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Integrating is blending into a functioning or unified whole.
I really believe you get the idea -- even if you are a product of a Scholastic education. Of course, in this case scholastic doesn't really mean "school." It means a certain historical "school" of religious philosophy which reached its peak in St. Thomas Aquinas and extends its domination right into our time. It is strongly influenced by St. Augustine and the dualistic philosophy of Aristotle (from whom St. Thomas copied it).
Being intelligent, you already see where we are going -- dualism vs. integration.
Dualism, then, splits reality into two parts and "never the two shall meet," they say.
Our purpose is "Sex and Salvation." It's not sex or salvation. It's really sex and salvation.
Along with many modern thinkers, I believe the spirit and the body must be unified -- and that means the uniting of spirituality and sexuality -- with sexuality seeming to be part of the bodily or physical world. (We'll discuss that more fully in the future.)
When Aristotle, and Augustine and Aquinas (the three A's of dualism) developed their dualistic philosophy, they also made one side "good" and one side "bad." And that really complicated matters for the "integrationists." We are struggling to get the body and sexuality to be seen and experienced not only as equal to the spirit and spirituality, but also as equally good.
The dualists just can't allow that.
So that's the problem for sex and salvation. We believe salvation is good, but we also believe sex is good. It's a common belief that spirituality and "salvation" go together. It's pulling in sex that causes the conflict with the dualists.
The problem is the "mindset." Dualistic Scholastic philosophy has reigned supreme for centuries. They are stuck in it.
It's like Galileo trying to tell the pope and the world that the world is not flat. "Them's fightin' words."
The body is good. To be human is good. To be man is good, to be woman is good. To be sexual is good. Sex is good. And "them's fightin' words," too. You can just imagine: "God will get me for that, if the dualists don't pound my world flat first."
Imagine trying to say sex is good -- and then going so far as to say homosexual sex is good. It goes against their grain. But so did Galileo.
The fact is: integration is just as right as "the earth is round."
The bad implications of dualism are maddening.
In that concept they see the male as "spiritual" and "good." And the seductive, curvaceous, temptress female is seen as "earthly" and "bad."
Bad, of course, is not only bad, but it is infinitely inferior to good. Thus females are infinitely inferior to males. And heaven forbid, whatever bading means, it is infinitely inferior to macho.
So what can the bading do who is seeking salvation? He can't stop being bading.
If there ever was dualism -- it's between him and the macho. It seems like a dualistic dilemma -- that is until you ditch dualism -- just like Galileo ditched the flat earth theory.
I didn't think this up. Now there are libraries on non-dualistic approaches. But the poor bading does not go to the library. He goes right "straight" to the confessional and is informed over and over again, as it were, that the earth is flat and sex is bad and God will get him if he doesn't fall off the edge of the flat earth first.
So where is he going to find salvation? Maybe his tomboy sister will lead the way, but in the meantime, he's bogged down in dualism.
We believe God gave us our bodies in which to move toward the salvation God wants us to have (as we defined it from Psalm 91). We believe angels are created spirits without bodies and they have their salvation without bodies.
We, on the other hand, have been created with bodies and for salvation. I don't choose to believe creation is nonsense, I choose to believe dualism is nonsense. I believe we achieve our salvation with, because of, in and through our bodies. Our salvation happens in a happy unifying of our spirituality and sexuality.
If you are a Christian, you will see the greatest blow -- the mortal blow to dualism -- was when the eternal Spirit-God joined the flesh and became one with the bodily human race which was created with sexuality.
Jesus struck a mortal blow to the ideas of those who preach that "the twain shall never meet." They did. Jesus united spirit and body and proved for once and for all that both spirit and body are good. He lived and loved as a fully human being.
His followers have desecrated his sacred humanity for centuries by mortifying the flesh "because it is bad." (There may be good reasons to mortify the flesh, but not because it is bad or sexuality is bad.) The Word was made flesh, for God's sake. That's proof enough. It is GOOD.
I can't explain everything here. The dualists will all call me tomorrow, send baskets full of letters and faxes, and e-mail and challenge me to Russian roulette duels. They might even say, possibly, that the flesh is good, but certainly not sex, and even more certainly, not homo sex -- bading or tomboy.
Jesus said "on earth as it is in heaven." This sets up an equality between heaven and earth. And if you believe He struck a mortal blow to dualism, then you can break free and believe that spirituality and sexuality are equal.
Then you can go right ahead on the path to salvation as a sexual person. You can blend your search for God and the enjoyment of your God-given sex into a functioning and unified whole -- you.
For more information about these or similar issues, e-mail your questions or comments to me at saintaelred@gmail.com (just click on the moving envelope)