This reminds me of Oliver O'Donovan's clarification that ethics are grounded in love, not rights. "Consent" is a right. Absolutely, at least in the specific contexts where it has been important to assert and defend it as such. And it is fine as far as it goes. But you don't get ethical sex and relationships without being embedded in a community love (a community whose shared life flows from and is ordered to common loves)... and Lord help us if our culture and community is merely formed by a common love of sexual satisfaction.
Yes! I appreciate this. O'Donovan's Resurrection and the Moral Order really changed how I think about all of this when I was in seminary. I think your point about rights is really helpful. I don't want to get rid of the idea of rights, and consent in particular, but I want to point out that it's only useful to an extent, and having a list of rights is never going to stop rights from being violated.
Way to nail this one on the head. Im not saying all, but a lot of churches have become very wishy washy. We are supposed to be a light in the darkness. Church isn't supposed to be entertaining and make me feel good. Church is the body of Christ gathering together to worship the sovereign God who loves us and detests sin. We can choose good or bad. There is no in-between. Just like heaven and hell.
Thank you. I think there's a lot more examples to give that are all rooted in this understanding of consent. At my son's school, they are telling students that no one can make them do anything that they don't consent to, whether it's physical touch or going here or there. Which seems to be a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot because I doubt that if given the option, most of the students would consent to being at school at all.
I think that we should just take the standards of consent to their logical conclusion: Consent must be given by someone of sound mind and body in a solemn legal or spiritual ceremony having received advice and counsel from parents or someone qualified to act in loco parentis. This will involve disclosure of all relevant history and personal context. That consent will then be considered valid until it is revoked in a similar setting.
It is funny how all of our progressive experiments with human life turn out to just be tearing down something that we need and then we replace it with a copy that isn't as good.
Yes, pop culture's take on consent really is just a shadow of a more robust Christian take. I thought about going on a diatribe in the piece about how consent-as-ethics is really the leftovers of a Christian past. But not only would that have been a little too much of a deviation, I'm also always concerned people will interpret that take as me saying I just want to get back to the good ol' days. Which I don't think is possible, let alone prudent. Thanks so much for your comment.
The takeaway for me is that there is so little discontinuity between the perspectives of society at large and those in faith communities . Sobering indeed !
It's super difficult to navigate because I also don't want to fail to affirm what is good in our culture. For example, I'm glad we have laws against sexual assault, which don't exist in some other places in the world. And consent is such an important element to our understanding of that law. It's just that consent is not enough to sustain the law, let alone a general sexual ethic. We need pastors and theologians who are willing to teach with nuance and care over the long haul to enable the church to make sometimes explicit and sometimes subtle negotiations with culture. Thanks for your comment, Dr. Klaus.
I think problem, at least in part, is still consent isn’t it? Like I said, I think consent is important, it’s just insufficient for describing morally good sex. If it’s violence we’re concerned about, I think the answer to rape within marriage is about the same as that outside of it. Violence needs to be censored and met with appropriate legal and communal repercussions.
Louis Perry has talked at length about all of this in her recent *The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.* In which she says marriage won’t solve all of our problems with sex, but it will solve *a lot* of them. And she says all of this without appeal to religion. She bases most of her arguments on evolutionary biology.
This reminds me of Oliver O'Donovan's clarification that ethics are grounded in love, not rights. "Consent" is a right. Absolutely, at least in the specific contexts where it has been important to assert and defend it as such. And it is fine as far as it goes. But you don't get ethical sex and relationships without being embedded in a community love (a community whose shared life flows from and is ordered to common loves)... and Lord help us if our culture and community is merely formed by a common love of sexual satisfaction.
Yes! I appreciate this. O'Donovan's Resurrection and the Moral Order really changed how I think about all of this when I was in seminary. I think your point about rights is really helpful. I don't want to get rid of the idea of rights, and consent in particular, but I want to point out that it's only useful to an extent, and having a list of rights is never going to stop rights from being violated.
Way to nail this one on the head. Im not saying all, but a lot of churches have become very wishy washy. We are supposed to be a light in the darkness. Church isn't supposed to be entertaining and make me feel good. Church is the body of Christ gathering together to worship the sovereign God who loves us and detests sin. We can choose good or bad. There is no in-between. Just like heaven and hell.
God is in control 🙏🙏🙏 bless you Aaron.
This is so good and clarifying. Never saw the connection to euthanasia before. Lord have mercy.
Thank you. I think there's a lot more examples to give that are all rooted in this understanding of consent. At my son's school, they are telling students that no one can make them do anything that they don't consent to, whether it's physical touch or going here or there. Which seems to be a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot because I doubt that if given the option, most of the students would consent to being at school at all.
Very nice piece.
I think that we should just take the standards of consent to their logical conclusion: Consent must be given by someone of sound mind and body in a solemn legal or spiritual ceremony having received advice and counsel from parents or someone qualified to act in loco parentis. This will involve disclosure of all relevant history and personal context. That consent will then be considered valid until it is revoked in a similar setting.
It is funny how all of our progressive experiments with human life turn out to just be tearing down something that we need and then we replace it with a copy that isn't as good.
Yes, pop culture's take on consent really is just a shadow of a more robust Christian take. I thought about going on a diatribe in the piece about how consent-as-ethics is really the leftovers of a Christian past. But not only would that have been a little too much of a deviation, I'm also always concerned people will interpret that take as me saying I just want to get back to the good ol' days. Which I don't think is possible, let alone prudent. Thanks so much for your comment.
The takeaway for me is that there is so little discontinuity between the perspectives of society at large and those in faith communities . Sobering indeed !
It's super difficult to navigate because I also don't want to fail to affirm what is good in our culture. For example, I'm glad we have laws against sexual assault, which don't exist in some other places in the world. And consent is such an important element to our understanding of that law. It's just that consent is not enough to sustain the law, let alone a general sexual ethic. We need pastors and theologians who are willing to teach with nuance and care over the long haul to enable the church to make sometimes explicit and sometimes subtle negotiations with culture. Thanks for your comment, Dr. Klaus.
Hey Troy 🤝🫶
I think problem, at least in part, is still consent isn’t it? Like I said, I think consent is important, it’s just insufficient for describing morally good sex. If it’s violence we’re concerned about, I think the answer to rape within marriage is about the same as that outside of it. Violence needs to be censored and met with appropriate legal and communal repercussions.
Louis Perry has talked at length about all of this in her recent *The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.* In which she says marriage won’t solve all of our problems with sex, but it will solve *a lot* of them. And she says all of this without appeal to religion. She bases most of her arguments on evolutionary biology.