When the social history of 20th-century Christianity comes to be written, a large chapter will have to be devoted to the effects of the Sexual Revolution on church membership and religious adherence. It is no coincidence that the seismic shift in sexual morality and the stampede out the church doors occurred in North America at the same time.

Sex is a powerful, wonderful and dangerous thing; so much so that every human culture has surrounded it with a host of regulations, taboos, prohibitions and inhibitions. Where we have sex-and when, with whom, how, how not, how often and why-are all issues that matter to society.

They also matter to religion as supernatural sanctions on sexual behaviour are added to social ones. The Judeo-Christian understanding has long been that God wishes humans to confine sexual activity to monogamous marriage and that sex outside such a relationship is forbidden as unhealthy, harmful to the community and perilous to the soul.

Appealing attitude

Strange as it may seem to the contemporary mind, this restrictive attitude was once very appealing to non-Christians and was, in fact, a selling point of our religion to the pagan world. Christian apologists could boast of the purity of our sexual life: a community that produced chaste virgins and faithful spouses was viewed as an island of morality and family virtue in a sea of divorce, adultery, temple prostitution, pedophilia and dissoluteness.

During the Enlightenment anti-Christian thinkers, particularly Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, introduced the notion that what was primitive and natural was virtuous and that repression was unhealthy. By treating lust as a sin the Church had impeded the normal expression of human passions.

This idea was a popular one amongst opponents of Christian morality but it was unable to triumph yet because of the physical dangers that continued to attend the sexual act. More powerful than the admonitions of the clergy were the inhibitions produced by fear of unwanted pregnancy and disease.

When 20th-century technology introduced the birth control pill and antibiotics the lure of what seemed to be consequence-free sex proved irresistible and non-marital relations exploded in popularity. Church teaching on the correct uses of sex was roundly ignored by the Boomer generation which was just coming into adolescence and their rejection of Christian mores on this score widened into a large-scale defection from organized religion and its claims.

Some churches stood unmoved by the desertion of the faithful and retained traditional Christian teachings on sexual morality while others gave in to contemporary behaviours and bent their theology and pastoral care to the prevailing winds. There is a certain irony to the fact that over the past 40 years the churches who have been most relaxed in their attitudes have suffered the most severe drops in membership and attendance.

Score declared

We are now able to announce the scorecard after four decades of the Sexual Revolution and we can declare the big loser to be North American society. Instead of the liberation, joy and unbridled merriment which the voluptuaries and Playboy philosophers promised us, we have suffered massive social dysfunction, fragmented family life, epidemics of crippling and deadly diseases, jaded tastes, gross commercialization and a dryness of the spirit.

It’s time Christians once again took the offensive and seized the sexual high ground; we’ve got something to tell the world on a subject it cares about. To do so we have to abandon our current posture of defensiveness and anxiety.

Take a look at recent evangelical publications on the topic or browse the plethora of conservative Christian Web sites and you will see that sex is treated largely as a problem and never as a cause for joy or celebration. Instead we should be trumpeting the following message: Ha ha! We were right; you were wrong.

Christianity got the whole business of sex right in two departments. First, our ways are healthier. Let’s tell our neighbours the truth: we are less at risk of disease, our kids are less likely to experiment with sex or get pregnant, our relationships last longer, our families suffer less fragmentation. Less fear, less suspicion, less doubt; more trust, more togetherness, more comfort.

Second, we get more of a kick out of sex. Contrary to every appearance in popular culture, those who go outside the bounds of marriage for their sexual pleasure, who experiment in dangerous areas and push the envelope of liberation are less likely to be happy in their relationships and more likely to suffer physical harm.

Contrarily, the women who report the most satisfaction with their sex lives are conservative Protestants. Married women have more enjoyable sex than the unmarried or cohabiting; religious women have more fun in bed than non-religious. (Those for whom these findings are surprising are referred to the most reliable assessment of North American sexual practices, Robert T. Michael et al., Sex in America: A Definitive Survey.)

We’re on to a winner here. Churches who can market these truths successfully will soon find their pews full of worshippers. Smiling contentedly.

Gerry Bowler is a Winnipeg author and historian.