form does/can the love take?
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