Are men capable of sharing love? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Let me tell you the story of this boy. He was a boy who really loved poetry and music. He could play a musical instrument well and he wrote a lot of songs. He also had a deep connection with a man. They were practically heart and soul together. When the other man died, the boy felt a deep sorrow and sang a song of depression over what had happened.
I suspect some of you know what’s going on already.
Some of you are thinking this boy sounds really girly and needs to get a woman in his life.
Well, this boy had plenty of women in his life. We know about them. We know about them because this boy is King David.
Am I suggesting that David and Jonathan had a same-sex love for one another? Absolutely not! However, am I saying that they had a love for one another? Yes. It was a deep friendship love. Jonathan by all standards should have been the next to take the throne, not a light deal, and he put it aside because he knew David really deserved it.
I’m reading through a book by John Boswell on Christianity and social tolerance with regards to same-sex relationships. One problem that keeps occurring to me is that often, relationships are shown between men in literature that I don’t doubt are deep, and then it seems to imply that it must have also been an erotic relationship. This is a problem.
We live in a culture where we think sex means love, and it doesn’t. Ideally, it should. It should be that whenever a couple has sex together, it is because they have a great love for one another, particularly in a covenant relationship where they are husband and wife. Sadly, we don’t live in the ideal world.
We live in a world where sex can be cheap. Are we to think that every actress who has found herself on the “casting couch” was there because of the love for the man she was with? I still remember a woman telling me years ago in her pre-Christian days that she had sex with men she hated. Many a girl will give sex to a boy thinking it will keep him in her life only to be dumped shortly after.
All of this leads us to a problem with relationships among men. If men have a deep relationship with one another, it seems we assume there must be something erotic going on there. I hate to say it, but even I assume this when I watch a TV show and two guys are seen having an extremely close relationship.
This is not good.
We should be able to say that men should be able to have deep love for other men and not have to fear it being something erotic. Men should be able to express love and concern for one another and help them with their struggles and burdens. That a man can do that for another man doesn’t show he has same-sex attraction. It could just show he has a heart.
I like to watch history videos from the Metatron on Youtube. In this one, he talks about ancient Greece and their view on same-sex relationships. He says that some think that Achilles and Patroclus had an erotic relationship because when Patroclus dies, Achilles was upset.
I can tell you I have several friends who are guys that if I received word they died, I would be very upset. My first real experience with death was with a Sunday School teacher who called me and every other guy in class during the week to see how we were doing. I remember being in school today and having people come around to take up donations because he had died suddenly. I was so upset I had to go home early. I couldn’t function. I was in denial for awhile half-expecting him to jump up during the ceremony and say it was all a joke. It had to be. Right?
I had another friend who I never met in person, but he was a younger kid who really looked up to me in apologetics and I saw him as a pupil of sorts. I was his mentor. He had a brain tumor and died as a teenager. To this day, I’m still friends with his parents. There were times in my marriage my ex-wife would notice a sadness in me and ask what was wrong and I would say that I was remembering him suddenly. I’m sad writing this out right now.
Men don’t really want to be effeminate and I don’t think we should, but we should also accept that we can have a deep love for another man and yet, that is not erotic. Part of the problem in our society is we don’t know what love is and if love is said to be sex and you love another man, well, figure it out.
This could be the case for young men growing up who think there must be something wrong because they equate love feelings with erotic feelings. You can have the former without the latter. I love my sister very much and she is a beautiful woman, but those feelings sure aren’t erotic.
Love is one of the most meaningless words in our society today because people really don’t stop to think about what it means. Part of that is one of language in that I can say I love pizza, Final Fantasy, my friends, my parents, and God, and the degree and way is different for each of those.
I wish I had a clear solution here to this problem. I don’t. I just know that this is a problem and I am convinced it will keep creating confusion, especially for young people growing up who are told to base their identity so much on how they feel about themselves and the world around them.
Especially the boys trying to become men.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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