THREE SEX BOOKS
One of my wife’s co-workers is into New Age stuff. He gave us three books for Christmas: one on Shiatsu, one on sexual massage, and one on Tantric sex. He and my wife have fairly candid discussions on religion, and he knows we’re devout Christians, so I think he was curious to know what we would think of these titles. So I took the time earlier this month to quickly thumb through each of them.
I have to say that after perusing the guidebooks, I felt a little sad. All of them spoke about the importance of loving one’s own body, of the beauty of sex, and of the health benefits of giving and receiving physical pleasure. It seemed as if the books were written in response to the prevailing fundamentalist Christian view of sex as dirty, perverted, and not something to be discussed openly and happily. It made me realize that a lot of the appeal of the New Age movement is not as much what it is but what it isn’t: the repression and shamefulness that is associated with mainstream Christianity. Who wouldn’t prefer a “religion” that endorsed pleasure and released people to be sexual and free?
And that’s what made me feel sad. Because true Christianity does not find the body or sex disgusting. Biblical warnings against sexual perversion and improper intimacy speak to God’s high regard for sex and intimacy, not His desire to repress and shame. When God formed flesh together and made man, He deemed it good; when He gave man a love partner, He deemed that very good. The Bible is full of exhortations and examples related to the bliss of marital intimacy. And God Himself, according to the Christian faith, took on human flesh. Christianity, foremost among all belief systems, upholds the goodness of the body and of sex.
So it saddened me to read a New Age book prattle on about how great it is to love your body and enjoy sex. Because a genuine Christian would be in hearty agreement with such a line of thought. But most people who have said no to Christianity are hearing a different message from Christians. And it grieves me to know that the God in whom I believe is being thusly misrepresented and thusly rejected.
One of my wife’s co-workers is into New Age stuff. He gave us three books for Christmas: one on Shiatsu, one on sexual massage, and one on Tantric sex. He and my wife have fairly candid discussions on religion, and he knows we’re devout Christians, so I think he was curious to know what we would think of these titles. So I took the time earlier this month to quickly thumb through each of them.
I have to say that after perusing the guidebooks, I felt a little sad. All of them spoke about the importance of loving one’s own body, of the beauty of sex, and of the health benefits of giving and receiving physical pleasure. It seemed as if the books were written in response to the prevailing fundamentalist Christian view of sex as dirty, perverted, and not something to be discussed openly and happily. It made me realize that a lot of the appeal of the New Age movement is not as much what it is but what it isn’t: the repression and shamefulness that is associated with mainstream Christianity. Who wouldn’t prefer a “religion” that endorsed pleasure and released people to be sexual and free?
And that’s what made me feel sad. Because true Christianity does not find the body or sex disgusting. Biblical warnings against sexual perversion and improper intimacy speak to God’s high regard for sex and intimacy, not His desire to repress and shame. When God formed flesh together and made man, He deemed it good; when He gave man a love partner, He deemed that very good. The Bible is full of exhortations and examples related to the bliss of marital intimacy. And God Himself, according to the Christian faith, took on human flesh. Christianity, foremost among all belief systems, upholds the goodness of the body and of sex.
So it saddened me to read a New Age book prattle on about how great it is to love your body and enjoy sex. Because a genuine Christian would be in hearty agreement with such a line of thought. But most people who have said no to Christianity are hearing a different message from Christians. And it grieves me to know that the God in whom I believe is being thusly misrepresented and thusly rejected.
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