Editorial: Summer 2008 issue

There was a time when the subject of sex, if it came up at all in the church, was treated as a problem. It was like flashing a warning light: Danger ahead. Proceed with extreme caution. No masturbation, no pre-marital sex, no adultery. Homosexuality was hardly on anyone’s radar screen then.

When I was in grade school a young couple in my congregation was required to confess their sin before the church. She was pregnant, and they weren’t even married. As if to drive home the point, a significant adult in my life asked me afterward if I knew what that confession was about. I had a vague notion, so I said yes. The message was clear: Don’t let the same thing happen to you!

I often wondered why that particular sin had to be confessed before the whole congregation. Why not call to accountability the business person who was known for shady deals? Having been held up as the negative example for all other youth and children in the congregation, I’ve wondered too whether that couple henceforth felt like they were wearing a big “P” on their foreheads for pre-marital sex.

Thankfully, the church has found more wholesome and redemptive ways to deal with sex. In sermons and in Sunday school curricula, sex is now portrayed as a gift of God. Sex is viewed as integral to our identities as human beings, male and female, creatures who have been created and blessed by God. While sex is for the reproduction of the human race, it’s also intended to express our love for another human being; it is a deep form of human intimacy; and it can even be an expression of our spirituality.

Still, despite this more commendable message about sex, sex remains a problem in our human relationships and community. Just ask any pastor who is in touch with his or her congregation. Many pastors, when they look out over their people on Sunday mornings, see what many other people can’t see. They see some who have been sexually abused, others who have been unfaithful to their spouses, singles who have had to deal with unwanted pregnancies, and then there are those who are in bondage to pornography. If all that could be shared about the sexual lives of our congregations were shared, there would be many stories of human brokenness and failure, of relationships torn apart, of grief and guilt.

It is often said there are two subjects that are taboo in public settings: money and sexuality. In the case of sexuality, there is a good reason for the taboo: it represents one of the most intimate and therefore private aspects of our lives. What the church doesn’t need are more voyeuristic confessions of sexuality gone awry. We hear enough of those in popular culture.

We do need to talk about sex in the church—a biblical perspective on what sex is for, and what it is not for.

Sex often becomes a problem for us because it is so closely tied to two other human realities: our need for human intimacy; and our need for God. While sexual intercourse can be an expression of intimacy, many times people think what they need is sexual release, when in fact it is human intimacy that they need. And sex also is closely related to spirituality, our need for union with God. But this spiritual connection can also lead to confusion and distortion. Like G. K. Chesterton said, when a man knocks on the door of a brothel, he may think he’s looking for sex, but what he really is looking for is God. Sex, in other words, becomes a false substitute for genuine human connection and a personal relationship with God.

We do need to talk about sex in the church—a biblical perspective on what sex is for, and what it is not for. This issue of Leader is intended as such a conversation starter. We also need heart-to-heart conversations about how to live chaste lives in a culture that is highly sexualized, and ways we can hold each other accountable for our sexuality and sexual conduct. In my own experience, this happens best in a friendship with another man where we can be utterly honest with each other about our thoughtlife and relationships with our wives and with the opposite sex.

If not in the church, then where can we find sexual healing and wholeness? We are broken, sinful human beings, perhaps no more so than in our sexuality. We need the grace that forgives our sexual sins, but also the enabling grace that helps us live out our sexuality in the way that God intended.

Richard A. Kauffman