Read You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos Online
Authors: Robert Arthur
While the corrupt papacy was trashing the Church’s reputation, two developments were also weakening the Church’s position. First, secular power was consolidating in Europe. Powerful kings were emerging that could stand up to the
Church better than their fragmented forebears. Second, communication improved greatly after the invention of the printing press in 1440.
The printing press broke the Church’s stranglehold on the written word. What previously had to be tediously hand-copied by monks could now be quickly copied and disseminated. Heretical ideas, which before had to be spread largely by word of mouth, could now be transferred on paper anonymously. In addition, the printing press made the Bible more accessible to the general populace, so that they could finally judge the Catholic Church’s interpretation of it for themselves.
125
Church corruption, consolidated secular power, and the printing press allowed the heresy of a German monk, Martin Luther (1483–1546), to flourish in the sixteenth century. In 1517, Luther nailed a list of ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenberg (in what is now Germany), questioning the Church’s practice of selling indulgences.
126
As discussed earlier, people of means had been buying indulgences from the Church that released them from penance—even for murder.
127
Luther felt that this was a corrupt practice, and one not authorized by the Bible. Without Luther’s knowledge, printers made copies of his theses and distributed them.
These printings allowed Luther’s ideas to quickly find a wide and supportive audience. Perhaps more importantly, Luther was protected by a prominent German prince, Frederick III of Saxony. After Luther was condemned as a heretic, Frederick III sheltered Luther in his castle under the alias Junker Georg. Numerous German princes adopted Luther’s precepts and became Lutherans.
128
Although there may have been theological reasons behind their conversions, adopting Lutheranism allowed the princes to take back the substantial amount of Church property in their regions, and to save their subjects from paying the Church taxes, fines, indulgences, etc., which all flowed to Rome.
129
These princes formed an alliance that fought the Catholic military forces that soon gathered to stamp out the heresy.
This reform movement was called the Protestant Reformation, after the formal protest filed by these German princes. As one of its first religious leaders, Luther’s interpretation of sex was largely adopted into this new branch of Christianity.
Recognizing the powerful sex drive within people, Luther believed that chastity was an unreasonable expectation. (He assumed that even Jesus Christ partook.)
130
To Luther the best Christian was not one who unsuccessfully tried to purge sex from
her life, but one who channeled that sex drive into marriage. Instead of trying to be celibate, everyone should marry as soon as possible after puberty. This extended to the clergy. In this way, Luther elevated the status of marriage. Virgins were no longer morally better and marriage was now seen as “the cornerstone of society.”
131
This glorification of marriage may have caused the greater suspicion of single people that followed. In 1572 Wismar, Germany, kicked out of town all unmarried women who were not domestic servants, because these women pretended to sew when in reality they were engaged in “great lewdness.”
132
In many places fashions used to attract the other sex, such as cleavage and codpieces,
133
were outlawed. Pastors and authorities also attacked activities where single people could interact with the opposite sex, such as festivals. Dancing was outlawed in many places as it was “the devil’s pimp.”
134
Another notable break with Catholicism by Luther was his vehement stance against prostitution. Whereas Catholicism was relatively tolerant, Luther called prostitutes “stinking . . . tools of the devil.”
135
They were soon considered worse than other criminals for, unlike other criminals, they seduced other citizens into sin. Predictably, in the 1500s there was a wave of brothel closings.
136
Luther and other Protestant leaders discovered, like the Catholic Church before them, that the reward of heaven in the afterlife was not enough to extinguish extramarital sex. In Protestant areas, sins were increasingly outlawed by the secular authorities, thus beginning the “criminalization of sin.”
137
Whereas Roman Catholicism put the Church in the bedroom, the Protestant Reformation put the government in there as well. Catholics and Protestants both regarded sexual purity as a sign of God’s favor,
138
and they were now competing to be the purest.
The Frenchman John Calvin (1509–1564) was a leader of the Protestants’ moral charge. Unlike the entertaining Luther, who enjoyed drinking beer and playing the flute and the lute, Calvin was petite, ailing, and dour. His righteousness began early in life. As a youth his classmates called him “Accusativus” for criticizing and reporting their behavior.
139
As an adult, Calvin suffered from migraine headaches, indigestion, ulcers, gout,
kidney stones, pulmonary tuberculosis, and temper tantrums. Not surprisingly, Calvin’s God was a pitiless tyrant, and almost all humans were doomed to his eternal damnation. God’s mercy would be shown to a very predetermined few, and nothing one did could affect the outcome. Pious, charitable, or good people had no advantage over anyone else. Calvin considered life to be valueless. He wrote, “We are all made of mud, and this mud is not just on the hem of our gown, or on the sole of our boots, or in our shoes. We are full of it, we are nothing but mud and filth both inside and outside.”
140
With his long thin face and “domed forehead,”
141
Calvin would emerge as the dictator of morals in the city of Geneva, in what is now Switzerland. Calvin ruthlessly had his critics tortured and killed,
142
and enforced his misery on its citizenry. No tomfoolery to take one’s mind off of holy matters was allowed.
143
Singing, acting, dancing, church bells, organs (“the Devil’s bagpipe”), altar candles, cursing, gambling, playing cards, serving too many dishes at dinner, revealing dress, pictures, statues, elegant hairstyles,
144
rouge, and jewelry were all declared sinful or criminal.
Improper sexuality was severely punished. Single pregnant women were drowned. Calvin was not nepotistic: when his stepson was found in bed with another woman and his daughter-in-law behind a haystack with another man, all four adulterers were executed.
Calvin’s strict form of Christianity took hold in other parts of Northern Europe as well. In England there were numerous Protestant splinter groups who believed the form of Protestantism adopted there was not Calvinist enough. They viewed England as a Sodom, a land that God would destroy for its sexual sins. Called Puritans by their detractors, large numbers of them left England to bring Calvin’s piety to America.
In 1620 the first group containing Puritans settled in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Over the next several decades thousands more Puritans would arrive in what is now America. From 1629 to 1691 the Puritans lived in a Calvinist theocracy.
Consistent with the Calvinist ideal, they lived in strict and orderly communities that closely monitored personal morality. The Puritans wanted to create a society that would be like a “city upon a hill.”
146
By pleasing God, God would make them a glory to be admired and imitated by the rest of the world.
Because God would punish the community for the sins of any one person, snooping was encouraged. In colonial times this was easy to do in the small, isolated communities and relatively porous homes. Court documents refer to neighbors peering through holes and pulling out loose boards to spy. Clement Coldom of Gloucester, Massachusetts, ripped a door from its hinges to learn what his neighbor, John Pearce, was doing with “the widow Stannard” at night.
147
Based on the Bible’s Old Testament, the law codes were harsh. Death was the penalty for adultery,
148
bestiality,
149
and sex between males. Lesser punishments were meted for crimes such as overly flirtatious behavior (“lewd and lascivious carriage”), giving one’s attention to several suitors (“wanton dalliance”), and courting a woman without first seeking the permission of her parents.
150
Puritan ministers fulminated against sexuality from the pulpit. Even marital sex was to be moderated, as sex of any type was unclean, and lust damaged both spiritual and physical health. Grave “fire and brimstone” sermons attempted to scare audiences straight with graphic images of hell. If the following passage bores, it should be considered that these orations would last for two to three hours and those whose attention strayed would be hit with a switch.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire . . . you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you [were] suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other
reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
151
Death was considerably more familiar to Puritans than to modern populations, thus providing these endless orations with more relevancy and power. Child mortality rates are estimated to have been around fifty percent, while in some regions one in five colonial mothers could expect to die from childbirth.
152
Life expectancies were low and killing animals was a part of farm life. The potency of these speeches can be seen in the anecdotes of fearful children crying and remorseful adults attempting suicide.
For example, in the late 1600s Samuel Sewall of Boston wrote in his diary that his young daughter, Elizabeth, was sad all day. After dinner she broke into tears causing everyone in the family to cry. Elizabeth revealed after questioning that she was afraid of going to hell. In another incident, Sewall lectured his ten-year-old son, Sam, about the need to prepare for death, and recorded, “He seemed not much to mind, eating an apple.”
153
However, later that night during prayers Sam cried and expressed a fear of death.
Despite this intense enculturation, sex and nudity were still common sights. Simple homes still did not provide privacy and some scenarios have been recorded. One female recalled being in bed with her siblings and her mother when they were joined by a man. Her mother instructed them to “lie further or else shee would kick us out of bed.”
154
The court records of the Puritans betray their reputation for vanquishing sex. In practice, use of the death penalty for sexual offenses was extremely rare. As long as one confessed and paid the penalty, the congregation was likely to quickly reinstate the person without a loss of status.
The language of the offenders is revealing as well. Abigail Bush of Westfield was censured in 1697 for commenting that her father’s new wife was “as hot as a
bitch.”
155
In a 1771 bastardy case John Harrington denied being the father of a child. He stated on the record, “I fucked her once, but I minded my pullbacks. I sware I did not get it.”
156
He was convicted.
Lastly, the Puritans reported on each other’s sexual indiscretions surprisingly infrequently, considering the encouragement and ability to do so.
157
In 1664 in Concord, Massachusetts, the meddling of Thomas Pinion led to a derisive satiric verse being posted to the church and addressed to “cunstable” Thomas Pinion.
158
This revolt against prudery was not limited to Concordians; a new worldview was growing in Europe that was trying to do the same to the cunstables of Christianity.
1.
Kathleen Deveny and Raina Kelley, “Girls Gone Bad?”
Newsweek
, 12 Feb. 2007, pp. 3, 41.
2.
Marc Peyser, “Family TV Goes Down the Tube,”
Newsweek
, 23 Feb. 2004; and Daniel Henninger, Jacksonian Era,”
Wall Street Journal
, 6 Feb. 2004.
3.
Nancy White, “Plain-Talk,”
Christian Science Monitor
, 6 Aug. 1999.