{"id":122,"date":"2007-11-10T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-10T01:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/11\/another-look-at-what-god-wants.html"},"modified":"2007-11-10T01:01:01","modified_gmt":"2007-11-10T01:01:01","slug":"another-look-at-what-god-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/11\/another-look-at-what-god-wants.html","title":{"rendered":"Another Look at What God Wants"},"content":{"rendered":"

The views of humanity on so many things have been impacted by our ideas about God and about God\u2019s desires that it\u2019s hard to decide what other areas of life interaction to include on this list. The truth is, this exploration could take up an entire book. We\u2019re not going to be that expansive. We\u2019ll limit our survey to these subjects today: Male and Female, Marriage, Sex, Homosexuality.
\nLet\u2019s take a look at what our ancestors and our contemporary teachers have told us about these things. Let\u2019s see What God Wants<\/em>.
\nMALE and FEMALE
\nMany humans have been told that What God Wants is for humanity to understand that God is male. The result is that most people who believe in a deity at all hold this to be true. The idea that God is masculine is so pervasive that it\u2019s shocking to the ear to hear God referred to as \u201cShe.\u201d
\n= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
\nNOTE: Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Openings.<\/em>
\nThis week’s prose…the second in a continuing series of excerpts from What God Wants<\/em>…
\n= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
\nMany humans have also been told that God wants men and women to have particular roles and to be treated in particular ways in life, and that He has specified all of this in Holy Scripture.
\nOne result of this teaching: Males are considered superior to females in nearly all of the world\u2019s cultures. In some of those cultures this manifests as cultural norms that do not allow females to go to school, to hold jobs of authority or responsibility, to leave the home without being in the company of a blood male relative, or to permit any part of their body to be seen in public, requiring them to be covered from head to toe.
\nA woman\u2019s testimony at Court is worth half of that of a man\u2019s\u2014meaning that it requires two female witnesses to meet the test of adequate proof. A woman\u2019s testimony regarding a husband\u2019s beatings, cruelty, or infidelity will go ignored unless she can produce a corroborating witness, whereas a man can send his wife to death by stoning by simply stating that she committed adultery. His singular assertion is sufficient.
\nA woman\u2019s share of any inheritance is also accepted as being half of that of her brother. The logic behind this is that a man is financially responsible for his family, while a woman is not. This is the identical logic that, in other cultures, blocks women from earning the same pay as men for doing the same work. The fact that a man may remain unmarried all his life and wind up not having a family, or that many women become widows, or that women would not and should not have to concede this role to a man if she were treated equally, is, of course, ignored by this logic.
\nIn some male-dominant cultures female\u2019s genitals are mutilated, cut and sewn, in order to deprive them of sexual pleasure and thus reduce the temptation they may feel to engage in sexual encounters other than those demanded by their husbands. In some cases this is seen as a rite of passage rendering female children desirable, suitable, and worthy marriage material.
\nOther cultural norms reflecting extreme bias against females include…<\/p>\n


\n…the custom of blocking women from becoming clergy in many religions or rising to power and authority in any civil, legal, or business enterprise, or holding any major leadership position in politics or government.
\nA handful of women in some cultures have overcome these customs (in many cultures they are still not allowed to even try), but always it\u2019s a struggle, always it\u2019s the notable exception, always it\u2019s a steep uphill climb to be accepted in most high profile occupations or powerful or influential roles within the global society.
\nKatrina Brooks, of Rome, Georgia, U.S.A., knows all about that. According to an account written by Louise Chu for The Associated Press on September 25, 2004, Katrina is a member of the Southern Baptist Church who felt a calling and wanted to become a minister. She enrolled in the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Virginia, then found a church that would accept both her and her husband, Dr. Tony Brooks, who was already ordained, as co-pastors. North Rome Baptist Church in Rome, Georgia invited the couple to lead its congregation in November of 2003.
\nNot everyone was pleased.
\nA revision of the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000 takes a hard line on female pastors, the AP\u2019s Louise Chu reports. The denomination\u2019s chief doctrinal statement says that \u201cthe office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture,\u201d citing the Bible at 1 Timothy 2:11-14. That passage reads, \u201cLet a woman learn in silence in all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.\u201d <\/strong>
\nTwo weeks after Katrina and her husband arrived at their new church several of her fellow clergy (all men) called meetings of the Floyd County Baptist Association to discuss the matter. They wanted the association to adopt a position that would, in effect, force the Rome church to leave the association.
\nThis difference in the treatment of the genders is, many of the world\u2019s people believe, What God Wants. After all, the Bible says so. And so do the Scriptures of other religions.
\nMARRIAGE
\nMany humans have been told that What God Wants is for marriage to be an everlasting union between a man and a woman, for better or for worse, for the purpose of propagating the species and maintaining a civil society organized into family units, which supports God\u2019s agenda for humanity.
\nOne result of this teaching: In most religious cultures ending a marriage for whatever reason, including mental or physical cruelty, is deeply discouraged, and one major religion tells its followers that they may never divorce, may never remarry in the church nor receive the church\u2019s sacraments if they do divorce, and may never marry another person who has been divorced.
\nIn many places and cultures marriage rules are established by religion, then become civil law, limiting and constricting the behavior of marriage partners\u2014and those limits remain in place for life. Chief among those limits is what humans call \u201cfidelity.\u201d Human beings living in marriage must remain faithful to each other. That is, they may not have sexual experiences with anyone else for the rest of their lives\u2014not as a matter of personal devotion or sacred agreement, but as a matter of civil law.
\nThis should not be surprising, since, as has just been noted, prohibitions against many kinds of private sexual activity have been placed in the common culture by religions. According to their accounts of What God Wants, human beings may not have sex with anyone outside of marriage, with anyone prior to marriage, and, therefore, should they never marry, at no time during their entire lives.
\nThis is the expectation, and humans are told that the breaking of this taboo can lead to severe punishments, from God and from the social environment.
\nAs a result, marriage is entered into by many young people around the world who are neither ready for such a commitment nor sufficiently mature for the responsibilities attached to it, but who are unwilling to endure any longer the prohibition against sexual experience.
\nThe idea of male supremacy, drawn from the concept of God as male, has a major effect in many marriage scenarios. In some cultures marriage is considered a form of ownership and servitude, with the woman being the owned object\u2014actually paid for with a dowry\u2014and the male being the person served. Even in cultures with less extreme views a wife is expected to be \u201cobedient\u201d to her husband, and to be subservient to him in every way. The man is \u201cthe head of the household.\u201d
\nThis is, many people believe, What God Wants<\/em>.
\nSEX
\nMany humans have been told that What God Wants is for sexual union to be experienced only with one\u2019s spouse for the purposes of procreation and the expression of love.
\nOne result of this teaching: Millions of people believe that sex may absolutely never be experienced in any way that deliberately prevents conception, and that while sex is wonderful, to experience sex simply for pleasure with no possibility of procreation is against the will of God and, therefore, \u201cunnatural,\u201d immoral, shameful and a giving in to baser instincts.
\nAs with the combining of fear and love in the earlier understanding of God, the combining of pleasure and shame in this construction has produced chronic emotional confusion: wonder, excitement and passion, yet embarrassment, fear and guilt about sexual desires and experiences.
\nIn most cultures the sexual parts of human bodies may not be referred to by name. The words vagina and penis are not to be used in public (except as absolutely necessary in a purely clinical setting), and never with small children. The words wee-wee, pee-pee, or bottom may be used freely. In short, the human culture agrees that the actual names of certain body parts are shameful and embarrassing and are to be avoided whenever possible.
\nAgain, you may believe that the above assertion is a bit of an exaggeration. I assure you it is not. Internationally known columnist Molly Ivins reports in the September\/October 2004 issue of Mother Jones magazine that Advocates for Youth, a group working for comprehensive sex education, had its funding for AIDS prevention yanked by the Center for Disease Control, a U.S. government agency, because \u201cyoung people [in the project\u2019s video] used the correct terminology for male and female anatomy.\u201d That, said James Wagoner, head of Advocates for Youth, \u201cis absurd. What is the president going to do? Issue an executive order that every man, woman, and child should refer to the penis as a dingaling?\u201d
\nAnd, of course, if one cannot speak of certain body parts, one certainly cannot show them. Not even, apparently, to oneself. Yet another exaggeration? I\u2019m sorry to say, no. So puritanical is the viewpoint on all of this in many places that the following letter could actually appear, without anyone blinking an eye, in over 300 newspapers in the United States on September 25, 2004 in an advice column:<\/p>\n

\nDear Abby: I went to wake up my 14-year-old daughter today and discovered her sleeping in the nude. Apparently she has been doing it for some time.
\nNormally she is good about getting up and I haven\u2019t needed to enter her room to awaken her. When I asked her why she does it, she said it\u2019s more comfortable and she sleeps better.
\nWhen I told her I was not comfortable with it, she asked me why, and frankly I could not come up with a good reason other than it seemed \u201cwrong,\u201d and fear about what would happen in an earthquake or fire. She questioned how it could be wrong if no one knows\u2014unless they walk into her room without knocking (as I did).
\nShe keeps a long robe next to the bed so she can put it on in case of emergency. (Indeed, she walks around the house in that robe, and I thought she had a nightgown underneath, when in fact she has been naked underneath since Christmas.)
\nI am still not comfortable with it, but we agreed to abide by your advice. Is it OK for her to sleep in the nude, and why\u2014or why not?
\n–Worried Mom in San Leandro.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The columnist wrote back that there was \u201cnothing inherently wrong\u201d with sleeping in the nude. \u201cLook at the bright side,\u201d she advised the mother. \u201cIt makes for less laundry.\u201d
\nAs this parent\u2019s letter makes clear, many humans feel that certain body parts must be covered and hidden, having been deemed too arousing or too shameful, or both. For those parts not to be covered is incorrect and unacceptable. Indeed, in many places it\u2019s actually illegal, with punishments in civil law for those who fail to obey.
\nMany people believe that sex experienced in certain ways, even between husband and wife, is \u201cunnatural\u201d and therefore immoral. And again, in many times and places, some experiences, although between consenting adults, have actually been made illegal. Those who wrote such legislation said that they understand that God does not want certain sexual experiences to occur. God sends people to hell for this.
\nHumans also believe that intensely graphic depictions of sexual activity in photographs, drawings, comic books, video games, television and motion pictures are distasteful, repugnant, disgusting and unacceptable. Intensely graphic depictions of extreme physical violence and killing are, however, entirely acceptable.
\nMillions of humans believe that sexual energy and spiritual energy do not mix. They have been told that sexual energy is a \u201clower chakra\u201d energy, and that sexual activity and spiritual clarity essentially oppose each other. Persons seeking to achieve spiritual mastery are therefore advised against engaging in sexual experiences. Some are actually required to remain abstinent.
\nThis is, many of the world\u2019s people believe, What God Wants.<\/em>
\nHOMOSEXUALITY
\nMany humans have been told that What God Wants is for sex to be experienced between a male and a female only, and for same-gender sexual interaction to be considered an abomination.
\nOne result of this teaching: Humans for whom same-gender sexual attraction feels most natural have been denounced, vilified, condemned, ostracized, isolated, assaulted, and killed by people who believe they are doing God\u2019s will.
\nThe sad account of the killing of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming offers us a now-famous case in point. Shepard, an openly gay freshman at the University of Wyoming, was dragged out of a bar in Laramie by two young men, driven to a deserted road outside of town, tied to a cow fence and beaten so severely that he lapsed into a coma and died five days later.
\nHis youthful assailants were apprehended and sentenced to life in prison, but the Reverend Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas was not inclined to let the matter rest there. Every year for the five years following Matthew\u2019s brutal beating and death this Christian minister has traveled to Laramie, as well as to Casper, Wyoming, Matthew\u2019s birth place, to \u201ccelebrate\u201d his death. And, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times by reporter David Kelly, on October 12, 2003 Reverend Phelps brought with him to Casper a granite monument engraved with Matthew\u2019s face, followed by these words chiseled in stone:<\/p>\n

\u201cMatthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998 at age 21 In Defiance of God\u2019s Warning: \u2018Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.\u2019 Leviticus 18:32.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was the Reverend Phelps who also attended Matthew Shepard\u2019s funeral and, as the young man\u2019s parents, family, and friends stood in mourning, screamed: \u201cGod hates fags!\u201d
\nWith this level of clarity as to the Divine Intention and Desire, entire countries have been forced under power of governmental authority and rule of law to obey God\u2019s Will in this matter. In some nations the civil penalty for homosexuality is death\u2014burial under a 12-foot concrete wall. In many places civil law has been created making gay marriage illegal. In the United States the president in 2004 personally campaigned to have his understanding of God\u2019s desires regarding prohibition of gay marriage written into his country\u2019s Constitution.
\nWhile certain sexual feelings may be very natural to the persons feeling them, they are not What God Wants, many people say, and are therefore, by definition, \u201cunnatural.\u201d A report on October 20, 2003 by Chris Zdeb of CanWest News Service in the Calgary Herald in Edmonton, Canada points to the possibility that the exact opposite may be true.
\n\u201cScientists have discovered 54 genes that suggest sexual identity is hard-wired into the brain before birth, and before development of the sex organs,\u201d the journalist reports, and goes on to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings released today by a team of University of California, Los Angeles, researchers could mean that sexuality, including homosexuality and transgender sexuality, are not a choice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nevertheless, the clergy of many of the world\u2019s largest religious denominations continue to assert that God condemns such sexual experiences.
\nReporter Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press reported on October 7, 2004 that the most influential Anglican leader in Africa\u2014home to nearly half the world’s Anglicans\u2014said that the U.S. Episcopal Church has created a “new religion” by confirming a gay bishop in New Hampshire, breaking the bonds between the denominations with roots in the Church of England.
\nArchbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria also said in an exclusive AP interview with Zoll that he views the head of the Episcopal Church as an advocate for gays and lesbians and no longer trusts him. His comments come less than two weeks before an international panel was scheduled to release a critical report on whether the global Anglican Communion can bridge its divide over homosexuality. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of Anglicanism; Akinola leads the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
\n\u201cThe Communion is shattered. It is broken,\u201d Akinola said. “The commonality that bound us together is no longer true.” (More separation in the name of God.)
\nZoll\u2019s report says that Akinola insisted he did not hate gays, despite his fiery comments in the past protesting the growing acceptance of homosexuality. He once called the trend a \u201csatanic attack\u201d on the church. But he said he could not accept attempts to \u201csuperimpose\u201d modern culture on Scripture by ignoring what he said were Biblical injunctions against gay sex.
\n\u201cI didn’t write the Bible. It’s part of our Christian heritage. It tells us what to do,\u201d Akinola said. \u201cIf the word of God says homosexuality is an abomination, then so be it.”
\nThe Zoll story goes on to say that those who support ordaining gays contend Scripture does not ban same-sex relationships, and that there was no understanding in biblical times that homosexuality was, as science is now proving, a natural orientation, not a choice.
\nNevertheless, for many of the world\u2019s people the afterlife consequence of engaging in such unnatural activities is understood to be everlasting damnation and torture in the fires of hell.
\nThis is, those people believe, What God Wants.<\/em>
\n(Next Saturday, more on this topic of what our God wants from all of us here on Earth. Stay tuned.)
\n= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
\nThis week’s gift of poetry<\/em>
\n= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
\nToday, you Beautiful Life
\nyou Bastard Life –
\nyou tore out nearly all
\nof my seams.
\nBut your ardent pursuit
\nof revealing to me
\nmy True Nature,
\nis applauded.
\nWhen I can stand again
\nI will congratulate you properly.
\nJust now I am still getting used to
\nall of the new places
\nwhere life can reach into me.
\nAll of the spaces where
\ngrief & dreams
\nhave tumbled out,
\njust so much fluff and batting
\nhaving concealed
\nyet another
\nchild of god.
\n(Beautiful Life, Bastard Life<\/em> – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved)
\nMore of the work of this new American poet, go to www.mclairepoet.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The views of humanity on so many things have been impacted by our ideas about God and about God\u2019s desires that it\u2019s hard to decide what other areas of life interaction to include on this list. The truth is, this exploration could take up an entire book. We\u2019re not going to be that expansive. 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