Nature of human beings

Review: Chastity and the Soul

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Cover of "Chastity and the Soul" by Ronald Rolheiser

Chastity and the Soul: You Are Holy Ground, Ronald Rolheiser. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609471) 2024.

Summary: An exploration of the meaning of chastity which has to do with far more than sex.

“Can purity be a word that is ever used without a cringe?”

Father Ronald Rolheiser quotes Lisbeth During asking this question in her book, The Chastity Plot. Rolheiser, in this book that explores the meaning of chastity in Christian teaching, would most emphatically and joyfully answer “yes!” And that despite all the negative connotations, critiques of “purity culture,” and the connotations of prudishness and repressed sexuality with which the culture greets this word.

First of all, Rolheiser defines chastity, and it is clear from his definition that he is talking about far more than sex:

“In essence, chastity is proper reverence, respect, and patience. And in a culture that is often characterized by irreverence, disrespect, and impatience, it is much needed. To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of life, life’s opportunities, and sex, in a way that does not violate them or us. In brief, I am chaste when I relate to others in a way that does not violate their moral, psychological, emotional, sexual, or aesthetic contours. I am chaste when I do not let irreverence or impatience denigrate what is a gift, and when I let life, others, and sex, unfold according to their proper dictates” (p. 4)

But why chastity? It comes down to our understanding of what we and other people are. Rolheiser, using the language of Moses’ burning bush encounter with God says that both we and every person we encounter is holy ground. Any approach that is irreverent, impatient, or that fails to respect the holy character of every human in the image of God is unchaste. I can see how this relates not only to sex but with how we engage with people in any shared endeavor. To disregard the gift of another, to force our way without accounting for another, is unchaste.

Chastity and sex need each other and are not at war with each other. Chastity protects us from misusing the power of our sexuality so that both people may fully be themselves with each other. Chastity, properly understood, doesn’t shut off sexual longing for the other that springs from the God-given reality that it is not good for us to be alone.

Rolheiser challenges those who would separate sex and the soul or even deny the soul. He sees this as the underlying basis for the explosion of “hookup sex” and the explosion of pornography. Yet we all have a sense that deep down, there is a place precious to us, that carries our deepest longings, our sense of self. and in sexual intimacy, we give another access to that place. It’s a place where we want to be protected, honored, and listened to. “Chastity protects the soul.”

Rolheiser goes on to explore the effects of pornography, addresses how we live in tension with our “inconsummation” and how we may learn from Mary and the virgin daughter of Jephthah. He is honest with us that celibacy has been the hardest part of his vows, “but, at the same time, it has helped create a special kind of entry into the world and into other’s lives that is a precious grace….”

He concludes the book with speaking of our need to recover a sense of wonder about our ordinary lives, which in Chesterton’s words involves learning “to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again.” It is chastity that protects the wonder of the holy ground that is another human being, the wonder of the holy ground that is us, and the wonder when two who have prepared in the patience of chastity and in the integrity of their vows for the divine fire of sexual intimacy.

This is a book that takes the “cringe” out of chastity. It’s not the mawkishness of chastity rings, of rules especially imposed on women in purity culture. Chastity is not about the evilness or dirtiness of sex but about its powerful goodness and about the holiness of every person in God’s image and ensuring that the powerful goodness never violates the holiness of us or others. This is good instruction not only for those awakening to their sexuality but for us at all ages, and not only for our sexuality but for all the ways we engage with people who are “holy ground.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: What is Man?

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What is man

What is Man?, Edgar Andrews. Nashville: Elm Hill, 2018.

Summary: An exploration of the answers different worldviews come up with to the question of what it means to be human, making the case for a Christian view of humans descended from a historical Adam who was created in God’s image, through whom sin entered the human race in the fall, and for the redemption of all who believe through the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

The question of who we are, and our place on Earth and in the cosmos, is perhaps one of the most important questions that we face. The author of this work, Edgar Andrews, an emeritus professor of Materials Science, looks at three of the possible answers on offer today–that we are evolved from the family of Apes, that we (or our predecessors) arrived here from an alien world, or that we were created by God, descended from a historic Adam.

The book consists of three parts. The first considers our place in the cosmos, and perhaps did we come from somewhere else? He considers the origins of the cosmos, and whether it is possible for the cosmos to be self-generating and he describes the search for extra-terrestrial life and the absence of any substantive finding, albeit many worlds have been identified that may be candidates for such life. He lays out a form of the “fine-tuned universe” argument advanced by Sir Martin Rees, and the counter explanations of multiverse theories. All of this suggests at very least that our existence in the cosmos may be a fairly singular event begging explanation.

The second part of the book explores man and the biosphere, that is, evolutionary explanations for our origins. He raises a number of questions about our descent from the apes in terms of the distinctiveness as opposed to the commonality of our respective genomes and he contends that paleontology has very little conclusive to tell us about our forebears. Finally, in one of the more fascinating chapters of the book, he discusses the challenging question of how human consciousness is to be explained. Using the analogy of a house, he discusses materialist, epiphenomenalist, and dualist explanations and contends that humans were created with material bodies and a nonmaterial, self-aware mind.

In part three, Andrews considers the biblical account of what it means to be human. Beginning with a discussion of worldview, and how we know what is real, he contends that the Biblical account warrants belief as being consistent with our understanding of ourselves and the cosmos, has made accurate predictions of future events, passes tests of historical accuracy, and leads people into transformative experiences of God through faith in Christ. The remainder of the book then unpacks this Biblical world view of a sovereign and immanent creator God, human sin, accountability, and the person and work of Christ. He argues for a historic Adamic couple from whom we are all descended, against other explanations of our progenitors, and what it means for us to be in the image of God distinguished as creatures of soul and spirit, language and logic, creativity and competence, and law and love. The book then concludes with two chapters on Christ as the second Adam and the evidences for Christ’s resurrection, and the implications of this truth for our salvation and eternal destiny.

Andrews writes about fairly technical scientific material in clear, and sometimes witty, language, using readily understood analogies. I find it a bit puzzling that he at times uses scientific arguments (the Big Bang and Fine-Tuning) to advance his argument and then turns around and is utterly skeptical and questioning about anything to do with the evolution of human beings. I would have liked to see more engagement with scientists like Francis Collins, who not only see God’s design in the human genome, but also do not see evolution as antithetical to the creative work of God, or even a historic Adam.

Rather than attacking evolution, I think it would have been more helpful to attack the underlying worldview of evolutionism, a worldview that assumes there is nothing more or other than the material world, and that only what may be confirmed empirically is real or true (of course this statement itself cannot be confirmed by such means!). Such assumptions not only preclude the activity of God in creating but also in sustaining the world. There are many who study evolution who see the hand of God at work, as they do in other “natural” processes. Andrews seems to suggest they have to choose between their science and their faith.

Nevertheless, this book addresses an important question, and eloquently describes the human dignity we enjoy as creatures in the image of God, and the wonder of Christ’s redemptive work, and the joyful destiny of those who partake of his redemptive work and the power of the resurrection in salvation, Christ’s living rule over his people, and the certainty of his return. Christian teachers and apologists will find this helpful–particularly, I think the discussions about fine-tuning, and about human consciousness as well as his delineation of what it means to say we exist in “the image of God.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.