Virgin is an airline and Madonna is a pop star...
By Darren Robert Brown
As sheep, which deep down we know we are,
we as humanity have set personalities / idols
before ourselves in an effort to become or adopt
that persona. One of the most damaging has
been the Virgin Mary.
If we are to understand correllations or grasp the
importance of cause and effect over a period as
long as two thousand years, then it is easy to see
how this persona has effected humanity and the
health of the Church.
If we are to believe that we are made in the image
of God, and we understand ourselves to be sexual
beings would not our God be also ? The fact that
a God would choose a woman that would be a
virgin to father his child should not be too surprising
as most men would and have wanted the same. To
exalt this aspect in the story of Christ is to diminish
the humanity of the Son of God, and of his mother,
as it is clear that Mary did not stay a virgin for long
and for nearly thirty years of the life of Christ, was
the same as any other sexually active woman. To
exalt this aspect is to diminish the husband of Mary,
namely Joseph, and to place him almost as a eunuch
in the Story of Christ, which is not the case.
The need for a feminine idol in the Roman empire and
in the inception of the church to replace the pagan fertility
/ agriculture goddess Demeter, could not have found a
more extreme opposite in our exalted view of the virgin
mother. The fact that images of this pagan goddess and
of Mary are quite simular should also be of no surprise.
The effect of this transplanting of idols
was to have huge sway in the church for millenia
to come and to constrain the church from being
able to truly embrace it's own humanity. This was
never the plan of a human messiah, to inhibit the
church from being human or to constrict the church in such
a manner as to make it separate from the majority of humanity
would not be a messianic goal or for that matter the goal of a
loving caring and understanding God of whom we
are made in his image.
It is interesting that much of the earths most erotic writing has
come from men and women of God, particularly when made
to be nuns or priests that have renounced a portion of their
humanity, could God have been trying to tell them something ?
As many other cultures have embraced their sexuality, many
have found the deep spirituality within it, and have succeeded
in trying to bring higher ideals to something that our christian
culture has been trying to repress and inhibit.
Over two thousand years this has had a drastic effect on the
emotional, spiritual and sexual wellbeing of our culture and has
helped to lead to the problem of us having a lack of natural
affection which is spoken of in the Word of God.
The effect upon the lives of women in our culture over the last
two thousand years of this sort of figure head can not be
underestimated. The pressure of conformity to an unrealistic
idol such as Mary has effected much of the issues concerning
women and more to the point how men and the church have
treated women over the centuries.
We are sexual creatures and our spirituality, religions and cultures
should embrace that, or they are not embracing humanity. Like
children being told to not do something often do when mum and
dad are not looking, we have allowed our sexuality to become
cheapened and corrupted, purely via not embracing and nurturing it.
Our culture is rampant with the problems that result from repression
and this cheapening of our sexuality, our relationships are plagued
with lack of satisfaction, not only sexually but spiritually.
The church must embrace sexuality if it is to remain viable, and
most of all to overcome the corruption that has been highlighted
over the last few years. I can not believe that a loving God would
want his servants to lead lonely, unsatisfied lives and I believe that
for a servant of God to truly help people, he or she must understand
the problems that the majority of God's people face, this can be hard
if one has never been in a relationship or has never expressed
their own sexuality.
As a gay man, I have my own reasons for wanting the church to
accept sexuality as normal and to embrace and nurture sexuality
in our culture. Many of our issues in society can be linked to this
lack of openess and more so the cheapening of what should be a
meaningful, deep and loving expression of love. Is it not the job
of the church to help people in all aspects of their lives and to
deepen that within us which is human. I believe that the church has
gone to extremes in regards to sexuality, due to the virgin figurehead
and also due to the majority of church leaders throughout the ages
being repressed and frustrated. For instance the long proclaimed city
of Sodom that the churches would have us believe was destroyed
because of homosexuality, is plainly stated in the bible that the sin
of Sodom was laziness and abundance of bread, which was not
used to help the poorer people. In one section of the bible which
lists homosexuality as a sin it also lists, debaters, whisperers,
dishonouring parents, and other stuff that many would think mundane,
yet the church has made homosexuality such an issue that it has caused
death and suffering to many. How dare a church of Christ turn any
one away that comes to that church, this is a greater sin than
homosexuality.
Regardless of my own pet peeve the church can no longer abstain from
being a church for human beings, and as such must embrace all of what
makes us human or it is of no use to human beings or to the
God of human beings.
His forever
Darren
--- Was not Lucifer the Covering Cherub ?
What happens when a Stallion covers a mare?
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