Catharine I originally wrote this post on March 22, 2021. It has taken me some time to clearly envision the purpose of my writing, which is why I’m posting it now.
My heart broke when I read about the shooting that happened this past Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia, which resulted in the death of eight people, mostly Asian-Americans. A shooter had visited several spa massage parlors; the suspect, Aaron Long, was arrested by police, and claimed to be on his way to Florida to carry out additional shootings. Among other things, he told them that he had a “sex addiction.”
According to recent coverage by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times, “Mr. Long had grown up in a conservative Baptist church that strictly prohibited sex outside of marriage, and he appeared fixated on guilt and lust in the months before the attacks. He grew frustrated and distraught when he failed to curb his sexual urges, said Tyler Bayless, a former roommate who lived with Mr. Long at a halfway house near Atlanta for about five months beginning in August 2019.”
In a similar article, Ruth Graham wrote, “Robert Aaron Long, the suspect in the massacres that left eight people dead, told the police this week that he had a ‘sexual addiction,’ and he had been a customer at two of the spas that he targeted. He was so intent on avoiding pornography that he blocked several websites on his computer and had sought help at a Christian rehab clinic. A former roommate said that Mr. Long agonized over the possibility of ‘falling out of God’s grace.’ “
This is tragic on so many levels. Eight people have lost their lives. Families have been ripped apart, many of whom were already facing the struggles marginalized immigrant communities face. The outcry over the violence has thankfully been largely unified across the country. Anti-Asian hate has been on the rise lately.
But, and I use the word “but” carefully, though it’s quite possible this was a racially-motivated slaughter, the evidence I’ve read points to a slightly different conclusion- it was a rampage stemming from a psychological problem likely created or worsened by legalistic Christian religious teaching. No one other than the suspect himself can thoroughly connect the dots for us, and I hope that he will, someday, but the implications of his statements so far seem to point that he was motivated by overwhelming guilt and legalism to “remove” the “source” of his sexual sin.
Christians have taken the following Bible passage to an extreme, at times:
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Matthew 5:28-30 ESV
My husband met someone growing up who had actually cut off his own arm, and gouged out his own eye, in a legalistic attempt to obey Jesus. He met him with just a stump of an arm, and one eye. I’ve heard of others who’ve injured themselves in an attempt to legalistically obey this verse. (To be clear, this is NOT the correct interpretation).
When I read these verses, the message I hear from Jesus is that sin is a big deal. It should not be taken lightly. It is a figurative message. Repentance from sin needs to be a complete turning, and we should put our full effort into that. But the interpretation that some have had has incorrectly, tragically led people to inflict bodily harm.
Taken in context, Jesus teaches us that we aren’t actually able to rid ourselves of sin by focusing on the surface of things.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
Matthew 23:25-26 ESV
Additionally, Paul teaches
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
Romans 8: 1-3 ESV
and
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV
It is tragic, legalistic obedience that takes one verse way, way out of context and doesn’t take into account the rest of scripture, which makes it clear that salvation depends on God, not on us. Redemption is God’s work, not something we can do by a brutal legalistic removal of something like a body part. It’s so tragic that people have been hurt in these ways, and have been swayed by church leaders to think about sin and obedience in extreme “black and white” terms that can lead to distorted thinking and behavior.
Suspect Aaron Long, likely, became negatively spiritually and psychologically influenced by the idea of legalistically doing whatever it took to remove sin from his life, as if it were something he could physically do. Obviously, no church leader is directly to blame. But legalism within the church, focusing on human effort as the source of salvation, or proof of it, can be toxic to mental health, and exacerbate pre-existing tendencies.
Purity culture, as it relates to sex, is particularly harmful -the idea that one can and should be 100% sexually “pure”, not having any hint of sexual thinking outside of marriage. I’m not talking about saving sex for marriage. I’m talking about legalistically trying to separate sexuality from a person before they are married, treating sexual thoughts as something that have to be legalistically purged from a person- and treating those thoughts and parts of a person as if they are tinged, or dirty. Sexual sin tends to be treated by the church as a particularly concerning sin (which does have scriptural basis), but the combination of that idea, along with a legalistic interpretation of Jesus’ teachings about lust, may have combined with distorted thinking and possible psychological problems to form a toxic combination in the shooter’s mind.
People have lost body parts to this kind of thinking, and now, possibly people are dead because of it.
Church, we’ve got to change things.
