Our Culture Doesn't Know What It Believes About Sex
Over the last few weeks, actress after actress has come forward to tell their stories of horrific personal encounters with Harvey Weinstein. For the last 20 years or so, Harvey has been involved in soliciting sexual favors in exchange for acting roles in his movies. People have been outraged by these despicable revelations, and rightly so. This situation with Harvey Weinstein has done much more than just reveal what our culture thinks about unwanted sexual advances towards others, it’s revealed that our culture has no idea what it believes about sex.
You’d think with all the anger surrounding Harvey Weinstein and his treatment of women that someone who went out of his way to avoid situations like that would be lauded…you’d be wrong. Enter Vice President Mike Pence. Earlier this year he revealed that he doesn’t ever dine alone with any woman other than his wife. While some praised him, others stated that he only ate alone with his wife because he either 1) couldn’t control himself around other women, or 2) believed that other women couldn’t control themselves around him. Instead of being seen as a man who respected his wife so much that he wouldn’t put himself in situations where that could be jeopardized, he was seen as a man who didn’t respect women. Instead of being seen as someone who had the self-control enough to not put himself in potentially bad situations (as politicians often do), he’s seen as a man without any self-control over his sexual urges.
Here we have two different men who were drastically different in how they approached interactions with the opposite sex, and the culture finds them both guilty of sexual disrespect towards women solidifying that our culture has no idea what it believes about sex.
If our culture is so confused about sex, why do our children allow the culture to be their teacher when it comes to sexual intimacy with others? The answer to this question falls on the church.
Ask yourself these questions: When was the last time you heard a lesson on sex? In that lesson was sex stated in the positive or the negative more often?
When it comes to the topic of sex in the church, we often hear it stated in the negative.
“We need to keep the marriage bed pure!”
“It is a sin to have sex outside of marriage!”
“Homosexuality is not God’s plan for sex!”
While these things are true, they only succeed at butting heads with what the culture teaches, and they fail drastically at presenting anything positive for people to grab on to. People in our churches have questions about sex. They have questions about whether God intended sex to be about more than just creating children. They want to know how it can be better enjoyed in the marriage relationship. They want to hear lessons from Song of Solomon on the joys of sex as God created it.
The Bible has a lot to say about sex and much of it is positive. More than that, the Bible knows exactly what it believes about sex and that should go for Christians as well. In a culture steeped in confusion, the church should be the beacon of truth in regards to all things, and that includes sex. When we aren’t that beacon, Christians find their truth somewhere else, from a culture that doesn’t know what it believes.
