Nick Liao: Why should the devil have all the good sex?
Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Tex., achieved fame last year when he issued a challenge to married couples in his Texas-sized congregation of 20,000: have sex with your spouse everyday, for an entire week.
Flooded with media requests to explain his unusual project, Young gladly obliged, performing interviews and appearing on national talk shows (including a side-splitting visit to “The Colbert Report”. His logic was that Christians have far too long abdicated to Hollywood the responsibility of shaping people’s understanding of sexual intimacy. So followers of Jesus should be talking out loud about sex, cheerleading its healthy, robust practice in the proper context of marriage.
Mark Driscoll, the incendiary pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA would agree. In his “Christian Sex Q&A” series on Mars Hill’s blog, Driscoll dispenses counsel with his trademark candor and points the extra-curious to websites such as “Christian Nymphos,” a resource where romantically adventurous wives can exchange sex tips and prayer requests (caution: the banter on this site is not for the easily scandalized).
For these spokesmen, God takes a particular interest in the bedroom lives of believers, intending for them the most titillating experiences possible. According to Young, “It's time that we moved the bed back in church and put God back in the bed, and I think we are the real sex-perts because, after all, we're made in God's image and he's the one who wants us to do it his way.” Why should the devil have all the good sex?
Add to this a fledgling Christian industry of sex aids for married couples (featuring web vendors with names like “The Pure Bed” and “Covenant Spice”) and abstinence campaigns among church singles, such as the Facebook group, “I'm Saving Myself For Wild, Passionate, Awkward Honeymoon Sex,” and it seems that an ironic reversal of events is now upon us. When there is a bounty of Christian websites, books, sermon series devoted to the topic, can it still be said that Christians are silent on sex?
But is this hoopla around sex in fact an accommodation to society’s obsession with sexual fulfillment? Is God really a romance guru, a cosmic Dr. Ruth, choreographing our lives in such a way as to maximize our opportunities for satisfaction?
The authors of two well-trafficked theology blogs challenge this nascent perception of God as orchestrator of sexual intimacy. Halden Doerge, the author of Inhabitatio Dei recently quoted Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams regarding the Christian preoccupation with sex , concluding in a follow-up post: “If marriage, sex, and parenthood are somehow the fullness of humanity we are forced to say that Christ, far from being the true human as the Christian tradition proclaims, was in fact, sub-human.”
Ben Myers, who blogs at Faith & Theology, believes that a fixation on sex causes dire consequences for congregational life, particularly for celibate singles: “This is also why our churches are often so strangely inhospitable to “single” (read: pre-married) people. We simply can’t really believe that these people are fully formed human beings.”
These theologians identify a more pressing issue than listless sex between marriage partners. They caution against the cultural notion creeping into churches that sex makes us more fully human. If Christians believe that God’s best is for humans to be sexually fulfilled, what does that say about Jesus, who never married? Where does that leave those who cannot or choose not to marry? Sex cannot bear the weight of all that the self-anointed “sex-perts” want it to mean.
Our energy would be more wisely spent cultivating lifelong holy friendships within the church, rather than trying to spice up the bedroom. Some of the new monastic communities and recent authors are discovering afresh the long-neglected discipline of celibacy. For our celibate are gifts to the body of Christ who provide us with a sign and foretaste of our eternal communion with God.
We can commend the Christian “sex-perts” for trying to provide an alternative to a culture of meaningless hookups and Hollywood glamorization. But they unwittingly show that we have little distinctive to offer besides parroting self-help columnists. Perhaps what is required is more careful talk about sex that puts it in rightful perspective—in relation to Jesus Christ, the definitive meaning of our humanity.
Nick Liao recently graduated from Duke Divinity School.
Church sex-perts
As a pastor I see most of these church sex series as a clever, if not original, marketing tools. Sex sells as we know from ad campaigns for everything from toothpaste to Viagra. And, most pastors who advertise the "red-hot sex series" welcome the publicity, Ed Young included.
Call me a cynic, but it seems to me that this is more titillating than theological and, as your post notes, misses much on the broader issue of human sexuality.
Prayer
As summer Course of Study student and pastor I logged on to take part in the leadership article of the day.
I appreciate the thoughtful articles written by Nick Liao and Rev. Young, however, the Duke Community is lifting up the family of Rev. Roger Owens and his wife in prayer as they deal with family illness at this time.
So as we go about our normal hours of COS classes and never-ending time of study, let's remember to thank these two dedicated, missional leaders for the enthusiasm and faithful witness they bring to us daily.
As the Body of Christ, let us come together in prayer and thanksgiving for the strength, comfort, and peace our loving God is already providing.
Looking for a happy medium
Nobody should be "obsessed" with sexual fulfillment. How about "appropriately concerned"? Surely there's room within the boundaries of Christian marriage for partners to express their sexual wants and needs. Personally I'm looking for a middle ground between Ed Young's quota program, and celibacy.
Along with the crude sexing-up of pop culture (which almost all Christians deplore), mass society seems to have evolved toward acknowledging lifelong sexual fulfillment as a legitimate pursuit. I'm having trouble seeing that as an altogether pernicious development for Christians.
The timing of this piece was interesting for us in Duke's Clergy Health Initiative office; the day this appeared, we had been discussing the impact of stress on a pastor's sex life. (We're not prescribing any specific remedies... yet... ) Losing the spark in the marriage bed seems like a leading indicator of problems in a pastor's emotional and relational health (or anybody else's, of course). I sense that our operating assumption is, Good sex is a precious and fragile thing, and God wants it for us in the context of a loving, faithful, equal relationship.
The linked discussions are very good. I'm goggling a bit at enlisting Michel Foucault (indirectly at least) in a defense of celibacy, but maybe I should go back and re-read Foucault...
re: happy medium
As a pastor and a man and as a human, there has to be some middle grown. Too left or too right does not work in this time of internet, face pace and cell phones. Get with the times, shake it up a bit and remember why we all get together and pray.
Just my .02.
Never worry. God has your back.
covenant Spice
We are the owners of one of the Christian intimacy Site noted in the article above(Covenant Spice). We feel that since God designed sex then by staying within His guidelines and following His rules, His kids should have the most fulfilling least dysfunctional sex lives. I don't think Christians interested in adding passion to their sex lives are trying to make sex the center of everything. They are just seeking the wholeness God has for them in EVERY area of their lives. The church often gets uncomfortable and quiet when sex is brought up and people with questions don't know where to go for help. I think the new openness is a wonderful thing and I hope to see the world look at Christians with envy when they observe they happy, healthy, and passionate love lives. http://www.covenantspice.com
The Christian Marriage That Didn't Work
As a strong believer and follower of the Almighty I have long been challenged with a divorce I went through many years back. My wife at the time was and still is a wonderful woman. May God bless her.
One of the main reasons for divorce was there was non-consummation of the marriage in a little over seven years. We never spoke of it in all that time as it was the thing not to talk about
If people don't talk about it how are they going to fix it?
I have since learned there are many who are married and moved on but still desire to http://www.howtogethimbackfast.com "> get their ex back but don’t know the right path to take. Thankfully there are professionals in this field who do know and understand such vital matters and can help you get back with your loved one.
This can be a huge thing for those of you with faith and if I could have my time over I know I would have talked and looked for help.
When a pastor, minister or what ever you want to call the leader of the church can speak out on the Sex subject so easily, a couple should take full advantage as I have learned sex in a marriage can be a maker or a breaker of the marriage so you better work on it before it’s to late.
Good luck,
Mark B
Importance of discussing this topic
As the last commenter noted, it seems to me that the more openly Christians are able to talk about sex in the context of marriage, the more helpful it will be in saving many of them from divorce. From my experience in listening to many, many, many stories of couples, I wouldn't be surprised if incompatibility sexually was a more compelling factor in divorce statistics than just about anything else.
Post new comment