True Sexual Morality.

I finished working through True Sexual Morality by Daniel Heimbach last night. He breaks the book into four parts: sexual chaos in the culture, biblical view of sexual morality, counterfeit views of sexual morality, and assessing the state of sexual morality.

Sexual Chaos in the Culture

The "sexual chaos" Heimbach focuses in on is the return of sexual "paganism" whereby spirituality is achieved through sex. His category of paganism is rather large, since it can mean anything from claiming the label Christianity while ignoring or twisting the injunctions of Scripture concerning sex, to an outright denial of the Christian God and a demand for the return of "the goddess" or the deity within us all (think new age). I wasn't a big fan of his work on paganism, just because it's not something that is necessarily "at large" unless we mean it in a wide-ranging ambiguous way, that is not a blatant return to Greek and Roman paganism (which he tends to emphasize). The most fascinating part was when Heimbach went through the way mainline denominations have and are dealing with sexual turmoil in the culture. He addresses Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Roman Catholics; all of which have and are going through struggles on how their denominations will understand sexuality.

The Biblical View of Sexual Morality

Heimbach gives a useful list of characteristics of moral sex: sex must be personal (relational), exclusive (unique), intimate (profound), fruitful (productive), selfless (sacrificial), complex (multidimensional), and complementary (unite corresponding differences). Most of these must be held simultaneously, although some, such as fruitful, are not in fact necessary all the time, but should still be held in principle. Al Mohler did a great series on this at CHBC on the topic of sexual revolution and the use of birth control, which I commend to you on this topic. Heimbach then goes on to systematically lay out the different biblical prohibitions and shows how they guard these characteristics of moral sex and the blessings that come with practicing sex morally.

Counterfeit Views of Sexual Morality

There are four counterfeit views that Heimbach lays out: (i) romantic (sex as affection), (ii) playboy (sex as pleasure), (iii) therapeutic (sex as wholeness), and (iv) pagan (sex as spiritual life). As I alluded to before, I 'm not necessarily sure how strong the pagan influence is. The romantic--think of The Notebook; playboy--think of the growing influence of pornography and the increasing sexual content in movies; therapeutic--think of the psychological arguments that sex is healthy and denied gratification of your flesh is unhealthy.

Assessing the State of Sexual Morality

In essence, Heimbach sums up his argument. The best part of this last section is arguably the end, where he discusses Scriptural passages that indicate the decline in sexual morality predicted by Jesus, Paul, Peter, Jude, and John (Revelation). His work on Revelation is a bit odd, since he alludes to the idea that because there is such a great decline in sexual morality, that it may be the beginning of the end times prophesied by John. I'm not sure about this since the Roman Empire was already pretty bad.

Reading Update:

• Currently reading: Empires of the Silk Road (Beckwith), When I Don't Desire God (Piper), The Christian Life (w/ Brandon), Romans (w/ Mike), Hebrews (QT)
• I picked up Dominion and Dynasty by Stephen Dempster from the CHBC library last Sunday; basically a condensed Old Testament Theology without having to work through Bruce Waltke's massive volume.

General Update:

• Interview at the Sentia Group went well; was a nice office in Georgetown and really laid back. One of the research analysts even brought her dog with her too work (big dog!). I hope that I'm asked to come on board.
• Pray for Patrick (CHBC member) who's looking for housing this summer, it's a mess.
• Meeting w/ Mark on Wednesday to go through GIS.
• I bumped into Homere yesterday and he told me that he knows more about what I do from these general updates on my blog than from speaking to me on a regular basis in person. Strange...