When Christians Talk About Sex

David Wayne says that evangelicals have unwisely adopted the Augustinian view that sex is inherently evil:

My own personal opinion, which may not be yours and which may be wrong, is that when most evangelicals and/or conservatives talk about sex it is usually in the context of warnings against illicit sex, and I believe this is because we default to thinking of sex in its state of corruption before we can think about it in it's state of goodness.

I saw this in a funny way this past Sunday. Last week I announced that this week I would be talking about how the Bible is very pro-sex. I forgot to mention ". . . in marriage." A couple of people have already pointed that out to me. And of course they are right and I am going to make a big deal of that this coming Sunday. But I do detect a hint of nervousness as if we can never say that sex is good without putting the proper qualifiers on it.

And I don't completely disagree with this mindset - sex has been so corrupted in our society that warnings and qualifiers are certainly in order. But it seems to me that, for the most part we either don't talk about sex or we bring it up to warn people about it. I don't know if we evangelicals know how to fully embrace the goodness of sex, even in marriage.

Amen. I picked up on this theme in the Every Man's and Woman's Battle books, which depicted sexual attraction, regardless of context, as sinful. Married couples can have sex, but it's very important that they not enjoy it too much.

Hat tip.