How Sexuality Became Involved in Religion in America

By: Jordan Bondrowski

After the Wrath of God-AIDS, Sexuality & American Religion

“In After the Wrath of God, Anthony Petro vividly narrates the religious history of AIDS in America. Delving into the culture wars over sex, morality, and the future of the American nation, he demonstrates how religious leaders and AIDS activists have shaped debates over sexual morality and public health from the 1980s to the present day.” (Full summary here)

Main Argument

Petro explains how the AIDS crisis in the 1980s was the beginning of the talk of public health and homosexuality in the Church community. In a way Petro explains how the crisis finally brought people together to openly talk about homosexuality because religious communities and AID’s activist communities were able to talk about sexual orientation. It is known that the Church preaches abstinence and monogamy and Petro “reveals how the epidemic increased efforts to advance the moral agenda regarding the health benefits of [this]”. The Church community was concerned about the health of the nation, but this also played into their rejection of homosexuality which allowed for the discussions to be had.

The Function

The function of this argument is most similar to Karl Marx’s explanation of the functions of religion. These people who disagree with other sexuality’s, like homosexuality, are trying to “reproduce the status quo by distracting attention from the actual source of the conflict”(McCutcheon 57). They are using their religion to say this is not the status quo, this is not how it always has been, let’s go back to the original way. Instead they should be accepting that the world changes at a fast pace and the actual problem is that more discussions need to be had so those that oppose it can realize that love is love.

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Seeking the Straight and Narrow-Weight Loss and Sexual Reorientation in Evangelical America

“Losing weight and changing your sexual orientation are both notoriously difficult to do successfully. Yet many faithful evangelical Christians believe that thinness and heterosexuality are godly ideals—and that God will provide reliable paths toward them for those who fall short. Seeking the Straight and Narrow is a fascinating account of the world of evangelical efforts to alter our strongest bodily desires.” (Full summary here)

Main Argument

Gerber argues in this book that while Christianity teaches you that God loves all, the Church influences you to fit a specific role including being fit and heterosexual. Therefore they make you feel as though you are disappointing God if you are overweight or homosexual. Gerber then analyzes what people do to resort back to the “right” way and how they make sense of doing that. These ideals also just so happen to typically align with the ideals of America itself that Gerber mentions by noting “these programs reflect the often overlooked connection between American cultural obsessions and Christian ones”.

The Function

Durkheim’s take on the function of religion is most closely related to Gerber’s explanation of the function in this book. Durkheim believes “since the practices we call religious are none other than members’ efforts to assemble and experience the group as an empirical reality”(McCutcheon 57). When people try to change their sexual orientation or weight to fit in to what they think God wants, they are just participating in this to be a part of this group. He even goes on to explain that this group is just in your mind because you participate in things together. When you are attempting to change your sexuality to fit better into the group, Durkheim is saying that this is essentially you trying to fit into the imaginary group that the Church is preaching versus what it is actually doing.

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Saving Sex-Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism

“For decades, evangelical sex education has been a thriving industry. Evangelical couples have sought advice from Christian psychologists and marriage counselors, purchased millions of copies of faith-based “sexual guidebooks,” and consulted magazines, pamphlets, websites, blogs, and podcasts on a vast array of sexual topics, including human anatomy, STDs–sometimes known as “Sexually Transmitted Demons”–varieties of sexual pleasure, role-play, and sex toys, all from a decidedly biblical angle.” (Full summary here)

Main Argument

DeRogatis speaks on the misconception that the Evangelical Church is against sex, when in reality they believe sex can be a sacred thing. She explains that there are many different aspects of sex, that if understood at a biblical angle is a “divinely-sanctioned, spiritual act”. The Church still recognizes sex as a sin, especially premarital sex, but they encourage people to seek advice and learn things about sex to be better educated. She also emphasized the point that teaching mutual consent is important to the Church because they are trying to reflect on women empowerment and enforcing the women’s role in a sexual relationship.

The Function

In the book, DeRogatis also uses Durkheim’s sociological study of religion to explain this religious concept. People may withhold themselves from sexual relations because they believe that is what the Church wants them to do. They are working to fit into this group that has been shown to them that has “an understood set of beliefs and practice”(McCutcheon 57). These concepts may often be misconstrued however. In this book she explains many people believe that they preach against sex, but that is the complete opposite, they just want people to be informed.

Relating the Books Together

All 3 of these books talked about the relationship between religion and some form of sex, whether that was sex itself or sexuality. In the religious world, there are often misconceptions about how the Church views things related to sex. These books showed all of these misconceptions and really showed how religion can be used to push the public agenda. The first book, the public agenda was to stop the spread of AIDS (however they chose to do that relates to religion) because that was a scary thing that was happening to people which became a crisis. The second book, the public agenda was to help people lose weight and maintain heterosexuality because that is what fits the American “norm”. The third book, the public agenda was to get people to become educated about sex before they participate and to truly want to participate. Combining these all together we could learn that at the forefront, religion puts on one face, but after analyzing it, understanding concepts, and taking the words to not be strictly as they were written, there is actually much flexibility in religion and the major misconceptions are decided by society as a whole, not religion.