Nov
14
Real Sex–a review
Filed Under Christian Living, Ethics, Family, Resources, Youth Ministry
‘About 65% of America’s teens have sex by the time they finish high school….A 2002 study the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 41% of American women aged fifteen to forty-five have, at some point, cohabited with a man. According to the 2000 census, the number of unmarried couples living together has increased tenfold between 1960 and 2000, and 72% between 1990 and 2000. Fifty-two percent of American women have sex before turning eighteen, and 75% have sex before they get married. According to a 2002 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, over a quarter of fifteen-to seventeen-year old girls say that sexual intercourse is ‘almost always’ or ‘most of the time’ part of a ‘casual relationship.’
If your internet filter let you get this far, let me suggest that you read the book from which I derived this information: Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity by Lauren F. Winner (Brazos Press, 2005). Dr. Winner speaks to the issue of chastity (which C.S. Lewis called ‘the most unpopular of the Christian virtues’) with a great deal of theological awareness, exegetical skill, wisdom, wit and healthy candor. Real Sex is an insightful exploration of the role of sexuality in the world-view of those under the age of 40.
Winner begins with personal testimony of her conversion during graduate school and the rather awkward transformation of her personal sexual ethics as a young disciple of Christ. She intelligently argues the case for the biblical view of sex (’Without a robust account of the Christian vision of sex within marriage, the Christian insistence that unmarried folks refrain from sex just doesn’t make any sense’ [25]) and reasons wisely about why sheer determination or abstinence programs like ‘True Love Waits’ are such monumental failures.
The most intriguing and insightful chapter is ‘Communal Sex: Or, Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night’, in which she calls on Christians to reject the destructive lie of the culture that ‘it’s nobody’s business’ and embrace the vision of a community of believers who speak frankly and biblically about sexual sin and ‘the realities of chastity, about the thrills and tediums of married sex, about the rich meanings inherent in being sexual persons who live in bodies…to ask the church to serve as narrator, reminding ourselves who we are, and why we do what we do’ (60).
The remaining chapters speak about matters such as sanctification (’Conforming Your Body to the Arc of the Gospel’), singleness, sex and idolatry in our hearts and culture, and repentance. A couple of other notes about the book: the edition linked above also contains a discussion guide (Invite me to that Sunday School class or small group!). Also,on more than one occasion she credits some wisdom from one of our RUF campus ministers–Rev. Greg Thompson, formerly at the University of Virginia (Do not become puffed up at the mention of UVa, Joe and Hallie!). Adults and teenagers need to reckon with the message of this book.
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