No More Christian Nice Guy by Paul Coughlin

Author:Paul Coughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012060;REL012070;Christian men—Religious life
ISBN: 9781441265197
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

We’re Men, Not Eunuchs

His head resting between my breasts—the head of my lover.

Song of Songs 1:13 THE MESSAGE

You are tall and supple, like the palm tree, and your full breasts are like sweet clusters of dates. I say “I’m going to climb that palm tree! I’m going to caress its fruit! Oh yes! Your breasts. . . .

Song of Songs 7:8–9 THE MESSAGE

The Bible celebrates sex within the context of wedded contentment, but you wouldn’t know it from a typical church service or hour of Christian radio, which is aimed primarily at middle-aged women (I used to be the program director of such a station).

Observes Eugene Peterson, who paraphrased the Song of Songs from its original steamy Hebrew:

The Song proclaims an integrated wholeness that is at the center of Christian teaching on committed, wedded love for a world that seems to specialize in loveless sex. The Song is a convincing witness that men and women were created physically, emotionally, and spiritually to live in love.

Though sexual intimacy is essential to both genders, it plays a more predominant role in the desire of men. Many of us can think of exceptions to this rule, but it’s a foolish person who navigates life with exceptions as their guiding stars.

For most men, a desire for sex is as fundamental as a desire for food, and not only does something die inside a married man when this desire isn’t met, something can also be perverted for lack of pure fulfillment. Sex isn’t the only reason why some guys get married (at least it shouldn’t be), but it’s a biggie. As I’ve said on my talk show many times, if men, especially younger ones, say they aren’t getting married to have sex, then chances are they’re already having it.

A Christian man struggles to maintain sexual purity in a culture that says he’s crazy. In a common scenario, an unmarried Christian man knows he could have sex with many women, but he withholds and endeavors to wait. He fights back temptation after temptation to please God and to give his future wife the gift of sexual purity. Then at last he marries and crosses the finish line, yet instead of fabulous banquets, he sometimes gets frozen dinners for years to come. Such men will tell you they feel robbed, resentful, victims of false advertising.

In the decade since this book first came out, our nation has become increasingly hyper-sexualized, making the church’s reluctance to celebrate a man’s sexual desires seemingly even more justified. Writes Philip Yancey in Rumors of Another World:

It should be obvious why the church so often falls on the side of repression, rather than celebration, of sexuality: no human longing is more powerful, more difficult to rein in. . . . Sex has enough combustive force to incinerate conscience, vows, family commitments, religious devotion, and anything else in its path. How the church got its reputation as an enemy of sex is a long story, in some ways understandable and in some ways shameful.3

Sex

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