A Lutheran Approach to the Family Values: Focus on Fiducia

[2] 1. Second Article Concerns.

First, the statement locates its theology in the Second Article of the Creed, not the First. The theological center of gravity is “Jesus Christ” not “God the Creator” or “God the Father Almighty.” Typically, Lutheran social statements begin at the beginning, positioning sexual ethics in God’s plan for creation. Orders of creation theology follows, backed by implicit or explicit appeals to a “natural law” embedded in human nature.[3] For example, the 1970 LCA statement “Sex, Marriage, and Family” argued for “heterosexual structures of God’s creation.”[4] Language originally used after WWII to buttress a “cult of domesticity” and enforce gender roles was now deployed to endorse heterosexuality. In this framework, homosexuality ranked as “unnatural,” as well as “unbiblical.”[5]

[3] Any theology that begins with creation must treat its fall, whether defined as idolatry, brokenness, or right relationship gone irrevocably wrong. Predictably, statements organized around First Article concerns root sexual ethics in idolatry and provided impressive taxonomies of sexual sin: promiscuity, pornography, divorce, domestic violence, et al.

[4] Against this backdrop, sexual ethics become a policy of containment: what not to do – with what – to whom. “Thou shalt nots” dominate; proscriptions rule. It is clear what constituted “bad sex;” what “good sex” is all about remains a mystery. But then the vices have always been more interesting than the virtues, and the bad guys always seem to have more fun.

[5] Starting with Christ and Second Article concerns alters sexual ethics in ways that are both helpful and surprising. Rather than the creation-fall schema, sexuality situates itself squarely in incarnation. Bodies matter, so much so that God even took one on.

Sexual ethics that begins with incarnation discusses how best to live in bodies, but now Christ’s life and not Adam’s fall patterns Christian discernment.

[6] Not creation, but reconciliation directs sexual ethics, and the biblical exegesis reflects this emphasis. The book of Genesis doesn’t take prominence in this document; rather, John, Paul, and the pastoral epistles inform human sexuality. Paul’s letter to the Galatians features prominent, but it is the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23), not the “desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21) that comes to the fore.[6] Christian sexual ethics finds a home in reconciliation, not simply creation.

[7] Against this backdrop, sexual ethics features more positive commands: “thou shalts” replace “thou shalt nots.” The statement pays more attention than its predecessors to what constitutes “good sex.” It lays groundwork for a positive view of sexuality that is marked by trust and bound by promises.

[8] Indeed, the document acknowledges three dimensions of sexuality: unitive, procreative – and erotic. “Sexuality especially involves the power or capacity to form deep and lasting bonds, the power to give and receive pleasure, and the power to conceive and bear children.” (468-469)

[9] Moral theologians have long debated the primacy of unitive or procreative purposes, but largely in the context of marriage. The erotic dimension of marriage almost always got short shrift.[7] The statement refuses to order these; they are simply presented as three interlocking dimensions, or “powers” of sexuality. Moreover, these are dimensions of sexuality, not simply of marriage. One might wish more had been said about erotic power – and its abuses, but it’s good to see it mentioned at all. I count that as one clear gain of a statement that begins with Second Article. This is a person of the Trinity who, after all, changed water into wine, so the guests could keep partying.

[10] Against the background of Second Article concerns, the family becomes the place where people learn faithful exercise and enjoyment of the “powers” of sexuality. Family offers the safety and stability that our embodied nature craves in order to flourish. Certainly, families fall short of the ideal, but the positive view of family – and sexuality – precedes acknowledgment of its shortcomings. We’re called to our better natures, before we’re chastened for our sins.

[11] Interestingly, in a footnote that should probably be incorporated into the body of the document, the statement defines “family” to include “a variety of forms, more akin to the older term of “household,” often employed by Luther.”[8] “Household” gives “family” greater bandwidth, stretching it to include single and same-sex parents, grandparents and relatives, even older parents and their adult children. This expanded definition registers as less ideal than incarnate: it reflects the reality of twenty-first century family life.

[12] 2. Fiducia as the Hallmark of Lutheran Family Values.

What keeps these hybrid households from imploding? The answer surprises us. In a statement on sexual ethics, one might expect to find all conflicts resolved by love, argued by an ecstatic exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13. Indeed, in a Lutheran statement on sexual ethics, one might expect neighbor-love referenced as a theological warrants. Instead, the answer is trust, not love, and the theological warrant is neighbor-love, not neighbor-love. Trust is the glue that holds couples and relationships, households and families together. Again, this follows from the Second Article starting-point.

[13] Beginning with Christ and incarnation, not creation and its fall, the document highlights mercy rather than judgment. Christ is “the good faith of God,” and Christian sexual ethics seeks to live out that faithfulness in our relationships to one another. Fidelity emerges as the signal virtue for a Christian sexual ethics.

[14] The family tutors Christians in fidelity, i.e., faithful loving and faithful living toward God and one another. The family becomes as a school for trust: “a ground and source of trust” (626). Turning toward developmental language, the document repeats the psychological insight that children “learn either trust or distrust from their earliest relationship of dependence upon parents and others in the family circle.” (633-634). Patterns of loyalty and confidence established in the family contour all future relationships.

[15] This focus on fiducia illumines different aspects of sexual ethics. Not failure to love but breach of trust fuels sexual transgression. The Old Testament prophets nod in agreement; they know the terrain of infidelity. They fiercely indictedIsrael for her unfaithfulness, and their combination of lament and threats of dire revenge is absolutely familiar to anyone who’s experienced a more human version of infidelity. But we don’t quite catch the prophets’ distinction between love and trustworthiness. The reasons for unfaithfulness may not be “he/she didn’t love me anymore,” but “I couldn’t trust him/her.”[9] The disciple Peter’s behavior during the crucifixion and beyond demonstrates that it’s possible both to love – and be utterly untrustworthy. After all, Peter was able to protest his love for Jesus over and over again (John 21), despite having denied he’s ever known him. However unhappily, love can co-exist with unfaithfulness. But being trustworthy deepens love; it tethers lovers to a common future.

[16] Promises make trust public, promises between the two people, promises between the couple and their community, promises the couple makes before God. Again and again, the statement underscores the promissory character of sexuality, and this teaching is welcome – and true.1[10]

[17] 3. The Importance of the Social in This Social Statement

For finally, promises weave social life together in a tight web of trust. This social statement is unabashedly social, it situates sexuality in the context of community. Its emphasis on promises reaches beyond a romantic dyad – no matter what the gender of the people involved! – into the public realm. Promise-making creates and sustains human and community, and the document points to their implicit and explicit presence in politics, economics, education, etc. As Hannah Arendt observed, because of the darkness of the human heart, people find it difficult to “guarantee today who they will be tomorrow.”1[11] Promise-making guards against basic human unpredictability.

Sociologists lament the failure of “mediating institutions,” like schools, Scout troops, clubs, but it is as much a failure of trust as a failure of the institutions themselves.1[12] Practice in promise-making would help re-establish the precious commodity of social trust. It starts in the family.

[18] Based on trust and promise, Christian sexuality contributes to the common good, because the “common good requires social trust and builds social trust.” (1214-1215) No longer is sexuality a “private” affair, a matter between two consenting adults. Rather, Christian sexuality looks to buttress bonds of social trust. Good sex works toward the good of all.1[13]

Endnotes:

© February 2009
Journal of Lutheran Ethics
Volume 9, Issue 2