Considering Sexual Chaos, Part 3

"I'm so confused!"

We have addressed the pastor’s need to talk about sex, and the better ways for him to talk about sex. The third part is about developing a redeemed sexuality to communicate to our people. Or how not to.

Why do we need to talk about redeemed sexuality? This is because our people have often been instructed, explicitly or implicitly, in a very fallen sexuality, or Romans 1 kind of sexuality. I looked at this in Part 1, but here it is again.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

We really have to reckon with this text. Because of Adam’s sin, God gave humanity over to sin. Sin has affected, among other things, our minds, our passions and our sexuality. We are broken. This means we do not work right.

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Considering Sexual Chaos, Part 1

There has been lots of sex talk by pastors lately, and a lot of push back from other pastors and lay people. This whole thing has produced lots of heat, and not nearly as much light. Some of it simply reeks of sensationalism, like Ed Young’s bed on a roof stunt. Some of it has been pastors trying to pastor their people.

The push back is that pastors shouldn’t talk about sex, or write about sex. And I’ve seen quite a few people say Mark Driscoll is obsessed with sex. I don’t remember any push back to Lauren Winners’ book about sex, Real Sex. Any any number of Christian therapists’ books about sex. Perhaps it is that people just expect pastors to say “don’t do it”. They are uncomfortable with pastors, who speak to mixed audiences, talking about it positively beyond “it’s okay if you are married”. But there is no reason that pastors need to surrender this topic to counselors. But, let’s slow down.

In my advanced years, I’m less reactionary. So I’ve been pondering this. I want to explore a few things. First, why pastors need to talk about sex. Second, how should pastors talk about sex. And lastly, how pastors should help their people think thru sex. I’m anticipating three posts on this. I’m sure to offend someone. That is not my intention. I’m going to try to bring my experience as a pastor who does some counseling (yes, I have an MA in Counseling) to bear on this.

Why Pastors Need to Talk About Sex

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Considering Holy Sexuality

In my review of Out of a Far Country, I mentioned the chapter on Holy Sexuality as being the most clearly articulated statement in the book about how we ought to live.  There are many good statements there. But I also want to set a larger framework for understanding holy sexuality.

As a result of Adam’s sin, we are all born as sinners and under the curse (Romans 5).  There are numerous implications to this reality. One of the basic ones that most everyone overlooks is that everyone’s sexuality has been affected. We are broken sexually. That brokenness differs in degree, but all of us are broken. This means that we do not use our sexuality in a way that reflects God’s glory and fulfills His purpose for our sexuality. Sexual orientation is a more serious manifestation of brokenness, but even those who don’t struggle in this way are broken.

One of the more helpful aspects of Reformed Theology that is often overlooked, is that all our actual transgressions flow out of the corruption imputed to us in Adam. We are sinners, and so we sin. Out of our sexual brokenness we begin to sin sexually. Additionally, we are sinned against sexually. Both of these include the breaking of boundaries. Once you do something (or have it done to you), you cannot undo it. It is nearly impossible to walk back through that door as if nothing happened. You often get lost there because your nerve endings may experience pleasure- even in the midst of abuse.

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Considering Pornography and Women

For the most part, women just aren’t into pornography (I think this is a great thing).  In recent years the use of pornography among women has increased, sadly.  But I haven’t seen evidence that it has quite the same addictive quality for women as for men.

For years, I’ve considered the romance novel the equivalent of pornography for women.  Some women collect them like some men can collect magazines and DVDs.  I’ve noticed a similar effect taking place.  Men end up having unrealistic expectations for their wives’ appearance.  They inevitably compare them to the women they viewed in magazines, movies or on-line.  In a similar fashion, women begin to compare their men to the men in the books.  They have expectations of behavior- romance- rather than how well put together he is.

You mention this, and people think you’re a little strange.  It is just a book (which, oddly, is similar to what men who enjoy pornography say).  But thanks to some researchers at Boston University (Go, Terriers!), perhaps I’m not as strange as you thought I was.  Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam (I have no idea how to pronounce their names) put their findings in A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

Like pornography, romance stories (they can be movies!) typically follow a pattern.  The rough-edged alpha male finally succumbs to the wiles of the heroine, becoming slightly domesticated.  He often rescues her, but they live happily ever after.  Like pornography, there is no sequel.  There is no loving through the thick and thin.  There is just the idealized moment, in one case sexual and the other romantic.  Both stop well short of real relationship with a real person with weaknesses, character flaws, signs of aging and gas.

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Still Considering Modesty

Things tend to go in cycles, and modesty is back in the news after a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece on the subject.  I have addressed both nakedness and modesty in the past.  But this piece, and a recent commercial for a sitcom have had me pondering the subject again (I’ll spare you visuals).

The author of the piece does not address modesty from a Christian viewpoint.  Yet she can see there is something seriously wrong.  We struggle with our kids wanting to act like adults when they are not adults yet.  But we are complicit in this (she mentions buying said clothes for instance).  We have also given them a warped view of what it means to be an adult!

I have not seen the show Perfect Couples.  But they run the commercial ad nausium on On Demand (it failed, the show is getting the ax).  It is an effective commercial from a purely pragmatic point of view.  The woman catches her husband or boyfriend staring at another woman’s cleavage.  “They’re just breasts.  They don’t have any power over you.  Look at them.”  She directs his head so he’s looking at them.  The camera cuts to the other woman’s very low cut blouse and cleavage.  “You don’t own me” he mumbles.

“Just breasts.”  Our culture really doesn’t know what is going on.  The issue is not clothes or style or cultural differences.  We have to go deeper into the conversation, to a place most people don’t want to go.  This is because there is no such thing as “just breasts.”

First, we have to think in terms of creation (you could explain some of this via evolution, but I won’t).  God made humanity male and female.  They had obvious physical differences (and less obvious emotional ones).  Those differences were not merely functional, though they had functional reasons.  They were also meant to be attractive to the opposite sex.  You don’t need a C (much less a D or E) cup to produce milk.  Big breasts are not essential to nursing babies.  God made women with bigger breasts than men to be attractive to men.  The wider hips and rounder bottom are also attractive to men.  He made Adam and Eve attractive to one another (yes, she didn’t laugh at his penis).  They took delight in one another.

⁵ Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.  Song of Songs 4

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Considering the Gospel and Pornography

Here are a few videos in which John Piper, Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll talk about how the gospel can help the battle against pornography.  Perhaps a bit of overload, but when you’re jacked up on porn you might need a whole lot of gospel.

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Considering Addictions

Been looking at addictions lately.  As Calvin says, the human heart is a factory of idols.  We are a mass of addictions.  Some of our additions seem innocuous, like caffeine.  Others only seem troublesome when they are out of control- like when your shoe collection rivals Imelda Marcos (or you’re always broke because you feed that addiction.

Oddly enough, some addictions are becoming “mainstream”.  I am disheartened to see the popularity of pornography.  Looking at pornography used to be a shameful thing: dark, seedy theaters, brown covered magazines.  It was something you did alone, except for bachelor parties.  After all, no one looks at porn just to look at porn as if it is a work of art.  You look at it to stimulate and facilitate sexual release (either alone or with a partner).

But today porn is viewed differently.  It is apparently for women too.  There are porn parties- with both sexes watching.  I just can’t comprehend that.  Even as a young, sex-crazed heathen I couldn’t conceive of such a thing.  But I was “unliberated”, shackled by the smothering guilt of a Roman Catholic upbringing.  [Actually, I think my conscience was still functioning- barely- to restrain some sin in my life.]

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Considering the Pornification of Culture

Al Mohler has a good piece on his blog about pornography.  One shocking statistic he relates is that 70% of internet pornography is viewed during work hours.  That means lots of people are looking at porn while at work.  One government official spent 20% of the work day looking at on-line porn.

Porn providers are also starting to tap into the newer communications devices, like cell phones.  There is a growing epidemic of teens sending pictures of themselves undressed.  Obviously, those then get sent around the school.  There is plenty for us to think about, and the gospel is the only hope we have of reversing this to regain sexual sanity.

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Sex & Supremacy: David Powlison

David Powlison’s chapter, Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, is excellent.  Keep in mind it is quite long (41 pages), and took me a few sittings with a busy schedule.

It is just recently that I’ve begun to appreciate David Powlison.  My first brush with biblical counseling was Jay Adams.  His writings seemed more polemical and extreme.  If Powlison was the primary spokesperson, perhaps lots of misunderstanding between the various camps of Christian counseling would have been avoided.  But alas, it was not so.  This quote in particular illustrates my point: “It’s about moving along a trajectory away from the dark and toward the light.  It’s about knowing where you are heading while you’re still somewhere in the middle.”  Sounds alot like pilgrimage.  And one of the early criticisms of people like Jay Adams was that it sounded like if you just repented all would be well.  Yes, if you recall that repentance is a life-long process.

So Powlison doesn’t want us to despair of change (you hear this in some people- once an addict, always an addict).  Nor does he want us to think change is easy and quick.  Over time real progress is made as we move from addressing the flagrant sins to addressing the more fundamental root sins.  It is not an easy fight, like just hitting a pitch.  It is more like football (the Jollyblogger ought to be happy) where you are fighting the line, the backs and safeties.

Okay… First, we should bring light to all that darkens sex.  Powlison breaks this down into unholy pleasure (overt sexual immorality & perversity), unholy pain (healing for victims of abuse), guilt, viewing sexual sin as a male problem (it just looks different in women), and sexual struggles in marriage (we bring baggage from the previously mentioned problems).

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Sex & Supremacy: Piper #1

In an earlier Pensee, I quipped “Everyone has a sexual agenda.”  I initially spoke that soundbite while at lunch w/some other counseling students.  Everyone has an agenda for their sexuality- from feast to famine and everything in between.

As made as sexual beings, we will do SOMETHING with our sexuality.  Question is, what?

Piper’s thoughts in chapter 1 of Sex and the Supremacy of Christ are profound.  The first is that “Sexuality is designed by God as a way to know God more fully.”  The inverse is just as true- “all misuses of our sexuality distort the true knowledge of Christ” or “conceal the true knowledge of Christ.”

So, sex within its proper contexts as established by our Creator, and revealed in the Bible, is a way to know God more fully.  Marital love and faithfulness is a picture of what our relationship with Jesus is to be like- self-giving, self-forgetting, exclusive, face-to-face intimacy.  “God created us with sexual passion so that there would be language to describe what it means to cleave to him in love and what it means to turn away from him to others.”  This is not the only reason, but a big reason (filling earth with His image is another big reason).

Piper mentions only a few passages in which God does use the language of sexuality to describe what our relationship should be like, and unfortunately what it is often like.  Idolatry is described as prostitution, adultery etc.  Ray Ortlund Jr.’s excellent book God’s Unfaithful Wife explores this most vividly.  The Bible is shockingly vivid at times.  Yet, we also see the “mighty mercy of God” in how Jesus has paid the penalty for our whoring and prostitution (seen both in Ezekiel and Hosea).

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