Recovering precious terms
I have recently decided to take vows. A big decision. One that also sounds super strange to our modern ears. Vows of chastity and celibacy. Right… for those curious or confused by what I mean, here are a few more thoughts…
Recovering precious terms
Is it ironical that I find it hard to speak of chastity, even rather embarrassing, when speaking of sex would be easier nowadays? A larger question might be, what might this framing betray - what are we missing?
Mention ‘chastity’ and most people picture either a medieval chastity belt or a blushing Victorian. Neither is quite right — and what we’ve lost in that reduction is considerable. Apparently, these are more the work of fiction and myth than truth. What is true is that we have lost the rich meaning of these concepts and settled for cheaper versions of chastity, love and even freedom.
Chastity
Chastity has everything to do with how we love. It is much bigger than sexuality, it is about how I inhabit my body, my relationships, my desires. It is not a renunciation of desire, it is desire, rightly ordered.1
Chastity is a virtue for all. The word comes from the Latin castus, which means “pure”. It is also connected to integer, from which we get integrity. Erik Varden says, chastity “is a marker of integrity, of a personality whose parts are assembled in harmonious completeness.”2
Within Christianity, both married and unmarried people are called to be “chaste”, to be guided by Love (caritas) in the discipline of loving well.
Loving well is one of life’s biggest challenges. All of us fail often and need a lot of help. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me”, prayed David, the Psalmist, after a catastrophic relational mess-up. 3
A Christian understanding of Chastity derives from a prior understanding of what it means to be human. That we are made in God’s image, a God who is Love. That we are made for relationships, yet by ourselves we do not know how to love - we love because we were loved first. 4
Celibacy
Celibacy means to abstain from a married life. It is not a virtue, it is a more technical meaning.
Mention ‘celibacy’ and one might think of church abuses or repressed desire. Neither is helpful and this has not always been the case. Historically, there have been times when celibacy was preferred or had a specific purpose. For the Apostle Paul, for instance, being celibate was a better state than that of marriage. It meant one was more available to serve the Lord. This does not just mean more available in terms of time, but rather have “undivided affections”. Certain professions used to entail celibacy, for instance nurses, in the 19th- 20th centuries, also seen as a religious calling, and, once again, to be more available for service.
Paul and the nurses are more than examples of simply living unmarried lives. I would say they lived chaste celibate lives. The chastity sets the positive goal and direction of desire and love; the celibate sets the format this life takes. One could live a chaste married life and I am choosing to live a chaste celibate life. This is partly due to conviction regarding marriage. As a gay Christian, I am choosing to remain unmarried and dedicate my life to God. This might not be the pathway chosen by all gay Christians, but it a decision that comes out of a long journey of personal discernment. If choosing celibacy sounds costly, it is also a precious pathway, where here too “there is fullness of joy”. 5.
A vow and a celebration
Taking a sacred vow is not just making a big decision. It is about entering a divine reality. 6 Taking a vow does not create the virtue but it creates a framework for it to continue growing. I imagine this will be a hard path. I expect both hardship and joy. But taking this vow is not saying no to desire or to life. I even suspect there is much more life in this life-path than I can even imagine, that “these are the mere edges of his ways.” 7
The celebration of the vow is where quiet conviction becomes a public act of trust. And this warrants celebration! It is with joy that I want to walk through the narrow and wide gate, embracing an adventurous life with Jesus, my dear Companion of my Soul.
1 The concept comes from the classical and Christian tradition: Augustine of Hippo spoke about “ordo amoris” — loving the right things, in the right way, in the right measure. The human problem is not desire itself but disordered desire, especially when it flows towards that which can’t bring fulfillment. Cf. Confessions I.1.
2 Varden, E. 2023. Chastity. Reconciliation of the Senses. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, p.15. I draw from Christian sources in this text, yet the points I raise — regarding desire, integrity, what it means to love well — are very human questions, não just religious.
3 Psalm 51:10, NIV.
4 First Letter of the apostle John 4:19.
5 Excerpt from Psalm 16:11, and a promise to trust in.
6 Vows haven’t disappeared from modern life — we still see them in marriage and professional oaths. It is interesting to notice how, even in a secular culture, preparing vows for a wedding is still of great importance, and despite our relaxed stance to commitment in general, there is a special solemnity about this moment of public promise - seen as more, perhaps, than a promise, as if one is entering a reality that transcends the moment. In this sacred vow I am considering, there is a divine reality to which I entrust myself and which receives me. It is hard to grasp this nowadays, especially in a modernity that lives, as coined by Charles Taylor, in an “immanent frame”, which means transcendence has been parked or pushed into an antique closet (cf. A Secular Age, 2007). Nevertheless, I believe transcendence is still there - here - we live in a spiritual world and are spiritual creatures.
7 Ancient book of Job 26:14.