God is NSFW

Brother Adam F. Graham

by Adam Graham

Those four letters are a gateway drug. Click on any link with those four letters behind it and one could find anything from gut-wrenching carnage to scintillating sex. Typically, the four letters refer to the latter rather than the former, ranging anywhere from a stray nipple to full-fledged bacchanals. Some consumers of this content call it “erotica” as opposed to “pornography.” Its solitary function comes from arousing the erotic passion of the consumer, fulfilling fantasy and inspiring similar escapades. Not all erotica comes in that graphic nature; much is packaged in more mundane ways. A romantic comedy at its base level traffics in this arousal.

Why link those letters to God, our fount of everything that is holy and pure? As Kipling said about culture, “East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” God stands above this touchy, messy interplay that is the pursuit of the erotic. Humans need it for biology’s sake and maybe fulfillment too. But erotica and God do not belong in the same sentence. Oh wait…I just put them in the same sentence.

Some connection exists: Cartman realizes that the easiest way to write a Christian rock song is to take a secular love song and replace certain words with “Jesus” (“Christian Rock Hard,” South Park S7 E9). We pour much of our emotional energy into seeking new relationships, maintaining current ones, or dealing with the aftermath of the failures. Passion burns as fire within us. Must we divorce our religious life from this fire? Or, can erotic love become another dimension of our relationship with God?

In the Hindu traditions, particularly devotees of Krishna (be nice to my Sanskrit transliterations), worshippers can classify their love toward God that relates their connectedness to the Supreme Lord. As knowledge of the divine one increases, love changes forms to meet that knowledge. The base level for worship is santa or quiescence. This type of love recognizes the divinity of God, but the worshipper has no intimacy with it. Krishna overwhelms the worshipper with his divinity, but the worshipper continues on as before, going about daily life. We might call it the “fan stage”—“Krishna is a powerful hero, great guy and all, but I don’t know him personally.”

Krishna

Some worshippers exist in the dasya stage, servitude: love in a vertical relationship. Just as peasants serve the feudal lord who protects and provides for them, a servant’s love reciprocates what physical blessings the lord on high bestows. Love does not necessarily flow from servant to lord. However, a servant knows what the master requires.

In the sakhya stage, devotees become friends of Krishna, akin to the cowherds among whom Krishna lives, and accompany him on his exploits. Just as courtiers and confidants have the king’s ear, these devotees have Krishna’s ear because of their relationship. Friends have certain privileges that servants do not.

Another group has greater access to Krishna. Some devotees enter into a parent-child relationship with Krishna called vatsatya. Friends have us only for certain times, but a child has constant access to the parent. Krishna knows these devotees like parents knows their children and loves them accordingly. It works both ways, too. One avatar of Krishna is Bala Krishna, baby Krishna, whose devotees dote on him like a parent over a child. Who can know someone better than the parent of that person?

Finally, a few worshippers reach that certain level of intimacy with Krishna called srnsara, an erotic love that encompasses all the other types. Devotees, male and female, strive to become Rudha, the most beloved maiden of Krishna’s life, and to recreate the scenes of their courtship. That pursuit proves tricky as Rudha is betrothed to someone else. Yet, observe how Krishna speaks to his beloved: “I brood on her brow curving over her anger-shadowed face,/ Like a red lotus shadowed by a bee hovering above…/In my heart’s sleepless state/ I wildly enjoy her loving me…Damn me! My wanton ways made her leave in anger. (Gitagovinda, trans. by Barbara Stoler-Miller, 7:5-6). Krishna, Lord of the Universe, sounds as dejected as any male lead in any romantic comedy. He wants Rudha and Rudha wants him. Yes, that kind of “want.”

Of course, one might say (with a colonial Orientalist voice [think pith helmets]), “Well, Hinduism has always had a penchant for the exotic.” However, these verses from the Gitagovinda sound similar to some verses in another book I know.  

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” Song of Solomon (Songs) contains the most erotic imagery in the Bible. Many contemporary interpreters would describe it as a love song celebrating marital sexual bliss, avoiding the intense (and frequent) allegorization of early Jewish and Christian interpreters. And I agree with them, but the book contains only one reference to God, in 8:6, where passion’s fire resembles the flame of the Lord. 

How did this book become canon without a strong connection to the divine? It most likely did not happen through an attempt to compile a “comprehensive anthology” of Hebrew greatest hits. God must be involved somehow. Something about the love shared between the lover and the beloved resembles the love between God and God’s people.

Lovers of God must become the erotic partner to God just as devotees of Krishna became Rudha. Bernard of Clairvaux thought similarly (well, minus the Krishna part)--he composed 86 sermons on the book and only managed to cover the first two chapters. The lover and the beloved share a deep bond and, to keep it SFW, know each other intimately.

Song of Solomon by He Qi

Hearts leap at the sound of each other’s voice. The two want to frolic together amid the flowers since they both know the love they share for each other. This is the same kind of love that happens deep in romance when all you want to do is know that person more fully, which often climaxes with, well, climax coincidently enough. Sometimes, that love burns into a lifelong relationship in which each partner continues thirsting after the other. “Many waters cannot quench love;” How serendipitous!

If we brought back the erotic dimension, what would it give us? From Song of Songs, erotic love assures us of a God who wants to know us intimately and individually. God would not love us out of a contractual relationship or lump us with all the other children, but would love us because of our inherent qualities and despite our flaws. Perhaps, it would make (Deutero-) Paul’s household codes in Ephesians easier to read, since submission comes into play not in a governance model, but in lovers seeking to outdo one another (I’m still thinking on this one, check back later). 

If nothing else, erotic and God being in the same sentence would recognize that aspect of our created nature in our relationship with God without any shame. God exhibits erotic love to stir the soul just as erotica stirs the libido. And that makes God NSFW.

Adam is a working on his Master's of Divinity at Vanderbilt University. He also preaches at the Howell Hill Church of Christ in Fayetteville, Tennessee and maintains a glorious red beard.