A Challenge For My Detractors - Until Then I Will Remain Scandalous

Y’all might want to buckle in for this one. I am little steamed and I am afraid I might forget how to be proper – but it turns out it probably won’t be the first or last time I hear that allegation.

Twelve days ago, something magical happened. I had no idea at the time what a few clicks of a mouse would mean to my life, and even now, I am pretty sure that I am just barely starting to understand the magnitude of that act. You see, a few friends and I decided to start a discussion group inspired by a book I wrote a few years back. (You can purchase it here: Scandalous on Amazon) Within three hours it went from six people to over one hundred and fifty. In three days we had over three hundred and fifty women – all sharing their stories, all asking their questions, and all experiencing a freedom that is all too rare in Christian circles.

You would think that this would be a good thing, but it has gotten back to me that there are some folks out there who think that what we are doing is evil, wicked, and – gasp – improper. There are even a few women who have been chastised for daring to associate with us.

Good Christian girls don’t talk about things like molestation, rape, marital problems, porn addictions for him or her, feminine hygiene, spousal abuse, traumatic births, difficulties have sex with our spouses, sex toys, lubricants, oral sex, anal sex, or period sex. We are supposed sit back and act as if these things either never happened to us, the women we love, or voice a desire to know what the Bible really has to say beyond we should sit down, shut up, and accept what we have been given with proper blushing timidity.

Here is my problem with people who say stuff like that – not that they would actually say these words, they just want to act all appalled and self-righteous – none of them have offered up one scrap of a Bible verse to support their opinion. Let me repeat that: NONE of them have given any BIBLICAL REASON to support their OPINION that we should be silent on issues that make THEM uncomfortable. Criticism flies high and thick, laced with a lot of pious outrage and sanctimonious shock, but that is ALL they have ever offered me or anyone that they have confronted. Oh, sure there are lot of holy SOUNDING words, even a few random phrases from the Bible tossed about as if anyone with half a brain and the ability to read couldn’t tell they have been ripped from their proper context and application in a desperate attempt to vilify women who dared to be honest.

Allow to clarify a few things for you folks. The Bible isn’t proper. In fact, the Bible is rather scandalous itself. Don’t believe me? Try these on for size.

Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.” Ezekiel 23:19-21 ESV

(In case you missed it, “member” means penises and “issues” means ejaculations.)

I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen. Jeremiah 13:26

(Oh, and “shame” there – well, it’s referring to genitals again!)

In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also. Isaiah 7:20 ESV

(Why in the world would anyone shave their enemy’s feet and cut off their beards? Unless, this means…gasp…genitals again!)

This is just a sampling of what the Bible offers in the way of scandalous verses, and I could go on. However, let’s just stop right here for a second and notice one tiny detail. In all three of these passages, the prophets were writing on the behalf of God himself. So it wasn’t really the prophets talking this way, it was God talking this way. Some of you need to stop and let that sink in for a moment.

And what about Song of Solomon? I don’t care you slice that puppy or try to dress it up as an allegory for Christ’s love for the Church. The book is sexual and sensual. To deny that shows that you are more concerned with defending your own delicate sensibilities than getting real about God, His Word, or our faith.

Finally, we should look to Titus 2. This verse is a favorite for women’s ministries, but y’all like to over spiritualize every cotton picking thing.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Titus 2:3-5 ESV

We are to teach what is good. We could spend hours, years even discussing what is good – things like freedom from bondage, how to be good stewards of our bodies and sexuality, how to heal from sexual trauma and abuse, what healthy marriage that celebrates sex can look like. We can spend years talking about how to be good wives and mothers, but you are fool if you think that means we can be silent about sex, the scars we carry from past relationships, dealing with sexual issues within a marriage, or how to train our children to live in a world where porn is one click away from us all. We can discuss what it means to be self-controlled but we aren’t talking about how to control our biology we are missing a major element of the conversation.

And when we get to that last point – “that the word of God may not be reviled” – every argument ever offered to me, claiming that I must be silent is shredded. Because do you know what happens to women who told to bury their past, to ignore the pain caused by the misuse and abuse of their sexuality, or to deny that they have questions? I do. They end up in marriages where their lives are endangered. They become invisible victims of abuse. They become disillusioned with the Church and think they are disillusioned with a God who is not great enough to deal with the complexities of female sexuality. They rebel against the restraints that the overly pious would place upon us, and they act in anger against God and his Word. I know this. I know because I lived it and because so many women tell me the same story – a story that begins with, “No one ever talked about this.”

So here is my challenge to all of my detractors – show me one verse in context that says I am wrong. Give me one place within the pages of God’s word that would convict me of leading women astray, and I will pull Scandalous from the sales, close down the discussion group, and never speak of these things again. That is how right I KNOW this is.

A Biblical Defense for Scandalous Conversations - Genesis 3

When I wrote Scandalous, I knew I was taking on a taboo topic. I was fully prepared to meet with some resistance. What I did not expect was the full on assault that came from a few strangers, friends, and family who felt that I crossed a line that no Christian should. I was told that I was going to hell by a family member, a stranger showed up at my door to announce that I had been possessed by a demon, and friends labeled the book vulgar and crude with polite suggestions that I remove it from sales.

Being the sort of person I am, I found it rather amusing the majority of negative complaints I received came from those who either had not read the book or had only read portions of the book. However, their words did make me aware of a crucial need within the Christian community, and that is to reclaim a Biblical basis for speaking on the topic of sex.

To build a full case would require the writing of another book, and maybe one day, but for now I will offer the first and what I now consider to be the most important pieces of evidence for considering sex as a valid and vital centerpiece for Christian conversations.

We begin in Genesis 3, but first I would encourage you pause here and reread the opening chapters of this book. Really make an effort to place yourself in the story. See the lights blazing to life as God speaks the word, witness the trees erupting from the ground as he calls them into being, consider a silent world without the song of birds or the hum of insects and then feel the weight of their presence as they fill that void, and then hold your breath as the fingers of God reach out to sculpt the clay that will become Adam. Do you see his thumbs hollow out the sockets that will hold that carefully engineered bit of mastery we call the eye? Can you see how his fingertips trace the path of the blood vessels and separate the muscles, tendon, and skin? Does your mind stop there or can you see him crafting those organs that will allow Adam to pass on this precious gift of life? For many that is a thought too far, but it is what the Bible tells us God did as he created man, and then again in his creation of woman as fit together each elegant part of our anatomy.

And now, let us focus on one verse in particular: Genesis 3:16.

Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit. The purity of creation had been defiled and now they stand before God to the learn consequences of their action. God curses the serpent, and yet in the midst of the curse, he offers the hope of restoration for humanity. His addresses not just the physical aspects of this beings conditions, but looks deeper to reveal the spiritual conflict that will now encompass the realm of humanity.

Then he turns his focus to Eve, saying:

                “I will multiply your pain in childbearing;               

                in pain you will bring forth children.

                Your desire shall be for your husband

                and he shall rule over you.”

Look closely at the elements of what God is saying: childbearing, bringing forth children, desire, husband, and the husband’s rule over his wife. Now what is the unifying theme of these elements? If you guessed sex, congratulations.  God is not just talking to Eve, he is having THE TALK with Eve. He is explaining how her body is going to change, it is not going to be like before, and she needs to be prepared for this stage in her life. Sound familiar?

And God isn’t giving her pack of tampons and telling her to deal with it. He addressing both the physical changes and the emotional changes. She is going to have a sex drive, a desire for her husband, and he is going to rule over her because of it. We have softened this verse to simply mean that the husband is the God-appointed head of the household, but is that really all that he is saying here? I do not think so. I think he is addressing an issue that every woman must deal with and that is we desire the men in our lives, we live our lives in orbit around them. Be it in how we dress (or don’t dress), what we say, what cook for dinner, and if we shave our legs – it is all to demonstrate our desire for intimacy that is primarily fueled and expressed through our sexuality.

It would be tempting to designate the expression of our desire as negative as it is given after the fall, but there is no condemnation in God’s words. He is simply explaining the new situation. Before the fall, intimacy was easy. The barriers that we now consider normal for the human condition did not exist, either between God and his creation or between Adam and his wife. This separation and the longing it would create is a totally new condition for Eve and she must learn how to cope. God is gracious and kind as he teaches her of this new reality as he knows that to leave her ignorant would be an act of cruelty.

When we consider the conversation from this perspective we are confronted with two questions: 1.) If God was kind enough to prepare Eve for the realities of her sexuality, how can we consider such conversations as taboo? 2.) Are we failing to be kind when we fail to discuss the realities of sex as set forth in God’s word? I would argue that we are.

*To learn more about why I believe these conversations are important, find my book on Amazon using the link at the top of this page. 

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