When I was a teenager at a Baptist church, preachers were constantly telling boys and girls not to hold hands during church services. Naturally, we perceived that as a challenge to do so and couples often came up with some creative ways to both openly and secretly defy ministerial bans on handholding.As a teenager, I never quite knew whether the preacher's opposition to intertwined fingers was prompted by his own desire to control every aspect of our young lives or whether they thought God frowned on every form of premarital touching. I just know that holding hands with a girl was never more exhilerating than when it was done during a service at a Baptist church.
I mention this to provide some psychological background for my uneasiness with a new trend among preachers of Baptist churches. Gone are the days when Baptist preachers stand behind pulpits and issue mandates against handholding. Today, some Baptist preachers have become so hip that they preach from beds in order to exhort their married congregants to add daily sex to their list of spiritual disciplines. I'm not making this up.
I'm still not certain whether such preaching is prompted by the preacher's desire to control every aspect of his congregant's lives. I am fairly certain that if Jesus gave a sermon on a bed, it would have been recorded in the gospels right along with his sermon on the mount and the sermon on the plain.
I'm also a little worried that if more preachers make sex obligatory, it will start taking some of the fun out of sex.
2 comments:
Wow! How do you respond to a story like this? Unfortunately, I have heard about this disturbing trend. It's not that I am just old fashioned, but I think that we're attempting to be a little bit too hip. What's next? Saturday Night Live Skits complete with "doobies," beer and Bible study?
From my observations, it seems that our world is obsessed with at least two things: materialism and sex. When you appeal to our natural desire for more stuff and better sex, you're bound to get a crowd.
However, is this our calling as the body of Christ? Instead of catering to these "hip" and "crowd friendly" subjects, the church needs to regain its prophetic voice. I think this is just another indication that the church doesn't really know what she is supposed to be and do.
Don't get me wrong, there is an appropriate place to address God's gift of sex. However, I don't think I will bring my king size bed to church this Sunday, although some of my cogregation could probably put it to good use.
That pastor is trying to fulfill his higher purpose--to fill the pews and stuff the collection plates.
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