Before We Mention Jesus, Let's Talk About the Seven Day Sex Challenge

Michael Spencer December 1st, 2008

So…since it's the first week of Advent, let's talk about sex, shall we?

Oh, did you have a bit of a wince that perhaps sex wasn't the appropriate topic for the time of year we look forward to the arrival of the Savior?

Lay aside your qualms, dear reader. Sex is always in season in the evangelical megachurch.

You'll need to visit and read that link if we're going to go on, because I can't tell the story without giggling or using so many double entendres that it's embarrassing.

Megachurch guru Ed Young recently promoted the Seven Day Sex Challenge for his church's heterosexual, legally married couples. Have sex for seven days in a row, and then if you're Ed and wife, go on CNN and talk about it. (Actually, go and 1) have the wife say it was "great" and 2) confess you missed one day.)

Ed got this idea from a long line of seeker obsessed evangelicals who have recently found that doing a series of talks on marital sex while sitting on a bed on "stage" (important word) makes for big crowds and plenty of attention. A church in Florida had the 40 Day Sex Challenge a couple of months ago. No one has heard from those folks since. I saw the same bit on TBN months ago, with a tupeed televangelist sitting on the bed.

Ed Young began this series with a talk that emphasized we've gotten in the gutter mindset about sex in this culture. He did that sermon with a toilet on "stage."

Now please hear this: I have no objection to this topic or teaching whatsoever. After three decades of working with students, I feel like I've answered more sex questions and given more sex talks than Dr. Ruth.

The Bible's message on sex is truly beautiful and it has a powerful apologetic potential. I'd give books by Lauren Winner and others to unbelievers in a moment.

But here's the thing: Christ, not sex, or politics, or parenting, or stress relief or budgeting needs to be at the center of the CHURCH.

This is typical of what contemporary evangelicals do best: dismantle the church by turning it into something else, and do it all in the name of "reaching people." Turn the church into a concert hall, motivational speaking convention, financial workshop…anything but CHURCH for goodness sake.

Note to those in charge of this: When you reach someone with a pastor and his hot wife doing sex chat on a bed, you're going to have a hard time getting those same folks to sign up for your verse by verse study of Luke. When your worship services need an age rating (I am not lying), something is wrong.

In fact, you might have a hard time getting such people introduced to Jesus and the Gospel at all if your method is to try and connect Jesus and the Gospel to as many secondary topics as possible. The general trend in evangelicalism is more topics, less Gospel, until we just have great topics and this "God stuff" somewhere.

It's called "bait and switch" in the real world. Get you in the store with one thing, then tell you the truth about the actual price of the item.

Ah…that fine print. Those rush bits of hushed verbiage at the end of the commercial. When you discover what's really going on, you may feel you were conned.

In other words, why not just be straightforward? Like scripture says, over and over. The Gospel is the stone of stumbling and the cornerstone because it's front and center.

God is God. We are his creation. He made us to glorify him. He made us sexual. Sin kills and messes up everything, including sex. God gave his laws about sex to show we're a mess. Christ lived a perfectly pure life and died for our sexual sins so we can be saved from sin, death and hell. In the process, he sanctifies and remakes us into his image.

But one doesn't have to be a Christian to have an orgasm, Ed. One does need Jesus to be accepted by God.

In other words, the church's message is Jesus and the Gospel. Sex is there, but it's Jesus who is the savior.

Having seven or seventy days of sex won't save you. Repentance and faith in Christ will.

What else is wrong here? We don't have time. It's an overt appeal to guys. It is inconsiderate to the single and many other subgroups in the church. It's not appropriate for the pastor to tell people to have sex seven times in a week. Life is a bit more complicated than that for a lot of people pastor Ed.

The church has a cross, a pulpit and a table at the center. From there, God reconciles the whole world to himself. Including sexually fallen humans.

But it's Jesus who ought to be on display. The giver, not the gift. The creator and redeemer.

Talk on, Ed. About Jesus, and all things in him.

Michael Spencer is a writer and communicator living in a Christian community in southeast Kentucky. He blogs at Internetmonk.com and most recently at Jesus Shaped Spirituality.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under Christianity, Church, Ed Young, InternetMonk.com, Jesus, Jesus Shaped Spirituality, Michael Spencer, Religion and Spirituality, Seven Day Sex Challenge, Sex, The Gospel, The Internet Monk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.