The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (15 page)

“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things. One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should save it for someone you love.”

-Butch Hancock

This chapter will explore the methods religions use to control sex and sexuality. The most successful religions have learned how to utilize this powerful human drive in the interest of religious propagation. We will look at the effects of sex-negative and sex-positive religions in terms of a spectrum of control. To understand this important topic, let’s start by looking at the experience of a woman we will call Sara.

I met Sara and her lesbian partner in a restaurant to talk about her experience in leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses. She had been a lifelong member of the church and had married her sweetheart from the church when they were 18 years old. In subsequent years they had three children. Over the years of marriage, Sara felt a huge hole in her life. She had a high sex drive, but she was not attracted to her husband and found herself always thinking about women. At the same time, her husband, more and more frustrated with her lack of responsiveness to him, became abusive physically and emotionally.

Sara was torn between her training as a good Jehovah’s Witness wife and her deep desire for a woman’s touch. Everyone told her it was her duty to satisfy and obey her husband; the Bible was clear that she was committing a sin against god by denying her husband.

Through years of soul searching, Sara finally made the decision to take her children and leave her husband. Years of church teaching had taught her to fear and mistrust the courts and the government, so she used none of the resources available to women in her situation. She saved up money, rented a place far from her husband and stole away one night with her children.

After only a few weeks, her husband and a group of elders from the church appeared at her doorstep and took the children. She appealed to her husband to let her keep her children, but she was informed that the church had conducted a trial and that she was now disfellowshipped from the church. No one could have contact with her, including her own children. Their father would have sole custody and would not allow any contact with her.

Sara went into a deep depression. Not trusting the courts, she made no legal claims for her children. And having been taught that psychologists were evil, she refused to talk with anyone who could help her with her depression.

Not until she met her partner was she able to begin climbing out of her depression and take some positive action for her life and children. She enrolled in college, went to court to get partial custody and began living with her partner. Her partner was supportive and understanding, but her deep programming made it all but impossible for Sara to see any options for herself or her children. It took several years before she was able to begin seeing alternative ways of thinking and behaving.

Her life is still difficult, especially with her children. The court order for visitation rights and custody is undermined and thwarted at every turn by church elders who tell her children they will be disfellowshipped if they talk to their mother. Only one child talks with her, secretly calling late at night after everyone is in bed. If Sara calls, no one answers or whoever answers the phone immediately hangs up.

Many would chalk Sara’s story up to the programming of a cult, but it is not so easily dismissed. This type of programming is present in most other religions. Many evangelical and fundamentalist groups have a deep distrust of psychologists and psychiatrists and believe homosexuality is a major sin. Catholics try to keep children in the Catholic fold by demanding they be raised Catholic, even in a mixed marriage. They prohibit same-sex relationships and masturbation and allow sex only within marriage with no artificial birth control. Priests and nuns are expected to deny natural and normal drives for very unnatural and decidedly not normal celibacy. Nazarenes shun anyone who is openly homosexual or in a same-sex relationship, distrust secular psychologists and preach sexual abstinence outside of marriage. Muslims may stone to death married men and women who have affairs and persecute homosexuals. A woman may not be seen with a man who is not her relative in most Muslim countries. Hindus place great shame on a woman who divorces or has sex before marriage. Public kissing is a crime in India.
¹
All major religions and most minor ones sanction women who express their sexuality in ways proscribed by the religion. The difference
between Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions is only in degree. As we will see in this chapter, sexual control is a key religious strategy.

1
When actor Richard Gere kissed his cohost on an Indian charity show, the Associated Press reported April 26, 2007, “NEW DELHI – A court issued arrest warrants for Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on Thursday, saying their kiss at a public function transgressed all limits of vulgarity.” MSNBC,
Indian court issues warrant for Gere over kiss
[article on-line] (26 April 2007, accessed 20 November 2008); available from
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18328425/
; Internet.

This graphic is not a scientific one, but it is an attempt to place the various god viruses on a spectrum from sex-negative to sex-positive. The primary factors in the rating are degree of control and severity of sanctions. Punishment by death, for sexual practices, is found in Islam, Hindu and the Old Testament.

Some current Christian fundamentalists would like more Old Testament-type sanctions in our society. Here are some verses that they cite.

And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

-Leviticus 20:10

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

-Leviticus 20:13

Following these passages, we might find that a significant portion of the current U.S. population might be subject to the death penalty.

Catholicism thrives in a sex-negative environment. Protestants also create a sex-negative environment but can survive with something less. Islam is among the most sex-negative religions. Sex-negative religions seek to control all aspects of sexuality; from masturbation to the role of women; from conception to sexual pleasure. The measure of sex negativity is the degree of sanction for violation. For example, if a young girl in Saudi Arabia is seen with a non-related boy she is not married to, both may be stoned to death.

Death is an extreme sanction, but other sanctions are almost as effective. A recent news item from Iraq told of a young girl who had been raped by her cousin, thereby shaming her family. Her father drove her to the Syrian border and dropped her off, thus expelling her from the family. She subsequently was forced into prostitution in Syria. Shaming one’s family leads to serious, if not lethal, sanctions in much of Islam.
²
Most major religions maintain restrictions on females such as prohibiting them from becoming clergy, stronger sanctions for sexual violations, enforcing stricter dress codes and requiring certain practices during menstruation and childbirth. Female guilt is assumed in many religions as illustrated by the biblical story of Eve tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden.

As we saw in the last chapter, Christianity uses guilt to ensure sexual and marriage fidelity as well as fidelity to the church. Guilt is an important cause of sexual dysfunction in males and females. Sex for pleasure, from the religion’s point of view, is a waste of energy, especially if it detracts from propagation of the god virus. For that reason, sexual pleasure is seen as suspect in Catholicism.

The Catholic virus has put a huge number of its eggs in the sexual basket – celibacy, abstinence, no abortion, no contraceptives, Mary was a virgin, Jesus was not married and non-sexual, none of the Apostles was married (all were non-sexual).
³
St. Paul was obsessed with sexual control, as were most of the ante-Nicene fathers.
⁴

Other forms of control can be seen in dress, especially that of women. It is interesting that the habit of Catholic nuns resembles the burka of Islam.
Both are symbolic of sexual control and surrender to a male figure – husband, father, pope, Jesus, bishop, etc.

2
See the discussion of guilt and shame in Chapter 4. For a recent example, a 57-yr.-old father murdered his 16-yr.-old daughter for refusing to wear a hijab to school in Toronto, Canada, Dec. 11, 2007. If it is happening in Toronto, one can imagine that it is far more likely happening in deeply infected countries like Pakistan where it might not even be seen as newsworthy. ABC News,
Slain Over Hijab? Father Allegedly Strangles Daughter Over Head Scarf
[article on-line] (12 December 2007, accessed 21 November 2008); available from
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3987812
; Internet.

3
Most Christians cannot see the oddity of a non-married Jesus walking around Israel with 12 unmarried men following him. What would you think if you heard of an unmarried man wandering around town with 12 full grown, unmarried men following him and hanging on his every word. It is also amusing to ask Christians how Christ could be called rabbi when only married men could have that title in ancient Israel.

4
Ante-Nicene Fathers
are a collection of non-Biblical Christian writings of early church fathers up to 325 CE when the Nicene Creed was adopted. Early Church Fathers,
Ante-Nicene Fathers
[book on-line] (accessed 21 November 2008); available from
http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html
; Internet.

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family can be analyzed using this model. It quickly becomes apparent that it is not “
Focus on the Family
,” but “
Focus
on the Virus
.” The family is the vehicle for the virus. Guilt based on strict interpretations of sexuality in the Bible is the hallmark of James Dobson’s viral efforts. A religion has no problem disbanding the family if it does not meet the religion’s needs. Christianity as well as most other religions may support divorce if one parent falls away from the virus or converts to another. Better to have the parents divorce than risk infection of the children from another virus.

Gil Alexander-Moegerle was a founding member of Focus on the Family until he got divorced. In his book
James Dobson’s War on America
⁵
, Alexander-Moegerle discusses his removal from Focus on the Family. James Dobson viewed Alexander-Moegerle’s divorce as an affront– the Dobson virus could not allow him to remain and potentially pollute the organization.

Religions seek to create an environment that makes it easy to propagate. In most cases, religious propagation is closely tied to biological propagation. As the family goes, so goes the virus. The virus must make sure that it is passed on to the next generation. For this reason, it creates an environment where it can ensure the young will be infected as efficiently as possible.

First, the religion must try to ensure that the family consists only of virally infected parents. All major religions place some sanctions on marriage outside the faith. Hindus do not marry Muslims, Muslims are not allowed to marry Christians, and so forth. The sanction can be so strong as to invoke the death penalty if violated. In recent years, the news media
have been full of examples of Islamic girls being killed by their families for merely wanting to marry a non-Muslim. Marriage between related sects may also be prohibited. Catholics are discouraged from marrying Protestants. Shii’a Muslims are discouraged from marrying Sunni. The Druze disown anyone who marries outside the religion. Mormons do all they can to ensure people marry within the faith.

5
James Dobson,
War on America
(Prometheus Books, 1997).

In “mixed marriages,” a demand is often made with respect to raising the children. For example, the Catholic Church insists on children being raised as Catholic in a Protestant-Catholic union. Couples may be refused a Catholic wedding or sacraments if they fail to make this commitment.