Topic: General Theology
It is not an uncommon observation to say that our society has emphasized the privatization of religion. Religion can serve the needs of the individual, but should be monitored as to its social or political influence. It is perhaps even more common to observe the sexualized nature of popular culture. Sex is utilized as a tool for attention based primarily on consumerist goals. Sex then is not only a tool but a type of energy that fuses our desires with a particular product, or object of consumption. To make love to the product.
These observations deserve reflection and response in their own right. However, can the two be related in any significant way? Can these two movements may be seen as a type of inversion? Was the driving of religion into the bedroom the forcing of sex into the public square? Sex and religion of course have a long history. My surface knowledge of Hinduism and ancient Greek religion certainly do not deny this relationship. In the Jewish-Christian tradition the Song of Songs is saturated with mixed images of holy communion and sexual consummation. This leads me to ask whether there is analogy between dynamics of personal sexual intimacy and social sexual intimacy. I am sure this also is not a unique question (if anyone knows of any literature let me know). If this is the case it should transform knee jerk religious responses of repression? Has this repression contributed to our excessive sexual\consumeristic context? Is there something to a fully public expression of religion (and I am thinking particularly of Christianity) which can development a context for the fulfillment our personal and social desires? How does this affect our notions of church and community?
To add a further comment. The obverse of the above depiction of urban ‘secular’ society may be the conservative religious rural community which thrusts religion into every nook of the public sphere and attempts to drive sexuality into its most private expression. The standing joke of my Mennonite community is whether a woman has shamefully shown ‘a little ankle’. As stories of incest and abuse emerge, this attempted privatization of sex can have disastrous consequences.