A Sound of Sheer Silence

One of the core claims advanced by advocates of the Theology of the Body is that our biology, by which they mean our sexual biology, discloses God's moral and ethical vision for sexual activity.  In doing so, they are working out an application of "natural law"--facts about the natural world reflect the plan of God.  The job, on this reading, is to interpret facts about the natural world in order to discern God's purposes encoded in the design of the natural world and extrapolate that into our concrete circumstances. There are a number of directions from which one might object to this from a methodological point of view, and I understand and agree with those objections .  But, I think there is something valuable to be learned from the design of our sexual biology which can provide clues as to the proper way to think about developing norms and rules for our sexual activity.  My objections to the conclusions drawn from the Theology of the Body not just about method b...

I have news for you--gay marriage is totally passe.  In saying that, I don't mean that LGBT people will stop getting married; surely that will continue apace.  No, gay marriage is passe as a vehicle for generating moral panic.  One might suggest that those who have been pushing the "the gay agenda is coming for your kids" have realized that this line is losing its effectiveness, and thus are abandoning ship.  I think that's basically true, but be that as it may, it is becoming clear that folks are moving on. "But surely, Mike, folks are not going to give up on decrying the culture and reducing all problems to some readily identifiable cause, are they?"  Surely not!  Instead, it is clear that there is a new moral panic on the horizon, one that both our evangelical and Catholic brothers and sisters of a conservative stripe are already beginning to rally the troops.  That new moral panic is pornography. To prime the pump for this new talking point, th...

Part Two introduces us to the Five Powers of Holy Sex, which should not be confused with the five stages  of Holy Sex, or the eight ingredients  of Holy Sex we've seen earlier.  They are: Holy Sex makes the common holy. Holy Sex has sacramental and redemptive power. Holy Sex is a physical sign of God's passion for us. Holy Sex unites the couples. Holy Sex is creative. I'm going to save the last one (which is about birth control) for a separate post, because he has a lot to say about it, and so do I. It's a bit hard to talk about these chapters, because they are more than a little bit inchoate.  It took me a little while to figure out that Popcak views these as descriptive categories as opposed to prescriptive categories--these are qualities of Holy Sex, as opposed to things you should do in order to achieve Holy Sex.  Popcak goes out of his way to emphasize that these qualities are not present at all with "eroticism."  So, if you do not experi...