The elephant in the room is sexuality. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are everywhere. Sex is rarely discussed in churches, but sex is the one issue that dominates our city. Historically Christianity has allowed the world to set the agenda for sexual discussions. Sadly, now the world has gone gaga over the church’s hypocrisy and sexual perversion. “See,” they exclaim with glee, “you are just as perverted as we are. You have no moral authority.” Christian Fundamentalism is particularly guilty of putting its head in the sand on its sexual challenges.
God has never been silent on sex, so why have we? Maybe it is because we hate that our old nature still desires sexual perversion. Maybe it is because fundamentalism is wrongly proud in its outward standards. It is time we lifted the veil of embarrassment and false morality, and started to speak openly and truthfully. The following ten-point approach is a suggested framework for considering how to start this change.
1) Genesis needs more emphasis. We are God’s creation—male and female—with a body and a spirit. The gender roles and our physical and emotional desires were all formed by God before the fall. We need to lay the correct foundation before we can build using other precepts.
2) Sexual topics must be preached from the front regularly (but after the kids go out). Each of us face sexual temptation daily, so lets make our preaching application driven towards our issues. When was the last time we preached through Song of Songs expositionally?
3) Technology has put sex on steroids. Every Christian should use internet and mobile device filters, foxtel, and iTunes restrictions, etc. This has helped me as I battle my old nature. It is not fool proof, but it does reduce the amount of instant temptation. And porn is not just a guy issue.
4) Let’s be honest about our temptations and weaknesses. We respect leaders who are open and honest about their struggles. Too many church leaders have pretended they are not tempted only to suddenly leave their wife for a mistress.
5) We should be more explicit in appropriate contexts. Topics such as masturbation, oral sex, iPhone porn, vibrators, birth control, hormones, secrets, etc. should be discussed openly, but face to face, in gender specific groups. We all read www.news.com.au or similar, so let’s bring God’s thinking on these topics to the fore.
6) Homosexuality, gay marriage, and orgies are the issues of the day. Let’s boldly and humbly promote God’s view. Our opinion is no more valid than the world’s opinion. It is not us against them, but it is recognising that all sex outside male/female marriage is not authorised by God.
7) Self-control. We must talk about techniques for battling temptation. From Scripture memory, to Christian music, to prayer, to choosing relationships wisely, to a cold shower, to fleeing lust, to accountability, and recovery. We must arm ourselves with tools to prevent and repair.
8) If we, or our children, do not have the gift of singleness, we should promote opportunities towards godly marriage early in life. Delayed adulthood and delayed marriage has promoted promiscuity and devalued commitment.
9) We must promote sex as a good thing. As it has been said, the best way to counter something that should not be done, is to explain how it should be done. Amorous sex in marriage should be encouraged.
10) Sex can be used as a segue to the gospel. God created the marriage union as a picture of redeeming his bride. Once we accept that sex does not provide eternal satisfaction, then we will be open for embracing God’s everlasting saving grace.
In all of this, grace, humility, and purity need to be maintained. You may or may not agree with all these ideas, but I welcome your feedback on how we can tackle this elephant more effectively.
About Jeremy Crooks
9 Comments
Comments are closed.
Well said, Mr. Crooks. Because of the equipping responsibility that pastors/elders have, it is my opinion that pastors should NOT dismiss the children before the sermon, especially when addressing God’s view of sex. I have been scolded for using words from the pulpit that forced embarrassed parents to explain sexuality to their children. I happily take those hits. While I try to be discreet in my word choices, what better way is there for a child to learn about sex than from the Bible and their parents?
@Jeremy. There are a number of topics which could do with the same scrutiny from the pulpit that you suggest sex get, giving, music, alcohol, eating, and others. Some of these loom large (excuse the pun) in the minds of many churchgoers and yet are rarely addressed in the way that you describe. Excellent post. By the way, I just kissed my wife, and I loved it!
@Jason. You have an great group of writers at present. I reckon that this is the strongest week content wise that the blog has had. Keep up the GOoD work.
@ Steve: I appreciate your thoughts on preaching about sex to everyone. Another topic worth discussing would be how parents should teach their sons and daughters about sex.
@ David: Yes, I think many churches have failed with application driven preaching. We must connect theology with the real life issues you mentioned.
Good Article Jeremy
@Steven S., I tend to agree with the general concept you suggest. Do we really want them to have to google it? Because they will.
@Jeremy, I appreciate the post. I am thankful for my church in this regard, though, as always, we have growing to do.
@Lumpy, Thanks for the encouragement. I’m thankful for those who are investing both in writing and reading.
Good post. Hard to imagine sex preached from the pulpit in anything but a negative “Thou shalt not” type way, but definitely something that needs to be addressed more from a biblical standpoint.
Jeremy,
Awesome job, we agree whole heartedly in ALL the issues raised, look forward in bringing sharing these suggestions to our elders.
Thanks for the feedback.
Sexual desire is good and godly, but like a fire, it must be burnt off in the right place. Our challenges is to enjoy fireworks every night (and sometimes during the day :-), without becoming pyromaniacs.
Jeremy, God bless you for your stand. Except I am not sure what it is. I don’t know if you realise this but you didn’t really address the Elephant.
You said homosexuality and gay marriage are the issues of the day and we need to promote God’s view, but you didn’t state what God’s view is. You say all sex outside of marriage is not authorised by God, but does this mean that you are ok with gay sex as long as the couple are married?
For the record, I believe homosexuality is a sin and that it is explicitly stated in both Genesis and Romans. I am assuming that you do to, but I just found it interesting that you didn’t specifically state that, considering the topic of your article. Was I wrong?