Positive Demands of the Laws of God

The Laws of God stand on His authority as Creator.
If you can reject His authority, the Laws will mean nothing to you, so you don’t care. Whom I address are those who claim to care, who believe it matters. My complaint is against those claiming to share my belief and commitment to Christ.
Once again, their rejection of the ANE approach to Scripture and moral questions is their primary weakness in debating those who don’t care at all. The only answer we have is God’s answer, and virtually no part of Western Civilization is God’s answer to much of anything. A Western defense of Western morality fails because it does not stand on Scripture. It stands on pagan mythology, and that ground is precisely the basis used by those who attack Christian morality. If we use the same assumptions, we have no defense.
Thus, this defense of traditional morality falls flat. It’s preaching to the choir, and no one outside the choir needs offer the least respect for it. In other words, it offers not a whit of Christian witness from the Bible, no effective answer because it cannot stand on God’s own power. It stands on human reason alone, and that means nothing.
Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: The Bible says virtually nothing about child-adult sexual relations directly. The problem with them is more subtle than that. So we look at the issues listed at the bottom of the article as if they were somehow manifestly repugnant and false. It’s possible I’m missing some background from Michael Brown and his work, but this article reflects something so typical, I react as if he is part of the bigger failure of American Christianity as a whole. Notice how Brown seems to believe highlighting these issues alone is enough, and links to his book. Again, neither in the linked article, nor in the vast wealth of Western Christian apologetics are these arguments answered very effectively.
“1. Pedophilia is innate and immutable.” This is a diversion, and both sides spend way too much time on it. The implication, of course, is “Since God made me this way, it’s His problem.” It matters not a whit whether people are born with any particular sexual orientation, given the Bible flatly declares all are fallen, possessed of all manner of sinful desires from birth. It’s fundamental to human nature. Your particular desires for sexual gratification are beside the point. God declares doing what comes natural for us in this department causes problems, so we are obliged to construct a system which restrains these impulses. In other words, it really doesn’t matter whether you are born with it or develop it later; sin is sin, and is inherently destructive.
“2. Pederasty is richly attested in many different cultures throughout history.” So are a lot of other nasty human sins. Virtually every time they show up as something acceptable is in contexts where God’s wrath is poured out. Whether or not it’s natural and historical has no bearing on the matter.
“3. The claim that adult-child sexual relationships cause harm is greatly overstated and often completely inaccurate.” and “4. Consensual adult-child sex can actually be beneficial to the child.” This is frankly true. All it takes is a handful of anecdotes to support this argument. That there are some children who were apparently unharmed, and whose lives were no worse than any other person is well established in clinical literature. More, some who are now adults are genuinely sorry those relations did not continue. Sorry about that American Christian, but facts are facts, and it’s still beside the point.
“5. Pederasty should not be classified as a mental disorder, since it does not cause distress to the pederast to have these desires and since the pederast can function as a normal, contributing member of society.” This is manifestly true. There are lots of good Christian men and women who struggle with evil desires and never fall into that particular sin. The teachings of Jesus presume we all struggle with things we shouldn’t do, so a sinful desire itself is not the issue, and all the emotional overreaction by your mainstream Christian parents about who is encountering their children in every day life shows they are, in effect, non-believers. They act as if God can’t save and change people, empowering them to overcome sin. I have bad desires I don’t act on, and so do you, panicky parents.
“6. Many of the illustrious homosexuals of the past were actually pedophiles.” True. Again, so what? Being famous, great and successful on human terms really means little morally. Christ was not very successful in human terms. When Christians stop worshiping human effectiveness, and stop trying to fix this world, and start placing their focus on getting out of this world, we might start getting more sensible answers to these arguments.
“7. People are against intergenerational intimacy because of antiquated social standards and puritanical sexual phobias.” This is an accurate portrayal of the current debate, and precisely my point in this post. If you stand on historical and cultural norms, you are standing on sand. Christ our Rock is not found in those things.
“8. This is all about love and equality and liberation.” If you espouse the Enlightenment principles of modern American culture, then you have no defense against this argument. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You either attack this whole problem from the Ancient Hebrew perspective of the Bible or you lose.
The ANE Laws of God are not encumbered with Enlightenment mythology. The argument against child-adult sex has little to do with individuals, but is founded on the very reason for sexual relations: It’s part of how we keep humanity alive on the earth. Not simply in the silly notion of procreation alone, but is woven into the broader fabric of how we learn what God says He demands of us is actually the best of all possible worlds. Given how awful adults are about sex, we should expect children could not possibly contribute to the welfare of humanity by their involvement. In other words, it’s far less about prohibition and more about the absolute necessity we can’t allow frivolity to get in the way of desperate human needs. Pedophilia is simply another idolatry raising pleasure to some godhead, same as drug addiction, greed, murder, and all the other sins of humanity. Simply having a good time must take place within a context, or it is inherently destructive on a level not easily noticed by human minds alone. Getting bogged down in the minute details must follow after clarifying the underlying purpose of these broad prohibitions found in the Laws of God.
The issue with pedophilia does not rest on cultural norms nor scientific measures and clinical results. It rests on the dire necessity of building what God demands of us. We cannot build when we fritter away our resources on things which contribute nothing to the moral stability of human life. And if we build by following any other path, God must eventually crush us all and everything we thought we were building. The issue cannot be viewed in light of the immediate, or you’ll miss the whole point.