The Purpose Driven Sex Life, Part 2

In my last post, I showed, in a tongue in cheek fashion, that many have the wrong impression of what Christians believe about sex. Most folks believe that Christians have a negative view of sex. I suppose I should qualify that and say that there are many Christians who do have a negative view of sex. But they ought not to.

No less a Christian leader than Augustine believed that sex was sinful in and of itself. Augustine had lived a very wild life as a young man, and after his conversion to Christianity looked back with shame on his wild ways. For some reason he apparently never got over his guilt or remorse from his wild ways so he taught that sex was sinful in and of itself and could only be redeemed or sanctified through procreation. I am not sure of all the nuances of his thinking on this, whether or not he saw sex as a "necessary evil," or used some other form of ethical reasoning (maybe Jeremy or one of the other philosophers can chime in here).

This view was reinforced when I saw "Inherit the Wind" in college and the character of William Jennings Bryan was asked what the Bible said about sex, and Bryan answered "it is original sin." I don't know if the real Bryan believed that, but certainly the producers of "Inherit the Wind" wanted us to think that is what Christians believe.

Although Christians believe that sex is good the negativity with which we talk about sex really prevents us from gaining a hearing in the world today. I think that, rather than merely telling people that sex outside of marriage is bad, we should be saying something along the lines of "sex is so good within marriage that you are foolish to waste it outside of marriage." I know that sounds like semantics, but it has a more positive spin.

Part of the problem with getting a message like that across is that many Christians probably really don't believe that in their hearts. They may say it, but their actions belie their words. Although my little slogan up there about sex being so good in marriage may sound nice and just like the thing a pastor should say, I realize that many people in the church don't really believe that in their hearts. This is why there is so much use of pornography and so much sexual activity outside of marriage.

I won't assume to be able to figure out what goes on in the hearts of everyone, but we all have divided hearts on these matters. I know that I can be completely offended at something lewd one day and captivated by it the next, if I am not walking close to Christ. Where I get worried is when I see those who call themselves Christians calling down fire and brimstone on those who are involved in sin. I am often tempted in such situations to get Shakesperean and say "the lady doth protest too much methinks." I suspect that some of those who display the most public offense at these things may be dealing with their own unresolved guilt. I'm drawing a blank right now, but I know those in the mental health professions have a term for this, where someone loudly condemns in others the same things they struggle with. (Maybe Adrian can chime in on this). Jimmy Swaggert comes to mind as an example with his vociferous denunciations of Jim Bakker all the while he was having his own little, er, tryst, on the side.

I remember reading something from Francis Schaeffer years ago where someone asked him if he should break up with his girlfriend because they had sex together. Schaeffer wisely told him that they had sinned and needed to confess this, but they ought not to treat sexual sin as if it were somehow worse than any other sin. While their engaging in premarital sex may have been symptomatic of some deeper issues in their relationship, that in and of itself was not a reason to break up. I will add that, in my experience dating couples who engage in premarital sex often mask some deeper problems in their relationship through sex, but the sexual involvement in and of itself, is something that can be repented of and redeemed.

In the Bible, sex gets alot of people in trouble (think David, think Solomon), yet at the same time notice in the gospels how tender and compassionate Jesus was to those caught in sexual sin. In the gospels, sex is not the grossest form of sin, it is pride and arrogance. Hence, prostitutes and tax collectors were entering the kingdom of heaven ahead of scribes and Pharisees. Episodes of illicit sex didn't keep people like Rahab, Samson and David out of the hall of fame of faith in Hebrews 11 and we ought to keep that in mind when we are comparing different sins.

All of this rambling is simply to point out that Christians have often demonized the sexual relationship and we ought not to. Yes, there is such a thing sexual sin and yes, I will agree that there is a sense in which sexual sin is often harder to walk away from than other sins. But there are many other sins of the heart which are far more deadly, because they can fly under the public radar and because they can often be whitewashed with a holy veneer.

So, with all of that, I'm finally getting to what I wanted to say about the purpose(s) of sex. There are several purposes, but I'll focus on one in particular. And, I'm seeing that it will take another post to say what I want to say. For now I'll just touch on a point that deserves much more attention, but that I only want to say a couple of things about. In my next post I'll try to get to what I really wanted to talk about. For now I just want to point out that Augustine was wrong about sex, it is a good and godly thing that is to be enjoyed amongst married couples. Sex cements the one-flesh relationship between a man and wife and the one-flesh relationship between a man and wife is a picture of Christ's relationship to the church.

I'm a protestant so I don't take the Roman Catholic view that marriage is a sacrament in the technical sense, but I can't help but seeing marriage in some kind of sacramental sense. I am using the word in the sense that Harry Blamires did when he said that we live in a sacramental universe. Everything in the world represents God in some way, it is reasonable that this is so considering that God made everything. Speaking particularly of marriage in this regard I can't escape the sacramental significance of marriage in Ephesians 5:31-32.

Marriage is a holy and good thing and this ought to govern how Christians talk about it. Somehow we've got to find a way to emphasize this in our public and private discourse.

Comments

[Anthony]

I like this series, keep it up. (I think the psycho-term you're looking for is transference).

[Alison]

This is an interesting read. I just wish I could experience it too.

[Julie Anne Fidler]

Amen, amen, amen.
A lesson my husband and I are still learning, as a matter of fact.

[Adrian Warnock]

Another psycho term that would cover it would be 'projection' Have commented further on this post over on my own blog.

[Steven D. Thomas]

It might be interesting to include a discussion on just what "one-flesh" means. I think the vast majority of people have lost its meaning...

Take care,

Steve

[Jeremy Pierce]

It's interesting that you think pride and arrogance are the worst sins, since that seems to be Hezekiah's main failing, and there was no king of Judah like him, either before him or after him. David was a king of Judah before he was a king of all Israel in holding fast to the LORD, following him, and keeping his commandments (II Kings 18:5-6), so it's probably not just talking about kings since Rehoboam. He did trust in Egypt and not wholly in the LORD through his whole life, but what both Isaiah 38-39 and II Chronicles 32:24ff. focus on is his pride and lack of gratefulness for all that the LORD had given to him.

Of course, David may have had the same failing in addition to his sexual sin, if one of the interpretations of why his census was wrong is correct, though scholars disagree on that point. David also clearly didn't discipline his key leaders or sons properly, and they in turn rebelled against his authority. Hezekiah's son was an evil ruler in many ways, but he did repent at the end of his life, and that may have been because he did teach his son well as he had prayed that he would when he was healed of his illness (Isaiah 39:19). So Hezekiah's problems were also David's problems, and David had others, which numerically makes David's more, but Hezekiah's primary sin is the ones you list as worse than David's primary sin.

Also, Samson's main sin should have been pride if it's worse than sexual sin, since he certainly had it, as did Gideon, though he had his moments of resisting it. Both are in the hall of fame of faith. So I have a hard time making such judgments about which sins are worse, even though I'm convinced that there's absolutely no biblical support for the common evangelical cliche that all sins are equally bad.

[Terry]

I am inspired (not in the revelatory sense) by the series title, "The Purpose Driven Sex Life", I decided to make some of my own observations. Check out my posting

http://pruittcommunications.blogspot.com/2004/08/song-of-solomon-observations.html

[George Bruner]

I take issue with the idea that premarital sex is a sin. Where is the biblical support for this idea? There are many references to ‘sexual immorality’ and “the sexually immoral” within the bible, most of them in the NT, but they seem to be referring to adultery, incest, and other perversions. Don’t really see any specific NT references to premarital sex as immoral. Don’t even see how that is implied. It was St Augustine who first floated that idea in his Confessions.

[James]

Perhaps you should read the Old Testament...After all, Augustine himself said; "The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed."
Also, 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 seems to imply that sex outside of marriage is wrong...
"Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
There is probably plenty more and logical reasoning but it's not something I have studied in great depth

[Tina]

Great stuff!Hurry write more! ;-) I am adding
your link to my blogsite!I'll be checking back! Many Blessings!
Toodles,
Tina : )

[Ben Davis]

Umm, Augustine didnt think sex in and of itself was sinful only the fact that it drew his attention away from God, he even made allusions that marriage wouldnt save him from this particular sin, because it would always draw his attention from God.

[Joanne]

Hi,
I was reading "The Sex Driven Life" I have a friend who is married and continually cuts her husband off from sex. He has had a problem with Pornography since he was 13. They have been married for 5 years and a bit and are Christians. They were virgins when they married. My question is, she keeps leaving him for months at a time, and keeps cutting him off...is there a better solution to this problem?

[nikki]

I totally agree with you on this, and I am going to link this to my friends struggling with the same attitude.
I have to add to my last comment that I also grew up unter the pretense that marriage was only something to get into if you couldn't help it - that singleness what the way to go, because you could better serve God, and that if you wanted to get married, or worse yet, wanted to sooner than later, it was because your hormones were out of whack. It seemed as though marriage was chalked up to nothing but sex and just having your other half around wasn't a reason.