by erika haveman
I don’t know about you but if you follow Jesus it’s hard to run from the blatant sexual immorality that exists in our culture. It seeps into just about every aspect of media – social and regular – and the old adage never seems to die: sex sells. While this is incredibly disheartening for those of us trying to live a life of redeeming sexual ethics I thought I would point out something that recently struck me as continuing to exist as a Christian value while the rest of the world seems to be falling apart when it comes to sex and relationships. The concept I’m talking about here is “cheating.”
We all know what it means. The definition has never really shifted when it comes to relationships, regardless of sexual orientation or more serious stage of relationship (decided upon exclusive relationship to marriage). We can all agree that it’s often obvious when someone has cheated on their significant other. Key word here being significant other – I’m not talking you’re just dating someone, sitting somewhere in that funny place between more than friends but not yet committed to boyfriend/girlfriend, because dating, to me, doesn’t mean that person is your significant other yet. They may well be on their way to becoming that, but they’re not. I understand people will disagree with me on what defines dating and how committed people should be, but just play along with me okay, people? I’ve written a whole other post about the phases of relationship, and it can be found here. Please read that before you attack this small definition and miss the point of this post.
So for the sake of this article we can agree that cheating is defined as offering some kind of, often temporary, allegiance to another person [who is not your significant other]. Most people in a serious relationship or marriage have some sense that the person they are with belongs to them in some sense. Regardless of religion people can understand and value the nature of a committed relationship. Don’t worry, I get that polygamy exists and some people are all for that, but again, for the sake of this post recognize that I’m not trying to address all the world’s problems, but rather offer you hope to see that Christian values can still exist in a culture insistent on downward spiralling away from Biblical values.
I’ve been working through the book The Meaning of Sex by Dr. Dennis Hollinger and it provides profound insight into, well, the meaning of sex – the Biblical meaning of sex, I should clarify. In the book Dr. Hollinger addresses different views and and their “meanings” of sex, but then makes the articulated case for why the Bible makes the most sense.
You see in a serious relationship or marriage each person has offered themselves to the other person. Usually it hasn’t been just one small piece, but it’s been their whole self, and often that has been through the act of sex. This isn’t a place for me to make an argument for sex exclusively within marriage, though that is what I believe, but instead for us to recognize that cheating is only cheating because of the apparent sense of belonging to the other person. If no belonging or giving of oneself existed then no, cheating isn’t possible. But most people would agree that when they are in a serious relationship or marriage that their significant other is “theirs.” We say things like, “he’s my man!” to make it clear to other women that our guy belongs to us and on the other hand we belong to him.
This idea of belonging actually stems from the passage in Genesis when we read “a man shall leave his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (2:24) The act of becoming one flesh – ie. SEX – connotes belonging. You cannot NOT belong to someone when you’re literally physically joining your two bodies together. Sorry, in those moments you definitely belong to that other person whether you are emotionally deciding to be or not. This idea of belonging is repeated by Jesus (Matt. 19:5, Mark 10:8) and the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 6:16, Eph. 5:31) so therefore the definition of cheating really is birthed from the sense of the belonging two people have when they’re in a sexually active relationship. Obviously you’re going to argue that not all sexually active people are in relationships with the people they’re being sexually active with, and I get that. I’m not denying this reality. But what I am trying to say is the Biblical concept of cheating is truly one that persists in a secularist culture that is constantly trying to divorce itself from Christian values.
So take hope that all is not yet lost. As people who are fighting for a serious sexual revolution, one that reflects Biblical ethics and values, we can find this small glimmer of hope that while people deny that they Bible has anything good to say or do or offer culture we can know that some aspects of culture are submitting to it whether they realize it or not. All we, therefore, need to do is keep living in such a way that we shine the light of Jesus by confidently offering a sexual ethic to the world that is based on integrity of Scripture through living our lives with that same integrity. No, not everyone will always agree, but I like to think that people will respect you for having a backbone about something. And if all else fails, start talking to them about the definition of cheating just see how much they agree with you. They probably will and there’s a fun open door for more conversation. If you do this, share your story below! I’d love to hear it!
the rambling missionary 