Lies the Church Tells about Sex

Last month, I really dove into the purity movement in my blog posts. This month, I’m going the complete opposite direction (in some ways). Let’s talk about sex.

My husband and I went through a marriage enrichment program at our church a few months ago. One of the weeks, the leaders invited a couple who run a non-profit for those healing from sexual brokenness to speak. They called the leaders the “sexperts.” My husband told me he wasn’t looking forward to that week because church talks about sex are just so awkward.

He’s not wrong. The church isn’t always all that great at talking about sex. Either they don’t talk about it at all, or on the rare occasions they do talk about it, it’s super awkward. I’m hoping this isn’t awkward but helpful (if you disagree, feel free to tell me so in the comments). Here are a few lies I think the church has both believed and taught about sex:

Silence is the best approach.

When was the last time your church had a sermon on sex or sexuality? I’m guessing it’s been awhile. Many churches simply choose to be silent on the issue of sex. The problem is, when the church doesn’t talk about sex, it’s actually saying something rather clearly: God shouldn’t be involved in your sex life. By not talking about sex, we are inadvertently portraying the message that either God has nothing to say about sex or that God can’t handle sex.

The truth is he most definitely does have something to say about it and he can handle it. He created it after all. We need to be talking about sex in church. Otherwise we’ll get all of our sexual education and all of our sexual discipleship (a term coined by Dr. Juli Slattery in her book Rethinking Sexuality which I’m currently reading) from the world around us. We’ll dismiss God’s design and purpose for sex, not because we don’t agree with it, but because we don’t even know what that is or why God has put it in place.

In not talking about sex, we’re setting people in our congregations up for sexual failure. If we don’t talk about how powerful sexual longing and desire is, we set our singles up for failure. If we don’t talk about how married sex can be challenging, we set our married couples up for disappointment and disillusionment. In order for marrieds and singles alike to have sexual success, we need to talk about sex. There’s no other way to get that information out there.

Sexual sins are uniquely bad. You can’t come back from them.

The one thing most people learn about sex in church is that it’s probably the worst sin (besides maybe murder). That’s simply not true. There isn’t a “worst” sin (well, there’s that whole blaspheming the Holy Spirit thing, but we’re not really sure what that means ). Someone who has sex outside the bounds of marriage is no better or worse in God’s eyes than someone who tells a white lie, commits murder, or steals.

Sex is a unique sin in that it involves our bodies in ways that other sins don’t (a fact the Bible doesn’t hide, see 1 Corinthians 6:18). Its consequences can be more pronounced and more life altering than some other sins. STD’s and pregnancies out of wedlock will change your life in big ways. However, the sin itself is not any worse. You can come back from sexual sin. Many people have. Having sex or struggling with a sexual sin does not make you a second class citizen in the family of God. If we don’t preach and practice this within our churches, we’re saying that God’s grace is limited, which is simply not biblical.

Sex is dirty and bodies are gross.

The church has a history of seeing sexuality, and our bodies in general, as bad or dirty. This is something we, wrongly, inherited in the early church from Greek philosophy. This idea has continued to sneak into the church ever since (something you should be aware of, but only nerds like me really care about the process of how that happened).

The thinking goes something like this: God is spiritual so spiritual things are better than physical things. Therefore, our souls are more important than our bodies. Spiritual pleasure is better than physical pleasure.

The truth is, this idea simply isn’t biblical. Our physical bodies are not bad. God created our bodies and he called them good. Christ was given a new body after his resurrection and we will be given the same. When he returns, we will all receive new, glorified bodies. We don’t know how those bodies will be different from our current bodies, but we do know that they will be physical bodies. We won’t just be spirits floating around.

God isn’t grossed out by our physical bodies nor is he grossed out by sex. He created sex. He designed it to be a physical, pleasurable thing. It’s not bad that we feel physical pleasure. God wants us to enjoy our bodies and our sexuality. He could have chosen sex to be boring, but he didn’t. He made it exciting and fun. Seeing sex and sexuality as dirty and gross is an insult to God’s good creation.

Sex is a reward for those who can keep themselves pure before marriage.

I talked about this in my series on purity. Often in church, when we do talk about sex, it’s about how great married sex is. Oh, teenagers and single people, if you can only hold out until your wedding day to have sex, it will be the greatest reward there ever was. You will go from being as prudish as a nun to as sexual as a porn star once that ring is put on your finger. You just need to be faithful and stay pure.

That’s nonsense. First off, good behavior is no guarantee of marriage and licit sex. Mother Theresa was as good as they come, but she never had sex and God never gifted her with a husband. I have plenty of other friends who, while maybe not in the saint category, are definitely more godly than me and they’re still single. God doesn’t give out marriage and sex as rewards.

Also, let’s be real. Sex isn’t always great (more on that next week). While it’s designed to be pleasurable, that’s not its main purpose. God doesn’t promise you a great sex life in your marriage anymore that he promises you will always be financially well off. Let’s just be honest about that.

Some people save sex for marriage and have a great sex life, others save sex and struggle sexually. Some people have sex before marriage and have a great sex life, others struggle sexually because of their past. There is not a guarantee that if you remain pure you’ll have a great sex life or if you sleep around before you get married you’ll have a terrible one. Sex is a gift of God’s grace and grace doesn’t work like that.

Only married people should hear about sex. Talking about sex with singles too much will just be too tempting.

The two places that the church generally talks about sex is 1) youth groups and purity retreats where the message is “don’t do it” and 2) sermons about marriage or marriage retreats. The truth is though, singles need to know about sex too. I’m not saying they need to learn about the mechanics of how to have sex. That should be saved for marriage seminars. That is not helpful for single people to hear about (unless they’re about to get married, in which case, please help them as much as possible).

What I am saying is that both those who are single and those who are married need to know what God thinks about sex, the place of sex in a marriage, how sex can go wrong in marriage, how to deal with sexual brokenness, and what to do with sexual desire. They need to know what the Bible says about sex so they can know how to view their own sexuality. They don’t need to be taught what to think, they need to be taught how to think. It’s not just about a list of do’s and don’ts. It’s about coming to understand God’s design for our sexuality and allowing him to have lordship of our whole lives, including our sexuality. That’s a message we all need.

Those are just a few things I think the church gets wrong when it comes to sex. If I missed anything, please share in the comments.

The church isn’t the only place giving out bad information about sex though. Next week we’ll look at how the messages we get about sex from the world aren’t always 100% truthful either.

Photo by Daniel Tseng on Unsplash