The Gospel Coalition and The Modern Self

When “Jesus is my boyfriend” isn’t enough

The Keller Center Shoots

If you live somewhere that isn't under a rock in Christian Twitter this week, then you're probably still bleaching your eyes out after reading "that sex article" from The Gospel Coalition and its newly minted "Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics". Note, it's still very shiny and new so you should behold its sheen before the copper starts turning Lady Liberty Green.

Too late? The rust has already set in? Okay…you're probably right. The Gospel Coalition has been staunchly "center" and proud of it for a while and many TGC types laud themselves for being political orphans. Third way-ism runs deep in the waters. And when those waters hit the water cycle, they become something like acid rain just waiting to eat up all the glorious marble structures of western society. This is seen starkly in the opening shot of the Keller Center in an article entitled "Sex Won't Save You (But it Points to the One Who Can)" or maybe it's "…One Who Does"? I can't remember, and I can't verify it now because the article was taken down with the following explanation:

Note: I was able to confirm the title "...One Who Will". I've left my mistakes for continuity.

If you were lucky (or smart) enough not to read it, then I'm providing a few of the excerpts here. As they say, "Trigger warning" as this is about to jump straight over PG-13 and R ratings. This article might even be illegal in some countries…and not because it's Christian. Not very Romans 13-ish, TGC.

I warned you…

Now I just want to be clear. This wasn't a joke. This wasn't satire from the Babylon Bee. This was a genuine, bona fide first shot from the Keller Center. And as this was indeed a genuine, bona fide article from the largest "Reformed-ish" evangelical organization in the United States it garnered a lot of response. Before we get into my analysis of what's wrong here and how it relates to other goings on, I think we should just take a moment to appreciate the way it brought Christendom together again.

How far is too far?

Here's the deal, the analogy isn't actually that bad. It's just goes way beyond what's in view. Let's look at the main text describing the relationship of Christ/Husband to Church/Wife:

"22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Ephesians 5:22-32

We see here that marriage points up. It points to an even deeper reality of union. The union we have in marriage is like what the church has with Christ. Not the other way around. The union between Christ and the Church is of a deeper substance and greater character. Why? Well, for one thing, there is a perfect person in that union, Christ Himself. And as such, that makes the work of His perfecting even more powerful. Only a perfect person could achieve the perfection of another. The union of a husband and wife by marriage, and yes consummated in the "one flesh" union of the marriage bed, is a picture of the character and nature of the union the church corporate has with Christ as its husband.

This passage lines out the nature and character of each party as well. The wife is marked by submission and respect while the husband is marked by love through leadership, sacrifice, and sanctification. What it does not do is talk about the mechanical details of the intimacy. Rather than speaking to the acts done unclothed, Christ is seen as preparing her adornments "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing." So why did TGC need to talk so much about "gettin' nekid"?

Sexual Self

In Carl Truman's masterful work, "The Rise and Triumph of The Modern Self" he argues, quite convincingly, that man in the west sees himself in distinctly sexual terms. I'm not going to retrace all the argumentation here because I just can't. He writes over 400 pages to prove his point so I'll let him do that.

Regarding the “identity” shift described in the book he notes:

"This transformation of sexual mores has profoundly affected the Sittlichkeit[moral order/ethical life] of society, that framework of values that provides the grammar and syntax of recognition, that by which the individual expresses his or her personal identity in a way that is acknowledged by others…the idea that sexuality is identity is now basic and intuitive in the West, and this means that all matters pertaining to sex are therefore matters that concern who we are at the deepest level. Sex is identity, sex is politics, sex is culture. And central to this thinking is the notion that traditional sexual codes that value celibacy and chastity actually militate against authenticity, something that is now intuitive."

Carl Truman “The Rise and Triumph of The Modern Self” p.299

Yes…it is a dense book, but very worth the read. So what does this have to do with that TGC article? You'll note that TGC is in no way promoting sexual mores that are anti-biblical. They aren't saying sex outside of marriage is somehow made righteous or anything like that. In fact, they are pushing hard against that. But here are the issues that I see. They are trying to reclaim biblical sexual practices, but what this article shows is that they are thinking about the “self” in fundamentally sexual ways. So I'm not saying that they'd encourage you to do wrong actions, but this article is teaching us to think about ourselves, our identity, in sexual terms. Worse yet, because we are thinking of our identity in sexual terms, and we must “find our identity in Christ”, then union with Christ is no longer sufficient. Christ must “penetrate us” (their words, not mine).

The reason the metaphor was taken too far is because, rather than letting Ephesians 5 point us up to the greater, we brought the metaphor down into a 21st-century sexualized self and that requires action. We must describe union with Christ in the terms of pornified culture, rather than looking to Christ and his union with the church as a pattern for intimacy in marriage. So to the "Jesus is my boyfriend" culture, The Gospel Coalition says, "No…because biblical sexual ethics won't let you express your true self, your sexual self, with your boyfriend. He needs to be husband, not because of unity, but because of sex." Which way western man?