“One vitally important aspect of solitude is its intimate dependence on chastity. The virtue of chastity is not the complete renunciation of all sex, but simply the right use of sex.”
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 87.
Note:
It is striking that much of current Christian culture in America (and is this apparent in other parts of the world?) seems most appalled by sexual sins when they come out in the open, and either ignores or downplays other breaking of God’s commands. Why is this? Is it possible that the tempter wants us to focus on sex in order to get us to paper over hatred, gluttony, theft, and all the rest? I’ve said for years that a sin is a sin is a sin, and that there’s no reason to rank them from worst to least (so often with sexual sins as the worst). Scripture says that all sins are equally abhorrent to our pure and holy God. C. S. Lewis pointed out years ago that “all the worst pleasures are purely spiritual.”
Quote:
“I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the centre of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasures of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and backbiting ; the pleasures of power, of hatred.” (p. 94-95)
Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1960.
Note:
C.S. Lewis writes about three reasons it is really hard to be fully chaste. If he were writing now, I wonder whether he would especially emphasize the first reason: the overwhelming presence of salacious images and text washing onto our screens. Anyway, the fact that he lists “the contemporary propaganda for lust” first is, in a way, a bit of a comfort in that it might tell us that we are not any more tempted than people nearly 100 years ago were.
Quote:
“[T]here are three reasons why it is now specially difficult for us to desire — let alone achieve — complete chastity. In the first place our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural,’ so ‘healthy,’ and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. … In the second place, many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian chastity because they think (before trying) that it is impossible. … Thirdly, people often misunderstand what psychology teaches about ‘repressions.’ It teaches us that ‘repressed’ sex is dangerous. But ‘repressed’ is here a technical term: it does not mean ‘suppressed’ in the sense of ‘denied’ or ‘resisted.’ … [T]hose who are seriously attempting chastity are more conscious, and soon know a great deal more about their own sexuality than anyone else.” (p. 92-94)
Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1960.
Note: Saint Paul says “the flesh is weak” and C. S. Lewis reminds us that Christianity “approves of the body.” It’s important for us to maintain this distinction between our “sinful flesh” and the creation that God called “very good.” They are really talking about two different things.
(Also, we really should encourage more writers to use words like “muddle-headed.”)
Quote:
“I know that some muddle-headed Christians have talked as if Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure were bad in themselves. But they are wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body — which believes that matter is good, that God himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty, and our energy….
“If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once.” (p. 91)
Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1960.
Note: Chastity in the sense of the “evangelical counsels” refers to temperate control of sexual desire and function. For those in religious orders and for other unmarried people it expands to avoiding all sexual activity (celibacy), but for most Christians (i.e., the married ones) it means remaining faithful to one’s marriage vows and avoiding sexual temptations. Martin Luther talked about the same thing in his Small Catechism explanation of the 6th Commandment: “…so that we lead pure and decent lives in word and deed, and each of us loves and honors his or her spouse.” But as you can see in this quote, chastity is closely related to abstinence and sobriety.
Quote:
“Chastity is the virtue which excludes or moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite. It is a form of the virtue of temperance, which controls according to right reason the desire for and use of those things which afford the greatest sensual pleasures. The sources of such delectation are food and drink, by means of which the life of the individual is conserved, and the union of the sexes, by means of which the permanence of the species is secured. Chastity, therefore, is allied to abstinence and sobriety; for, as by these latter the pleasures of the nutritive functions are rightly regulated, so by chastity the procreative appetite is duly restricted.”
Source: Melody, John. “Chastity.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 