place of trying to ignore something that is very real and very new, something central to who they are.
We have to talk about everything we’re experiencing. Repressing and stuffing and refusing to acknowledge never works. Whether it’s a friend or a group of peers or a priest or a pastor or a counselor, we have to get it out.14 Some friends of mine started a website where people could talk about their struggles with their sexuality, and right away it received several hundred thousand visitors.15
Several hundred thousand.
You are not alone. Whatever you struggle with, whatever you have questions about, you are not alone. It doesn’t matter how dark it is or how much shame or weakness or regret it involves, you are not alone.
Some say the struggle is about eros, which is where we get the word erotic. Others call it testosterone and blame it on hormones. The Greeks called it the madness of the gods. The truth is, we’re crammed full of sexual energy. It’s how we’re made. We have cravings and desires and urges and temptations that can easily consume us and make us feel helpless in their presence. We have to talk about what we do with the forces that rage within us. We have to get it out or we will begin to die on the inside.16
Some of the most comforting words in the universe are “me too.” That moment when you find out that your struggle is also someone else’s struggle, that you’re not alone, and that others have been down the same road.
Tohu Va Vohu
Which takes us back to the beginning, to Genesis and the angels and the animals, which were both created before humans. We’re told in the first chapter of the Bible that God created all of this out of chaos. The earth was formless and void, and God brought order out of it. The Hebrew phrase for this formless and void state is tohu va vohu. Some translate the phrase “wild and waste.” Each thing God creates and sets in motion is a step, a progression away from the chaos and disorder toward order and harmony. The first things God commands these people to do, then, involve the continuation of this ordering and caring for and the ongoing progression away from chaos.
The universe isn’t finished.
God’s intent in creating these people was for them to continue the work of creating the world, moving it away from chaos and wild and waste and formlessness toward order and harmony and good.17 As human beings, we take part through our actions in the ongoing creation of the world. The question is, What kind of world are we going to make? What kind of world will our energies create? We will take it somewhere. The question is, Where?
Either we’re acting in ways that move the world away from the tohu va vohu or we’re contributing to the chaos and lack of order.
In the creation poem that begins the Bible, people are created after animals. And from the rest of scripture, we learn that people were also created after angels. The order here is significant. The movement in creation is away from tohu va vohu toward greater and greater harmony and order and beauty.
Angels were here before us.
Animals were here before us.
When we act like angels or animals, we’re acting like beings who were created before us. We’re going backward in creation. We’re going the wrong way. We’re headed back toward the chaos and disorder, not away from it.
Our actions, then, aren’t isolated. Nothing involving sex exists independent of and disconnected from everything around it. How we act determines the kind of world we’re creating.
I remember a story in the news about a group of college athletes who hired two dancers to perform at a party they had. The party ended with allegations of rape, and from there the story became about race and power and money and economics and status and all sorts of other things. It was a big mess. But what kept coming up was that these particular athletes had a well-established reputation for being out of control. Their parties were legendary. So their defense, even if it was solid and true, had this cloud over it because of how they were known to behave. And the administration of their school was in the awkward position of wanting to deal with this nightmare but really just wanting the whole thing to go away. But instead they had to keep explaining why they hadn’t done anything in the past to deal with the—let’s call it what it is—animal behavior of their athletes.
And as a result this university was in chaos.
Because God has left the world unfinished. And with every action, we’re continuing the ongoing creation of the world. The question is, What kind of world are we creating?
How we live matters because God made us human.
Which means we aren’t angels. And we aren’t animals.
CHAPTER FOUR Leather, Whips and Fruit
If the Bible were made into a movie, there are lots of parts I wouldn’t watch.
Too graphic, too much detail, excessive violence. You’d think God would have gone for a more family-friendly rating, something Christians could recommend that their friends go see, but instead we have a book crammed full of shocking stories about people doing unbelievably destructive things.
Genocide, polygamy, incest, cutting people up into pieces and mailing the chunks to different parts of the country—and that’s just the first few books. I find one scene in particular almost unreadable. It’s in Second Samuel, a history book that records the reign of King David. One of David’s sons, Amnon, falls in love with his sister Tamar.
And that’s just the first verse of the chapter.
The text says that Amnon became “so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill.”1 Amnon’s advisor notices his steadily declining mood, and after hearing of his frustration, the advisor proposes a plan. The plan involves Amnon telling his father, David, that he’s sick and wants Tamar to bring him food.
When Tamar comes in, Amnon orders his servants out of the room and tells Tamar to come to bed with him. She resists, begging him not to harm her. The text reads, “But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.”
Now we could spend hours discussing the evils of what happens when a man uses his strength to harm, threaten, or coerce a woman. We could reflect on the horrors of abuse and incest, the tragedy that family members are able to inflict on each other.2 The silence of King David. The list goes on.
But notice the next verse: “Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her.”
What an odd thing for the writer to tell us. The last thing you would expect to hear is how Amnon is feeling, let alone that he feels hatred. We understand her repulsion, but his?
What is it about rape that provokes such disgust in him?
“He hated her more than he had loved her.”
What is it that makes Amnon go from one extreme to the other?
He gets what he wants and it makes him . . . angry? What is it that turns him so fast?
What
