We enjoy judging others. There is a spiritual pride in deciding that someone else is not measuring up to rules we find in Scripture or in our churches. And yet there is a great amount that Christ says about, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?,” (Matthew 7:1-3) and “But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her..” (John 8:7). Why are these sayings ignored? Why does the Cross, the symbol of God’s Mercy get used to crush people? The answer is the Mob. We want to crucify those who do not measure up to hide our own frailty and that we arn’t measuring up. It’s easy to cry, “let me take the speck out of your own eye, when I have log in my owm.” We are so keen ...
The Main Source that supports the claims in this Post is Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Little Lower Than The Angels: The History of Christianity and Sex, Chapter 2, 2024. We are inclined to think that the attitudes that have pervaded in the Church towards sexuality come from The Bible. That God wants sex for procreation purely and solely. This was the Medieval Church’s stance, and where it comes from its not the Bible. Rather it comes from the Greco-Roman culture of Antiquity, which was forged by Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. In the Greek Culture, Self Control was seen as Honor, to the point that sexual enjoyment in excess was considered a weakness and betrayal of your masculinity, and the blame for sexual excess was placed upon women. This concept that you must curb your pleasure, and not enjoy Sex too much arrived in the Church through Monasticism and Asceticism, how? Because the Medieval Roman Catholic Church used Plato and Aristotle as a lens for int...