"As Christians, one of the most loving things we can bring to society is an advocacy for genuine civic pluralism."

A very interesting proposal here from Andrew Walker.

Drunk With Love

A great Valentine's Day reflection from Jon Bloom.  I commend it to you.

He writes:

The evolution of Valentine’s Day has followed a course similar to the evolution of Santa Claus. It began with legends surrounding an obscure saint (actually, there’s more than one St. Valentine) from early Christian history that oddly morphed over the centuries into something else entirely. Then it exploded into a pop culture and commercial phenomenon in Victorian England (thank the Brits for greeting cards, flowers, and “confectionaries”), with the United States quickly jumping on the bandwagon.

No one knows for sure how a February 14th feast day commemorating a martyr(s) came to be a celebration of Eros love. It’s possible that when 5th Century Pope Gelasius l abolished the ancient Roman pagan fertility festival, Lupercalia (celebrated on February 15th), it ended up just meshing with St. Valentine’s Day. All we know is that “Volantynys day” abruptly shows up in a romantic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th Century and it’s been with us ever since.

So what should Christians make of today’s Valentine’s Day?

As much as purely possible! Valentine was a saint and Eros is not Cupid’s domain. It’s God’s! Christians should be the most unashamed, exuberant celebrators of romantic love there are, and the strongest guardians of God’s design and boundaries, because God made it for us to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17)! And God, the greatest romantic in existence, has designed it to give us a taste of the greatest romance that will ever exist, of which all Christians will experience.

Read the rest.

In addition, check out Jon's new book here.

What Russell Moore Says Here is Good For Everyone, Gay or Straight

He writes concerning the Duck Dynasty controversy:

The comments that seem most offensive to people are his moral assessments of sex outside of conjugal marriage, which were more or less just a recitation of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is lord over sexuality, and he says that sexuality is expressed rightly only in the marriage of a man and a woman. That’s not new. We also think we’re all sinners, and that God calls us all to repentance. That’s not new either.

We’re a divided country on sexual issues. That’s why every news cycle brings more controversy. Why not engage one another, and have the debates in a civil fashion, without attempting to silence one another. I don’t agree with David Letterman’s views on divorce and cohabitation, but I don’t want him suspended for voicing them. I’ll bet I don’t agree with MTV’s Nev Schulman of the popular Catfish show on sexual ethics, but it wouldn’t put me in the fetal position under the table to hear him voice them.

Let’s have the sort of cultural conversation that allows us to seek to persuade each other, not to seek to silence one another with intimidation. That’s what real diversity is all about.

Read the rest.


A few thoughts:

1.  When a group of people feel have been persecuted in the past, I'm sure it's hard to have any desire to "have a conversation".   I think this needs to be acknowledged by non-gay people.  Compassion would be in order.   Historically, many gay people have been treated very poorly by non-gay people in the majority culture.  For gay people, if that music is always playing in the background, the desire to pull up a chair at the table of cultural conversation is greatly diminished.

2.  When the assumption is that race issues and sexuality issues are exactly the same, it's a no-brainer that Phil gets fired.  If Phil did an interview in GQ magazine and was spouting off about all the n*****s in the south, of course he should be fired from the show!  Duh!  So in this sense, when many in the gay community see race issues and sex issues as exactly the same, it's easy for them to take the moral high ground.  This is not hard to figure out.  If I believed that race and sexuality were the exact same thing I'd be first in line with them.

In light of this, I think we need to back the train up a bit and have a cultural conversation about race and sexuality.  Are they exactly the same?  What are the similarities?  What are the differences?  At this point though, that conversation doesn't feel safe to me.  I fear that if I dared open my mouth and even hinted at the fact that race issues and sexuality issues are not completely parallel I'd be crucified in the public sphere.

3.  Michael Kruger responded to the controversy in this blog post.  Here is his proposed paragraph on what A&E and GLADD should have said in light of this controversy:

We here at GLAAD were disappointed to hear that Phil Robertson thinks homosexuality is a sin. We disagree. However, we acknowledge that he has the right to hold and proclaim these views, just as we have the right to hold and proclaim our views. If we want Americans to be more tolerant of homosexuality, we could hardly accomplish that goal by being intolerant of others who disagree with us. So, we want to say that we respect and tolerate Mr. Robertson’s views, even though we disagree with them. We hope this attitude of mutual respect can allow for more dialogue and conversation about these important issues.

But again, if the assumption is that race and sexuality are exactly the same then the above paragraph is simply unthinkable.  We don't negotiate with terrorists and we don't tolerate racists.

4.  This broke my heart this morning.  I have a black, five-year-old daughter, and I know there is coming a day when I’ll have to explain to her that there are still people in this world that will hate her simply because she is black.  Now, unless something changes radically in our culture, I fear that I’ll also have to explain to her that if she dares to hold historic Christian convictions in public, there will be people who will hate her for that too.  She could lose a job or worse over her deeply held convictions.

5.  We'd all be better off if we spent a bit more time reflecting on this piece from Brandon Ambrosino.

6.  The sky is not falling. Jesus is still on the throne. Godliness implies persecution (2 Tim 3:12). We’ll be ok. This life is a mist. This is nothing new and many Christians around the world are persecuted WAY worse than some reality TV star losing his job.


Books by Russell Moore:

• Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
• Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches
• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective

Hope On The Horizon For A Contentious Issue

If this cultural discussion could have thoughtfulness and nuance like this on a broader scale, we'd all be much better for it.

After reading his piece, I get the sense that he and I would walk away with different conclusions but still respect and honor each other.

Maybe it's actually possible!

Sex, Dating, and Relationship - An Interview

Justin Taylor posts a great interview with Gerald Hiestand on Sex, Dating, and Relationships: A Fresh Approach (Crossway, 2012), co-authored with Jay Thomas.

"If you're going to sleep with your brother's wife, you are probably going to lie to your brother about it. I'm not convinced about men meeting up in groups to keep them accountable."

Great article here from Paul Levy about how to protect yourself from ministry disqualifying sin.

(HT:  JT)

Gospel-Centered Sex

Wow.  One of the best articles I've read on sex in marriage from a Christian perspective.

Marci Preheim:

When Christians talk about sex and marriage they usually jump right to the requirements. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Wives submit to your husbands—and on goes the sermon about how this plays out in ACTION. The wall of division between the sexes seems to grow, rather than fall, when these passages are preached. Neither side leaves content that the preacher has explained the duties of their spouse thoroughly enough. We head home with an extra measure of shame for ourselves and guilt for our spouse.

This is the point where the gospel steps in and detonates a nuclear bomb on all of our misconceptions of marriage. The gospel doesn’t just apply to marriage. Marriage is the ultimate illustration of what the gospel is. Christ is the second husband! Ephesians 5:31-32 says this: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (and by “one flesh” he means the sexual union and all that entails). This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Let that profound mystery sink in for a minute. Two people becoming one flesh is an illustration of Christ and His church!

We miss the real pleasure of the marriage bed because we miss the profound mystery of Christ and His bride. He doesn’t command us to get over ourselves, take off our clothes and be vulnerable with each other in a merely physical act. He has removed our shame so that we can! When shame is removed, the result is an eagerness for this kind of vulnerability. When selfishness is removed, it becomes safe, and therefore pleasurable for both parties. It is only through His grace, we get glimpses of the Garden of Eden. He has taken our shame on Himself and given us His righteousness as our covering.

Our measly little marriages are only a shadow of the true marriage that is to come. When our marriages here disappoint us, it causes us to yearn for our eternal marriage that will never disappoint. The Lord does not shy away from the subject of sex. In fact it is front and center as an illustration of the intimacy of Himself and His bride. Here’s where it gets good.

Read the rest.

"What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out…"

There is wisdom in the command to "be fruitful and multiply."  It blesses culture.  When you go the other way huge problems can and will ensue.  Japan is starting to feel the consequences of a culture that doesn't embrace a biblical doctrine of creation.

(There is a bit of crassness in the link article.)

5 Questions To Ask Your Spouse Every Week

Mike Mobley:

1. How Did You Feel Loved This Past Week?
2. What Does Your Upcoming Week Look Like?
3. How Can I Pray For You This Week?
4. How Would You Feel Loved & Encouraged This Week?
5. How Would You Feel Pursued In Sex & Intimacy This Week?

Click over to read his explanations.  

Sinéad O'Connor Speaks The Truth

Her amazing letter to Miley Cyrus here.  She'll surely get blasted for moralizing.  I hope Katy Perry was copied on it.

Of course from a Christian perspective it doesn't go far enough, but this letter would be a great bridge to talk about the image of God instilling us with inherent value and worth.  You can't prostitute the image of God and have any soul left.  It's tragic but Sinéad is exactly right.  The music industry is laughing all the way to the bank.

(FYI:  She uses some saucy language to make her point.)

"Virtually everyone believes there are rights and wrongs when it comes to sex."

Kevin DeYoung with a good post that asks very important and foundational questions.  His conclusion:

Sexual activity cannot run wherever it pleases. Our sexual desires have no right to satiated without limit. As we have seen, our sexual appetite and our sexual fulfillment are less important than protecting the weak, keeping our word, and loving our neighbor. The first step in having a rational, thoughtful conversation about the rightness and wrongness of certain kinds of sexual behavior is to recognize that virtually everyone believes there are rights and wrongs when it comes to sex.

We all believe in sexual immorality. The question is: what kind of stuff should go in that category?

Read the rest.  


Books by Kevin DeYoung:

• The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness
• Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will
• What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
• The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism
• Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion

Apologies to Miley

Brant Hansen:

Am I making excuses for a 20 year-old? Maybe. Or maybe just explanations. I think, were I a child celebrity, I would have a profound lack of perspective, too. 

Miley's just doing what she likely suspects she needs to do in her business: Shock people. She's grown up watching, say, Britney writhe with a snake on the very same awards show, so it's hard to blame her if she's surprised by the universally negative reaction. She's doing what she thought we wanted. 

The problem, this time, is that our society feels like it knows her, knows her backstory, knows she's someone's daughter, and isn't able to forget it. Other women, like the ones on stage with Miley, the ones no one is complaining about? Well, we can sexualize them, reduce them to toys lacking a story, but this girl? We know her dad! 

Kids don't need more kids. They know plenty of them. Kids need adults, actual adults, adults adult enough to reject a culture that is so bored, so dead, that it can only feel alive if given one more jolt, one more shock. And it's hard to shock, anymore, but Miley hit that mark. 

MTV has largely been about sex since its beginning, and Miley's performance was almost a brilliant parody. It was a beautiful young woman, very scantily-clad, parading in front of millions, and it was... well, repulsive. 

Which brings to mind what Mike Yaconelli once wrote, "The more pagan a society becomes, the more boring its people become." And I, for one, can't help but notice: 

MTV, you're doing the near impossible. You're making sexuality seem boring.

Read the rest.

Should You "Test Drive" a Potential Spouse?

Hafeez Baoku:

The primary problem with this notion of sexual chemistry is that it focuses sex on pleasure and performance. Contrary to what Hollywood may suggest, great sex (which is a good, God-honoring thing) isn't the pinnacle of humanity's existence. Sex was created for man, but man was not created for sex. God gave sex as a gift to be exclusively enjoyed by a husband and wife as a means of loving, caring, serving, honoring, and enjoying each other in marriage. So sexual compatibility between a married couple comes neither from ecstasy (how good the sex is) nor frequency (how often you have it) but mainly from intimacy, which occurs as love, trust, security, and respect deepen through the longevity of a monogamous, self-giving, covenant relationship.

Lifelong commitment is something our culture struggles to understand and uphold. If "soulmates" should be tried out sexually, then what was intended for marriage gets ripped from its original context and instead becomes a litmus test for vague, fleeting feelings of compatibility and connection. But this selfish objectification, which involves viewing another as a tool made to meet our sexual standards, has never been God's design for finding a spouse.

In the first marriage account, God declared it's "not good for man to be alone" (Gen. 2:18). So he gave Adam a wife. He didn't give him his own reality show where he could meet Erin, Erica, Emma, and Eliza in order to discover which one would be sexually compatible. He gave Adam one woman, with whom he'd never had sex, and called him to love her for the rest of his life. Why did God do this? Because, in his perfect wisdom, he didn't design the purpose of marriage to be about great sex with the perfect person but about a lifetime of serving and staying with the inevitably imperfect person you've vowed to love.

Read the rest.

The other problem with the "test drive" philosophy is this: What happens when the car breaks down or doesn't run like it used to? Just get a new car?

How Then Shall We Date?

Marshall Segal has a great article on how to approach dating the right way.  Here are his eight points.  It's long but worth it.  Read the whole thing and pass it along to any singles that you know.

1. It really is as simple as they say.
2. Know what makes a marriage worth having.
3. Look for clarity more than intimacy.
4. Find a fiancé on the frontlines.
5. Don’t let your mind marry him before the rest of you can.
6. Boundaries make for the best of friends.
7. Consistently include your community.
8. Let all your dating be missionary dating.

Along similar lines, I would recommend this book.  

"I took an abstinence pledge hoping it would ensure a strong marriage. Instead, it led to a quick divorce."

This is the spirit of our age. How would you respond?

I see this article riddled with wrong assumptions about sex and marriage but her story of "purity pledges" is almost as tragic in its gospellessness.  Her past legalism has led her to a new licentiousness.  Sadly, this is so often the case.

What would you say?  Many people in your churches are wondering (maybe silently) about these matters so it's very important for us to think through an article like this.

If you have kids that are approaching the teen years it could be a really powerful exercise to walk through this article and talk about the assumptions about sex and marriage.  It would be also powerful to deconstruct our flimsy culture of "purity pledges" that easily creates little legalists with a powerless avoidance ethic which is not founded on the gospel of grace.

Of course seeking to follow God's sexual ethic is a good thing!  But the "why?" behind it is more important.  If abstinence is just another law that have to keep it will be powerless.  It's clear that this author was never taught the "why" from a gospel perspective.  It was all fear, guilt, and shame.  No love, no gratitude, no faith.

Tragic.

"The sexual revolution has accomplished what even the fractious Reformation could not. It has divided Protestantism so deeply that traditionalist Anglicans now have more in common with traditionalist Lutherans or even Roman Catholics, say, than with the reformers in their own denominations."

Writing for Time Magazine online, Mary Eberstadt:

So, for example, the reform-minded Church of England has closed over 1,000 churches since 1980, with some later becoming discos, spas and mosques. The traditionalist Anglican churches of the Global South, on the other hand, are packed to overflowing and still growing fast. Within the Catholic Church, similarly, the most vibrant renewal movements — Comunione e Liberazione, Opus Dei, Juventutem — are also the most orthodox. Meanwhile, African missionaries from both Protestant and Catholic churches are being dispatched to the West in record numbers — in effect, re-evangelizing the very peoples who carried the cross to men and women of the subcontinent in the first place.

One explanation for the resiliency of religious traditionalism in an age of secularization is demographic. As Jonathan Last shows in his recent book What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, if enough people over time decide not to be fruitful and multiply, eventually their churches will disappear. That’s because secular people have far fewer children than do believers. The flip side of that observation is equally suggestive. In the future, it is the believers of all faiths whose children will appear disproportionately in an otherwise increasingly childless world, as political scientist Eric Kaufmann showed in his 2011 book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?

As changing views on gay marriage, among others, go to show, secularization marches on. Traditionalists may be on the losing end of historic real estate, at least for now, as well as booed out of the public square for their views on sex. Down the road, though, they still look to possess something else critical — a growing congregation without which every church, after all, is just a bed and breakfast waiting to happen.

Read the rest.

Good Ole' Fashioned Fornication - Insight on Revival from Tim Keller

Derek Rishmawy:

I managed to snag a ticket to the Gospel Coalition’s 2013 National Conference this week and sit in on a breakout session on the subject of revival by Dr. Keller. He gave a brief recap of some of the material in his recent book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City  ($5.69 on Kindle) for those who hadn’t encountered it yet.

In a nutshell, his view of revival is that it is an intensification of the ordinary operation of the Holy Spirit in conviction, assurance, regeneration, and sanctification. He says, “You will see sleepy Christians waking up, nominal Christians being converted, and hard to reach cases being extraordinarily converted.” The marks of revival will include:

• The Gospel being recovered from legalism or antinomianism.
• True repentance, not just “emotional frothiness.”
• Anointed corporate worship.
• Some sort of church growth.

Of course, there was more to it than that, but for those of you who are really interested, I suggest picking up the book—it really is must-read stuff.

Now, I happened to be one of the lucky few to ask Keller a question after the session (at a distance…on a microphone) and seeing as how he’s probably the most astute cultural observer I know of working the pastorate today, I stumblingly asked him if he could identify a couple of the major obstacles for our current culture when it comes to the seeing revival or spiritual renewal in the church, especially with respect to repentance.

Drawing on his experience in urban, culture-shaping Manhattan, Keller responded that one of the biggest obstacles to repentance for revival in the Church is the basic fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other. In other words, good old-fashioned fornication.

Read the rest. Very interesting stuff.

Sex and Money

Paul Tripp:

Sex and Money. Combine these two words with the selfishness of sin and the brokenness of the world, and you know we’re in trouble.

Sex and Money are both from the Creator’s hands. Both are beautiful in themselves. But both have become distorted and dangerous by means of the fall. Both have the perverse power to master your heart and in so doing determine the direction of your life. Both give you the buzz that you’re in control while, at the very same time, becoming the master that progressively chains you to their control.

Both offer you an inner sense of well-being while having no capacity whatsoever to satisfy your heart. Both seduce you with the prospect of contentment-producing pleasure, but both leave you empty and craving more. Both hold out the possibility of finally being satisfied but instead cause you to envy whoever it is that has more and better than you do.

The church of Jesus Christ has been strangely silent and reticent in both areas. We seem to approach both areas with a timidity, reserve, and embarrassment that doesn’t make personal, cultural, or biblical sense. Pastors are often hesitant to teach and preach about money issues as if somehow this topic is outside the boundaries of what they’ve been called by God to do. And if they’re cautious in talking about money, they’re even more so when it comes to the topic of sex. Meanwhile, in both areas the world around us seems to never stop talking.

Christian parents don’t seem to do a very good job in discipling their children in either area. How many parents teach their children about the street-level dangers of loving money? How many parents do more than have one creepy, quasi-embarrassed talk about sex, with joy once it’s over and a determination never to talk about it again? Meanwhile, the obsessions and distortions of an addicted culture are powerfully brought to the eyes, ears, and hearts of even the most conservative Christians by pervasive and intrusive media that's almost impossible to escape.

Yet God in his great wisdom, for his glory and our good, has chosen for us to live in a world where money is an unavoidable issue and sex is a significant part of the human experience. The issues of sex and money are important and unavoidable because God chose them to be. And because sex and money are the creations of God’s hand and exist under the control of his sovereignty, they should be approached by us with reverence and awe, not with embarrassment and timidity.

God has also chosen for us to live in a world where the lies, deceptions, distortions, and temptations of sex and money are many. The address where you live is not a divine mistake. Your exposure to the variegated difficulties of life in this fallen world, with all of its delusions and temptations, isn't in the way of God’s plan; it is his plan. He, right here, right now, has you exactly where he wants you to be.

So we can’t act with regard to sex and money as if we’re powerless, or it’ll be impossible to prepare for what we’ll all inevitably face. We can’t allow ourselves to think we’re alone in the struggle. We can’t allow ourselves to live like modern evangelical monastics, as if separation from the world is the key to true righteousness. And we can’t be lulled or intimidated into silence in two crucial areas of the human existence where the Creator has powerfully and clearly spoken.

It’s vital that we remember that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t just address your need for past forgiveness or your need for future hope. It addresses everything you face in the place where God has positioned you right here, right now. It’s this gospel that provides the only reliable diagnostic when it comes to sex and money, and because it provides the only reliable diagnostic, the gospel also graces us with the only truly cure.

More info on this forthcoming book here.

It's About Definitions of Words

Amy Hall:

So the question is, which definition should we use? It's fine for you to argue that your definition of "two people who love each other" is better than my definition of "one man, one woman," or someone else's definition of "one man, multiple women," but we need to start off by understanding that we're arguing definitions, not rights.

Read the rest.

Sean the Bachelor and "Born-Again Virginity"

Lisa Velthouse reflects on the term "born-again virgin" as it was tossed around on the recent airing of The Bachelor:

On my wedding day, I was a 27-year-old virgin. So was my husband. In this way, we had obeyed part of the biblical sex ethic together—by remaining celibate before marriage. I will even add that we had obeyed with plenty of room to spare. In earlier parts of our lives, each of us had practiced celibacy for reasons other than joyful obedience. My husband had done so out of a strong commitment to moralism. I had done so because I thought good works were essential for my salvation. In this way, we had both missed the deeper purpose of virginity. It wasn’t until each of us began understanding God’s good news, that obedience in purity became something we could delight in. Because, theologically speaking, a virgin honeymoon was never supposed to be the point—not if Christ’s purity and all it means for us is left out of the picture.

Are you an unmarried virgin? Practice purity. Are you an unmarried non-virgin? Practice purity. Are you married? Practice purity—which will now take the form of fidelity. If we’ve made too much of “virginity” in its technical definition, it’s time now to return to the heart of the matter, the very “why” behind virginity in the first place. Choose purity with gratitude, knowing that neither your label nor your obedience earns you more or less standing with God. That work has already been accomplished, by the only One pure enough to do it.

Read the rest.