Love and sex are great gifts from God in the right setting. There is joy to be found in marriage and love. And this joy, these great gifts, are a pointer to a greater love, of Christ for his church. When we understand the power of the gifts of love and sex, we will understand that the church teaches a much higher view of sex than the wider culture does.

I fear that many people think that the Christian teaching on sex is “it is bad, don’t do it”. After all, many of the public statements from Christian sources on this topic are to oppose something that doesn’t fit the Biblical ideal. There are many “thou shall nots” when it comes to Christian teaching about sex.

This idea is reinforced by the fact that many churches rarely speak about love and sex from the pulpit. These issues are discussed in marriage counselling and sometimes in training events, but seem to be less prominent in preaching programmes. Many Christian households also avoid speaking about sex to their children due to embarrassment or cultural reasons, leaving the children to then work things out for themselves.

Where do young people get their information about sex from? The school system does teach on this topic, but mainly in terms of biology and how not to get pregnant or catch a disease. The message the school delivers is “you can sleep with whoever you want, just make sure you both agree and are safe about it”. Schools are not the only source of information, however. Many just search on the internet to find answers and unfortunately discover either pornography or other encouragements to do whatever feels good.

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