Joseph Nicolosi, in his book Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, sees homosexuality as essentially a “male deficit,” which results from family problems, specifically an estrangement between father and son at a crucial stage of the son’s psychic development. As a result of this failure to receive the father’s approval, the homosexual seeks that sense of masculinity from sexual contact with men who seem to embody what the homosexual feels he lacks. “After years of secrecy, isolation and alienation,” Nicolosi writes, describing the psychic odyssey of one of his patients but describing Isherwood’s odyssey from Victorian England to decadent Berlin as well, “most young men find the gay world powerfully alluring, with its romantic, sensual, outrageous, and embracing qualities.” This psychological need for the father’s approval becomes, generally, through seduction by an older man, attached to sexual behavior which quickly becomes compulsive and self-destructive. The homosexual, according to Nicolosi, is attracted to “Mysterious men… those who possess enigmatic masculine qualities that both perplex and allure the client. Such men are overvalued and even idealized, for they are the embodiment of qualities that the client wishes he had attained for himself.”
Women, on the other hand, represent neither beauty nor pleasure, as they do to normal men, but a strange sense of heteronomous duty. Women become a challenge to which the homosexual does not feel adequate, and, with that, comes the sense that liking women and going out with them and having sex with them or marry them are duties imposed from without by forces alien to the “real self….”
Since sex for the homosexual is essentially an attempt to appropriate the masculinity that he feels lacking in himself from someone who seems to embody it, sex with girls has no purpose, since girls do not have what he lacks. Once it gets construed in this way, sex becomes an essentially vampiric act. It is either sucking the desired object to obtain its male essence, to being sucked for the same purpose. Isherwood makes this vampiric character clear, but in a slightly veiled manner, when he talks about Bubi, the first object of his homosexual attentions in Berlin: “Christopher wanted to keep Bubi all to himself, forever, to possess him utterly, and he knew that this was impossible and absurd. If he had been a savage, he might have solved the problem by eating Bubi — for magical, not gastronomic, reasons.”
Again, Isherwood refers to magic, this time to a magic form of cannibalism that will allow him to keep “to Bubi all to himself forever, to possess him utterly, “in other words, to appropriate forever from Bubi what Isherwood himself lacks Cannibalism, as the case of Jeffery Dahmer showed, is nothing more than an extreme form of homosexuality. Both actions involved a “magical” ingestion of the desired characteristics of the other. In this regard, cannibalism is but one term in a series of psychic linkages that radiate out from the vampire, the prime representative of the Weimar Republic culture. With the breakdown of the family, the son does no get the needed affirmation of his own masculinity from the father. As a result, sex becomes an attempt to alleviate this male deficit. It becomes an exercise in feedon on another person, which gets fantasized sometimes as cannibalism but, more often than not, as a sucking off the liquid essence from the desire object in the actual act of felatio or in th symbolic act of vampirism. (Magnus Hirschfield, by the way, in his magnum opus listing all the sexual variants, lists vampirism as one and cites the specific case of a man who could not reach orgasm without first ingesting the blood of his spouse. The Marquis de Sade lists a similar instance in “Justine.”
In either case, the point of the act is to assuage the hunger-like feeling that is the physical manifestation of the deficit nature of homosexuality, but also of lust. As one of Nicolosi’s clients explains about his sexual involvement with a male he admired: “that power and control — I’ve always wanted to draw off of that, to be so together.”
Like a vampire, the homosexual “draws off” that power of sucking, by draining the desired object of its life-force and absorbing it into himself in some ritualistic “magical” banquet. Of course, this magic never works; in fact, it only exacerbates the loneliness and inadequacy which drove the homosexual to this form of sexual activity in the first place, and so, what arises in place of the “magic” is a compulsive, addiction like, vicious circle, in which the homosexual tries to compensate for a sense of masculine inadequacy by engaging in homosexual activity, which, once it’s over, only makes the sense of inadequacy seem even worse.
“Immediately after every homosexual experience,” one of Nicolosi’s clients explains, “it feels like something is missing. The closeness I wanted with another man just didn’t happen. I’m left with the feeling that sex is just not what I wanted.”
And once again, the vampire provides the best explanation of the cyclic nature of this pseudo-sexual activity. There is the depletion of death, the craving, the hunger for what the vampire lacks, which is temporarily alleviated by the sucking of fresh blood, but the transformation is eternally temporary, forcing the vampire, or, in this case, the homosexual, to engage in a never ending search for new partners / victims so that he can draw off from them a momentary escape from his feeling of isolation and inadequacy. “Considering the habit forming nature of sexual behavior,” Nicolosi writes, “the more homosexuality active the client is, the more difficult the course of treatment.”
Dr. E. Michael Jones
Libido Dominandi — pg. 246-248
Marriage Homily
Of course that which makes a marriage uniquely Christian is the pledged allegiance of both the Christian Husband and the Christian Wife to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Here we have two people who have been set apart for salvation from eternity, and who have been declared righteous in Christ in God’s court. They have been united to Christ by the Spirit’s work and now they enter into marriage. Very well then, it is quite obvious that that which will make the marriage Christian is their bowing to the Lordship of their King and Savior in their marriage.
This concern about the Lordship of Jesus Christ begins even before marriage in the courting process and manifests itself first in the careful attention of each that they are marrying someone who is suitable for them.
This is what God said in Genesis
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now, it stands to reason that this woman who was to be suitable for Adam found an Adam that in turn was suitable for her. This is just to say that Adam and Eve were a fit. They were quite literally made for each other.
First of course they were a fit in the sense that they understood that they were God’s creatures and were beholden to Him. In our language today we might say that they shared a common faith. No marriage should be entered into where man and wife do not share a common understanding of their shared Christian faith. Indeed Scripture forbids it for Christians when it forbids unequal yoking.
But the correspondence, — or suitability if you prefer — between our first parents of course only began with Adam and Eve’s common faith — a common faith that found each of them trusting in God at each turn.
But beyond this common faith were other commonalities. They were yoked in other ways. After all this was a woman who was, in Adam’s own words, “Bone of my Bone, and Flesh of my Flesh.” Adam and Eve mirrored one another. I suspect that Adam and Eve corresponded to each other in the way that they looked and in their mannerisms, in their likes and dislikes. They not only shared a faith and a bed but they shared common delights, common palates, common speech patterns, and common characteristics.
Rudyard Kipling caught something of what I am getting at in terms of the need for commonalities in uniquely Christian marriage that is never less than a common faith but is always more than a common faith when he wrote,
The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.
Dr. Clarence Macartney, a well known Reformed Minister from my Grandparent’s generation put this time-tested concept, if also time-worn idea, in a sermon he preached on Marriage and family life. Macartney preached,
“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”
I know that Anthony and Rachel share the kind of commonalities that the Lordship of Christ anticipates for a uniquely Christian marriage. They are not strangers to one another in terms of suitability. They share a common understanding of their common faith. They share a worldview. They come from similar family cultures and backgrounds and they share a people group. They are suitable for each other.
II.) When it comes to a uniquely Christian marriage not only is the Lordship of Christ pursued in the issue of the suitableness of each for one another but it is also pursued in each of them submitting to God’s Law.
Remember we are speaking here of a Christian marriage and in a Christian marriage you have two people who have had wrought within them the desire to look to the interest of the other. You have two people, who, when they say they “love” each other they understand that love is an empty concept unless if is defined by God’s law. Anthony must not love Rachel in ways that are inconsistent w/ God’s revealed word and Rachel must not love Anthony by defining what love is by her own law word. In order for their marriage to be Christian each must love in ways consistent with God’s revealed law-word.
Of course you already know that never was a word more cheapened in our culture than the word “love.” We have sentimentalized it, we have coarsened it, we have invoked it in order to cover the most hateful of actions. And the reason for this is that “love” has no stable meaning because each man loves as is right in his own eyes. This is not so in a Christian marriage that takes the Lordship of Christ into account. A Christian marriage understands that “love” is regulated and finds it’s meaning in God’s law being applied. Jesus Himself draws our attention to the same point when He told his disciples, “If you love me keep my commandments.”
The fact that marriages fail so often can be accounted both by the fact that two people married who did not correspond to one another to begin with and by the fact that both people in the marriage are seeking to regulate the marriage according to their own self-governing law word. In short, marriages fail because one if not both partners are seeking to be God in the relationship. It can get pretty ugly when the Gods go to war.
When both husband and wife submit to a royal law of love that is defined and regulated by God’s Law-Word then the conflict of the wills have a boundary in order to limit them.
So, a uniquely Christian marriage finds God’s revealed law-word governing their marriage and their homes. Anthony shows his love to Rachel by serving her much as Christ served the Church in the washing of his disciples’ feet. He serves her by leading, protecting, providing, and by nurturing her in her undoubted catholic Christian faith. Rachel shows her love to Anthony by submitting to him, by being a complement to him, and as Christ always delighted to do the will of His Father so Rachel will delight in doing the will of her husband who will lay down his life for her.
III.) The Lordship of Jesus Christ is expressed in uniquely Christian marriages by the teleology or goal of the Marriage.
Theologians will tell you that part of what constitutes man as the “image of God” is the fact that he was charged with having dominion over God’s creation. He was to be a ruling steward over creation for God as King.
When God gave Eve to Adam that giving was in the context of Adam’s dominion work. The giving of Eve to Adam was for the purpose of aiding and assisting Adam in his work of dominion.
In the Christian understanding nothing has happened since Adam was created to exercise dominion and since Eve was created from Adam to be a help-meet in that dominion taking that has rescinded the idea that the ultimate goal of marriage is a Husband and Wife co-operating, under God’s regency and Law-Word, in exercising godly dominion. The Husband and Wife, together as man and wife, are to reconstruct all they put their hands too in a Christ honoring direction. Even the having and rearing of children is to be unto the end of being able to more readily exercise dominion to the glory of God.
And clearly we live in times that desperately need humble Christian dominion taking. Clearly we live in times where we should pray that God will raise up a host of Christian marriages that understand the charge to begin dominion taking first by reconstructing marriage and family again along Biblical lines.
You see, the ordaining of marriages is not about our creature comforts. When God joins suitable Redeemed men and women together, as under His law word, they are commissioned to the end of going on quest to reconstruct all of the un-real reality around us so as to be consonant to God’s Kingdom reality. And if the sound of dominion lands to roughly upon your ears look at what I am speaking of as Christian marriages contributing to the healing of a broken world with the medicine of God’s Word.
If we were to put this in terms of a epic adventure novel, Christian Marriage is an adventure where the husband is a Knight of the Lord Christ’s round table protecting his wife and family by taking dominion over the serpent dragon who would seek to destroy Christ’s authority and Kingdom at every turn. The wife is no helpless damsel in distress but she is helping the husband to better able to demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and the advance of His Kingdom.
And so a uniquely Christian marriage looks to the Lordship of Christ in these three areas
I.) Suitability
II.) Governance by God’s Law
III.) Dominion”
Wedding Prayer
Dread Sovereign and Benevolent God, thou who art the creator and preserver of all life, author of salvation and giver of all grace, we beseech thee that thou would look with favor upon thy Church that Christ did Redeem and especially upon this man and woman who are members of thine covenant and who are now entering in the Holy State of matrimony which you have ordained to be a model of Christ’s love for His Church.
Grant them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of the life that you have ordained for them to share that they may each be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.
Grant, we beseech thee, that their wills and affections may be so knit together in your will and affections that they may grow steadily in love, thus experiencing the peace and tranquility that you intend for domestic life. Pour out upon them thy Holy Spirit so that they may together with all God’s people grow up in the grace and knowledge of thy Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through all the years that lay before them.
Open their eyes and grant them grace that they may see when they hurt each other, and then cause them to recognize and acknowledge their sin and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.
Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, so that their unity may be evangelism to the world’s estrangement, their acts of forgiveness a testimony to the world’s brokenness, their joy a witness to the world’s despair.
Bestow upon them, if it is your will, the gift and heritage of children, and the grace to bring them up to know you that they and their generations that follow may constitute a Holy Host unto the God of Hosts to be used for your bidding for the advancement of your cause.
Grant them the prayers of thy people attendant here and grant that they may join their own prayers with these, your people, that your name might be seen as to be majestic as it never ceases to be.
Fix them within a community of faith where all can be sharpened to think your thoughts after you. Grant them the fellowship of like-minded believers that together your community may take every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
And then Father, when their days come to an end, and their descendants gather around them to extend their last visitations here, gather Anthony and Rachel to hear thy pronouncement of “Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter now into thy Master’s rest.”
Grant them and all of us to live all our lives before thy face.
In the glorious name of the Resurrected and Triumphant Christ
Amen
R2K Fundamentalism
“Modern culture is a mighty force. It is either subservient to the Gospel or else it is the deadliest enemy of the Gospel. For making it subservient, religious emotion is not enough; intellectual labor is also necessary. And that labor is being neglected. The Church has turned to easier tasks. And now she is reaping the fruits of her indolence. Now she must battle for her life.”
– Dr. J. Gresham Machen
From his address, — “Christianity and Culture”,
Delivered in 1912 for the centennial celebration of the founding of Princeton Seminary in 1812
Over at Dr. Nelson Kloosterman’s blog (Cosmic Eye) and at Dr. D. Gnostic Hart’s blog (Old Life) R2K (neo-Anabaptism) and Kuyperianism are debating. I briefly stuck my fork in there with the comment below,
Premise — The R2K hermeneutic allows Misty Irons and Todd Bordow to come to the conclusions they arrive at concerning social issues quite apart from whether or not other R2K aficionados agree with them or not. Hence, while Bordow and Irons may not be agreed with by Hart touching the issue of man love and puppy love, because of the R2K hermeneutic, they have the “Liberty of Conscience” to advocate for perversion.
Query — If the R2K hermeneutic doesn’t forbid such a possible embrace (no pun intended) of rather queer positions, on what basis does the R2K hermeneutic rule out such possible conclusions arrived at by Bordow and Irons?
Dr. D. Gnostic Hart responded to Doug Sowers who repeated my Premise and Query at Old Gnosticism,
Doug, I answered the question. 2k doesn’t rule out such an interpretation. How could it since in Presbyterian churches we don’t require members to subscribe (Irons) and we believe in Christian liberty. If you noticed, and please be as careful at Dr. K. allegedly now is, Bordow did not advocate gay marriage. He said he did not have the grounds to discipline someone for adopting political views that would allow for gay marriage.
You are doing what Machen’s critics did, assuming he was in favor or drunkenness because he opposed Prohibition.
This is why you are a fundamentalist. You only see one side of an issue. Gay marriage bad. But legislating gay marriage, or the church taking a stand on gay marriage involves laws and officers and members in a host of organizational relationships that go beyond the morality of homosexuality. But for you, it’s a black and white issue and you don’t care what comes with efforts to oppose it, even if it means instituting some kind of political or ecclesiastical tyranny.
Bret responds to Dr. D. Gnostic Hart,
1.) Notice how Dr. Hart has now embraced the position of Irons and Bordow who advocate theoretical Christians advancing the the permissibility of Homosexuality or Bestiality in the public square even if they themselves (Bordow, Irons, and now Hart) don’t advocate it or believe it themselves. If this is not public square anti-nomianism then none exists.
2.) Notice how Dr. Hart places politically active “Christians” in the public square, who advance the permissibility of a social order that allows and gives place for deviancy and perversion (as defined by Scripture), under the umbrella of “Liberty.” Of course this is to redefine liberty as license.
3.) Dr. Hart invokes Machen but Hart is comparing apples and sodomites here when he compares Machen’s opposition to Prohibition and Biblical Christians opposition to other Christians advocating the permissibility of perversion in the public square (even if those same Christians personally oppose such perversion). The reason this is a apple and sodomite comparison is that Machen’s position was that he could not oppose something that God’s word permitted. God’s word does not forbid the usage of alcohol and therefore Machen knew he could not support prohibiting what God allowed. Darryl is trying to advance a position where it is wrong to oppose, in the public square, a prohibition that God details in His word. It is not the same thing for Machen to oppose supporting (Prohibition) what God didn’t prohibit and Biblical Christians opposing for the public square what God opposes. As I said, Darryl’s comparison is Apples and Sodomites.
4.) Of course it is Dr. D. Gnostic Hart who is the Fundamentalist here. Darryl is a Gnostic Fundamentalist. He is only seeing the Gnostic side of the issue. The implication of what Darryl is invoking is the idea that it is perfectly acceptable for a Christian Doctor to preform Abortions if he is “in a host of organizational relationships” (such as a Hospital that does abortions) “that go beyond the morality of abortion.” For Darryl this is a White and Gray issue. White — Personally and individually these things bad. Gray — In the Public square these things require “liberty.” Darryl doesn’t care what comes with efforts to oppose perversion, even if it means instituting some kind of political or ecclesiastical tyranny that forces Christians to accept these perversions in the public square and forces them to accept people who accept the acceptability of these perversions in the Church (even if those people don’t themselves approve them personally and individually).
2012 Endorsement
Joseph Sobran once said, “I don’t have a dog in this fight. My dog died a long time ago.” So it is with election 2012, for when it comes to the major Demopublican and Republicrat parties I have no dog in the fight. The whole political paradigm of “Left vs. Right” comes to us from the French Revolution and just as both “Left and Right” then was a division of Jacobins all, so today our Left (Obama) vs. Right (Romney) finds us having to choose between one Jacobin or another of varying degrees. So, voting for the Major parties for an informed person is not an option since such a choice really amounts to having to vote for the “left side of the left” or having to vote for “the right side of the left.” I choose neither.
Because I believe that diffuse, limited, and decentralized Government is a biblical norm I will be voting for the Constitutional party candidate, Virgil Goode. The Statism of the major parties is not an option and neither is any candidate that represents movement Libertarianism. The problem of the political “One and the Many” is not solved by voting for any Candidate or party that would give us the “One” to the neglect of the “Many” (Movement Libertarianism), or the “Many” to the neglect of the “One” (Statism). I still believe in the Biblical norm, whether one calls that Subsidiarity or Sphere Sovereignty, and as such I will vote for a Party that still has a memory of such Biblical norms in their platform.
Rev. Bret L. McAtee
Worldview gadfly at Ironink.org
Submitted for publication for the Webzine “The Conservative Times.”
http://conservativetimes.org/?p=12508