“A Changing Perspective On So-Called "Casual Sex"”

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

While we need to resist the temptation to be smug on these occasions, it can be good fun for believers to see our secular-minded world realize the value of Biblical truth. Such is the case with the recent story from the Perspective section of the Washington Post bearing this title: Divorcing sex from love hasn’t made sex more fun, more safe or less complicated.

The article explains that while so-called "science" (often a code-word for the philosophy of naturalism) has told us that sex is nothing more than a biological process and should therefore be unfettered, behaving like that has proved incredibly disappointing for men and women. The risks of continually changing sex partners, in the writer's words, has "turned sex into just another social interaction and emptied it of any supposedly sacred or taboo elements." The result is sex that lacks any emotional fulfillment at all, which inevitably leads to a decline in the physical pleasure it brings. The article cites a 2012 study which found that "78 percent of women and 72 percent of men who had 'uncommitted sex' reported a history of feeling regret after the encounter." Because God has designed sex as an activity fully engaging the soul, the mind, and the body (see 1 Cor. 6:12-20); it makes perfect sense that if we fail to respect it one of those areas, it will lose its glory in the other areas.

The most fascinating (and most tragic) aspect of the article is that while it acknowledges the failures of much modern ideology, it doesn't even come close to proposing monogamous, faithful marriage as the solution to these massive problems. The best it offers is this assessment: "those with freer, more casual sexual lives can miss out on something: the joy of intimacy with someone who knows them deeply and well." So let's go ahead and remember the full solution to the problem: "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."  (Heb. 13:4)

- Dan Lankford, minister

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