Tag Archives: sex

How Hollywood Is Helping To Kill Marriage

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A couple of months ago I was flipping channels late one night and Jessica Simpson was guest on Conan. They were doing the usual chit chat when they began to talk about fact that she was pregnant with her second child with current fiance Eric Johnson.  She talked about how it wasn’t really planned, I mean they just had baby number one a year ago, but that they were excited.

Friends, our culture is backwards.  And Hollywood is for it.  To top it off, the media actually “covers” Hollywood.  Think about that. It’s funny, but it’s not.  

We live in a culture in which marriage is declining.  Less and less people are getting married.  And those that are, are doing so much later.  But they are not waiting to do “married” things, such as live together and have children.  In fact, in the United States today more women have their first kid out of wedlock than in it, and for many that is by choice.

There are so many reasons for all of this and I’ve debated on whether to even bring Hollywood into the discussion here, but I think if we are going to talk about singleness and marriage in our current culture we can’t leave it out.  Hollywood and the media are part of the reason that there is less and less marriage in America.

We are a media and entertainment society.  It’s everywhere, all the time.  Hollywood has gained power and influence because of it.  If we are going to walk with Jesus in the culture we need to be sure that we know what is going on around us.

First, there are the movies and TV shows that Hollywood puts out.  I actually believe there is more good writing, producing, acting and compelling entertainment than ever before.  I’m not really “against” it.  But because we are so inundated with it, we need to make sure we realize the subtle messages it sends including these four:

1. Romance almost always equals sex, and sex right now.  Quick, name one TV show or movie where the main characters fall in love and wait until marriage to have sex.  Sex is always for right now and not tied to commitment or consequence.

2. Ending up together is always the end, never the beginning.  The message is this, all the struggle, journey, and fun is in getting the person.  Ending up together is the end of the story.  In real life it is more like the beginning.  But when you grow up on TV and movies your expectations don’t line up with that.

3. Fewer and fewer shows have a working marriage in them.  There are some.  Friday Night Lights had perhaps the most realistic marriage I’ve ever seen on TV.  But compared to even 15 years ago the pictures of marriage are small.

4.  The married guy is almost always the one with the boring life.  The husband stereotype is extremely bad.  They are all either passive, distant, mean or stupid.  Almost never is the hero of the movie married.  Again there are some (Cinderella Man comes to mind) but they are in the minority.

But all of what I’ve said so far isn’t Hollywood’s only impact on marriage.  There are two other big factors to recognize.

We have allowed a group of people who are entertainers by trade to dominate our culture with their personal lives.  Their lives are a mess, and yet somehow what they do and say carries sway.

Now some of us watch the mess because we like to judge them and build our own self righteousness.  Others of us watch them (read about them, follow them on twitter, etc) because we are entertained by their chaos.  Oddly both of these negate the fact that these are actual people. They’re not “real” and yet we follow them – and they are not getting married.

Entertainment is always both a reflection of our current society and an attempt to influence it.  Which leads me to an important point I want to make.  I believe that the Hollywood Elites are basically opposed to marriage.  It’s not a conspiracy or anything but we need to understand that the people running the show (literally) are not on the side of covenant marriage with one person for life, and it shows in everything they do.

The only marriage the Hollywood Elites are for is gay marriage.  And frankly if it were legal everywhere they’d probably be against that.

Finally, because there is so much entertainment available it’s easy for singles to use entertainment and entertainers as their escape from loneliness.  It used to be that entertainment was something you went to – with other people.  Now it comes to you – on your phone.  This is not helpful for singles looking to engage others or pursue relationship.

What does this have to do with walking with Jesus in our culture?  Everything.  If we are going to love people around us we need to recognize that this stuff has impact on them.  And, like it or not, we are impacted by it.  We don’t have to turn it all off, but we do need to be intentional about how we let it influence us as well as recognize how it influences those around us.

How do you think the entertainment industry has affected your singleness?  How has it shaped your view of marriage?

Christians Should Have More Sex – And Talk About It

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One of my pastor’s favorite lines is, “The problem with our church is that our singles are having too much sex, and our married people are not having enough.”

Every time he says it there is initial laughter at how funny that is, followed by a sort of uncomfortable chuckling at just how true it is.

It’s an interesting dynamic.  There is the idea in our culture about married sex vs. single sex.  As in, married sex is boring or non-existent and single sex is all about the hot passion. This is wrong both statistically and morally.

What’s interesting to me is that it seems married people are constantly willing to tell their single friends all about their lack of sex.  I can’t count the conversations I’ve had like this. It’s kind of mind boggling really.  Married people are constantly telling me about the sex they don’t have.  Very rarely are they telling me about the sex they do have.

Now I’m not talking about when a friend is sharing their life with me.  In other words there are men that I walk with and we all have struggles.  There are other men that I mentor and they are just letting me know what is going on so that I can walk with them.  That’s all good and honesty is vital in all of that.  We all go through different stages and issues.  Sexual struggle in a marriage can certainly be one of those.

What I’m talking about is this general idea out there that sex in marriage is not so great.  I feel like that is not really the best thing to tell single people.  What is the message exactly? Is the Christian community’s message, “Whatever you do, don’t have sex outside of marriage, wait for marriage.  And by the way, it’s not really that great then either.”  Really?!

I get that telling a wide eyed 20 year old that marriage is not a sex on demand scenario is probably pretty wise.  But constantly sending the message to the average Christian single that sex in marriage is always infrequent, hard work and often not good, seems kind of counter productive.

Let’s get real.  Even in the “evil and dangerous” secular world, the statistics don’t back this up.  In all the research I’ve seen married people have more and better sex than single people who are trying to have sex.  40% of married people have sex twice a week, compared to 20-25% of single and cohabitating couples.  Not only that but a significantly higher percentage of married men and women say sex is emotionally and physically satisfying than single people.  To top it off, married couples are more likely to hit orgasm – so that’s nice.

This isn’t to make light of the struggles that many married people have sexually.  I’ve walked with some people through tough stuff so I know it’s real.  But we need to do some things differently here if we are going to be honest and encourage single believers toward marriage.

To begin with, as my pastor says, married people need to have more sex.  Seriously.  For about a hundred reasons.  If you aren’t, then you HAVE TO get help and figure it out.

Next, married folks need to realize that what they say about sex has impact.  They also need to realize that the biggest problem out there right now isn’t single people rushing into marriage for sex, it’s that they are running away from marriage period.  The context has changed.  You are not doing the single person any favors by downplaying sex in marriage.

Finally, we need the married people who are having sex to be more real.  I remember one time talking with a friend after his ten year anniversary trip.  He said, “Bro, gotta tell ya. Great trip.  Stayed at the cabin.  Man, that cabin will never be the same.  I mean . . . wow. I don’t know if you’ve had premarital sex at all but I have.  And it is nothing compared to what happened this weekend.  I mean when there is trust, commitment and intimacy, all things are possible. . . just trust me on this. . . wow!”

Now that’s a ringing endorsement of marriage.  I’m in!

I think there is this tendency with married Christian couples to only talk about sex when it isn’t going well.  We need you to talk about it when it is.  We don’t need the details.  My friend didn’t say what positions they tried.  He didn’t video it and post it to facebook.  But he did share how he felt about it.

It’s true that we need realistic expectations.  What we don’t need is a message that says, “make sure you wait for it, but it’s not that great.”

What message have you received from married believers about sex?  Has it made you more or less excited about marriage?

Is Marriage Under Attack?

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There’s a lot of talk these days in the Christian community that marriage is under attack. The idea is that marriage is no longer seen as valuable or as a lifelong commitment.  I’ve heard it stated that young people don’t see it as important.

I can see how people come to this conclusion.  We are all well versed in the numbers. 50% of marriages end in divorce.  A third of first time marriages are over within 10 years. But, the divorce rate has actually dropped steadily for the last couple of decades. (That doesn’t make it good, but it’s not going up).  (This is also in spite of the fact that no fault divorce has been legal in 48 states since 1983).

But one of the biggest reasons the divorce rate is going down is that people aren’t getting married to begin with.  Only 51% of all people in the U.S. are married at all.  Only 20% of those aged 18-29 have ever been married.  That number is down from 60% 40 years ago. Catch that number again – 80% of adults 30 and under have never been married.

But here’s the part that should have everyone freaking out.  A lot of singles seem to not care about getting married.  They seem to be saying do whatever you want.  We haven’t quit having sex or even living with other people and having kids.  This is where the numbers are just astounding.  41% of women aged 15-44 have cohabited.  The number of cohabiting unmarried partners increased 88% from 1990 to 2007.  Most startling of all, since the late 1980’s more women in the U.S. give birth to their first child out of wedlock than as a married person.  Read that last line again!

So everyone is dong what every generation has done. . . except get married.

That is not Biblical singleness.  Let me assure you that when the Bible talks about singleness it is not talking about living with someone and having a kid or two.

But here is where I think we are missing it. I’ve met literally thousands of people currently age 15-35.  I don’t actually think young singles are devaluing marriage.  In fact, a recent survey found that 84% of women and 82% of men said that marriage was somewhat or very important.  Only 5% said that it wasn’t important at all.

The problem is they have no idea how to do singleness and most don’t know how to get married. Many are scared crapless of marriage or better stated they are scared of divorce and bad marriages.  People like the idea of marriage, they just don’t know how to do it.

Marriage is under attack but not in the way we think.  The problem isn’t that people don’t want it.

I think we need a new strategy.  We need to quit defending marriage, and start helping people figure out how to get married.  This is going to take a lot more than slogans and rhetoric.  We are going to have to get messy.  We are going to have to actually go after these people.

First we have to help define what marriage really is.  We need a right theology and practice of marriage.  This is one thing that the Church is doing very, very well.  There has been a huge movement in the last 20 years to talk about marriage in a new way with an emphasis on covenant and commitment.  We have gotten much more real about how hard that can be.  We’ve become more practical and real in our sermons and books.  We’ve stepped up Christian marriage counseling.  I’ve been hard on the Church here and there so I want to give due credit here.  The Church truly is fighting for the married.  Not perfectly of course but they have changed.

But we also have to figure out how to help the unmarried.  We have to step into the mess, not just send out conflicting and confusing spiritual platitudes.  Instead of trying to convince people that marriage is right, we have to help them become right for marriage.  We have to help them face fear, be it fear of commitment, fear of failing, fear of rejection, fear of divorce, fear of choosing wrong, fear of being let down, fear of how hard it is, or fear that they’ve already disqualified themselves.

That requires reaching out to them.  Want to change the culture?  Change how we do singleness.  Want to help people not have sex outside of marriage?  Want to deal with homosexuality, abortion and porn in a new way, and help young single people navigate this stuff?  Then help these young single people understand the theology of celibacy and marriage.  Help them pursue one or the other. Don’t just call out their sin, help them face their fear, hurt, and wounds. We need some sermons and books on this.  We need Christian singles counseling – dead serious.

Right now, over all, we are not winning.  But it isn’t because young singles don’t want to be married.  We are helping married people stay married.  It’s time to help single people get married.

You Aren’t Entitled To A Spouse

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Recently, while talking about my wedding, a good friend remarked something to the effect of, “It’s a great story.  You’re 40 and you’ve never settled.  And now God has been faithful.”  I kind of just smiled at this.

I get this sort of thing all the time.  This idea that because I’ve “hung in there” or “not settled” that God is finally rewarding me.  Or that from day one God has had this as His plan – that plan apparently being have me wait until 40 to get married.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not sure I buy that exactly.

Here is what I do buy.  God for sure brought me and my soon to be bride together.  I believe that wholeheartedly.  It’s a good fit on so many levels it’s not even really questionable.  Another friend said to me recently about the way our lives fit together, “If you ever tell me there’s no God, I’m gonna hit you in the face!  Because there is no way!  It’s so right!”  He’s right!

But, I would say, it is in spite of my sin, brokenness, and failures that God has done this.  It’s His grace that has brought us together, not my “faithfulness.”

It’s not that I’ve been completely unfaithful or that I’ve thought about “settling” if “settling” means marrying someone who I shouldn’t.  But this idea that somehow I’ve earned God’s favor and He has finally rewarded me just doesn’t wash.

One of the big problems in our culture is this idea of entitlement.  The idea that I’m owed something.  You see it in the sports, business, and yes even in ministry.  But no where does it rear its head in Christian culture more than in the discussion of singleness and marriage.  And it’s a problem.

God does not owe us a spouse.

Entitlement comes from a couple of places.  One is self-righteousness.  We see this in the person who has “saved themselves for marriage” and therefore can’t understand why they are not married.  It’s the idea that if I’m moral enough then God should deliver.  Usually we fall into this by accident – at least I did.  At first I was doing right because of God, but then it kind of turned.  I was being “good” so why wasn’t He holding up His end of the bargain.  But we aren’t moral to get something from God.  We are moral out of gratitude to God, and because we are following Him and He leads us to Godly Righteousness.  We live a Chaste life for Him, not to earn something.

Entitlement also comes from arrogance.  This is where the whole “don’t settle” thing comes into play.  Now I’m not saying marry or date anyone that comes along.  By no means!  But there is the idea that because I’ve passed on so many people that now God has brought me “The One“.  Ummmm.  Yeah, I’m not real comfortable with that.  I think sometimes I chose not to pursue and it was wise, other times it was stupid.  Sometimes it was out of fear or rationalization.  The point is, I can always find something wrong and not commit.  It’s a fine line.  But the biggest issue is that it assumes that no one would have to settle to be with me.  Hahaha.  I mean I’m pretty screwed up.

The thing about all of this entitlement is that it creates bitterness, frustration and resentment in our own hearts.

We end up resenting God.  He becomes the Great Withholder.  He isn’t giving us what we want, or what we feel we’ve earned.  He isn’t coming through.  He’s not bringing me anyone or at least not the perfect one.  It’s all His fault that I’m not married.  Has nothing to do with me or anybody else.  It’s your fault God.

We end up resenting the opposite sex.  This drives me crazy but I used to be there.  Man I spent some time resenting women, or at least certain ones.  They should like me.  They always pick the guy who isn’t really as “Christian” as me.  Man, I want to throw up writing that.  And the female version where there are no mature guys.  There just aren’t any guys who love Jesus and have a job etc.  Really!?  Again, it couldn’t possibly be me.  All of this is bad for us (it also makes us way less attractive).

Finally we can end up resenting our friends that get married.  “I hope they make it” – read – because they sure aren’t as spiritual as me.  They lived a crazy life and now they get “what they want” and I don’t.  How is that fair?

We have to flush this stuff out.  We are not entitled to a spouse.  No one has to choose us. God does not owe us.  But more importantly, it’s not about that anyway.  We can’t let it become our identity.

Do you feel entitled to a spouse?  Who do resent?  What helps you fight those two things?

How The Church Is Helping Kill Marriage

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When I was right out of college I attended a conference with several people I looked up to and their spouses.  They did an incredible job of including me which was a real blessing as we went to meetings and theme parks.  One vivid memory was hanging out with a couple of the guys in the hot tub at the resort when all of a sudden one guy said, “Hey Justin, sorry bro, but I’m gonna go have some sex with my wife.”  To which I said, “No apology needed, go now!”  We both laughed.

It was one of my first times being around a bunch of married Christian people and it was inspiring.  We joked with the guys about how every one of them had married up (which was for sure true!).  I saw how they were a team and yet each couple was completely different in how that looked day to day.  It was awesome.  And it made me want to be married.

We need more of this, and a lot less of what the Church has fallen into over the last 20 years.

God bless the Christian culture in this country but man we tend to overreact.  We have been reacting to decline of the family for some time now.  But in a attempt to save marriage, we are actually often adding to it’s demise.

We somehow believe that if we can make every marriage a good one from the beginning, then all will be well.  But, in a culture that is already hesitant to get married, we have often made them more hesitant.

For starters we have attempted to kill the marriage idol. This is the idea that if I get married then everything will be ok.  It is centered on romance and getting my needs met.  It puts unrealistic expectations on the marriage.  So we tell people how marriage is not about romance.  We spend an inordinate amount of time from the pulpit and in books talking about how hard marriage is.

While this is true, it needs to be balanced out. Where’s the joy?  Where’s the fun?  What if pastors stood up in the pulpit and said, “Sex with my wife is awesome!”  If the Church is so concerned that everyone get married, we should quit accidentally talking everyone out of it.

The second thing we’ve done is create an impossible standard for getting married.  We lift up Ephesians 5 and of course the Proverbs 31 woman. Holy smokes!  Who lives this out perfectly?  Can you even be an Ephesians 5 guy if you aren’t married?  We basically have said, “Whatever you do, don’t settle.  You’re looking for a strong, spiritual person, equally yoked to you, who has it all together and is a perfect grown up.  Don’t settle!”

Along with this is the idea that it used to be easier to find this.  Really?!  COME ON!  Let’s talk about Biblical marriage.  You married who your parents picked for you – if you were lucky.  You had to stay in your caste.  They didn’t typically do a spiritual maturity test first. What a joke.  Have these people read the Bible?

In the “religious right” church there is even this idea that somehow there is a previous magical time where everyone in America was a Jesus follower.  Although I’m not quite sure, I think this is the supposed to be the 1950’s.  Just because everyone went to church and didn’t get divorced doesn’t make it “right”.  The revisionist history needs to end.

Finally, we have completely over spiritualized the entire thing.  If I’m single it means that I just need to be patient and do right because God has a plan.  He will “bring me someone when the time is right.”  Keep praying.  Keep waiting on God.  This sort of “help you sleep at night theology” is killing us.  It makes God the “Great Withholder” and leaves us waiting for our Christian Soulmate that isn’t coming.

Now obviously I’m not suggesting we soft sell marriage or tell people to just go out and marry whoever.  But if we are going to help the next generation we need to stop trying to scare people away from the wrong marriage.  They are already terrified.  They already know marriage is hard – they need to know it is good.  They need to know about the joy of true oneness, the benefits of being in it with someone.  They need to be told about the intimacy available with being with one person for a lifetime more than they need to know about the cost of a one night stand.  They need to be invited to something more awesome. They need to know that they need to pursue it, not just wait on it.

Most of all, they need to see it because most of them haven’t.  We need to give them hope of what it can be, not just tell them what it isn’t.

Singleness And The Church Of Don’t

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Several years ago our lead pastor gave a sermon on singleness.  I laugh as I type that because we have a church that has a high percentage of singles and yet even we have had only one sermon in the last seven years directly aimed at this question.

He actually did a really good job but then he did something that hacked off a lot of people. He basically said that some of the reason people are single is that they are awkward and don’t know how to approach another person.  The thing is that he is absolutely right.  But the bad thing was – that was the extent of what he offered to do about it.

There is a major problem within the Church in this arena (and when I say Church, I mean as a whole – local churches, the body as a whole, christian books – all of it).  It can identify all the problems and can tell us what not to do, but they offer nothing to help you actually do it.

The Church is great at telling us what marriage is and how to have a good marriage, although they can oversell the toughness of it (future blog).  They have seen that marriage needs help and have responded.

They are also great at telling us what to do and not do once we are dating.  Our church actually has a position paper on dating.  But the problem is they don’t have one on singleness itself (being called to celibacy and how that relates to everything else) and they don’t offer anything about how to actually get a date to begin with.

Here’s what you can learn (right or wrong) about singleness from the Church.

  • Who to date and who not to
  • How long to date
  • What not to do – i.e. Don’t have sex
  • What marriage is and that it should be the goal
  • How to not marry people you shouldn’t

Do you notice a trend?  The Church seems mostly concerned with controlling how we date when/if we do.  I’m not saying this is the heart of the people, but to me it has often seemed like they are more worried about whether or not I have sex or date a non-believer than about whether or not I’m called to celibacy or marriage, let alone how to pursue either one.

Here’s what I’ve learned from the Church in the last twenty years about celibacy.  Ready? Nothing.  Here’s what I’ve learned about creating attraction and actually getting a date. Same thing – Nothing.

Mostly what they have offered is spiritual platitudes like, “God will bring you someone” or “In His time God will provide the “right” person”, “Wait for the right one” and on an on.  But they have offered basically no plan for how to engage that.

Now some people would say (and I would have said this in the past) that it’s not the Church’s job to play matchmaker or to help people get married.  But now I disagree.

If you are going to try to tell me who to date and how to “behave” then give me the plan to get there.  If it is your job and your business to keep me from having sex and to have me “marry right” then by all means tell me the plan.

Here’s a great example.  In the 90’s there were all these books about Biblical dating. Ignoring the fact that there is no Biblical dating plan, even if there was one, what was the plan to get the date.  If for example you as a church are going to say that your people should use “courting” instead of dating, then you’d better have a plan to help people do that.  Create a community of people that live that way, that can help others actually do it.

If the Church is so bent on everyone being married, then come up with some ways to help people achieve that. Don’t just give us a list of specific don’ts and then offer up random theological platitudes for the do’s.

It’s a double standard and the worst part about it is that it drives good single people away from the church.  We get tired of being told what we should have and can’t do without any sort of plan of what we can do.

What do we do with our need for physical intimacy? Why can’t I get a date?  How do I gain confidence with the opposite sex?  Why am I afraid of commitment?  Where can I lead?  How do I know if I’m just supposed to stay unmarried?  What’s the plan?

If it is the Church’s job to control what singles don’t do, give us some things to do.  And here’s the thing about it – that will actually preach and most of it will cross over for married audiences as well.

What is your church’s message to singles?

You Are Not Called To “Singleness”

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As I got older and remained unmarried, one of the questions that more and more people asked me is if I felt like I was “called” to be single or if I had the “gift” of singleness.  I have had different times in my life where I’ve considered and prayed about that.  This is one of the areas we just don’t talk enough about in the Church.

Now, I’ve already talked a lot on here about the gift of singleness, taking advantage of singleness, and about 100 spiritual platitudes on singleness.  Lately I’ve been talking more about the idea that we as a Church must have a theology of singleness.  But the question becomes what does that mean.  It has to start with what we talked about last week and focusing on Jesus and His family first.  It has to.  Without that, nothing else will fit.

The next thing we have to do is begin to rescue what we mean when we say “called to singleness”.

Singleness, is not a good category in general.  It’s way too big if by single we mean unmarried.  We need to understand that there are many, many different people who are unmarried.  There are never married, divorced and widowed.  You are not called to be “single” in the way we talk about it today.  You may be divorced and unable to remarry, widowed and choose not to remarry or called to celibacy for the kingdom.

Neither Jesus nor Paul are talking about being called to a lifetime of dating.  They are not talking about being called to be unmarried because you can’t make a commitment to another person or don’t know how to get a date.  They are not talking about a call to a lifetime of selfishness and self focus.  It is not a call to be alone.  They are also not talking about some sort of gift where you never have sexual desires.  You are not called to a lifetime of trying to get married.  You are for sure not called to a lifetime of adolescence.

What Jesus and Paul are talking about is the call to or gift of celibacy.  We have completely ignored this in the Protestant church and mostly only focused on the full time ministry part of it in the Catholic church.

The call to a celibate life is not a call away from marriage.   It is a call to something.   It is a call to serve God from an unmarried context. You might look at it like this.  There is a first vow we make to God.  This is first and most important – our response to the gift of salvation and committing our life to Jesus.  But then we make a second vow.  We either make this vow to God to live a celibate lifestyle and follow and serve Jesus from that spot, or a vow  to another person with God and therefore get married and follow and serve Jesus from that spot.

Both of these are a calling and we have the choice to either obey and follow it or not.  They are both good and honorable in the kingdom.

So when we ask someone if they are called to singleness what we really need to ask is are they called to celibacy for the kingdom.

This does not mean by the way that because you are not called to celibacy and not yet married that you are somehow sinning (although you might be).  What it means is that we need this question to be our starting point.

The problem with our current state of affairs if that we have lost this whole thought process. We need to have a good theology of celibacy and marriage.  We need a good understanding of both so that we can freely seek our particular calling.  I think that in general the Church does a good job of talking about what marriage is.  However they do a terrible job talking about celibacy.  Most don’t even acknowledge it beyond a sentence or two here and there. They typically don’t help us pursue either one.

The reality is we are either called to celibacy or marriage.  We need to determine that and then pursue it (with Jesus of course).  We are not called to sit back and see which one “happens”.  

When you think about the call to singleness – what does that mean to you?  Have you considered that call?  Would you be open to either call?

For more reading on celibacy I’d refer you to what John Morgan has written on the gift of celibacy here.  It is easily the best thing I’ve found on the subject so far and it sheds a lot of light on what I’m talking about above.  I’d encourage you to read it. It is more in depth but very clear.

Sexual Immorality Leads Away From Marriage

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C.S Lewis once said, “It would seem Our Lord Finds our desires not to strong but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can not imagine what is meant by a holiday at sea.  We are far too easily pleased.

Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to what we have done with sex and marriage in our culture.  We have created a mess.

The problem is not desire.  The problem is that when we try to fill the desire the wrong way (not just sexual desire), it get’s in the way of the right way of fulfilling it.

Sixty years ago 60% of people aged 18-29 were married.  Today only 20% of that same demographic has ever been married.  That is a dramatic change. We are typically entering puberty earlier (there’s not space here to go into why) and yet waiting longer to get married.  So where as we used to say, “just wait 5 years or so to be married”, now we basically say, “just wait 15 years to have sex”.  Thats crazy!  The problem is cyclical because in one sense it’s harder to wait that long, but in another sense because people are giving up and meeting that desire other ways, it is making people have less desire to get married.

Paul writes in 1st Corinthians that if you want to have sex, get married.  He basically says, “rather than burn with unmet desire, get married and meet it the right way.”  But this is a far cry from where we are at today, even in the Church.

We mess this up a lot of different ways and none of them help us when we are single or even later when we get married.

One plan often offered is to kill the desire.  This is where we just basically tell people sex is bad, don’t have it.  We may not say it but we essentially end up leading people there.  This is a horrible idea because desire for sex isn’t bad  Being controlled by it (or any other desire) is but the desire for sex and intimacy is a huge part of the reason for marriage. Worst of all, if I get married, I won’t be able to just flip a switch that all of a sudden makes sex good.

But more often what we do is go out and meet our desire for sex in some other way. Sometimes this means having sex outside of marriage. This does not lead down a path to marriage.  That’s not to say that people who do this don’t get married but it doesn’t increase the chances.  This is why so many people who live together end up not getting married.  Playing house and being married are not the same thing.  Sex before covenant is never beneficial.

But the biggest problem in the church right now is what I call Lazy Sexual Immorality. This is where I don’t meet my sexual need with another person at all.  Instead I just watch, read or think about someone else doing it and “meet” my need that way.  Tony Campolo once said, “If you are going to sin, at least do it boldly.”  These are the opposite of bold. They are gutless.

If you are under 30 you have seen internet porn.  It’s just the truth.  You have.  The average age a person first sees it right now is 11.  Read that again.  Now this screws us up in all sorts of ways.  But fantasy and habitual masturbation are right behind it.  They are all ways that we can meet our needs without having to “involve” someone else.  And they are killing us.  I have a friend who says that every guy thinks marriage is going to be a porn movie and every girl thinks it’s going to be a romance novel.  It’s not either.  It should be better.  But that is what we are expecting, and when it doesn’t happen we bail.

When we meet our sexual desire outside of marriage it leads us away from marriage.  Either we get our desire met, and therefore don’t want to make the sacrifices to meet them in the right way, or we get wrapped up in our shame and guilt and therefore either can’t engage the real thing or feel like we don’t now “deserve” it.  Usually some sick twisted combination of all of the above.

It’s a nasty cycle and a lot of people are in it.  I’ve been in it many times in one form or another.  Fortunately, you don’t have to stay in it.  I’m going to write more on that soon.  But for today the question really is this: What are you doing with your sexual desire?  How are you meeting it?  Do you see how that affects you from engaging the real thing?

 

Would Jesus Snuggle?

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The other day one of my friends posted a link on facebook that just stopped me.  I wasn’t even sure exactly what to do with it – it’s just dumbfounding.  And yet . . . it’s not.  Which is why she posted it.

There is a new place called The Snuggery.  Basically the idea is that we all need physical touch and intimacy.  It brings healing and comfort.  But sense most people don’t have it, this lady has started a business.  I’m not making this up.  For $50 you can have a 45 minute snuggling session.  There are two professional snugglers.  You can snuggle with both for $100.  Again, I’m not kidding.

It’s not to be sexual and it must be fully clothed (pajamas are ok though).  Just wear what you are comfortable in.  You can talk or not talk.  Whatever you want.  You just snuggle. You get to be touched.

I’m literally not sure whether to laugh or cry.  Seriously.  In a way it breaks my heart.  This is where we are at as a society.  We are this alone.

Now I guarantee there are some married people who haven’t snuggled at home in a while, which is tragic.  But as a single person this is a huge issue.

I mentioned this in one of my first blogs.  One of the absolutely hardest things as a single is the lack of touch.  And the older you get, the more this is true. What these ladies have right is that touch matters.  Under the heading of WHY SNUGGLE they list out the benefits of intimate, nonsexual touch.  They aren’t wrong about any of it.  And as their lead sentence says, “Why Snuggle? Quite simply because it makes us feel good.”

But if you are single what do you do with this?  If it is true that we need touch, what do we do?

The problem is exasperated by several things.  First off we have had a lot of bad physical touch in our culture.  Over the course of their lifetime 28% of kids age 14-17 have been sexually violated in some way.  This doesn’t even begin to include physical abuse or physical neglect.  That is the world we are growing up in.

Secondly, we have a much more isolated world.  We are way more likely to work alone, and 28% of us live alone. (Now if half of us are married that means that 50% of single people live by themselves.)  That does not lead to good touch.  It leads to isolation.

Finally, partly in response to all of the above and the sexually immoral culture that we live in, the Church has told us not to touch anyone.  Kiss dating goodbye.  Don’t touch or it could lead to sex.  I get it, I really do, but man, if we don’t touch at all, that can’t be good.  We can’t live in fear and call it religion.

I can speak from personal experience here.  I went 10 years without kissing anyone (age 25-35).  Most of that was spent with very little touch.  There were lots of reasons.  But to be honest as I turned the corner of 30 I was messed up, and I’d say lack of touch contributed to that.  I remember feeling awkward even hugging sometimes.

I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure how to fix all this.  I’m not suggesting the Church start establishing Christian Snuggeries.  But I know that we need an answer.  We need something different than “don’t have sex” and “don’t go to far”.  Why should two women be addressing this while we stand on the sidelines?

Appropriate touch is vital.  I can’t remember where I saw it but there is a video of nuns in a poor country taking in dying children.  You know the first thing they did?  They hugged them and held them for extended periods.

In Mark 2 a leper approaches Jesus.  Back then, lepers were separated out and seen as unclean.  They were to avoid contact with the “clean” people at all costs.  In fact there was a six foot rule that said no one was supposed to be within six feet of them.

But as this guy approaches Jesus, he doesn’t move out of the way.  Now Jesus could have said the word and this man would have been healed of leprosy.  But he still would have been untouched, and maybe people would have wondered, “is he really well?”

In one of the most simple, powerful moments in Jesus’ ministry, he reached out and touched the man.  He knew he needed more than a physical healing – he needed to know he was touchable.

Somehow we have to rescue this.  We have to know that not only are we “Christian” or “Saved” but that we are touchable.  Whatever message we send the single person, that has to be part of it.

Have you ever suffered from lack of touch? Where do you go for appropriate touch?

Sexual Immorality Is Not Just About You

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About two weeks ago I was relaxing at a hotel bar where I often go to chat with friends or write this blog.  I was just about to shut it down when a gentleman showed up who was from out of town.  He sat down and started to share about why he was in town etc. Anyway after a while he asked if I had a family and I said no, but I was about to get married.  He of course congratulated me and shared he had been married for 20 years. Then he said this, “Of course you know, that once you get married, you’ll have less sex.”  I laughed.  I sure as heck hope not, because we are not having sex now.

It was the same when I was in college.  I was literally the only person in my suite of 9, that didn’t have sex my freshmen year.  They used to joke about it.  I was also the person they came to when stuff in their life was hard.  They knew I was different.

You see we don’t just flee from sexual immorality for ourselves.  It’s one of God’s ways of separating us out – as a witness.  It’s not just about you and me and our little moral battle.

One of the big misconceptions that people have is that sexual immorality is worse today than at other points in history.  There is the idea that all of a sudden it’s “crazy” out there and that marriage is being devalued etc.

This leads to a couple of problems.  First, there a lot of people who think what the Bible says about sex is “old school” and not relevant for today.  On the other hand the Church ends up running around shouting that the world is ending, making an idol out of the family and longing for the past (which I think is the 1950’s America).

Now it is true that American culture is changing.  But none of this is new.  Neither is our call to live differently than the culture.

When you look at the sexual practices that God lays out in the old testament it needs to be understood that God was giving them these specifics for a reason.  That reason is that all the other societies in the Near East were not practicing them.  When God says, don’t sleep with an animal, He says it because others were.  He’s not making up random stuff.  The Near Eastern cultures were crazy, even by our standards.  People were having sex in every way, with everybody and everything.  They even worshiped to it.

God was saying to the Israelites, “You will not be like them.  You are my people and this will distinguish you.”

The same is true in Paul’s letter to Corinth.  They had written Paul and they asked him what they should do.  How should they practice sexuality and marriage now that they had Jesus?  Paul starts that whole message by saying, “Now for the questions you asked about – here’s how to apply God’s teaching and live the way He would want in your context.”  Which was a completely pagan and dualistic context.  Sound familiar?

If we are going to flee from sexual immorality we have to define what that is. The good news is that currently most folks are not sleeping with animals or temple prostitutes (at least I’ve never been tempted by either).  So in our day, we can’t just take one liners from the Bible and try to make them mean what we want them to.  Instead, we need to take the overall meaning of sex, marriage, and celibacy in the scriptures (which is pretty dang clear) and apply that to our current context.  In legal terms it’s like law and case law.  How does the law apply to our case today?

But beyond that we need to realize that our call to flee from immorality is not just as a set of rules to keep us out of trouble.  God called Israel out.  He made them His people and commanded them to live in a way that demonstrated Him to the world.  One of the ways they were to do this was by how they behaved sexually.  Paul tells the early church the same thing.  You are set apart.  You were bought at a price.  You are NEW and different.  Live like it – in the light!

One of the reasons we fail is that even in our morality or lack there of, it’s all about us.  That wasn’t really the point.  God has bigger plans.  When we are set apart, people are drawn to us.  Want to be counter cultural?  Want to make a difference?  Want to point towards God.  Live this area of your life differently than the world.  It was true 4000 years ago and it’s true now.