Category: Sexuality
Sex Ed as the Leading Edge of the Revolution
Families and churches relinquished control over sex ed to public schools in the early 1970s. Now families and churches are reaping the whirlwind. Initially, at least, public schools assumed control over sex ed to stop the spread of sexually transmitted...
When Permanent Contraception Can Be Licit
Alex and Sarah are Christians who have been married for five years. They have 2 children and would like to have more. However, they feel called to adopt as the route to parenting more children. Their only hesitation is that...
Flawed Myths
Lyz Lenz. Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women. New York: Bold Type Books, 2020. 240pp, $26. At church, I was taught that if a woman denied sex to her husband, he would find sex elsewhere. At church,...
The Something More of Sex
In a strikingly vulnerable 2018 New York Times article, author Courtney Sender casts a light on today’s impoverished sexual norms by describing her own disappointing experience. Her date, a connection through Tinder, requested Sender’s consent for nearly everything. Kissing. Undressing....
“Unpaid Gestation” and the Abolition of the Family
Every day, 385,000 newborn babies enter the world. A fledgling group of theorists and writers is interested in reimagining how we think about these births and the children they produce. Using the provocative tagline “Abolish the Family,” this group of...
A Theology of Infertility
After years of secondary infertility, my wife and I discovered she was pregnant on Father’s Day of 2016. It was a stunning moment for us, a seemingly miraculous answer to prayers that we had mostly given up on. But three...
In Defense of the Gender Binary
We are now seeing seismic shifts in perception about sex, gender, and marriage. You might think this has been occurring for some time now, and you wouldn’t be wrong about that. But, granting that as truth, the shift seems especially...
The Culture War Comes Home
The culture war arrived in my hometown a few weeks ago with the approval of a new fairness ordinance by the Lincoln City Council. The ordinance is designed to provide protections against harassment and discrimination for LGBT+ people in Lincoln....
Ten Theses on Homosexuality and the Church
I wrote the following to clarify my own thoughts and also to (indirectly) respond to some recent discussions and developments within my own denomination (the PCA). But at present here are my own reflections on homosexuality today as a pastor...
Marriage as Moral Orthodoxy
As evangelicals watch megachurches and other institutions wobble in their convictions about marriage, we have sought to buttress support by elevating the traditional view of the doctrine to a matter of orthodoxy. Always up for a good statement — or...