catapult magazine

Let’s (not) talk about sex

by Jason Gerringer

In the church, we put sin in categories.  Looking at porn and masturbation don’t seem so bad in comparison to the guy who gets around with a different woman each week.  The pedophile and the rapist are definitely worse off than the fourteen-year-old boy masturbating in his room.  It seems we categorize them because deep down we know the fourteen-year-old masturbator is only in the beginning stages of discovering his sexuality, and if he’s fortunate he’ll grow out of the desires that control him and he will move into purity and go on with his life.  The child molester and the rapist, on the other hand, must not have found accountability when they were younger.  What started out as innocent behavior grew without any hindrance into something dark, something that would harm both perpetrator and victim. 

But Jesus didn’t label sins on a scale of good to bad.  He said that the man who lusts over a woman is just as bad as the one who physically commits adultery with her, just like the man who says he hates someone is just as capable of killing as the murderer.  I have to believe that God feels just as hurt and disgusted by the guy who goes to club to hook up with women, as he is with the predator that goes looking for young girls.  But I also have to believe that God is just as capable and willing to forgiving both just the same.  Yet it doesn’t seem to me that we are so willing to do this in the church.

It’s not uncommon to hear of a former non-Christian who slept around with countless people turning his or her life around, coming to Christ and being embraced by people in the church.  But what I find rare is people being just as willing to welcome in former rapists and child molesters.  If people knew, it would be difficult for them to deal with a situation like that.

Why are we so careful in the church?  Personally, I think we want to feel clean.  It’s a dirty world out there, and I think in our churches we want to be able to sit in a clean room where sex doesn’t exist, where sex is something done in someone’s bed and not in the public places of our world.  And as much as we strive to be people who go out into “the trenches,” who associate with the sorts of people Jesus did — it’s just difficult for us to bring them in on a Sunday morning and sit down with them over church coffee.  And as much as we want to stop the porn industry from affecting so many of our congregants, it’s a battle we’ll never win because of our silence.  We stay away from the dirty little details of what sexual sin does to us and how it can destroy the Christian’s heart.

I have to admit, it’s hard to open up.  It’s hard to say, “I’m addicted to sex,” or “I’m addicted to pornography.”  I wish it was easier when we were fourteen, and that youth groups could be the setting where teenagers can open up and learn to have healthy sexuality.  But instead, we receive a bland message to be careful in dating relationships, get accountability and live a Godly life.  So if you’re like I was when I was sixteen or seventeen, dealing with pornography and masturbation on a daily basis, you go to your church’s youth group feeling like you’re the only one who’s “dirty” and depraved.  No one else must know how you feel, the shame you deal with and how badly it hurts that you’re not a “pure” Christian.

Finally, at some point, I got tired of the silence.  I stood in front of my youth group, I shared my testimony and I revealed the “dirty little secret” I had been hiding.  I was amazed by how many of my friends came up to me afterwards saying things like, “You’re not alone.”  Really?  I’m not alone, and I shouldn’t have felt alone all that time?  So then why did I feel so alone?  What do we do to fix this?

When I look back on my youth and the perceptions I had of the church in regards to these issues, I can’t help but feel that we’re dishonest.  It’s not uncommon to go to church and have the perception that everyone around us had sex for the first time on their wedding night, or if they aren’t married, they don’t have sex at all, they surely don’t look at porn, and they definitely don’t masturbate.  Yet the truth is, they do.  Allowing these things to go unspoken creates a false perception and those who really struggle with sexual sin — the ones who grow to become adulterers, rapists, molesters and porn addicts who can’t find passion with their spouses — are the ones who suffer from the silence. 

With children beginning to learn about sex at a very young age, we in the church need to be honest with our children that the world they live in, in the church, is not a community of “clean” people who do not suffer from sexual sin.  We need to be transparent about our struggles and to have real accountability that will be fruitful.  Silence ruins our accountability and hinders spiritual growth, and we live in a time where silence should be intolerable.  To a dark world full of lost people, Jesus said, “My burden is light.”  So why do we make it heavy by keeping the truth hidden?  Our sins should not define us; rather, our growth as believers who are honest, who aren’t afraid to admit our flaws in order to have true growth — that is what should defines us.