Ministry News

The Church Sex Fad

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Tuesday, 21 April 2009 10:58

QUOTE: "Apparently the shortest route to relevance in church ministry right now is for the pastor to talk about sex in garishly explicit terms during the Sunday morning service. If he can shock parishioners with crude words and sophomoric humor, so much the better. The defenders of this trend solemnly inform us that without such a strategy it is well-nigh impossible to connect with today's ‘culture.' Sermons about sex have suddenly become a bigger fad in the evangelical world than the prayer of Jabez ever was. Everywhere, it seems, churches are featuring special series on the subject. ... I would be the last to suggest that preachers should totally avoid the topic of sex. ... But the language Scripture employs when dealing with the physical relationship between husband and wife is always careful —often plain, sometimes poetic, usually delicate, frequently muted by euphemisms, and never fully explicit. There is no hint of sophomoric lewdness in the Bible. ... Above all, Scripture never stoops to the lurid level of contemporary sex education. ... I keep encountering young pastors who are now [choosing the latter], and I'm rather surprised that the trend has been so well received in the church with practically no significant critics raising any serious objections." —renowned pastor and Bible teacher John MacArthur, who responded to the recent "sex trend" in churches by writing a series of articles titled "The Rape of Solomon's Song" [shepherdsfellowship.org, 4/14/09]