Showing posts with label Sexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sexuality. Show all posts

Friday, January 12, 2024

Too Hot to Handle: Sexual Morality and Civilization

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

A friend recently sent me a link to this Kirk Dunston blog post on the importance of sexual morality to civilization. Dunston was struck by the relevance of Joseph Unwin’s research to our particular moment in time, as summarized in his 1934 book Sex and Culture.

Tom: Being a philosophy bug, I thought you might find this interesting, IC. I had certainly never come across Unwin’s research before. It sounds fascinating. Basically, as Dunston puts it, he “examines the data from 86 societies and civilizations to see if there is a relationship between sexual freedom and the flourishing of cultures”.

Few would attempt to argue our culture is currently flourishing.

Friday, April 07, 2023

Too Hot to Handle: Situation Critical

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: By the time a cultural phenomenon makes it to The Daily Wire, it’s probably already at the tail end of the news cycle, which is about the time I usually discover things these days. Then, upon closer examination, I just happen to notice this “new phenomenon” is something that’s always gone on, except that somebody young and tech-savvy has coined a clever new name for an awful interpersonal dynamic and wants to tell us we should like it instead of hating it.

IC, let’s talk about “situationships”. Want to try to define this one for us?

Immanuel Can: In short, a “situationship” is an emotional and/or sexual relationship in which the terms of involvement are not defined to either participant. Usually it’s sexual, but the primary driver of the relationship is emotional entanglement with a decided “lack of commitment or clearly defined roles”. That’s how Corina Hsieh, the inventor of the term, defines it.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (25)

Earlier this month Josh Butler wrote a post called “Sex Won’t Save You” for the Gospel Coalition site that stirred up something of a ruckus. The link above is to an archived version; yes, the ruckus was sufficient to get it deleted, to cause Butler to resign from his position as a fellow with the Keller Center, and to cancel his appearance at an upcoming Gospel Coalition event. Such are the times in which we live.

The status of Butler’s forthcoming Multnomah book Beautiful Union, from which the article was an excerpt, should probably be regarded as “formerly forthcoming”, at least from its original publisher.

Wednesday, March 01, 2023

The Aliens Have Landed and They’re In My Bible

Congratulate me. I have finally finished reading Stephen G. Fowler’s Probing the Mind to Free the Soul: Toward a Psychoanalytic Protest Theology. It took me three weeks but I did it. Let me say this: forcing myself back into the text day after day, trying to pierce Fowler’s layers of nuance, complexity and self-questioning in order to tease out what the man was actually trying to say is one of the most monumental exercises in self-discipline in which I have ever engaged.

So congratulate me … or don’t. Some thoughts you can’t unthink. I will try not to share too many of them here.

Monday, December 12, 2022

Anonymous Asks (227)

“What does it mean that ‘the sexually immoral person sins against his own body’?”

The quotation here comes from a longer discourse by the apostle Paul on the importance of Christian doctrine and practice in the area of sexuality. It includes the memorable line “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?” — the obvious answer being “Never!” The relevant portion is as follows: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”

So how does that work exactly?

Friday, May 06, 2022

Too Hot to Handle: A Zipper-Lipped Life

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, who believes sex-associated personality differences are at least partly genetic, is deeply unhappy anyone would dare to challenge his worldview, set limits on his contribution to the public discourse, and disrupt his ongoing pursuit of intellectual fulfillment.

Who is doing such a thing, you ask? Why, it’s not the “moral majority” or the Christian Right; Wright dismisses Creationists as irrelevant. No, it’s the social justice Left.

Tom: It turns out the current state of evolutionary psychology has finally collided with the “blank slate” ideology of progressives, IC, and the sparks are making both sides unhappy. How unfortunate for “science”!

Friday, March 19, 2021

Too Hot to Handle: Virginity as Social Construct

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Christians who frequent the major social media sites are finding it difficult to miss the sudden and precipitous increase in closed accounts, shadowbannings and deplatformings of Christian, conservative and even centrist voices. When so many are being abruptly silenced, it is not unreasonable to wonder which opinions are still acceptable in the public square.

Wonder no more. A mother of five girls is using her TikTok account to try to put an end to the “social construct” of virginity, which she claims is “designed by men to control women’s bodies and ultimately make women feel bad about themselves”. [Caution: coarse language in link.] She says she is raising her daughters to believe there is no such thing as virginity.

Well, not in her home at any rate.

Friday, December 20, 2019

Monday, November 04, 2019

Anonymous Asks (65)

“How can I satisfy my sexual needs and desires outside of marriage?”

This is certainly a loaded question. We need to be quite clear that there is one — and only one — legitimate Christian outlet for sexual energy: a Christian marriage. The apostle Paul is quite explicit about this. Marriage to a fellow believer is God’s remedy for the temptation toward sexual immorality of all sorts.

As stated, our question of the day can only be answered one way: You can’t. If that sounds a tad draconian, perhaps a little perspective is in order.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Too Hot to Handle: Sexuality and Public Education

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

[Editor’s note: This post is almost four years old, and the Ontario government that implemented these curriculum changes is long gone, thank the Lord. But don’t think they (or others like them) won’t be back in short order. Sadly, these issues will be part of our lives until the Lord returns.]

In the news this week: the sex education curriculum for the Ontario public school system will now be implemented starting in Grade 4. That’s correct: if you live in Ontario, your eight-year-old will be discussing sex in class come September.

And not just the usual stuff we were embarrassed to listen to in high school.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Too Hot to Handle: A Zipper-Lipped Life

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Anonymous Asks (4)

“Does God not accept or dislike the genders in the LGBTQ+ community?”

Interesting question, and it requires that we define our terms a bit first, as certain groups are currently playing fast and loose with the word “gender”. The following is a little bit of linguistic history nicked from Infogalactic:

“Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories. However, Money’s meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender.”

I believe this is more or less accurate. Let’s go with it.

Monday, April 16, 2018

A Bit Too Welcoming

A recent post here touched briefly on the perceived need for churches to be more welcoming. Alan Shlemon addresses the same subject in a post entitled “Doing Church Biblically Can Be Messy”, which turns out to be rather a mess of its own.

Shlemon has written usefully on a number of subjects, but his take on a church that welcomed and loved a lesbian couple even though its pastor declined to officiate their ‘wedding’ ... well, let’s just say it’s not his finest hour. (Comments on the thread are now closed, but that seems to be the case with a number of other STR posts, so if you happen to follow the link to Shlemon’s post, don’t read too much into that. I suspect the liberal element would have little to scold him about in this instance.)

Helpful hint: when you’re talking about doing church ‘biblically’, it might be useful to indicate which bits of the Bible you’re actually referring to.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Too Hot to Handle: Not Going to Nashville [Part 3]

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The Nashville Statement is a significant evangelical document. It’s an attempt by big names such as John Piper, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Russell Moore, James Dobson and others to formulate a written response to Western culture’s post-Christian “massive revision of what it means to be a human being”, especially as that revision relates to sexuality and marriage.

Significant though it may be, in our next few installments we’ll be discussing why, here at ComingUntrue, we’re Not Going to Nashville.

Tom: You pointed out last time around, IC, that Articles 5 through 7 of the Nashville Statement are related, so I thought we’d consider them together.

Friday, September 08, 2017

Too Hot to Handle: Not Going to Nashville [Part 1]

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The Nashville Statement is a significant evangelical document. It’s an attempt by big names such as John Piper, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Russell Moore, James Dobson and others to formulate a written response to Western culture’s post-Christian “massive revision of what it means to be a human being”, especially as that revision relates to sexuality and marriage.

Significant though it may be, in our next few installments we’ll be discussing why, here at ComingUntrue, we’re Not Going to Nashville.

Tom: Anyone who reads here regularly will be well aware how much I dislike creeds, statements of faith and formal declarations. I won’t be signing this one, IC (big surprise there). All the same, I think a bunch of the usual suspects have done a passable job of distilling the convictions of a large swath of Western Christians into as few words as possible, whether or not we agree with everything they’re saying or precisely the way they expressed it. For that reason alone, it might be an interesting exercise to work our way through it and discuss what we like about the way it’s been framed, and what we don’t.

Sound like a plan?

Friday, August 25, 2017

Too Hot to Handle: The Christian View of Premarital Sex [Part 1]

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

In an article appropriately entitled “Premarital Sex: Is It A Sin Or Not?” Charles Toy of TheChristianLeft.org contends it’s … not:

“There is no passage of the Bible that references premarital sex as a sin against God. The association between sin and premarital sex is a new Christian idea. The only possible reference to premarital sex being a sin in the Bible is in the New Testament. This premise although, is generally dismissed by theologians because the Greek word pornei, or sexual immorality is commonly incorrectly translated into the English word fornication.”

Tom: Immanuel Can, what say you?

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Shooting from the Lip

“Pastor John” Piper is answering his mail again, which nearly always ends up, well ... interesting, to say the least.

This time he’s responding to the single mother of a three-year-old boy who wants to know whether the Bible teaches she should be looking for a husband.

Piper is rarely reluctant to engage with questions the Bible doesn’t directly answer, and this one is no exception.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

One of These Things …

… is NOT like the other.

Christianity. Feminism. Not an easy fit.

That’s not just my take; it’s the view of both Christians and feminists.

Cognitive dissonance” is a term used to describe the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time. Normally, those who really understand third-wave feminism and genuinely grasp Christianity ought to experience mental stress trying to reconcile the two. At bare minimum a healthy dollop of discomfort is in order. Don’t take my word for it or dwell too much on what feminism may have meant in previous generations. Go look at what it means now and tell me if, when each is rightly understood, the  ideological common ground between the two systems is anything but microscopic.

Of course, if you don’t realize your beliefs are incompatible, no dissonance occurs.

Friday, March 06, 2015

Wednesday, August 06, 2014