2 minute read
After 2,000 years of avoidance, it’s high time that Jesus followers develop a holistic, nuanced, and overtly positive theology of pleasure. This whole time Christian culture has been, at best, dubious because of the precedents established by Stoicism‘s ethical influence upon the emerging Christian community in the Greco-Roman world. There’s a reason we’ve got a word for the branch of theological study devoted to sin, i.e. hamartiology, but not an equivalent for pleasure.1 We’ve behaviorally conditioned people to harp on pleasure gone wrong or taken to excess.
It seems to me a positive theology of pleasure would start with the premise that God created our bodies to enjoy pleasure. That’s an inarguable biological fact. Not only that, we’re made in such a way that our flourishing and survival as a species entirely depends upon pleasure. Why do you think breast milk tastes good? The trouble is that Christianity treats pleasure as a competitor, or even a threat, in humanity‘s pursuit of transcendence. We’re obsessive about what happens when pleasure goes awry and neglectful of God’s pro-pleasure intentions. It’s a travesty.
Christian culture treats pleasure as a luxury. False. It’s a necessity. Ever heard of anhedonia? It’s the inability to experience satisfying pleasures in everyday life. Having pleasureful experiences that feel good and are good for us is an essential part of a healthy, well-rounded life. On the flip side, the inability to have these experiences is deeply related to anxiety, depression, personality disorders, and other mental health conditions as well as severe physical ailments. It’s a serious psychological and physical condition. Our bodies are hardwired by God for pleasure.
The problem is, once again, the Christian culture’s dualistic thinking. This binary worldview says the only options are pleasure-minimizing Stoicism vs. pleasure-maximizing Epicureanism. I call bullshit. God intends for us to enjoy the warm coziness of cuddling a baby, the thirst-quenching taste of cold water, the breathtaking sight of a golden sunset over water, and the carnal delight of giving and receiving sexual euphoria with one’s beloved. That’s why we have dopamine. There’s no good reason for Christians to choose between being a responsible adult and pursuing pleasure.
The original beatniks spurned proper society‘s fear and shame around pleasure. They enjoyed art, nature, conversation, relationships, food, sex, alcohol, drugs, the life of the mind, and so forth. Moreover, they called out the hypocrisy of those who publicly display stoic sensibilities, and demand others do likewise, but behind closed doors get their freak on like much of the British royal family in The Crown. Sure, I’d theologically frame things differently than the writers of the Beat Generation, but I fundamentally agree with their conviction that pleasure is good.
My longtime Facebook friend proposed that, in the future, Christian theology might borrow the term “hedonology,” which literally means the study of pleasure.↩
