Love and Liberty: The Original Sexual Revolution

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Glen Scrivener
Hello, welcome to post Christianity with me, Glen Scrivener. And me, Andrew Wilson. We have a very special episode today because we are talking with the professor of classics and letters at Oklahoma University, Kyle Harper. He is the author of this book from shame to sin, which is a sensational work of showing how we’ve gone from the pre Christian sexual ethic, to a Christian sexual ethic and all that that brought along with it. So thank you so much, Kyle, for joining us, we’re thinking about a shift from pre Christian to Christian civilization and what that looks like. And in our episode, now, we want to think about sex. Can you take us into the sandals of a Roman and we might need you to think, think your way into being different kinds of Romans, man, woman, slave, perhaps even prostitute. If you are in, let’s say, the year 60 In Rome, and first of all, you’re a man. What, what is what are you thinking about sex? What is your view of sex and sexuality?

Kyle Harper
Well, I think that the transformation of sexual morality is one of the biggest effects one of the domains where the shift from a pre Christian to a Christian culture is the most radical. And I think most of us have somewhere in the back of our head, a certain story and it may be from popular culture, it may come from, from movies, I think, is it. Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum where the Roman aristocrat orders a sit down orgy for 40? Well, we, we’ve been to Pompeii, and maybe seen some of the naughty pictures. And so that tends to create or reinforce a story in which pretty simplistically, brief Christian sexual culture was all about. eroticism it was, it was fun, it was free. Sex was was natural and good. And then the Christians come along and putting in to all the fun, the orgies are closed down, the naughty pictures get locked up in secret cabinets, which does kind of happen. And there’s definitely a little truth to that story. But But the bigger picture, the deeper truth is, is that that is way too simplistic and not accurate. The the question, as you phrased it is a good one, because it’s hard for us to wrap our mind around the extent to which even to think about what the experience of sexual life and sexual morality was, like in the first century, is, first and foremost, a question of who you are. And so in ways that, that or I think as a historian, one of the challenges is how do you get back into the the sandals? How do you get back into the very different world of somebody that lives in this case 2000 years ago? Because we, we live in a world where in our popular culture in public morality, we know if you say there’s a double standard and sexual morality, I think everybody would kind of know what that means. It means that there’s different different set of expectations, particularly for men and women. That that the rules aren’t really enforced the same way culturally. And that the idea of a double standard doesn’t even begin to describe the way the Roman world works, because there’s nothing at all hypocritical about the double standard. And it’s not even a double standard. It’s a quadruple standard, at least it depends if you’re male or female. If you’re free or slave, if you’re a person of honor and status in society, if you’re a person who’s of low social status or deprived of social honor, there’s they say there’s not even hypocrisy. There’s just simply different rules, depending on where you stand in the social order. And Christianity, of course doesn’t wipe that away and one swoop. But it radically changes the expectation that different people would follow different rules it, it completely changes the underlying logic in ways that make us make it difficult for us to really get back into the, the culture of pre Christian times.

Glen Scrivener
So a quadruple standard, then, man, woman, slave. And there’s concubinage as well as this sort of second class, kind of, you know, Mistress kind of kind of style as well. You’re right in your book, from shame to sin, that social standing, and this this cosmos in which you have a certain place to play, and your position within the social order is the old determining factor. And the great revolution is going from a world in which social standing and shame honor is king to a society in which the transgression of like, wills and bodies and laws becomes like the transgression. So, again, help it help us if you know if I’m an ancient person. There are still norms about sex, it’s not a free for all, very, very much not but what is determining who is fair game when it comes to sex? What is ruled in and what is ruled out? What are what are the rules?

Kyle Harper
Well, you you mentioned concubinage and I think that’s a, that’s a helpful way to think about some of these questions. And instead of taking an abstract ancient person, we can take a very specific ancient person, a well known late Roman figure named Augustine, St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo, one of the most extraordinary human beings who’s ever lived, and a person that we know more about than anybody who lived in the ancient world, mostly because of his own writings, and particularly because he wrote a book called The confessions that in which he confesses to God many of his sins and tells the world about what a what a bad Senator he had been. It’s pretty, pretty amazing portrayal of his own past and so because of what he tells us, we can we can learn about kind of his life and the way that this culture the world around him, which is still when he lived in the fourth century lives from 354 to 430. The world is changing from a pre Christian to Christian world. And concubinage is a is a social practice. It’s a relationship that is inferior to marriage between a free man usually of higher status or wealth, and a woman who doesn’t have social honor. So probably in most cases, concubines are freed slaves. And it’s it’s a practice that develops because men, particularly high status, men tend to marry late into their mid to late 20s, even 30s. Augustine isn’t engaged until he’s in his early 30s. And so that’s a that’s a long time between puberty and marriage. And it is completely acceptable, even expected, in some ways, even encouraged for Roman free men, in their teens and 20s. To have sex usually with slaves or prostitutes. But one form of this is concubinage in which there’s just a long term sexual relationship between two people a very unequal status. And Augustine amazingly, tells us that he was in a relationship with a woman who doesn’t name. We don’t really know that much about her she was probably of low status. It’s not a marriage because Augustine will will get engaged for a socially appropriate marriage after he’s in Milan. And he has does have a kid you’re not supposed to have children in concubinage and in general, when you do they’re not recognized as legitimate children. But Augustine does have a son, Doris with with this woman. And when Augustine gets engaged around 30 He sends this woman packing. You know, she’s he clearly is attached to her in certain ways, but it’s concubinage and so it’s a relationship whose purpose is sex. And famously, because Augustine’s engagement is still women who’s not yet eligible to be married. He doesn’t want to go without sex and so he by is another one he says, procure Ali Ali, um, I bought another one, meaning I bought another woman. And it’s it’s really I mean, obviously it’s it’s kind of horrible how the exploitation is at the heart of these kinds of relationships. But there’s a very particular individual who tells us, more or less, in his own words about the experience of a society where if you’re a free man, you you do have limits. This is not a world where people date and have premarital sex with other free, socially honorable women. But it’s a world where it’s simply expected that people without protection, people without social honor, whether they’re slaves, or they’re in brothels are exploited. And so that’s a kind of concrete story that we know a lot about. But it’s really just reflective of this world.

Glen Scrivener
How do you as a historian use the word like horrible exploitation there? Which, like we all, we all hear that you describe that story, and we all hear horrible exploitation? But is there a sense in which we hear with 21st century is horrible exploitation? And to what degree do we have to go back to the fifth century and kind of here with ancient is like a contemporary of Augustine is, is he thinking that’s horrible exploitation? Or, like, they’re processing things in different ways?

Kyle Harper
Right, they are. And I mean, every society has its has its field division has its blindness, what’s amazing. Obviously, we should say that for the most part, we tend to know the ancient world through the, through the eyes of the literate classes, who write things down. So, you know, we we see and don’t see what what they see in many ways. That said, of course, we can read against the grain. And I don’t think, you know, I think the world of antiquity would look very different if most of what we had had been written by people who lacked power people who were, who were sold, bought and sold, who were traded as commodities. And so I think it’s, it’s important that we try and look at this world from the different angles, whether it’s the texts that we have, and thinking about what they say, but what they don’t say. What’s interesting is that, in the fourth and fifth century, in particular, as Christianity becomes the public culture, Constantine converts and 312, more or less during Augustine’s lifetime, Christianity goes from being a minority religion to a majority religion, to where most of the society is, at some level, at least nominally and many, many cases, more, more deeply. Christian, that’s a that’s a sea change in religious history and social history. And one of the interesting, I think, kind of unexpected consequences of that is it for the, for the first time, in a lot of ways, you start to hear different voices, new voices, you start to see new problems. And in many cases, Christian bishops are very, very critical of the, the social system around them. And so they’re critical of it from different perspectives. They’re critical of the the, what they perceive as the sinfulness of people who are having sex in ways that they shouldn’t. So they’re critical of people like Augustine, he’s, of course critical of himself. That’s kind of the point of confessing it. But what’s maybe even more interesting is that this opens the door to see for them to criticize these kinds of systems, the structures of exploitation in ways that that recognize the dignity, the claims of people who are exploited. And so there are, at times, expressions of concern and speaking on behalf of the dignity of people who are kind of getting the bad side of these systems of exploitation. And this does even in some ways, translate at times in limited ways. But does translate into changes, changes in social practice, changes in systems and structures, changes in laws, and that’s one interesting domain where we can actually follow some of these changes. Christian emperors in the fifth century start to get concerned around with the practice of prostituting enslaved people and take public legal action, in the name of suppressing it. So that’s a, it’s an interesting change, because it’s totally different from the Roman world that had preceded it.

Andrew Wilson
So you talk a lot about the fact that you began, sex begins to be seen, not only from the perspective of the powerful person, but from the powerless person or the dignity of the, the weaker person. And which is all related to the idea of you know, of consent, and a lot of things we now take for granted. Where does that what’s the connection? How arbitrary would it have seemed to an ancient person that Christianity was saying you shouldn’t do this? And you shouldn’t do that? And how, where does it but where does it grow? From? What’s the sort of? What are the roots of that idea that you should see it from the point of view of the other person and the dignity of that person? What’s, where does that come from at a sociological level? And that partly is partly theology, I’m sure. But where does that come from? And how much does it feel like a random thing that’s just coming? This is now what the new faith teaches us? And how much is it sort of more organic than that? And it’s become part of the way people think about the world?

Kyle Harper
Yeah, I mean, I’d say, it’s a great question. It’s a big one, I’d say there’s, there’s at least three or four things that are going on that are swirling together to create this, this deep change. I mean, one is the fundamental locus of the Christian gospels, as well as Pauline letters that provide a different set of normative beliefs. And so that, in this instance, has sort of two different facets. One is the kind of radical egalitarianism that is that is potential in the gospel and in Paul’s writings. And that that does cut across the the social assumptions, the world of hierarchy and status of classical antiquity. And second, sort of, essentially scriptural ingredient is the kind of heightened energy around sexual morality that really comes more from the Pauline letters, particularly from First Corinthians moreso than the Gospels. It’s, there’s elements of in in the gospels, but it’s particularly Paul, and particularly the letter to the Corinthians that that ultimately makes sexual ethics kind of front and center in Christian morality in a way that it really wasn’t any of you read. Epictetus was an amazing stoic philosopher. It wasn’t that much to say about sex. I mean, it’s there for sure. But it’s not. It’s not kind of all that strict, and it’s placed in the overall just texture of his moral teaching isn’t isn’t extremely prominent, whereas for Christians, it assumes a kind of centrality, that’s, that’s unexpected. So you have a kind of combination of sex is now an important domain of morality, too, you have a kind of egalitarian ism, where everybody kind of counts, everybody is creating the image of God. And this is whether you’re a king or a slave. You count. But the the third ingredient, I think, is what I mentioned earlier, is the conversion of a society. Because when Christianity is a is a persecuted minority, it has the kind of stridency of a persecuted minority, it’s sort of outside the mainstream. And sociologically, as you were putting it, that’s a very different environment than when all of a sudden you have bishops who are some of the most important leaders in their cities. And they’re grappling with large communities where you have a huge array of different kinds of people, different statuses, different professions, different levels of earnestness about their their religious commitments. So it takes the kind of moral ingredients or theological ingredients, but it does take that sociological ingredient where all of a sudden you have Christianity as a, as a mass movement as a mainstream factor in society. That, I think leads to a different kind of reflection that we haven’t seen before. And so simply when I was writing this, my book on this question the need of the Christian sources in the post constantijn period, are just so dramatically different than what we had before. And it’s not that the belief are different. But what they see is different, the way they interact with society is different. You get leaders like Augustine, but his his rough contemporary in the east, John Chrysostom, who’s a priest in Antioch, and then Bishop in Constantinople, and who’s an amazing preacher, and we have hundreds of his homilies. And that they’re an amazing source for everything we’re talking about for social history, because you have this extremely eloquent, very thoughtful, very honest, very socially critical preacher, who’s preaching to probably hundreds of people, and dealing with thinking through the kinds of problems that really exist in the world around them. And, you know, when I was way back in the day writing a dissertation on slavery in the late Roman world, you kind of fall in love with these sources, because of course, you’re desperate for good material, you’ll get journalists you want to source. And you can, you can get a little attached to your resources, I probably probably like John, because it’s done too much just because he gave me so much good material. But that’s in itself is kind of the interesting fact what is going on, all of a sudden, you have a society that is now mostly Christian, in some sense. And these leaders have to grapple with problems that that maybe they didn’t before.

Glen Scrivener
And before then like before, the church becomes the sexual sanatorium as you call it in the book for all the sins of the world like it when I say that, yes, brilliant, you got some great lines in it. You talk about how you know all the world’s diffuse erotic energy is to be cramped into this one frail, sacred union, which is just a sensational line. And as a counterculture, in the early church, that kind of flies in a certain way, you’ve got this odd breed of human called a Christian. And some of them are even martyrs. And they can kind of buck the trend of survival ends and embrace death, and then some of virgins, and they can buck the trend of sexual self expression, and they can actually be continents and chastity sudden suddenly becomes this sort of superhuman thing. But when you kind of roll that into an empire wide exercise, there start to be some different views of a freedom, like we’ve already talked about Augustan. Like, in the early church, you talk about free will, was born in the struggle to define the meaning of Christian sexual morality. And in my reading now, that was because you had this brand of human being called these these Christians who are kind of bucking the trend of absolute biological necessity, and doing this completely different thing. And a libertarian kind of doctrine of free will, suddenly seemed much more believable for Christians in the early church. And then that changed as we went sort of post Constantine, have I read you right, in any way?

Kyle Harper
Yeah, I mean, I think that that gets it. What I find really interesting is that the the question of freewill becomes suddenly very prominent, in the second century, the Roman Empire in a way that it simply hadn’t before. And there’s some interesting debates about whether it’s essentially stoic, and there’s some arguments that are that are compelling to that effect. But ultimately, I think what’s very interesting is, to me, indisputably, it’s Christians who really take that banner, and they’re the first ones to use the words together free will to just like as a, as a point of just empirical fact as a kind of really, linguistically even. But it’s not just that they’re the first use of words. It’s that this idea that humans are fundamentally moral creatures in a, in a cosmos, where morality, where the our moral nature is fundamental is essential to who we are, and that humans will be judged, really sharpens the contours of beliefs about freedom, freedom of the will, because in that kind of high stakes universe, when you combine it with the sort of egalitarianism that all people are like this, and all people matter then Do you see sharpened the notion that consequently it must be the case that all people are free, and they’re free in a moral sense. And so, you, to me, there’s an explosion of interest in this in the early Christian church that you don’t say yen Platonism, we’re going to develop you don’t see in stoicism where it could have developed. And in both of those cases, in some ways, is in the air is implicit, but it really pretty clearly as is Christian thinkers who are very vocal, very insistent that human beings have a certain moral nature. And part of that moral nature is the the freedom to choose whether to, to sin or not. So it’s, it’s interesting, because then it gets entangled with, with sex, because as I said, sex is also more front and center in Christian ethics than it had been in other philosophical systems. So it’s those two things start to just sort of rotate around one another. And of course, this then, in the later posts continue in church becomes inescapable that Christians have to then confront, what about the people who are fundamentally unfree in a legal and social sense? And so you see, you see all of this come together in the in the fourth century, where they’re grappling with the the links and tensions really between the philosophical and the social.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah. And as as one of those categories of people who are unfree and sort of brought into the sexual arena where I’m thinking about Petr St. Here as as as something that was celebrated and that there were different forms of it in the Greek world and the Roman world. But I guess it was Jews, like Philo, who first kind of wrote it with it with any sort of detractors from pederasty, sort of prior to Philo. Writing and then, so how did use and then how to Christians kind of conceive of pederasty?

Kyle Harper
Yeah, I mean, there are but it’s certainly by the time of fellows for century AD, Alexandria, and Hellenistic, deeply Hellenized Greek speaking Jew, who’s a prominent social figure as well, very interesting philosopher influenced by Platonism. And so one of the reasons why it is suddenly more visible in Philo is because he wants to synthesize Platonism, with with his kind of Hebrew, moral foundations, and so that that, of course, sort of poses the very specific tension between the the prominence and positive, often positive valence of certain kinds of same sex arrows in the Platonic corpus for phyla, because he wants to us to praise Plato and integrate it with Jewish moral thought. But that’s sort of a point where he doesn’t reconcile them. But you see, I’m critical of Petr St. In particular, that you say there are different forms, and we’re talking about a huge sweep of time, so many people will be familiar with the Platonic dialogues. And personally, I think the the world of classical Greece, and in that case, we’re in classical Athens is quite different from the world of the early Roman Empire, in lots of ways, culturally, socially. I think, for me as a social historian, what I what I think his most fundamental probably is just the way in which slavery becomes so fundamentally important in the Roman world, of course, the Greeks have slaves. But when Plato is talking about same sex attraction, it’s usually between free people. When most of the the author’s in the early Christian, I mean, early Roman period, early imperial period. Think about right about moralize about same sex attraction. It’s, it seems like slavery is always there. And so this is a world that does have very different beliefs about same sex love than Christianity or more modern cultures. But it does seem that that slavery sort of takes over or is always present. So when, if a free person in the Roman world wants to have same sex, sexual sex They almost universally the sources that that we have, which definitely isn’t reflective of everybody in a huge, complex, diverse society. It seems like, again, this, slavery is always Central. And a lot of what seems to take up the space in these conversations is a conversation about masters exploiting their slaves. So you see that sort of change over the centuries from classical Greece to classical Rome. And it’s a it’s a very different world. And when the Christians, then Christianity spreads and spreads and spreads, it’s in a world where, again, slavery is really central to cultural conversations about same sex attraction.

Glen Scrivener
Right, right.

Andrew Wilson
Can I ask a How? How unique is this transition? How dependent is the modern? Or the sort of post this sexual revolution vision of sexual sexuality? How dependent is it on Christian foundations? Once it’s had the revelation the revolution having happened? Do you think I’m gonna go to pot borrow my question, because I’m just interested in this and in ordinary life now, when you take away or take away the theological foundations, which are if at all the things you talked about the sort of, you know, if you were to one by one, remove the bricks, when would the house fall down? But or rather, how unique or perhaps another way of saying is, how unique is this transition? Does it happen in other cultures and civilizations? In a completely different way? Are there other sources that get us to this more consent led, respect the dignity of the individual, no matter who you are, and how vulnerable you are in society, you still have similar sexual rights and restrictions? How could that have happened without Christianity? Or did it happen with Christianity and other parts of the world? Or is it all effectively, an exported version of the Christian sexual revolution that takes place in the period you’ve been talking about?

Kyle Harper
Well, why don’t you ask a big question? You told me I just a Roman historian. I think that there seems to me to be something that is deeply essentially, Christian, certainly about the way this this revolution happens. But it really the values of consent and dignity, and the way those become fundamental ingredients in liberalism. Seems to me deeply Christian, and it’s a good question. It’s that’s the right question is Does it happen elsewhere? Could it have happened elsewhere? I think it’s, we can certainly imagine ways in which other really deeply moral philosophies, if they become public morality, could tend towards these kinds of fundamental values of consent and dignity. But I do think that, that those are the, in many ways, the really key terms really fundamental values that the many ways separate the pre Christian from the Christian world of antiquity. And I mean, I think that’s just in the, in the sources, there’s, there is absolutely a notion of consent. In Roman law, they’re not oblivious to the meaning of consent, but it’s a very muted idea. It’s certainly not front and center. Whereas in Christian culture, that becomes a really important concept that either a person does or does not consent to certain acts. And then dignity. Again, this is rooted right in the sources, it’s Christian bishops in the fourth century, who are really shouting, You don’t have to look that hard to see them talking about the dignity of the individual. You can find traces of it in pre Christian systems, certainly in stoicism. But you have to look really hard. Whereas, you know, the the axioma, the the worthiness, the dignity of humans are created in the image of God who have freedom, moral freedom, who have a rational soul. That’s, that’s really loud. And it’s really prominent in a way that it hadn’t been before. So I think the way this transformation does happen, it’s it’s in very Christian terms.

Glen Scrivener
So something like that. Me too, would you say is it has been a profoundly Christian kind of movement, Harvey Weinstein transposed into Rome. His his crimes would be invisible, you know, and that sort of society? And would you say that? Me too is testament to something Christian? still clinging on in modern Western society?

Kyle Harper
Yeah, I mean, I think I think you could argue that. I mean, obviously, it it deserves, emphasizing in a way we haven’t touched on yet that that there really is something anti erotic about the the Christian revolution. So just to, again, to start with language, you know, I’m old fashioned. And do think we could ask, what are the sources say? It’s pretty stunning, that, that arrows is not present in the New Testament, right? It’s, I got a, which is pretty marginal term until the New Testaments pretty weird word. And, you know, there’s just something really deep about that, that arrows is not there. And Agape is everywhere. So it’s a different, fundamentally different model of love. And we have to, of course, keep in mind that early Christianity is a deeply ascetic religion. And so, you know, I think in many ways, what’s going on in modern times is that there’s the notion of consent is still prominent. egalitarianism is still fundamental, but there’s also a kind of re renewal of the positive charge of eras. And it’s connection to individual individualism and expressive ism, in a way that is not indebted to the early Christian revolution. We have to remember, you know, what Paul says in Corinthians is that marriage is permitted. But he says, by way of concession, not of command, he says, I wish you all could be as I am, meaning celibate. And the big debate in early Christianity is whether marriage is a secondary good to celibacy, or a lesser evil to sin. And I mean, this is a live debate right down to the time of Augustine, he writes a book called on the good of marriage. And he writes that because it was a big issue, and a debated issue among Orthodox Christians into the fourth century, whether Paul had let Christians get married, just because it saved them from pornea, from fornication, this, this kind of sin. So I do think it’s helpful to to emphasize the really deep, ascetic tendencies in early Christianity that’s, again, embedded in the gospels in the Pauline letters. And that that has worked out over the course of centuries. But the question is, even whether Christians should have sex at all, even within marriage.

Glen Scrivener
Yes, and therefore, expressive individualism and romanticism kind of comes to the fore. And yeah, the erotic is back back with a vengeance. It’s been so helpful. Kyle, thank you very much. You’ve got you’ve got some teaching to do today. Yeah, gotta go and teach all that. So

Andrew Wilson
helpful. Kyle, thank you. And thank you for your work this wonderful on this add on pandemics and others. It’s been really great to talk. Thank you. Yeah.

Kyle Harper
Wonderful. Well, thank you guys.

Glen Scrivener
So what do you make of that?

Andrew Wilson
I was fascinating. I think you’re so struck on here it is remarkable thinker, and a very warm guy, and it’s just really a real privilege and joy to have him on. I I love the, I think the duality in a way of clearly what a modern person and I think he would probably represent this himself would affirm about the Christian revolution, which is the you know, and he kept going back to those two prongs really, of sort of the dignity and the egalitarian ism. So this sort of the social leveling that takes place through Christianity, and and the the individual dignity which of course, together feed the concept of consent, and that being a part of the way that we think about sex ever since. But then also the critique though, that which which a modern person would say, which is obviously not come from Christianity, which is, you know, Eros bytes back or that kind of I just didn’t have comment towards the end about Eros and Agrippina is so helpful. And so in a way from the perspective of any modern person, any modern Western person who’s not a believer or not, I can’t say that now. Again, I’m not a Christian. Anyway, looking at the Christian vision of sects, they may only have Christians We’ll see the dignity consent piece of the puzzle. And the non Christian will probably see the well yeah, it’s a bit erotically repressive bit thing, you know, you’re not just sort of giving, you’re not celebrating Eros as you should. And actually, because both are present in the Christian revolution, and I just thought that analysis, particularly the end of Eros, Anagha, pay together the asceticism of early Christianity, even as a way of understanding what our culture thinks it’s recovering in challenging Christian sexual mores more recently, because I think it helps you read our own our own culture and say, oh, yeah, okay, you are building on these two Christian insights, but you’re also from your perspective without recognizing who you are. But you’re also restoring, as you see, it’s a sort of celebration of the, you know, the naked joys, actually, of Eros, as opposed to the Agha pay centered vision of Christianity and that that tension between of course we’re going to assume these things to be true hashtag me too. But we’re also going to celebrate all of this stuff and go crazy with whoever you like. And But effectively, then try and constrain it simply with the category of consent and effectively use that as the the only rule you have, which is why people would still say to any two consenting adults knock yourselves out. And either just think that was as a way of analyzing it through the lens of Eros and adipate, was a very helpful way of framing it.

Glen Scrivener
And it certainly makes you think harder when somebody says, well, love is love, don’t you think? And you’re like, well, well, part of the problem is we’re speaking English. Which Greek word are you? Are you meaning because?

Andrew Wilson
Eros, don’t you think it clearly doesn’t make any sense?

Glen Scrivener
I hope not. You know, and, and, you know, there are at least four loves that, you know, we it’s not still gay, it’s not filio. But but. So that that is fascinating. And and this idea that sex as a breaking of rules and norms, and a violation of a violation of something that stands above the social strata that we’re in and is just wrong is wrong, as wrong as wrong. If it’s abuse, it just comes comes across so strongly that, you know, even as Kyle Harper is talking about the ancient world, you can’t help but say, well, that’s exploitation. Yeah. And that’s horrible exploitation. And you’re like, Well, okay, we’ve we’ve been thoroughly Christianized, in that sort of in that sort of way. And yet, those sorts of categories were invisible to that culture. They were, and were brought about, you know, through through the Christian revolution. And that the other thing that struck me is, is, you know, I quoted that line to him, which I’m always you know, talking about the old, all the world’s diffuse erotic energy was cramped into this frail, sacred union. And in the sense that the 1960s, kind of let the genie out of the bottle again. One way of telling the story is that the first century sexual revolution said Men must be as restricted as women have always been, yeah. And it attacked the double standard from that level and the 20th century ones. Now women can be as liberated as men have always been. But then you get the Louise parents of this world saying, well, but But now everyone has to play the male game. Yeah, the male dominated game and and men, on average, you know, have have different

Andrew Wilson
doesn’t show sexuality is much higher, and therefore, tendency to promiscuity is higher, people find you’ve got far less violence at stake in your sexual proclivities, then it wasn’t us because we’re not going to give birth to a child at the end of it. And so the whole sexual economy gets designed around effectively, powerful men. Yes. Which I think, again, sorry to keep toggling back to the 18th century. But that’s, of course, what that one of the things that’s going on, even in the modern sexual revolution, is that it’s really the 1960s is really the going mainstream of trends that were beginning that were 200 years old, really, that people from the 18th century beginning to go, Well, of course, men can do this, this and this and challenge all these Christian sexual restrictions, more and more fact, you see some of that even back in the time of someone like Shakespeare, or John Donald people like that, and then it comes, but it becomes certainly something that powerful men can do, and what happened to the 1960s. And then it gets it sort of snowballs into the culture as a whole after a series of little mini sexual revolutions rumbling away in the 20s, and so on. And then the technology shock of that makes it easy to do it without the downsides of the consequences as at least as it’s framed. And so it becomes a much more widespread phenomenon, but at its heart, the sort of ideological conceptual level that change has already been made. But it’s just still got huge costs for certain people. And what happens today is we pretend that those costs no longer exist. And even with a mixture of contraception, or abortive, whatever we are trying to get no there’s no downside there nothing to see here in pornography is just it’s not, you know, it’s sort of consenting person and a consenting viewer and what’s the problem? And as you say, I found it was very, very helpful on that she’s not the only one saying it, but it’s very helpful to think now there is there are a lot more acts of exploitation and destructions one of the reasons why abortion would be sidelined so much and we don’t we don’t want to see it, don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to be aware that of what it is even and it’s certainly why we wouldn’t even want to have a conversation about contraceptive methods and and some of the victims in pornography because it’s to it’s to put back in the center of the screen, the fact that there is still exploitation going on there is still the powerful and the powerless, that dynamic still there. And there remains, therefore a tension between Eros Unchained, and consent and dignity and that that is built into its factories built into the way we are, if I have sex with anybody I want to, that’s sometimes going to have destructive consequences on those people. Similarly, if I don’t, I am constraining my own sexual freedom. And of course, the Christians have said, yes to the second of those, that is what you should do. And the 1960s wanted to say no to those things, but we’ve seen what happens when that overreaches in itself. So yeah, I just thought it was a fascinating interview. And wasn’t

Glen Scrivener
it fascinating that he said that sort of libertarian Free Will was born in in the struggle for the early church to express itself in chastity yesterday?

Andrew Wilson
I was really interested because I’ve not I’ve not heard that before that I didn’t know actually, I feel bad that I maybe I should have known this maybe you knew, but the idea that Christians were the first to even use the term free will, but the fact that that is actually a big part of the sexual story, because obviously partly Free will means I powerful male can control my desires. Yes, but it also means that you subservient in society’s eyes, slave woman child have free will, which means you have agency to resist me and yes, so the Free Will cuts both ways, both and both times in defense of sexual restrictions. Yes, yeah. And consent. And I just, yeah, I’ve never seen that. Yeah, that was a bit of a light bulb.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, Freedom has expressed not in free love in the 1960s sense, but in the sense that I’m free from a necessity. Yes. I’m not a slave to my sexual passions, right? Yeah. And so actually virgins and martyrs in the early church are teaching a fatalistic culture you can resist the biological urge for survival and sex Yeah, you can be a martyr be free be a martyr be free be a virgin. And that and therefore Yeah, that

Andrew Wilson
that could be a Virgin Atlantic next campaign. Yeah, it is a just a race. That was a very interesting, I guess I’d seen it on on one side but not on the other as well and thought free well as a category for understanding that revolutions fascinating.

Glen Scrivener
And then I mean, where where the book gets to gels very nicely with Joseph Henrik and the weirdest people in the world and Joseph Henrich writes in a in a more direct kind of way. So when Kyle Harper talks about all the diffuse erotic energy being cramped into the, into that frail, sacred union, he talks about the, the church reached down and grabbed men by the testicles. And for the absolute blessing of the West, and, and, and Kyle gets into it. And obviously Joseph Hendricks, like whole book is about that. But that actually unleashing free love in the erotic sense has been a dangerous, wild experiment. But constraining male sexual, especially male sexuality, has been for the blessing and fruitfulness of the world. And you see people like Louise Perry and Mary Harrington and others, sort of rediscovering that. Yeah,

Andrew Wilson
you do. And it’d be interesting to see maybe in 100 years time and equivalent podcast of this could look back at the impact of that, on some of the wider sort of economic and political fallout of the sexual revolution, as in so if you chain male sexual energy, and that be constrained, it is probably a better, slightly less pejorative term, but you constrain it and you channel it in this particular way. These are some of the benefits that have come as it hemorrhages work, as you say. But the opposite is also true that if you just allow it to run amok with anybody, any which way you want, so what are the some of the economic impacts of what that does to families and what that does to male identity and what that does to female identity and what it does to, you know, fertility and therefore what it does in the end to the health and civilization and the aging of a society and demographic trends. And, you know, the future belongs to the fertile he realized all of these things are actually offshoots of the demographic transition and, and the sexual revolution that is connected with it. And you wonder, in 200 years time, when people look back at this, these generations we’ve lived through and say, Oh, that was when things really started to go wrong for the West, because that was where the the actual things that make the society strong, although they still had a lot of money. But actually, now we can look back and see that was where it started to go wrong. Because effectively they they gave up on those things, in order to allow sexual desire to go wherever it wants it again. And it backfired. I you know, obviously, it’s too soon to say, but I think you can see some hints of some of those trends. Yes. You know, very well established as of the, you know, the early 2020s.

Glen Scrivener
And final question like what does that make you think as an evangelist and apologist into this culture, because I think if we went back the clock 15 years, I wouldn’t want to talk about sex and all that kind of stuff. I would say it’s a totally fringe issue. It’s all about Jesus. And then there might be a chapter at the end of the book and a little FAQ section about it. And yet, I mean, what Kyle was saying he’s in the first century, front and center, and people were like, shocked by how much Christians were wanting to talk about this issue. Are we back in that kind of culture where sex becomes more prominent?

Andrew Wilson
I think we are. I mean, I, when I first started preaching in 2005, or six, and we did a series called Sex in the City, you know, it was a very, it sounded on trend at the time, it doesn’t now, based on one Corinthians five to seven, and it was one of the first major series is I did and it was sort of late, I guess I’m in my late 20s. And as you realize the apologetic power of even then of you know, 15 years back of preaching intersexual ethics as a means partly of engaging attention partly is one of the things that the world is still going I actually would I actually didn’t talk him about that subject, I, I don’t share your presuppositions about it. But I definitely want to talk about it, which is not true of many areas of biblical theology and ethics. But simultaneously, I think what you realize how Christocentric, the Christian, sexual apologetic is and has to be if it’s to make any headway at all, because the more post Christian society becomes, the more leaving Christianity behind society does, the less easy it is to just give people the rules. And the more you have to show people, the theological grammar within which the world the rules make sense. So you have to go to Ephesians. Five, you have to go to Genesis one and two, Revelation 21 and 22. Because people otherwise say, Yes, but why is that? Why do you live in sex in that way? Why is sex within marriage and you start telling the bigger story of Christ in the church of Heaven on Earth, being united of the worshiping one God rather than many and having one sexual partner who’s not like you versus many who might be and you start to have to tell those big stories in order to make any of it makes sense. But that in a way then means that you’re able to use sex and marriage as an apologetic tool they become, you’re leaning into them, because you realize this is actually an opportunity, rather than something I’m hoping never comes up. And that’s certainly been my experience, you occasionally get into trouble as well. But I think it enables all sorts of openings for gospel conversations that would probably not have been available at the start of the century. And I think, again, I’m always the optimist. But I think there’s lots of opportunities there in what I call sexual apologetics. And yes, yes, gift to us.

Glen Scrivener
I agree. And I think the apologetics of the early church would sort of bear that out. Yeah, if we see how they address the topic. Well, that’ll do for now, we are also going to, in our series interview, Carl Truman, as we look at how we’ve gone from a Christian to a post Christian kind of sexual ethic, and he’ll have plenty to say, the author of the rise and triumph of the modern self. That’ll do for now, if you are listening to this on a podcast, why don’t you give us a rating and a review, make sure you’ve subscribed to the channel? We’d love to keep you updated with all the stuff that is coming. If you’re watching on YouTube, then why don’t you click like and subscribe and why don’t you share on social media. We’d love to get the word out there that more people can enjoy post Christianity, but Andrew Wilson, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.