Religion and Private Life

Our Sexual Ethics Interactive has been re-dubbed The Moral Compass. I’m out in the field with my trusty fellow News21 camerapersons asking all the tough Sex Eth questions for our online video supplements; for example, how does YOUR religion feel about masturbation, divorce, premarital sex and dancin’ in the streets? Ok, I left off the dancin’ in the streets part. So far it’s been a wonderful education. I’ve learned about “Virtue Ethics” based on the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas from Jesuit scholar Lisa Fullam. According to Fullam, Virtue Ethics is not as much about the act (adultery, sex before marriage, etc) as it is about the intention or the outcome. Virtue Ethics asks, Who do you want to be? How are you going to get there? and How do your actions contribute to your becoming the person you want to be? As Fullam explains it, a young man masturbating to a Victoria’s Secret Catalog may very well fall into the category of normal sexual development, and shouldn’t necessarily be judged in the same way as similar acts with negative motivations and outcomes. You’ll have to see the video to get the full story, so stay tuned.

One of the questions I now routinely ask is about something I’m calling God Sex. I mean it in the most respectful way, as it’s something I’ve experienced myself. It entered our video conversation by way of Southern Baptist Amanda Phifer who talked about how the sexual relationship between married partners can bring them closer to God. So I began to ask the question of others and have heard at least one “Yes, definitely!” and an acknowledgement among some of the Christians I’ve interviewed that, within their faiths, sex and spirituality are connected. The Song of Songs has been mentioned as biblical poetry that speaks to both faith and expresses passionate sexuality. Check it out.

Pick a tent, any tent at the WeFaith Conferece. Step right up to the most amazing collection of true-life stories in which Christians, pagans, Mormons, Muslims and more tell all about God, Sex and Family. Pick a tent — a revival meeting tent or one in our three-ring circus. Find out everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about that timeless dance between the spiritual and the sexual. Hold onto your hats, folks, for a mighty wind’s blowin’ these tents from here to eternity. Now, for a limited time only, ya’ll don’t have to wait ’til heaven to see what sex is like in your Second Life!

Wheel of Sexual Fortune Tent — Spin the Moral Compass and find out what your faith and eight others teach about masturbation, co-habitation and all those other road blocks to spiritual salvation. Furnishings by Barnum and Bailey.

Conference dates: July 23-27, 2007 on Nowhereville Island in SL.

We’re using some of these, but gotta say, some of them are really out there…

United Methodist Church

Though the flesh in you `lust against the Spirit’, you may still be a
child of God; but if you `walk after the flesh,’ you are a child of
the devil.

–John Wesley, 1703-1791

Roman Catholic Church

The bubbling impulses of puberty befogged and obscured my heart so
that it could not see the difference between love’s serenity and
lust’s darkness. – St. Augustine, 354-430

Buddhism

The Wise man should avoid promiscuity as if it were a burning charcoal
pit.

–Siddhattha Guatama Buddha, 563-483 BCE

Mormonism

If any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the
first give her consent…and they have vowed to no other man, then
is he justified.

–Doctrine and Covenants, 132:61 Southern Baptist Convention

We affirm God’s plan for marriage and sexual intimacy – one man,
and one woman, for life. Homosexuality is not a “valid alternative
lifestyle.”

— Official position statement

Unitarian-Universalitsts

Homophobia is a sin to Unitarian Universalists, not homosexuality.

—Church spokesperson Janet Hayes

Episcopal Church

To lovers I put now sure this case:
Which of their loves does get them grace?

–King Henry VIII, 1491-1547

Islam

Your women are your fields, so go into your fields whichever way you
want

— Prophet Mohammed, 570-632

Reform Judaism

Given the indubitable fact that extramarital relations have become
common in our day, can Judaism give them its approval? The answer is
decidedly negative.

— Official position statement

See where this post was made on Google Maps

Promoting adolescents’ rights to “affirm their own sexual and gender identity and orientation” may not be what you’d expect from a group of theologians. But that’s just one of the progressive messages on sex and faith in an “Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Adolescent Sexuality,” put out this week by the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing.

The open letter –written by religious leaders, for religious leaders – calls on all faiths to help young people understand the risks and pleasures of sexuality. Religious institutions are uniquely positioned to reach adolescents, the theologians argue, serving more teens than any other agency except for public schools.

Are progressive faith groups like the Religious Institute just an isolated minority? Not necessarily. For all the coverage heaped on cultural conservatives, progressive religious voices are out there, they just don’t garner the same attention. Media Matters, a nonprofit watchdog organization, just released a study that found the U.S. media disproportionately presents conservative leaders as the voice of American religion. (On TV, for example, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.)

Here’s to not making the same mistakes ourselves.

Spin a wheel, win a…
The Sexual Ethics Interactive destined for our website is in progress. Should the wheel be golden? Hot Pink? Every visual aspect will be hotly debated. Or, ho hum, simply agreed upon. Here’s what’s ahead: Nik, Kara and I are calling different churches for their official position on various sexual ethics issues. People will see the results on the website in the form of an interactive wheel where visitors can check their favorite (or most embarassing) sexual/ethical issue to see where their (or other people’s) religions stand.
Have you been naughty when your religion wants you to be nice? Oh beeeehave!

If Ms. Andrade has anything to say about it, we’ll be on the street polling people about THEIR sexual ethics. Gotta love that Andrade! Stay tuned. There may be a wheel of fortune with your name on it. We’ll be traveling lo those many miles across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco to take a gander at the grand love meters of yesteryear at Pier 39’s Musee Mecanique, a vintage museum/arcade, to gather some ideas. (For those who don’t know, the love meter is a antique mechanical device that purports to measure your love prowess when you grip a metal handle. Oh the bells and whistles!)

Nothing so tawdry for us. We’re journalists! We want to educate you about important personal issues that matter to all of us. The lights, sounds, and displays are worth a look, but we’ll be reporting the facts based on good solid journalism.
Hey! Don’t look so glum!

Stay tuned for arcade photos and more!

Yes, I admit it’s a bit crazy that we’re going to be creating widgets and asking people to rate their sexual ethics on the street. (Do we need a Tshirt along the lines of “The We Got Ethics Street Team”?” What’s more exciting than getting people interested in religion than by a widget they can share with others? (well plenty, you say, but this is innovative I tell you and it’s, eh, journalism!) In any case, here’s some of the arcade machines we’re thinking of using to create our widget or sexo’ethico-dometer). Holla and let us know which one you prefer.