Crossing the Border

So, will illegal immigrants, old westerns, or exotic vacations be discussed today? No, no, and no. Actually, the course of American culture is the topic. Why borders, then?

Sociologists have long recognized that every culture is defined by boundaries. In fact, without boundaries, a culture would lack definition and would therefore be indistinguishable from other cultures and societies. Thus, lacking unique traits, such a culture would be no culture at all.

In the field of New Testament studies, a new approach emerged in the 80s known as the social-scientific method. One aspect of this area of study has been the attempt to find the defining cultural structures of the 1st century Mediterranean-basin world. The question has been whether or not boundaries or markers existed that gave commonality to the Greco-Roman world that existed around the Mediterranean Sea. Many believe such defining boundaries did exist. Some remain in place today.

Can similar social structures be found in America? Most assuredly so. Many of the boundaries that have set limits on what is and is not American are rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic. More to the point, many are biblically-based.

Take marriage. Even though polygamy was practiced in the Old Testament era by some of the notable characters from Israel’s past, monogamy was the accepted standard for marital relationships. As well, in the Roman world, monogamy was the standard.

In both the Jewish world (including early Christianity) and Greco-Roman society, homosexuality was rejected as an acceptable form of human sexuality. While found more in the Roman world than in the Jewish, homosexuality never gained widespread acceptance in either.

Some would suggest a more accepting attitude regarding homosexuality existed in Rome. Consider, though, the views of Juvenal, one of the fathers of Latin Satire. Curiously, Juvenal’s Second Satire was devoted to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. According to Leland D. Peterson in New Oxford Review, an on-line news service, "Juvenal recognized in the secularized, godless Rome of his day, same-sex ‘marriage’ [was] not merely a crime against Nature and a corruption of marriage and the family, not merely a symptom of moral decline, but a function of a morally sick society . . ." Juvenal’s satirical treatise on noted homosexuals of his day was scathing and bitter.

The Roman historian Suetonius (70-130 AD) presented another view of the moral decline of the empire. He wrote Lives of the Twelve Caesars during the reign of Hadrian as a compilation of the biographies of Rome’s leading emperors. Many were described in all of their immoral glory. A special case was Nero. Nero "married" Sporus, a young Roman boy, whom Nero dressed as a woman and had castrated. Later, Nero himself was married to his freedman Doryphorus (Nero played the woman’s role in that "marriage").

By the time of Nero, Roman society was in a state of decline, out of which she never climbed. Both Suetonius and Juvenal decried the loss of morality in the Roman Empire, and especially in the city of Rome itself. As the boundaries that characterized Roman society were crossed, they were lost to the past. Progressively, Rome ceased being Rome. Ultimately, Rome fell.

America cannot continue moving and redefining her cultural boundaries. By devaluing and obscuring the markers that set our society apart from all others, our nation will move relentlessly to a place where America will cease being America.

One of the saddest debates in our history has been over marriage. Why should we need to argue for the primacy of monogamous, heterosexual marriage in the first place? Are we unable to see the uniqueness of that relationship and the unequaled contribution made by heterosexual marriage?

Dare we continue crossing the borders? Do we not see the danger of going to a land in which our concepts of right and wrong will be turned on their heads? If we lose marriage, we will lose ultimately our whole representative democracy. Rome was not defeated by a greater military force from beyond its borders. Rome fell when her cultural boundaries were destroyed from within. Will America share the same fate?