In part two I weave my socioeconomic approach to understanding the cultural dilemma of sexuality with the Biblical explanation of what went wrong between men and women.

I talked about the Creation Ideal in Genesis 1 and 2 earlier. Genesis 3 is the story of humankind’s Fall from grace. Even if you never went to Sunday School, you know the basics: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the serpent, the forbidden fruit. But beyond the Eve and the Apple story, the question posed in Creation is one that every human being has to face: Will we live life according to the flesh, on our own terms, seeking to fulfill our own needs in our own way? Or will we live in faith, in relationship with God?

Until and unless we return to the relationship with God and with each other for which we were intended, the Creation account tells us that we will be subject to the natural world.In Genesis 3 we see the first man and woman as stand-ins for all of us, as they decide that they want to be in charge and independent. In consequence, they have to leave the Garden where everything is provided for them and no choice is necessary, and live instead in a world in which the ground brings forth weeds and thorns.

Here is where the economic analysis comes in.  The field of economics is defined as the study of “choices made under conditions of scarcity.” Before the Fall, an economic analysis of life in the Garden makes no sense, because there was no scarcity.

After the Fall, economic analysis of human life becomes possible. People live in a world full of thorns and weeds, and they have to make trade-offs in the face of scarcity. Scarcity means that you don’t have enough, so you have to decide how you are going to use what you have got. And I’m not talking about just money, but also your time, energy, interests, etc.

The need to make these trade-offs is quite pronounced in subsistence economies. Subsistence means that you are just barely getting enough to survive on. Until the Industrial Revolution (dated to about 1800), most people lived at subsistence level (and still do in the less-developed world).

As a result of this poverty and struggle to survive, on the most basic material level, for most of history, the ‘sexual relationships’ that people were having were not really relationships at all, but economic transactions, even within marriage.  In the agriculturally-based economies that characterized much of history, everything that you consumed was produced in a household. This required the labor of a lot of people, and children were vitally needed to provide that labor. Children were also a source of security and men needed them as much as women did. Women spent most of their lives pregnant, nursing, or trying to get pregnant.
But women didn’t get to just take care of themselves or the children but had to do a lot of other work. Human beings very quickly discover that there are things that you just can’t do when you are pregnant or nursing. Doing work that is too heavy or strenuous might cause you to lose the pregnancy or your breast milk.

So women become what economists call ‘domestically-specialized’. They do the things that are compatible with child bearing – cooking, spinning, weaving, gardening, caring for the sick and aged. Any tasks left over after women do all they can in the presence of children become the work of men. Thus the tasks that require power outside of the household, become ‘men’s work’ – women were simply too busy in the household to do them.

The sexual division of labor has two consequences: One, on the levels of economics, politics, and even personality, women became powerless relative to men. Two, men become subject to the male-status hierarchy or patriarchy. Patriarchy is usually thought of as the subordination of women to men, but it is actually the rule of a few men over everyone else, male and female. Where a man falls in that hierarchy became extremely important in procuring the resources needed to live, so social status came to play a big part in men’s lives.

Because the critical task of child bearing leaves women powerless relative to men, virtually every society has some kind of marriage contract to protect women in her role of child bearer.  The marriage contract provided that a man can’t just use up a woman and then replace her with someone younger, which is his ‘natural’ tendency.

This should give you a hint that marriages in pre-industrial economies were not love matches, but were arranged by fathers to advance their own agendas, with little regard for the feelings of the bride and groom. Men expected children, food (farming is women’s work until the invention of the plow), and sex from the women they married. Women expected protection and men to provide labor for ‘men’s work. They preferred men high in social status because the man’s social status, and therefore ability to bring in resources, depended on it.

But that was it. Marriage was not expected to be about companionship, romantic love, or even about sexual attraction. Further, people had more children than they could care for in even very basic ways, because the purpose of having children is for the children to care for their parents.

It’s not that couples never loved each other or their children. It’s just that feelings were not culturally or economically important, and sometime considered inappropriate.

This historic pattern of relationships based on the need for children began to change a couple hundred years ago with the Industrial Revolution. With the Industrial Revolution, more and more of the things that people needed to survive were being produced outside of the  household. As this happened, the birth rate dropped like a rock, as people didn’t need all these children anymore and they had to educate them, which was expensive.  For the first time, people could begin to think about forming these life-time relationships on a basis other than material considerations.

By the nineteenth century, the compelling question was, ‘Do you marry for love or money?’  People began to ask, can you base a relationship on romantic attraction rather than economic need?  Read Jane Austin.  Eventually, economic development allowed this to happen, and marriage gradually came to be based not on the need for children and sexual complementarity, but on sexual attraction and romantic love.

Here is where we meet the first partial answer to the question of ‘what are the root causes of problems with modern sexual relationships?’ Romantic love – that overwhelming feelings of ‘being in love’– alone is a weak base on which to build a life-long commitment, in part because, all other things being equal, that overwhelming feeling only lasts a year or so. Unfortunately, modern culture tells us that we must be ‘in love’ with our mate, and that when that overwhelming feeling fades and sexual attraction fades, we ‘owe it to ourselves’ and to our partner to end the relationship and find someone who loves us properly.

By the middle of the twentieth century, however, sexual relationships took another twist. In the US, by mid-20^th century, there was very little or nothing being produced in the household. Children became a huge expense rather than an economic necessity. The birth rate continued to drop.  Eventually it became more economical for women to get a job and buy the things they needed rather than produce them themselves at home.

The decline in the economic value of children had far-reaching repercussions. If marriage was a contract to protect women in their child bearing capacity, and children no longer have any economically value, men can no longer be forced to make a legal vow to care for a woman for the rest of her life in exchange for her sexual products. And if marriage is no longer economically valuable there was no longer a need for traditional sexual morality.

Often people thought that traditional sexual morality and the sexual double standard came about because men wanted to be sure that their wives’ children were their own. No doubt concerns about paternity play a part in this. But I think the sexual double standard is due more to the truth of the old adage, “No one buys a cow when he can get the milk for free.” Although the woman’s productive contribution within the marriage would at least equal, and
arguably even exceed, that of her husband, traditional marriage requires an
upfront transfer or commitment of resources from the man to the woman.

But how to get the man to make that commitment? The problem that women faced in the past was that if any one held out for marriage before she gave him her services, all other things being equal, the man’s first impulse would be to go looking for another, more obliging, woman.  So in order for societies to survive, in this kind of world all women needed to all agree that no woman would give away her sexual services without marriage.  I call this a ‘sexual cartel’. Women who chiseled on the cartel were sanctioned and severely marginalized, and sometimes even executed.

So in the 60s, with children no longer economically important, traditional sexual morality broke down, and the sexual revolution began. In the sixties, public opinion polls showed this huge decline in the number of people who thought that ‘pre-marital sex’ was always wrong, and among the young, behavior followed suit. Men have never had a problem with sex outside of marriage, in large part b/c the traditional sexual double standard always allowed, even expected them, to have it. But in the sixties, large numbers of young women were in a position to consider this for the first time.

With the movement of production out of the household, sexual complementarity was no longer necessary, and in fact committed relationships became very costly. In many ways, we just don’t need each other anymore. Today, we can have a perfectly comfortable life without another person involved.  If you are cold, you don’t need children to gather firewood, a man to chop it, or a wife to tend the fire. You just move a little switch on the wall, and you are comfortable again.

In fact, having another person around may add to our domestic burden rather than alleviate it. Women ask themselves if they really want a live-in man who can’t pick up his own socks. Men ask if they really want to give up half their toys to support a wife and children.

In addition, people today have two careers to accommodate. A committed relationship may require relocation, which one of the partners might not be willing or able to undertake. Busy with their work, modern couples may not be able to spend much time together. That research on sex on campus found that college students in relationships felt that they took too much time, time they didn’t have.

Now, in the 21^st century, this ability to live completely independent of another person means that the only thing men and women seem to need each other for is sex – and with Internet porn, maybe not even for that. Hook up culture is the result: sex without any relationship at all.

Pre-forum Publicity

Is Paradise Lost? In Search of Sexual Commitment

This is the text of the talk I gave at the Johns Hopkins Veritas Forum, Baltimore, Maryland, October 19, 2011.

The forum was a panel discussion featuring myself and Dr. Christopher Ryan.
Dr. Ryan has published a book, Sex at Dawn, arguing that monogamy is not ‘natural’ and just doesn’t work. He represented the ‘naturalistic’ or evolutionary approach to understanding human sexuality. I represented the
socioeconomic and Christian approaches to understanding modern problems with sexual relationships.

We each answered three questions. Today I am posting my answer to the first question.

Christopher Ryan, moderator Carsten Vala, and Carrie Miles at the JH Veritas Forum

1. What is the problem with modern relationships?

Finding happiness in sexual relationships has never been guaranteed in any place or time, but I think it is a particularly serious problem for the current generation of young adults, and will continue to be a problem in the future.

One way to think about the problems with modern relationships is in terms of the collapse of community that was the result of the Industrial Revolution.

Unlike earlier generations, young people today face a vast cultural divide when it comes to sex. On one extreme is popular culture, which on college campuses takes the form of what is known as hookup culture. At the other extreme is the
conservative religious reaction to the sexual revolution, which I’m calling the
religious purity movement.

And in the middle, there is nothing.

Which means that if you don’t want to participate in either of these two extremes, there is no place else to go, and no one else there should you get there. The moderate institutions that should be helping single people just don’t know what to say or do for them. Ironically, a large majority of college students today themselves say they prefer a middle ground between these two poles. The new ‘silent majority’ tell researchers that despite the casual insouciance of hookup culture, they really do want meaning in their relationships. But because there is no ‘culture’ or community to support them, they can’t admit it. And if there is no community to support people who want a relationship, how do you meet someone to have a relationship with?

From both a Christian and socioeconomic standpoint, having a real, loving, committed relationship today requires us to purposefully choose values and behaviors that are quite at odds from where the world is pushing us.

Let’s explore a little further the kind of relationships on either side of this divide.

The most common, at least in the popular media, is ‘hooking up’, or casual, relationship-free sex. Hooking up is actually just the college version of where the current socioeconomic forces are driving us as a culture, that is, what I would consider ‘natural’ now. Hooking up is when singles meet at parties, usually with lots of alcohol involved, and then pairing off to have some kind of sexual contact. What is done on a hook up is left purposefully vague, but it can mean kissing or making out, (with or without clothes on), sexual touching, oral sex, or intercourse.

There has been a flurry of research on hooking up in the last few years, and the findings suggest much of what college students think they know about who is doing what is wrong. While hooking up appears to be total freedom and empowerment, these studies show that hook up culture is actually controlling (lots of gossip), contradictory, and kind of crazy-making. Furthermore, the studies uncovered a lot of feelings that people don’t feel safe admitting to their friends: many of the people who hook up actually don’t like it. Lisa Wade’s in-depth study (although with a small sample size) of first year students found that only about 11% of the people who hooked up were really happy with it. 50 % were ambivalent, some having endured some very bad experiences, and about 38% (24% in Donna Freitas’ larger sample) didn’t participate at all. Wade notes that these students still want to have sex, but they are not willing to accept having it under the emotional disconnection of ‘hooking up.’

An example of the kind of dirty secrets being exposed about hooking up: “In public, women maintain a lax attitude about no-strings-attached hookups, but in private, they express ambivalence and even dismay that they allow themselves to be pressured into sexual behaviors that often make them feel used and unhappy” (Freitas, p.99).  Women in particular go along with
doing things they really don’t want to do because they are hoping it will lead
to a real relationship. Unfortunately, while hooking up may lead to a string of
hook ups with the same partner, apparently it rarely leads to a real relationship.

But as Lisa Wade argues, the real problem is not so much hook up behavior, as it is that the culture dominates campus life. There is no alternative, no place else to go to meet people who are interested in something else, at least not among the undergraduates. Hook up culture allows no vision for romance. As Freitas poignantly writes, the most romantic advice book available to singles in hook up culture is Greg Behrendt’s, He’s Just Not That into You.

At the other extreme is the purity movement. Purity culture is usually thought of as the Christian response. This is inaccurate in two ways, however. First, the purity movement can be found not just among Christians but also in the Jewish and Muslim communities.

In many ways, the purity movements are a reaction to the sexual revolution, i.e., many in these groups actually became more conservative than they were before the new sexual norms. I first became aware of this about 15 years ago when my son brought home a book called, I Kissed Dating Goodbye,
by Joshua Harris. Part of it are programs like the ‘Silver Ring Thing,’ in
which fathers give their teenage daughters rings, which the girls wear until
they are married and then present to their husbands as a symbol of their purity.

‘True Love Waits’ is another one. Conferences in which young people take
abstinence pledges became popular. But the purity movement is not just about
waiting until marriage for sex. To be ‘pure’, singles are not supposed to date
or go out with a variety of people, but are supposed to ‘court.’ In courtship,
a young woman waits passively for a man to decide he was interested in marrying her. Ideally, he then asks her father’s permission for a chaste courtship, with marriage as the ultimate goal. The ideal is that the first kiss would be at the marriage altar, or at least, not until engagement.

Purity culture is the norm in some religious colleges, in conservative congregations, and among some of home-schooling groups, but this kind of culture is unrealistic for most people. It only works if you live in a very restricted environment – a community — in which everyone shares the same viewpoint and you can get married relatively young. It makes men and women see each other as a source of temptation and afraid of each other. There are lots of regulation and judgment and policing of each other’s behavior and dress. The sense of guilt that results if an individual is unable to follow the rules alienates him or her from God.

Now the purity culture movement is not nearly as widespread as hooking up. Freitas reports that students on secular college campuses had not even heard of it. But as far as I know, this is the only perspective on sex that is being offered by religion right now. The liberal churches have little to say, except to tell you to do what seems right to you, which is often no help at all. No community.

The second problem with the popular perception of the purity movement as the Christian teachings on sexuality is that the purity movement is one expression of modern cultural Christianity, but is at odds in many ways with primitive or biblical Christianity. In the Song of Solomon, a lovely erotic love poem found in the Old Testament, the female character does not wait passively for a man to notice and court her, but initiates the relationship. She makes her own decision about commitment — her father is not mentioned at all, let alone asked for permission. Similarly, the notion of male authority over women – the father over the daughter until she marries, when she is transferred to the authority of her husband – is not biblical.

Further, the restricted interactions, suspicions between the sexes, and
judgments typical of purity movement are contrary to Jesus’s and Paul’s
examples encouraging men and women to work and socialize together without
sexual thoughts interfering. Jesus also refused to let women be confined to the
narrow social confines of gendered expectation, and spoke freely with
prostitutes and other women whose sexually behavior was very suspect. He was opposed to defining a woman’s worth solely in terms of her sexual ‘purity’ to the exclusion of all other qualities.

But I think the real problem with restoring a biblical model of relationships is
that the more moderate Christian communities also think, or are afraid, that
the purity-extreme beliefs are biblical Christianity, too. That’s why they
aren’t saying anything.

In Search of the Lost Middle

Let’s explore that problem, of the middle shying away from the Bible because of a fear that it does teach the repression of women. The bad news first: As we
begin, we have to recognize that people read the Bible through the eyes of
their own culture, and their own assumption. They translate it through those
eyes, too. Virtually all biblical translations are horribly biased against
women.

So don’t try this at home. (My book, The Redemption of Love, presents a more accurate picture of what the Bible is really saying about sex and gender.)

The good news: The biblical portrayal of sexuality and gender is not about rules, condemnation, judgement, or repression. It is about what is possible for us, about what God intended for us to be to each other when he made our created us as sexual beings.

When Jesus was asked about how the husbands and wives of his day should be interacting, he told his questioners that the way men and women were interacting in his day did not reflect God’s will. Instead, Jesus said, look at God’s intent in Creation.

Since the other speaker on this panel is talking about evolution, I need to say that I’m not going to get into that whole evolution versus creationism argument. The Bible is not a biology textbook but is a spiritual tool intended to teach us about what we can be in our relationship with God and with each other.  If you don’t believe in a seven-day creation, that’s okay, because the Creation accounts are still profoundly meaningful. They aren’t just entertaining ‘just so’ stories but convey a religious truth about human nature, our relationship with God, and our relationship with each other.

The Creation narrative has been badly abused in the battle over gender, but if you read it carefully, you see that:

God created man and woman as equals, with both given dominion over earth and the blessing of children. This may not mean much in the U.S., but in much of Africa, the idea that the earth and one’s children belong to the woman as much as the man is a liberating idea. (Come to think of it, these were radical and liberating ideas in the U.S. not that long ago.)

The Creation account explicitly disallows patriarchy, or the male dominance of women. Couples put each other as first priority before material concerns or before loyalties to one’s family or inheritance prospects.

The ideal relationship is that two people become one flesh, naked and unashamed. This is a relationship of honesty, openness, fearlessness, transparency, sharing, and trust. There are no games, no hiding in shame in the ideal relationship.

Such a relationship is not natural – but it is our heart’s desire.

Coming soon: the next two questions: ’What is the root Cause of problems in modern relationships?” and “What is the way forward?”

We had a great session on Saturday at Pastor innocent’s church. We had over 50
people. Some of them had been to Kigali both for the class last year and the master class with Sarah and David.

Saturday we focused on reviewing what we learned in the two times we were with them in Kigali. I got many testimonies that I will share later but they were
very exciting!

It is gratifying to know that Empower is not just affecting cities
but that the people we train actually take the message to the countryside and
actually apply it!

Some men who were acting very African have changed their life style. One man, Celeste, who thought his wife was second class, has changed drastically and now regards his wife a a gift from God and treats her with respect.
We had to make the Pastor’s wife sit on pulpit as she was seated in the middle
of the congregation. Phobice went and picked her when I asked her to come and
join her husband on pulpit…and every one cheered and clapped! It was fun!

We appreciate Jackline, who came from Kigali to translate for us as Francis became so busy and could not make it however hard he tried. Jackline was translating for Sarah and David in July and was a great fun to work with.

Ruhengeri is about 2 hours from Kigali towards the Volcanic mountains that border Uganda and Congo then off about 30 km inside above a beautiful lake that resembles Bunyonyi. The church is on a hill above the lake…just as it could be built on Accadia above lake Bunyonyi. The car did just fine, through Kosoro via around the spectacular volcanic Muhabura mountains that have mountain gorillas to Ruhengeri town then to Ryandinzi village where we had great Empower time!

More to come.

Frank

(the photo of the cranes in the top banner was taken in Frank and Phobice’s front yard)

• October 19 Is Paradise Lost? In Search of Sexual Commitment
• October 20 Redeeming Love in Africa: Transforming the Economics of Gender Relations
• October 20 Empower/Veritas Fundraiser

This past week has been an exciting time of answered prayers and progress towards the October 19th forum on sexual commitment, covering the brokenness of modern relationships and the redemption Christ offers in contrast with pragmatic naturalism.

In the past two weeks we praise the Lord for:

• The financial provision of over $2000 in donations and $1750 in grants. God provides!
• Favor with the Inter-Faith Council’s office, and a mutually agreeable arrangement.
• The return of some veteran team members who have lightened the work load.
• The completed design of posters, flyers and banner for both the undergraduate and medical campuses.
• New partnerships with Central Presbyterian Church, Faith Christian Fellowship and the University Baptist Church
• Deepening alliance with Graduate Christian Fellowship, Reformed University Fellowship, Public Health Christian Fellowship, International Fellowship
• Ravi Zacharias accepted our invitation for 2013 fall Veritas Forum

Please pray for:

Complete financial provision

• We have about $2000 left to raise for the fall Forum.
• The Student Activities Commission makes its decision this Wednesday 9/21 on our application for $1000 Student Life Programming Grant.
• The School of Public Health grant award decision at the end of September.

Partnerships

• We are looking to build long-term relationships with local churches, student ministries and alumni that will survive the turn-over of graduating students.
• Pray for advisers and mentors who can be involved in development of the team.
• For Christian professors to pray for and publicly support the forum.
• For a joint fundraiser between the Veritas Forum and Empower International Ministries (our speaker’s ministry in Africa)
• For the follow-up events in partnership with the Reformed University Fellowship and others.

Our Audience

• That Christian students, faculty and employees on campus would invite their non-Christian friends to the forum
• That God would be preparing hearts of the students, faculty, staff, and community members of Johns Hopkins to be open to hearing the message and be drawn to Christ.
• That those who come would get connected with Christians who will follow up to further discuss the ideas presented.

Our speakers

• That they would clearly articulate their positions (Christian and Naturalist)
• That Christ would make the power of the Gospel clear through Dr. Carrie Miles’ words.
• That Dr. Christopher Ryan would be respectfully welcomed.

Our team

• For the surrendering of our ambitions for the event, and the transformation of our hearts so that we think, care, and love like Christ. We want to see Christ glorified.
• For the unity of the team, flowing from Christ as the focal point.
• For personal closeness to Christ, rest, and strength for the team members, who are making sacrifices to make the Veritas Forum a reality.

Thank you again for praying with us that Christ would be glorified, and that the Kingdom of heaven would be advanced one person at a time in on our campus, community, and the world.

In His Grip,

Gary Belvin

The Veritas Forum at Johns Hopkins University
www.veritas.org/jhu
410-701-0275
To make a tax-deductible contribution:
https://rally.org/jhuveritas/donate

When his second book, Stones into Schools,  came out, the review I read said that this book was less suspense (“will they get the school built or not?”) and more about the culture. I eagerly tracked down a copy. Once again I was disappointed. I never found much anything about culture. Worse, I did not buy the descriptions of men on horseback sweeping dramatically across the plains in order to persuade Mortenson to build a school for their girls. Maybe I was too prejudiced by Ann Jones’ description of the Afghani male attitude toward girls in her book Kabul in Winter,  but I just didn’t believe Mortenson’s description of heroic men “passionate about the education of girls.”

Things made sense with the April 2011 expose of Mortenson on 60 Minutes(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/15/60minutes/main20054397.shtml), followed by Jon Krakauer’s monograph. These reports revealed that Mortenson (or his co-author) had simply made up much of his dramatic story. If it is hard for me to compete with action-packed memoir, it would be even harder to compete with fiction.

It is encouraging that so many people were so excited about Mortenson’s charity to benefit girls, even if they were lured in by misleading stories. But as I write my most stories about the impact of agape love in Africa, I know that, as profoundly compelling as they are, I can never generate this kind of excitement. Empower has a thin market. That’s just a fact of life.

Lance Patterson

I wanted to share something with you about the modern twist of  relationships.  For the past couple of weeks I have been researching the idea of online based relationships, and I must say that I have been  getting some mixed messages that make me feel more ambivalent than  before.  About a week ago, I spoke with a matchmaking representative  about who they are and what they are about. Today, I went in for a one  on one interview with their relationship representative.  I was shown a  video and found out that they interview potential candidates and screen  them to insure that they are who they say they are and then offer like  three types of memberships, each with their specific advantages and  disadvantages.  I then got to peruse several profiles of women who could be a potential match, and then I was asked if I would like to get  started by putting down an exorbitant amount of money.  I was also told  that about 70% of their clientele was female, while the other was 30%  male.

I must admit that some of the profiles I perused through  contained photos of some attractive women, either never married or  divorced.  I was sort of tempted to accept the offer, but I declined  with difficulty due to the exorbitant fees as well as feeling a sort of  shame and embarrassment.  I felt like I was at an auction or grocery  store, picking and choosing these girls before I have met them.  I felt  that relationships have been reduced to a commodity that can be bought  at moderate to expensive price.  I also pondered why does 70% percent of their clients consist of women who either Christian or spiritual.  The week before when I spoke with the representative, I was told that I believe in traditional way of dating, and that it is outmoded.  I am  left with the question of what are we to make of dating and  relationships.I am a 30 year old male, and I have not been a  relationship or dated any girl for about 3 years now.  Despite my  cravings for wanting to be in a relationship, I was told by the  representative after I had declined “Where are you going to find someone to date?”  A question meant to draw insecurity and lead me back to  accepting the offer.  I replied candidly that I will find a way and  there will always be opportunities.  I do have some networks and a  majority are married, there is church, and I am not comfortable with the bar scene, nor would I resort to such a dismal context.

But in this  postmodern world, the idea, initiation, and function of relationships  appears to be in a state of flux.  I suppose that I am lonely for I have not developed my networks fully and need to give it some time.  I find  particularly that the non-denominational churches, whether small or  mega, cater to young adult culture, but teach a cultural Christianity  that does not fully incorporate the transformative and transcending  message of Christ, evoked by writers such as the works and writings of Dr. Carrie Miles, as well as Jewish  author and feminist, Wendy Shalit.  So I am wondering if the problem is  me, and am I just too introverted and unwilling to explore the party  scene, or it is the unstable cultural climate that I live in, or both.   How do we transcend the brokeness of the reality in which we live, we  can’t escape nor rationalize our way out of it.  This question continues to elude us.  I felt shame and embarrassed for I felt divided on  whether I am trusting and being proactive in the providence of Christ, or whether I would  employ and be proactive with the opportunities of the matchmaking  organization to increase my opportunities for dating and social  networking.  In the end, I feel ambivalent and confused, but I do  not want to remain that way.

The Song of Songs has long puzzled students of the scriptures, who wonder  how this frankly sensual poem “got into” the Bible.  Many scholars, Hebrew and Christian, have been embarrassed or puzzled by the Song. “Certain that it cannot possibly mean what it says literally”, many rabbis and Christian theologians tried to ‘spiritualize’ it, i.e., to understand it as an allegory for the love of God for Israel or of Christ for the Church  (Paul Brians, http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/love-in-the-arts/songofsongs.html). If you ever sang a camp song, ‘His banner over me is love’, you have been part of this attempt to make the Song about God’s, rather than human, love:

‘I’m my beloved’s and he is mine – his banner over me is love,’

‘He sits me at his banqueting table – the banner of the Lord is love.’

These are phrases from the Song of Songs.

But as you read the Song itself, you will find it difficult to understand how it can be only about God’s love for his people. It is just too sensual. For example, in all my years at camp, we never sang another of the Song’s phrases, ‘Your breasts are like two fawns that are twins– his banner over me is love.’ Nevertheless, only in the last several decades has scholars been willing to consider that the Song is about human, not divine, love.

I wrote extensively about the Song of Songs in my book, The Redemption of Love, arguing that the Song is a biblical template for how man and woman can live God’s ideal for marriage in the fallen world. I wrote Redemption of Love before I went to Africa for the first time, however.

Coming back to the Song after my seventh African trip, I now understand why it was so difficult for ancient scholars to appreciate the Song’s human sensuality. In Africa today, as was true in most of human history, traditional marriage was not about love, romance, or even sexual attraction. Rather, it was an economic exchange arranged by families, to further the families’ own goals, and with little regard for the feelings or opinions of the bride and groom. A wife owes her husband children, food, and sex; a man owes his wife land to farm, cows to milk, and protection. Neither dreams that it could be about companionship, romance, or, in rural areas, even walking down the street together. If a man has a problem, he goes to a brother or uncle, not his wife. In fact, in Africa, if a man is ‘too kind’ to his wife, and travels about with her, his family thinks she has had him bewitched!

Only with the Industrial Revolution, dated to about 200 years ago, did people have the luxury of thinking of marriage in a different way. This change is evident  in Jane Austin novels, written at about this period, which explore the question of,  ‘Do you marry for love or money?’

My big insight in coming back to the Song after what I have learned in Africa is that these scholars could not understand that the Song of Songs was about human love and marriage, because marriage as they experienced it was nothing like that celebrated in the Song of Songs.

The Song describes a relationship that starts with sexual attraction. It charts our course through romantic longing and the joys of sexual fulfillment. It warns of the dangers but also of the great power of compassionate, agape love, and leaves us at a place that, in the last few chapters of the Song, still bring me to tears after over a decade of working with it.

 Unfortunately, while today we recognize the Song’s romance and sensuality, the ancient language often makes it difficult to fully appreciate the Song’s power – its message for how to love in a world that (once again) fights against love. For example, it repeats the compliment, “Your hair is like a flock of goats.” Huh?  To fully appreciate the Song, I suggest you get a copy of The Redemption of Love, and read chapter six aloud with your Beloved. I promise you will enjoy it.

Carrie Miles

I am speaking at a Veritas Forum at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD) on October 19, and the next day at the School of Public Health. The announcements are below (titles subject to change). I don’t know the times but the Forum will be in the evening and the lecture in the afternoon.

Sexuality and Relationships
The Veritas Forum at Johns Hopkins
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
http://on.fb.me/VeritasFall11

Dr. Miles will be discussing perspectives on the problem with modern relationships, their cause and the way forward with Christopher Ryan, PhD, the secular author of Sex at Dawn.

For more information, contact:

Veritas Forum at Johns Hopkins
Megan Augustine maugust7@jhu.edu
John Matsui jmatsui1@jhu.edu

Redeeming Love in Africa                                                                             Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Thursday, October 20, 2011
http://on.fb.me/JHU_PHCF

The Public Health Christian Fellowship has invited Dr. Miles to present the impact of her work in Africa promoting gender equality and unity in marriage through Empower International Ministries.

Both the Veritas Forum at Hopkins and PHCF are completely volunteer-run by undergrads, graduate students, alumni and ministry leaders in Baltimore who are committed to sharing Christ with the students and faculty at Johns Hopkins University.  If you are interested in supporting us through prayer, outreach, recruiting, planning, publicity, fund-raising or advising please contact:

JHU Public Health Christian
Fellowship

Sherlly Xie lxie@jhsph.edu

If you would
like to support us with a tax-deductible donation:

Bit.ly/donateVeritasJHU

Finn reports statistics that in any given month, a healthy couple has a 20-25% chance of conceiving naturally when the woman is in her 20s; 10 – 15% in her 30s; and 5% in her 40s.

Obviously, Finn kicks herself and fate for her waiting so long to find the right man to have children with. It wasn’t for lack of trying, and she always wanted children. She still hasn’t found him, finally decided to go it alone. But that’s not what I’m writing about. The part of Finn’s article that struck me was what she said about the reaction of her then-new boyfriend last January. As she planned another round of IVF using donor sperm, the boyfriend said he would like to ‘be involved’, i.e., be the father. But, as Finn writes, ‘The day before my flight to the fertility clinic…, I returned from an ultrasound to an empty house, no note. Later, X (the boyfriend) told me that he wanted four kids and thought I’d only be able to give him one or two.’

How many young women out there are wasting their time with men who aren’t ready to have children, aren’t remotely interested in having children yet, only to find that when they are ready, the men want those children with someone ‘who can give him 4′ (code for, someone who is much younger)? I’d like to see the statistics on that.

I labeled this post “Infertility and the sexual cartel’ in reference to something I wrote about in my book, The Redemption of Love.
By sexual cartel, I refer to what used to be an invisible but universal agreement in virtually every society that women and girls would not give a man sex until he married her. Obviously, the women and girls did not hold a convention and take this pledge, but over time societies create an elaborate system of norms, prohibitions, and punishments that work to this effect. This is the ‘why buy a cow when you can get the milk free?’ mentality, which people laugh at now — but which, on a societal level, proved to be a valid warning. As some single woman whose blogs turned into a book contract (can’t remember her name at the moment) wrote, holding out for a commitment is next to impossible today because ‘it’s a virtual diary aisle out there’. Everyone is giving milk away free, and any woman who wants to wait for marriage is in a very non-competitive position. When word gets out on a college campus that ‘so-and-so doesn’t have sex,’ she becomes everyone’s buddy and no one’s girlfriend.

While ‘holding out’ to force a commitment is hardly a morality based on religious ethics, which I think has a much different motivation, the old sexual cartel afforded a level of protection and choice that young women simply do not have today.

I’d love to hear what you think, and about your experiences.