Now I've heard of churches doing some amazing and bizarre things to get attention but there's nothing like a church holding a sexathon to liven things up a bit!Check out the promo pic to the left, a bit raunchy for a church with seemingly quite conservative, 'biblical' views on sex and sexuality. So what's it all about?
I first came across this on Weekend Sunrise when I heard them talking up an upcoming story last Sunday morning (before church), saying that a pastor in USA was urging his church members to hit the sack. Naturally I was curious.
A new church in the USA, Florida, called 'Relevant Church' is taking the challenge to either get busy or abstain from sex depending on your marital status. Pastor Paul Wirth has issued this challenge to his church and as I understand it they are about a week into the challenge. The challenge (as the picture tries to portray - I think...) is for married couples to make intimacy with each other the number one priority for 30 days. I gather this includes meeting one anther's emotional and particularly physical needs as there is also a challenge issued to 'singles' that is all people who are not married to abstain from any naughty physical intimacy 'reserved for marriage' and focus on meeting the emotional needs of another person. It is hoped that at the end of the challenge singles will choose to continue to abstain and 'choose God's way' according to Pastor Paul on one of his Youtube clips.
Here, let this guy (a representative from Relevant Church) tell you about the challenge. He seems to know more about it than me.
Unfortunately I can become cynical of such a challenge as this because Pastor Paul and start on a different page theologically. His theological approach through scripture is quite simple and black & white. Basically it's this: sex is reserved for marriage and only marriage 'according to the bible' and anyone engaged in sexual activity outside of marriage is not living God's way! However i argue the context of scripture is always set within cultural context and principles which suited a culture in a certain time are not so easily transferable to this culture and this time. For instance is it broadly acceptable in western culture today that a couple would live together and 'share physical intimacy' together before they are married (if at all). Many churches push against this by saying that your relationship with God is flawed if you live in such a way and they bring in the institution of marriage as the only way, 'God's way!' This can be oppressive in some contexts.
I do however agree with Pastor Paul and Relevant Church from a sociological perspective. I agree that we do need to spend far more time understanding one another within committed relationships and meeting one anther's needs, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. It is far too easy to jump in bed with one another these days and instantly gratify physical sexual need. We mustn't deny that we are sexual beings who have needs that must be met, but there is much more to our being and relationship with another than sex. This is what I think is the ultimate desire of the 30 day sex challenge program. Relevant Church want people to invest in their relationships in healthy way that actually gives to another person as the primary agenda rather than getting what gratification you can out of a relationship.
You could say there are aspects of this program that are a little presumptuous, however they are motivated by a statistic that says more than half of marriages in USA end in divorce. In many cases it's due to unfulfillment of expectations, communication break down and other similar long term deficiencies. There are however many other reasons why relationships breakdown, for married and unmarried people. Reasons the bible doesn't necessarily have a transferable answer for and reasons that a program like this can't fix.
I am curious however as to what kinds of responses and questions this raises for you. How out of touch is the church really with sexuality and the context of committed relationship? What is acceptable and what's not? I'd direct you to the 'Relevant' blog but it seems (on my scanning of the posts and comments) that is pretty one sided and typically conservative. I'm looking for difference of opinion and diversity of reflection.
One of the blog posts by the way had me a little concerned. It was titled, 'I'm dating God'. I dunno about you but that sounds kinda whack to me. I wonder, where would you take God on a date? So are singles to transfer all their sexual urges toward a dating relationship with God? How does that work? What does that say about the meaning of relationship with God? This is a whole other blog post I think.
I think we need healthy approaches towards sexuality among Christian communities. I for one believe in committed, exclusive relationships as the context for sharing sexual intimacy. Whether that be married or unmarried relationships, same sex or opposite sex relationships. Exclusivity to one significant other in sharing the emotional, sexual, spiritual, intellectual journey in life certainly must be the the ultimate way for human companionship.
Let me know your thoughts
Shalom, Mark
5 comments:
G'day Mark
Just caught this on my RSS feed. Some provocative and well balanced comments by yourself. Your double-take at the idea of "dating God" made me grin, however. Like concepts have been around for a long time, but have been largely suppressed. The recent and gradual movement of the contemplative traditions back to mainstream are reawakening some to the idea of "spiritual marriage" probably best known through the 16th century mystics St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, but goes back to Origen and Gregory of Nyssa (wiki gives a decent start to researching some of these). Eugene Peterson, in "5 Smooth Stones", matches the ministry of "prayer directing" to the "Song of Songs" as a stimulation to intimacy in prayer. Not sure if the blogger you quote knows all this, but he may be on an OK track!
Thanks Uncle D, thought I would get a comprehensive, well thought out response from you. I think this is a big topic for us to deal with in the Christian context, balancing what we read in scripture with the tension we find between cultural expectation & reality with our own experience. There is also the underlying (passive)'Christian' obsession with sexuality and 'sexual sin' (whatever that is because Christian views on this are very broad).
I think ultimately, which I think is what Relevant Church are trying to do, is that we (the church) need to be hosting environments for for conversation and promoting healthy practices for healthy relationships between couples and healthy expressions of sexuality and intimacy. Let's stop suppressing the conversation by our passive avoidance or aggressive oppression of the issue. Let's have it out! And let's use scripture as a conversation piece such as Song of Song...you don't hear many sermons on that (it certainly doesn't appear in the lectionary!) It seems the more conservative traditions would use scripture as the rule book for drawing exclusive boundaries on what's allowed and who's allowed to do it. Instead let's allow it to direct us generally in what it means to have spiritual intimacy with God as well as intimacy within the relationship we choose to exclusively share with one other.
This is where many will disagree with me but I think we as a church would be received much more broadly if we didn't exclude de facto and same sex relationships from these life giving conversations.
My colleague across the road who is living in a committed gay relationship, has been pondering on 1Samuel 17 onwards particularly David's relationship with Jonathan in later chapters, as a conversation piece with scripture on same sex intimacy. Many people will bring their own interpretation to that depending on their experience where as some would simply shut down the conversation.
I'm looking forward to more conversation on this topic as a whole. Where do conversations on sexuality & spirituality fit in the context of your church?
Anyone care to answer? Would you take up the 30 day sex challenge?
definitely an interesting topic. I saw something similar on 'real' sunrise (as opposed to the fake one on weekends) and it was an eastern suburbs of Melbourne church doing a similar thing on sex - with an even slightly more provocative promotional campaign. now having only just read your reflections sparky, and not spent the time reflecting on this - my first guy reaction was 'why the focus on sex?' other than the obvious, 'sex sells'.
Surely (as you mentioned above) there are other issues - just as poignant to the faith journey - that need to be addresses in an open and frank manner, but why do we always hark back to sex and in particular sexual sin? And to follow on from that, inlight of my recent blogged musings on the issue - if we follow the Johannine logic, then there seems to be no such thing as sexual sin....
I'll reflect on this somemore and see what percolates to the surface.
Interesting blogging as usual Mark.
I find the last paragraph of this blog very disturbing and concerning Mark. I for one believe that sexual intimacy is exclusively for marriage (you could argue about what that looks like for different cultures but I basically mean a life long exclusive commitment) and marriage alone between a man and a women. That's it. An unpopular view to have in this day and age I know and it's becoming an unpopular view amongst the church too, which saddens and alarms me. Call me conservative or black and white I really don't care. I've come to believe this by searching the scriptures and taking note especially of what Jesus himself said about it.
Hi it would be nice to know who this is so we could continue the conversation
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