Can traditional sexuality exist without social control?

With the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential candidate, many conservative evangelical leaders like Russell Moore are reflecting on how their movement might redefine itself. Donald Trump signifies the abject failure of the religious right’s pursuit of political power. On every social issue around which they rallied their voting base, they have been exploited and betrayed by the Republican Party. And millions of Americans have been completely alienated from ever considering Christianity as a result. Some conservative evangelicals are now considering whether it’s time to promote traditional sexuality without trying to force it on other people. My question is whether traditional sexuality can exist without the pursuit of social control.

I have theorized that the religious right’s obsession with sexuality is mostly about the justification of social control, the most prominent example being the way that segregation was propped up by the paranoia over protecting white female bodies from horny black men. As race was sublimated into coded terms after segregation ended, white evangelical purity culture became the means of justifying middle-class wealth. Ask any middle-class white evangelical why people are poor, and teenage pregnancy will be at the top of the list of reasons. By keeping their kids sexually chaste, white evangelical parents gain the justification to demand that their tax dollars not be used to subsidize the sexual irresponsibility they attribute to poverty. This is why “morality” and “family values” are always about sexual purity and never about paying working class parents enough to be able to spend time with their children.

Now just because “traditional sexuality” has been corrupted by the needs of white middle-class self-justification doesn’t mean that Christianity should have nothing to say about sex. The question is what it would look like if it served a different function than justifying social inequity by promoting a one-size-fits-all understanding of the heteronormative nuclear family. What if sexual ethics was about avoiding idolatry rather than about claiming that social inequity could resolve itself if everyone conformed to a middle-class ideal? What if conservative evangelicals bore witness to their traditional sexuality without needing to impose it on other people?

These are the questions rolling around in my mind as the United Methodist Church prepares to go to war over gay marriage. Is traditional sexuality always about having control over other people? Can conservatives promote it as a holy, more beautiful way of life without demanding that Christians who have a different understanding be excommunicated from their covenant? Is there power in the witness itself or does power require forcing others to submit to your views?

When we think about power, it’s worth considering the cross of Jesus Christ, which Christians consider the single most powerful event in human history. Does the cross have power on its own as a compelling witness of God’s radical forgiveness or does the cross only gain its power when Constantine paints it onto the shields of the Roman Empire? The traditionalist side of the LGBT debate in the United Methodist Church has been able to control the church through a narrow majority gained by corralling African United Methodist delegates, but its dogged pursuit of majoritarian political power has completely lost the debate in the minds and hearts of United Methodist laity in the US. We lost at least a dozen families in my last church after the 2012 General Conference. This time, it will probably be a lot worse.

The cross does not belong to the side that always conquers. Cruciform power consists in the willingness to speak truth in the absence of political control. The most powerful evidence of cruciform power in our society is the way that people are legitimated by their claim to victimhood. Obviously at times, this can be and has been manipulated in an unhealthy way. But regardless of however secularized and distorted the power of victimhood has become, the reason our society gives credibility to victims is because of how Jesus’ cross has definitively shaped Western consciousness.

Conservative evangelicals have this cruciform sensibility embedded into their DNA which is why they need to feel like they’re being persecuted. But if your “cross” is your lack of control over other people’s sexuality, then it’s farcical and doesn’t have any genuine cruciform authority. Regardless of whether or not you agree that they’re right, LGBT Christians right now have the cruciform authority in the United Methodist debate over their identity. They won’t win the African delegates, but they’ve completely won the debate in our society. The most devastating thing about this is the Constantinian approach of conservative evangelicals has caused the world to equate sexual holiness with oppression. What a horribly squandered witness that is!

What would it look like for United Methodist conservatives to speak their truth without power by accepting a compromise that allows them to stop being the Caesar in the equation? Just think of how much more wholesome a conversation we could have if sexual holiness were uncoupled from oppression and the rejection of otherness. I realize this outcome is unlikely because too many conservatives have framed this debate in the same scorched earth, zero compromise terms as Ted Cruz and the party of government shutdown.

What would happen if traditional sexuality were presented by people who didn’t have ironclad political control and thus had to think about how to make a persuasive presentation to those who disagreed? Imagine how many teenagers might actually wait till they were married to have sex if we were able to decouple sexual holiness from rejection of the other. Maybe not that many, but 1% would be an improvement. If we aren’t able to do this in the United Methodist Church, then it will crash and burn for the same reason the Republican Party will crash and burn this November.