The direct answer to this frequent complaint about the church is a very practical one:\u00a0 American churches are obsessed with sex because American culture is obsessed with sex, and American churches are full of Americans.\u00a0 Seriously; the best selling book at the moment is straightforward verbal porn based on Twilight fan-fiction–I don’t think you can lay this one at the Church’s feet.\u00a0 Now, God obviously has different things to say about sex than our culture does, and churches are supposed to pass along God’s teachings rather than the culture’s, so the shared obsession does take the form of a cultural war between Christian and mainstream views of sex.\u00a0 This conflict makes many people uncomfortable at best and outraged at worst, which is what leads to people asking this question in the first place<\/p>\n
But for offended skeptics, both inside the Church and out, another question usually lurks behind the straightforward one.\u00a0 Why does<\/em> God teach the strange things He teaches in contrast to our culture’s entirely sensible views on sexuality (you know, the ones that lead to the popularity of Twilight fan-fiction porn)?\u00a0 Where they don’t consider it blatantly harmful, skeptics usually consider God’s view on sex to be either archaic, unimportant, or both.\u00a0 Without any reason for its existence, one naturally asks why one should bother wasting a breath passing it along–let alone the many argumentative breaths wasted by churches today.\u00a0 Accordingly, I would like to take the opportunity to provide two reasons:\u00a0 one for Christians, and one for everyone (including Christians).<\/p>\n We like to think of our bodies as things that we have and use rather than things that we are–as though a body was some kind of shell that we inhabit.\u00a0 The upshot is that we can use a screwdriver as a chisel if we like without any kind of deeper meaning, and we think we can use our bodies for fornication if we like without any kind of deeper meaning.\u00a0 This false dualistic view is often held to in response to atheists and materialists who proclaim that we’re just <\/em>our bodies or no more<\/em> than our bodies.\u00a0 If we are<\/em> our bodies, aren’t we just soulless bags of meat walking around an absurd world?\u00a0 Not at all. We are<\/em> our bodies, but we are not just<\/em> our bodies.\u00a0 It is not that we are no more than flesh, but that we are no less<\/em> than flesh–there is no “me” without <\/em>my flesh.\u00a0 This can be seen quite easily.\u00a0 I can change how you feel by pumping you full of hormones.\u00a0 I can change what you know by hitting you in the head.\u00a0 Having sex with someone against her will is not the same as wearing someone’s sweater against her will.\u00a0 If I punch you in the face, I’m not just punching some flesh and bone that you’re particularly fond of–I am punching you.<\/em><\/p>\n Because we don’t do things with<\/em> our bodies but simply do<\/em> them, we don’t get that extra layer of abstraction to moderate what our doings mean and accomplish.\u00a0 You can use a screwdriver to accomplish one thing or to accomplish another, but you can never strangle a person without accomplishing hate and destruction.\u00a0 Strangulation can never mean “I love you” no matter how hard we try to use it for that purpose.\u00a0 Strangling an innocent man means <\/em>hate and accomplishes<\/em> murder–we don’t get a choice in the matter.\u00a0 In the same way, sex means things and does things regardless of what we would like it to mean and do.\u00a0 When we sleep with someone, it bonds us to that person (what the Bible calls a “one flesh” union).\u00a0 For example, upon orgasm, a flood of the hormone oxytocin is released that emotionally bonds one to one’s partner (the same hormone is released during childbirth and contributes to a mother’s bond to her new baby).\u00a0 Like it or not and regardless of agreements not to think differently of each other in the morning, sex attaches you to a person in a way that other activities do not.\u00a0 Instead of two people with two fleshes, the result is two people in one flesh.<\/p>\n Another thing sex does is create children.\u00a0 Here the complainers scream, “But nowadays we’ve separated sex from procreation!”\u00a0 Have we?\u00a0 Think about it:\u00a0 the procreative tendency of sex is so strong that despite absolutely unprecedented amount of time, effort, money, education, equipment, and drugs all dedicated to making conception optional, nearly a million unintended children are murdered before their birth every year and still more “accidents” run the gauntlet successfully.\u00a0 Once again, we cannot change human nature as much as we think.\u00a0 And so sex not only creates a bond, it creates new life that requires that bond to thrive.\u00a0 Two persons in one flesh bring yet more persons who share the same flesh as the parents.\u00a0 To Christians, this should begin to sound very familiar.\u00a0 We are created in the image of God–specifically a God who is three persons in one essence.\u00a0 Our families are an image and proclamation of Him.\u00a0 To simply create and then tear apart our one-flesh unions is to desecrate the very image of God Himself.\u00a0 And so one reason Christians should appreciate for the Bible’s teachings on sex is that our culture’s view of sex is rank blasphemy.\u00a0 A Christian should have no desire to go around putting graffiti on pictures of Jesus.<\/p>\n The reason that everyone–including Christians–should appreciate is that fornication harms ourselves and our neighbors.\u00a0 Because our sexuality is a bonding agent, there are negative consequences for tearing apart those bonds we make and become part of.\u00a0 J. Budziszewski provides a brilliant example<\/a> in the form of duct tape.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter whether you tell a piece of tape not to stick;\u00a0 sticking is simply what tape does.\u00a0 So if you put it on your arm, it will<\/em> stick.\u00a0 When you tear it off, it will<\/em> hurt.\u00a0 Do it again, and it will stick less and hurt less.\u00a0 After repeated sticking and tearing, you may eventually reach the point where the tape no longer does what tape does and it can be removed without causing any pain, but that is because the tape is destroyed.\u00a0 Nothing in the world will make that tape stick again.\u00a0 In the same way, abusing our sexuality by using it outside of marriage (a lifelong promise to love and never separate) damages it along with that of our partner.\u00a0 Eventually it will no longer do what sexuality does, and the ability to be emotionally intimate with another in that way will be lost.\u00a0 There is a reason people speak derisively of “sloppy seconds” and “damaged goods” while still others think such shaming language shouldn’t be used at all:\u00a0 the truth hurts.\u00a0 “Sleep with whoever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone” is just about the stupidest ethic ever conceived.\u00a0 You might as well say “strangle whoever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone” (and, of course, euthanasia proponents say precisely that).<\/p>\n God’s law also does what God’s law does.\u00a0 It shows us how bad we are, instructs us on how to love our neighbors, and restrains our wickedness so as to reduce the harm to our neighbors.\u00a0 His law on sexuality is no different, and churches are right to proclaim it in the face of a culture desperate to cover up even the limited portion of the law written on their hearts.\u00a0 For the sake of our neighbors, the church must speak out on the subject.\u00a0 It must do more, for our responsibility is to proclaim the whole counsel of God and not just the parts about sex.\u00a0 We therefore must resist the temptation towards obsession.\u00a0 But though the Church must do more, it can surely do no less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The direct answer to this frequent complaint about the church is a very practical one:\u00a0 American churches are obsessed with sex because American culture is obsessed with sex, and American churches are full of Americans.\u00a0 Seriously; the best selling book … Continue reading