Sex in Popular and Church Culture
“‘… and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
– Ephesians 5:31-32
We as Christians need to talk more about sex. I have often found not only what our culture says about sex, but what the church has to say about it, inadequate and incomplete. Most of the time, this is something we feel we have to figure out on our own, leading to secrecy and confusion. What is the essence of what the Bible has to say about sex, and how does that differ from what both popular culture and church culture have to say about it?
Our sex-saturated culture sends a few message about it: one, sex is consumeristic. The goal is self-gratification. Anything is okay, as long as it makes you feel good. Secondly, sex can be primarily physical. It is a biological appetite to be met, and sometimes must be met. Thirdly, sex is the ultimate source of fulfillment in and of itself. It is the denouement of every romantic drama or novel, in which sex is depicted as unfailingly easy and seismically satisfying. All of these messages are amplified in erotic literature or pornography, which ties sex with performance and objectification.
Church culture, at least as it is commonly experienced, has things to say too. Firstly, sex is about behavioral lines that you can or cannot cross. The basic message is, “all sexual experience outside of marriage is automatically bad; all sex within marriage is automatically fine.” There is an almost inflated degree of judgment and condemnation for what happens outside of marriage, and not a lot of discussion about what happens within it. Secondly, some sexual situations are focused on more than others, making it easy to fall into assumptions or gender stereotypes that do little to acknowledge or address the various tendencies, traumas, inclinations, or exposures that make each of our sexual experiences and struggles unique. Lastly, sex is much derided but little discussed. Rather than openly working through what it means to follow Jesus in our sexual lives, and walking through that together, there is a culture of repression, secrecy, and shame.
What often results is a strange amalgam of Christian legalism and cultural norms. Outside of marriage, Christians find themselves projecting the image of purity that’s expected, while secretly engaging in or struggling with the same sexual practices the rest of culture does, only unable to talk about or work through it openly. And unlike what is commonly implied, the sheer presence of sex in marriage does not “fix” everything, perhaps because what Christians expect to find in marriage is an experience of sex that is in fact not grounded in the Bible, but in cultural norms. They’ve committed now to only having sex with their spouse, sure, but they’re secretly hoping to have all the self-gratification and unerring fulfillment that culture depicts sex to be. Communication has been scarce, sometimes practical experience has been minimal, and expectations are grandiose: not a good combination. Many find themselves as confused in marriage as out of it. Many find themselves struggling with the same things in marriage as they did out of it.
The Bible tells us that God intends for sex to be about relationship, about the connection two people have within the covenant of marriage. Sex points to his own character, to the Trinity at the center of which is mutual, self-giving love displayed in constant union. Sex points to union we will have with God one day in eternity: Paul says in Ephesians 5, “‘and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
It is a mystery, for sure, but the fact is that God created us as sexual beings so we can both understand something about his character and his own relationship with us, and so we can reflect that in our experience with another. On the one hand, understanding this means we view sex more highly than either our culture or the church may do: it has profound, whole-person meaning. It is not about self-gratification or objectification, but about relationship, with all the ups and downs, the changes, the vulnerability, the messiness which that entails. Sex flows out of relationship: our relationship with God, just as much as our relationship with another person—and so any guidelines for sexual behavior are the result of following Jesus and loving him, not the prerequisite for it. It is about our hearts, our motives and thoughts, as much as it is about behavior (Matthew 5:28).
On the other hand, our view of sex can be less inflated than the views of popular or church culture. Sex is not essential for individual wholeness or happiness: Jesus and Paul both never had sex, and as far as we can tell, we won’t be having sex in heaven. And while the Bible explains why there is a particular kind of shame that comes with sexual sin, it is not viewed as worse than any other sin.
Whether I am married or not, here is what I do: I don’t look to culture; I don’t look to cultural Christianity. I look at Jesus. I understand the sufficiency of his grace and the fullness of his love for me. I see in myself a desire to love him in every area of my life, including my sexuality. I learn what God means and desires for sex to be, while understanding that my experience of living towards that purpose will be one step (and sometimes stumble) at a time. I commit to doing this with other people to help me in the journey. I work on understanding myself—how my sexuality is affected by what I intake, by my past, by the world the I live in—and I learn the self-control and self-awareness I will need to have as much in marriage as out of it. I understand that marriage will not so much cure my relationship with sex as reflect the truth of what it is. I expect that sex in marriage will involve as much listening, honesty, compassion and growth over time as any other aspect of our relationship. Instead of only asking, “how can I get what I want?” I ask, “how can I connect with my spouse in this area, whatever that may look like?” And I continue to pray for freedom, clarity, and growth in truth and in grace for myself and others in this area of our lives.
