Celibacy Throughout American Religious Traditions

A lifelong vow of sexual abstinence is difficult to understand from an evolutionary perspective. Darwinian evolution theory is based on a drive for reproductive survival. Therefore, it seems out of bounds for normal healthy individuals to forgo reproduction, religious or not. Yet it is a decision individuals often make. Sometimes the choice is temporary, like young American Mormons choosing to remain chaste until marriage or a Cheyenne initiate of the Dog Soldier warrior society of Native Americans pledging celibacy for seven years (Moore 1990). In other cases, however, as in many monastic orders, the decision is made for life. This paper will attempt to explore what has been the importance of sexual limitations like celibacy, abstinence, virginity, and chastity in American religious practice. How have these inhibitions shaped the history and future of religious traditions? Finally, with the ever increasing progressive views in American religions, it will challenge the notion that this practice is still relevant today. The lionshare of information about celibacy, especially in American practice, is surrounding Roman Catholicism. Many scholarly articles are burning calories by diving into the many scandals involving priests and their reported sexual misconduct with adolescent male church members. In many religious traditions we see celibacy practiced as individuals, and in many traditions we will find individuals who practice celibacy as part of a religious or cultural role such as the role of the nun. Celibacy to these individuals must entail a denial of sexual desire. Where asexualilty does not count, but being asexual may predispose the individual to take up the cultural role of the celibate (Levy 1971). In this way, children cannot be classed as celibate when culture does not attribute sexual desire to begin with.

Celibacy has not been mandated for Catholic leaders for most of the churchs history. It was made Vatican policy in spite of much opposition by traditionalists, not only Eastern Orthodoxy but also among the lower echelons of Roman Catholicism. During the past millennium, there has often been a wide gap between pledge and practice. In the United States, hundreds of Catholic priests have been removed from office in recent years and some have been imprisoned because of what is mildly labeled sexual abuse. Many, in and out of the Church, believe mandated celibacy has resulted in immorality, female subjection, hypocrisy, and thus a basic misunderstanding of the gospel. A 1994 survey of North American Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and laity found that only half of the priests and a third of nuns support mandatory clerical celibacy (Rosetti 1994). Since the deliberations of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, there has been a strive in Roman Catholic religious orders to break down the clergy-community barriers and to stress agapic love and service for all. One major goal of demanding sexual abstinence from clergy members has been to benefit the organization and its leaders. Saint Paul is often quoted as saying The unmarried man is busy with the Lords affairs, concerned with pleasing the Lord; but the married man is busy with this worlds demands and occupied with pleasing his wife (Cholij 1989) Cardinal Alfons Stickler has said that priests must be completely free from any other occupation or stable commitment, especially that of a family of their own in order to be able to dedicate themselves completely to the sacred ministry in its various exigencies and obligations. To serve the People of God it is necessary to belong exclusively to God.

The early decrees apparently were mostly designed to prevent priests from diverting Church resources to family members (Balch 1985). The Churchs desire to control its wealth was often cited as a reason for its insistence on celibacy, especially by early Protestant reformers. This kin recognition manipulation has lead to efforts to avoid its entanglements. Journalist George Hillery researched American Trappist-Cisterian abbeys and monasteries in the 1970s and 1980s. He found that candidates were usually young men who remained in the monastery for four to six weeks and, if accepted, remained as postulants for an additional six weeks to six months. They then took temporary vows and were novices for two to five years. Other religions that make special efforts to pool recruits from nonkin include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and dervish groups in Islamic societies. Catholic canon law states that a candidate cant be accepted to the priesthood unless in a prescribed rite has has assumed publicly before God and the Church the obligation of celibacy. Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God. Imposed or elected celibacy, often in the clerical sense, is enacted as part of a complex configuration of ongoing negotiations regarding cultural and religious attitudes. The religious celibate forswears sex but gains sacred status. Celibacy is not a synonym for virginity; catholic celibates often have had prior sexual experiences. The official Catholic definition of celibacy is an unmarried state and that it is not equivalent to virginity, However within the Catholic world view, celibacy also entails virginity and chastity because sexual activity is proper only within the context of marriage. The various implications make up a broad field of gray area with this word. English usage celibacy implies abstention from all sexual relations as well as from marriage. Mahatma

Gandhi famously advised that celibacy be beneficially practiced by married couples once they had completed their families. Literature on male sexuality in Hindu recognized virya mirodh, semen control, as a problem with religious implications. The first written law on abstinence for priests seems to have been issued by the Council of Elvira in 305 c.e. Roman Catholic priests were required to observe total and irrevocable celibacy (Napier 1989). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, priests can be married before ordination but must swear abstinence as a prerequisite to clerical duty. Bishops and those that take monastic vows must be chaste. (Neusner) The council of Trent in 1563 reaffirmed the commitment to mandatory celibacy. The Roman Catholic Church continues to bar marriage for priests, but only those who are part of the Western rite. Eastern rite priests who are in union with the Roman Catholic Church are permitted to marry, but those who are married are discouraged from traveling to the United States, lest they confuse the Catholic faithful. The Protestant Reformation, in turn, eliminated celibacy and permitted clergy again to marry and have children. By almost any measure, the wave of pedophilia scandals sweeping through the country represents the greatest crisis ever to face the Catholic Church in the United States. The scandals have prompted widespread unrest among American Catholics. In 1993, celibacy, Pope John Paul II said that [celibacy] was not essential to the priesthood but he made clear that the Vatican would continue to demand that priests be celibate. Pope Benedict XVI issued a blistering denunciation in April 2012 to a group of Austrian priests who have publicly questioned church teaching on celibacy, saying they were being selfish in disobeying his authority. At the heart of many of these misreadings, perhaps, is a fundamental misunderstanding of celibacy. In general, many Americans view celibacy as misguided.

There exists the proposition that the practice of celibacy is the ingredient that will keep the abstained from a sexual pollution. One is closer to purity when having avoided the act, and the very physical fluids of carnal pleasure. There are beliefs that each sex is a danger to the other through contact with sexual fluids. Avoiding contact with the powerful reproductive juices of the other helps one to maintain ones own purity. A buildup of ones own sexual fluids also can be believed to lead to mental and physical illness. Ritualistic celibacy among the Mazatec Amerindians, it is said that being heterosexually celibate allows the messiness and contingencies of everyday life to dissipate from the body, In Mazatec perspectives, heterosexual relations and their gendered attributes are intense. Sex entails potentially troublesome physical and social consequences. Closing off into abstinence is a necessary preparation for those who are about to undertake critical spiritual exertions that will benefit the group as a whole. Jain celibate ascetics sometimes fast slowly unto death through a process known as sallekhanna. Religious fasting and prohibitions about amounts and kinds of food are frequently mixed with sexual abstinence and sometimes with restrictions on sleeping, The ideal form of asceticism, as practiced by Theravada Buddhist uses rigorous restrictions on eating and sleeping as well as on sex. The crusades for morality and celibacy were an intrinsic part of the New Thought movement in America. Indeed, the position was seen as a progressive one, helping to combat the problems of unwanted pregnancy, sexual transmitted disease and the abandonment of unmarried mothers. The New Thought movement saw itself as ushering in a new, purer age, in which women were empowered, and would no longer be enslaved to what was characteristically cast as

the baser sexual demands of men. Some New Thought leaders advocated celibacy and vegetarianism as part of their religious virtues (Neusner). Even when celibacy is imposed rather than chosen consciously, it can actively indicate traits and direction. Measure taken by parents to ensure their daughters virginity express a confluence of concerns surrounding the divine order of sexual reproduction. Likewise, the denial of sexual activity to prisoners can express complex notions about individuals rights and privileges. Some would view how U.S. citizens view celibacy as a form of sexual deprivation deservedly administered to criminals as part of their sentenced punishment. This attitude traces back to the Quaker approach to moral and social rehabilitation. In some manners conjugal prison sex is portrayed as coercive, bestial and devoid of pleasure. Modern American prisons with emphasis on crime control and rehabilitation originated some 200+ years ago with the Quakers; and a central theme in the Quakers imprisonment was the doctrine that explicitly banned all inmate sexual behavior, including masturbation (Jacobs and Steele 1977). Even now in around 100 prisons with 100,000 inmates, masturbation is still prohibited behavior. Furthermore, masturbation has been a common means of sexual pleasure, yet it has been harshly judged and misunderstood by religious professionals. There is evidence that celibacy is contingent upon historical processes even comes from the Indian subcontinent. Gandhi reinvented the classical Hindu institution of brahmacharya (celibacy) making sexuality a site of resistance during the colonial era. In its classical Vedic form, brahmacharya is linked with the four ashramas that male members of Brahman, Kshatriya, and Vaishya castes go through. Sexual abstinence and other ascetic practices are allocated for the stage following a young mans initiation as an official student of Vedic text. Formal sexual abstinence also is practiced for short, intermittent periods by

married men or women to ensure their purity as sponsors of rituals, undertaking of vows, or during a pilgrimage. Some men may reject this householder stage of life altogether and practice lifelong celibacy as a sannyasi. A sannyasi enhances his physical and mental vitality through the retention of semen, and after a twelve year period of this he spontaneously achieves his spiritual goal. Countless yoga teachers promote celibacy for male followers in their teachings and literature. The male celibacy is viewed as a means to achieving seminal truth, which is a duty to oneself as a man and, ultimately to the cosmic oneness of the universe. The United Society of Believers in Christs Second Appearing is more commonly known as the Shakers. Because of the rule of celibacy, recruitment from within has been impossible, and new members have tended to be drawn in during periods of religious revival (Brewer 1986) The Shakers grew in numbers until around 1840, when it had nearly 4,000 members across eight states in America and twenty-one semi autonomous communities. There was a brief spiritual revival and within a decade the rate of recruitment slowed dramatically until departures outnumbered new recruits. By 1900 Shaker numbers were down to 1,000 and by the late1930s there were six communities remaining. By 1990 there were under a dozen members in the single remaining village at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Ann Lee became a nascent leader in this sect. She gave birth to four children, all of whom died young. It is therefore a little ironic that after taking control of the millenarian group of Shaking Quakers that she was generally known as Mother Ann. During her brief imprisonment for her ardent proselytizing in Manchester that she discovered that sexuality was the single reason for the degeneracy of the human race. Their lust is their torment (Testimonies 1816) Mother Ann persuaded the small cluster of Shaking

Quakers that they must accept the rule of celibacy. Mother Ann found biblical proof for her claim (Gen. 3:1-24), which accounts the Fall of Man from Eden. Ann Lees theology was radically egalitarian in regards to gender, saying that the identity of God was male and female. Ann Lee had faith that true Believers must be celibate and refrain from both sex and marriage.The celibate life has remained a pillar of Shakerism. It is amazing that the Shakers had lasted as long as they did. After their immigration to the New World Shakers continued to be harangued by those suspicious of their beliefs and practices. Shaker leaders saw that life would be safer and their movement more likely to expand if they sequestered themselves into villages, separate from the outside world. Elaborate and severe regulations were inacted to ensure that men and women did not come into physical contact. Even those who had been married in the world were separated into different sleeping quarters to avoid opportunities for carnal temptation. Buildings were built with two doors or two staircases, so that men and women would not waffle about with one another while entering or leaving. Touching a non-shaker member of the opposite sex, accidental or not, required immediate confession before an elder. A Malthusian argument crept into Shaker rhetoric, emphasizing the practical benefits to society at large with reducing the size of the populations. The gender equality of Shakers brought about radical ideas of the True-womanhood Another mix-sexed celibate group, the Koreshian Unity, formed in 1880s in Chicago. Like the Shakers, the Koreshians promoted female economic and political rights. Unrelated, but drawing from the same Hebrew name "Koresh" for Cyrus, David Koresh also lead a communal group that practiced a form of celibacy. As the messenger of God, Koresh ordered that the women and men of the group be separated with no sexual relation including those who were

married. Only Koresh was allowed to have sexual relation with the women. He believed that his children with these women would serve to fulfill the prophecy of the kingdom of God that is to be set up in Israel. Since Koresh strongly believed that they were living in the last days, he strongly insisted on the policy of celibacy (Corrigan). Celibacy has historically engendered a great deal of controversy in Christianity, but also in Buddhism because of the difficulties in entails. Many branches and sects have been formed specifically either to escape or to reinforce adherence to celibacy. Members of a recent San Francisco based UFO Cult looked upon themselves as monks and nuns. They were free to leave the monastery at any time. They committed themselves to a celibate life. Eight of the male members, including Marshall H. Applewhite, AKA Do, even elected for voluntary castration. This seems to have been a form of preparation for their next level of existence: in a life that would be free of gender and sexual activity. (Corrigan) The ancient tenets of Judaism embraced marriage for all, including the rabbis, who had to be married in order to pursue higher study. However, the rituals of Jewish marriage were such that sex was not in the least indiscriminate but very strictly disciplined. And in some cases, in order to devote themselves exclusively to the Torah rabbis would ask permission from their wives to be celibate and free of familial concerns. One Jewish sect, the Essenes, who appeared two centuries before Christ, were known for being celibate. Like the Shakers centuries later, the Essenes were a community of celibates who believed in the control of the bodily passions for the purpose of cultivating a pure and holy nature. Judaism in modern America has transformed to a religion that no longer exhibits this practice, in relation to the faith. A marriage with children is regarded as itself a sacred duty.

Similar to Judaism, marriage is a basic duty for modern Islamic believers: Marriage is half of the faith. It is thus understandable why voluntary celibacy is something of a scandal among Muslims and evokes hostile criticism. The legal term for marriage is "nikah" which literally means sexual intercourse. Sex is to be abstained from until marriage, and during the holy week of Ramadan there is no sex permissible during daylight hours Scientology has had little weigh in on the topic of celibacy. But a lecture by L. ron Hubbard has recently been leaked to the public, and shows the dispute with modern medicine that the religion is known for. In the 1963 lecture Dr. Hubbard makes the circular argument that celibacy causes sexually transmitted diseases! "I got to thinking about it later. I was going over this subject, here, a few years ago and it occurred to me that, obviously, venereal disease stops sex. So if sex is stopped, you get venereal disease. Got the idea? See, no sex equals venereal disease. Because venereal disease equals no sex. And it goes both ways and you only get this high incidence of VD amongst very sex-starved people; and you get these nonspecific venereal diseases, you see, amongst groups of people who haven't anything to do with sex at all. Quite interesting, huh?" In sum, celibacy is a relatively common choice that appears to run counter to Darwinian expectations. Despite its subduing past celibacy does have relevance in the hearts and mind of many believers. Sexual limitations have led to the continuation of modesty and abstinence in many sectors of American religious life, but has also fueled the rebellious leaps in attempts to cleave from those archaic ways of thinking. More and more criticism is surrounding mandatory celibacy in institutions like the Roman Catholic church, and it is doubtful that it will withstand as critiques continue. It appears that there is basis to argue for a change in mandatory celibacy. It is debatable if celibate clergy in any religion are any more holy or devote than non-celibates, or

whether that can even be measured. Time spent in prayer and counseling church members does not necessarily add to the level of religiosity of the celibate.

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