Episode 5: Deadly Sexual Sin #4 (According to the Church): Don’t Have an Affair, part 1
We are halfway through our series on the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins (According to the Church).
As a refresher, the first three “sins” are:
Don’t have sex before you get married.
Don’t be gay.
Don’t lust.
Which sets up sin #4: Don’t have an affair.
Some quick background. The marital relationship (between a man and woman, duh) is the most foundational relationship in the Evangelical community. It’s a right of passage into adulthood, as Jeremiah describes (14:40). It symbolizes the union between God/Jesus and the church, as the church describes.
And, according to the Evangelical Church, any relationship with a person of the opposite gender that is not your spouse is a potential threat to the sanctity of marriage (19:45).
Jeremiah learned this in his sex-silent religious community of origin implicitly; as Julia summarizes, “The Church of Christ skirted the issue of adultery by focusing so heavily on the marital relationship, that hopefully adultery in and of itself would just disappear.” (16:00) This creates an enormous amount of pressure because, “there's very little room for other types of support or other types of exploration outside of the relationship.”
Julia learned this by watching the horrific way her community of origin treated a member of their community. She angrily responds, “But who said anything to defend my friend's mother's right to go to church and to go to communion and not to have every person in her personal life. That is such an anti-Jesis thing, and I'm horrified and even feel like a physiological response as I'm remembering this.” (30:20)
So how should we talk about affairs? We turn to John chapter 8, where Jesus engages with a woman “caught” in adultery. (32:45)
Tl;dr: Jesus doesn’t condemn her. He ignores the kerfuffle from the Pharisees who are threatening her, telling them, “He who is without sin can throw the first stone.” Julia notes, “In talking about sin, Jesus also doesn't even say leave your adulterous relationship. ‘Leave your life of sin’ is actually a really broad statement. (37:10)
So how do we not talk about affairs? Let’s avoid enacting the ways that the church commonly plays the role of the Pharisees.
How do we talk about affairs? Well, next episode, Julia and Jeremiah will talk a bit about theirs.
In the meantime, we highly encourage you to check out two books that talk about the anatomy of affairs:
The State of Affairs by Esther Perel
Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free by Wednesday Martin
Let’s heal together!