“I’ve gotta take a little time,
A little time to think things over.
I better read between the lines,
In case I need it when I’m older.
“This mountain I must climb,
Feels like a world upon my shoulders,
Through the clouds, I see love shine,
Keeps me warm as life grows colder.”
—Foreigner, I Want To Know What Love Is
In this post, we’ll continue the previous post looking at the third distorted viewpoint regarding sex and sexuality.
1. Sex is “god.”
2. Sex is an appetite. It’s just physical.
3. Sex is SINFUL, UGLY and DIRTY.
This is the idea that someone was promoting in the church of Corinth. It shows up in 1 Cor 7:1.
Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” —1 Cor 7:1 NIV
This isn’t something Paul said, it’s evidently something people in the church at Corinth were saying, maybe even bragging about. Essentially, the idea someone in church was promoting was the idea that, “Sex is bad. It’s sinful, ugly and dirty. Avoid it. Even in the context of marriage.”
Unfortunately, one of the reasons that sex is often viewed as sinful, ugly and dirty is because all too often the church has sent a fuzzy message at best, when it comes to sex and human sexuality.
A Brief History of the Church’s View on Sex
For instance, early church fathers like Tertullian and Ambrose actually preferred the extinction of the human race to its propagation through sexual intercourse.[1]
Origen allegorized the Song of Solomon and lived such an austere life that he actually castrated himself. Evidently, he read Matthew 19:12 that if part of your body causes you to sin, you’d be better off to cut it off, and he did. [2] I’m not making this stuff up!!!
Chrysostom believed that Adam and Eve didn’t have sex before the fall.[3]
Gregory of Nyssa believed that Adam and Eve were not created with sexual desire and that if the Fall hadn’t occurred, the human race would have reproduced itself through some harmless form of vegetation. [4] In other words, Eve would have become pregnant by eating some kind of fruit!
Even Augustine believed that while sex was innocent in marriage, the passion that accompanies it was sinful. [5] In fact, he believed and taught that sexual intercourse actually transmits original sin. With that teaching Augustine tied the ideas of sin and sex together for centuries to follow.[6]
By the fifth century, priests were prohibited from marrying in the Catholic Church. [7]
For some time, the church taught that if you were married, celibacy was your preferred option.
In an article in Christianity Today, author Phil Yancey writes that “…[historically, the church has been so uptight about sex] that between the third and tenth centuries, church authorities issued edicts forbidding sex [between married couples, mind you] on Thursdays — the day of Christ’s arrest; on Fridays — or, the day of his death; on Saturdays — in honor of the Virgin Mary; and on Sundays — in honor of the departed saints. Wednesdays sometimes made the list too, as did the 40-day fast periods before Easter, Christmas and Pentecost, and also feast days and days of the Apostles… The list escalated until only 44 days a year remained available for marital sex.” [8]
No wonder people in those historical pictures look so stinkin’ uptight.
Even Martin Luther, the Great Reformer, in his book, The Estate of Marriage wrote, “Intercourse is never without sin, but God excuses it by His grace because the estate of marriage is His work…”
This campaign of misinformation has continued right on up until the present day.
Here’s the point: unfortunately, the CHURCH has all too often done a bad job when it comes to providing people with a biblical, godly and healthy viewpoint on sex and sexuality.
Let’s review the Three Distorted Viewpoints on Sex and Sexuality we’ve covered so far in this series:
- Sex is not god. [It’s not even close…]
- Sex is more than just an appetite. It’s not just physical. [It actually affects us emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.]
- Finally, sex, in and of itself isn’t necessarily sinful, ugly and dirty. Obviously, we can make it all of those things and more. But it’s not necessarily any of those things.
In the next post, we’ll continue this series by unpacking a guiding principle that can revolutionize the way we think about sex and sexuality.
[1] Mark Driscoll, The Peasant Princess audio series, Part 1. This appears to be taken from the book by Leland Ryken titled, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were
[2] John Franke, “Origen: Friend or Foe?,” Christian History & Biography, October 1, 2003.
[3] Leland Ryken.
[4] Leland Ryken.
[5] Leland Ryken.
[6] Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage, Zondervan, 2000, page 203.
[7] Leland Ryken.
[8] Philip Yancey, “Holy Sex,” Christianity Today (October 2003), pp. 48-49 quoted by Dillow and Pintus in Intimacy Ignited, Nav Press, 2004, page 21.