Christianity and Family and Sex Roles

Christian Tenets

• A monotheistic religion• A missionary religion• A new and different moral and spiritual

vision…• including ideals of humility, charity, ecumenicism and

brotherly love: “do unto others as you would have others do unto you…” and • the hope of a “Second Coming.”

Questions for early Christianity

• What would the Second Coming be like? – Eden? – A kingdom of heaven for “body” or “soul” or both?

• When would Christ come again?– How soon? In one’s own lifetime?

• What did these tenets mean for existing society?– Relationships between husbands and wives– Rules of sexual behavior– The abolition of social hierarchy? Between masters

and slaves? Between elite and poor?

Questions for Individuals

• Should one prepare for the Second Coming?• Or should one live one’s ordinary life?• How did one put Christian tenets into

practice?• Early centuries of Common Era….– Christians thought that the Second Coming was

imminent

Answers from Paul of Tarsus• Paul was an educated, well born Jew who traveled

through the Eastern Mediterranean, executed AD 60.

• Romans 15: – “….For I will not venture to speak of anything except

what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, … by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyr'icum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man's foundation, … but as it is written, "They shall see who have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him.“”

Paul’s Vision

• The Second Coming will be soon…• Posits the antithesis between the “body” (the

flesh) and the “soul” (the spirit)• The “body” is weak, prone to sin, fickle,

troublesome• The “soul” is the link to God and righteousness• Thus a duality between mind/body; the real

and the spiritual; and good/evil

Paul’s Vision

• Right living means controlling the ordinary world, the body, sexuality

• The holiest, most spiritual, human stance is continence while waiting for the Second Coming

• But since humans are weak, good order must be maintained.

• See the Letter to the Corinthians

Fast Forward 300 years…

• 50 AD-~300 AD: Spread of Christianity and persecution of Christians

• 313: Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity within the Roman Empire and officially supported the church

• Meanwhile, starting in the 3rd century (200s) the empire faced political instability and barbarian invasions.

The World of St. Augustine of Hippo

• Lived from 354-430 AD, lawyer/philosopher who chronicled the decline of the Roman world

• Pagan who converted to Christianity in 386 AD• His writings reconceptualized Christianity

without an imminent Second Coming • Maintained the dichotomy of the weakness of

the body and the holiness of the soul, emphasizing the “original sin” of humans

The City of God and the City of Man…• ...This life of ours—if a life so full of such great ills can

properly be called a life—bears witness to the fact that, from its very start, the race of mortal men has been a race condemned.

• Think, first, of the dreadful abyss of ignorance from which all error flows and so engulfs the sons of Adam in a darksome pool that no one can escape without the toll of toils and tears and fears. Then, take our very love for all those things that prove so vain and poisonous and breed so many heartaches, troubles, griefs, and fears; such insane joys in discord, strife, and wars; ….

The City of God and the City of Man…• …such fraud and theft and robbery; such perfidy and

pride, envy and ambition, homicide and murder, cruelty and savagery, lawlessness and lust; all the shameless passions of the impure—fornication and adultery, incest and unnatural sins, rape and countless other uncleannesses too nasty to be mentioned; the sins against religion—sacrilege and heresy, blasphemy and perjury; the iniquities against our neighbors—calumnies and cheating, lies and false witness, violence to persons and property; the injustices of the courts and the innumerable other miseries and maladies that fill the world, yet escape attention....

A Christian World?