Sex and spiritual formation

when jokes aren't funny but they reveal the heart

Tuesday, while driving to work, I was thinking (again) about that quote from Josh Howerton telling women that on their wedding nights they should “just stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear and do what he tells you to do and you're going to make him the happiest man in the world.”¹ My body’s response is still to feel sick to my stomach. I’ve heard weird (negative, gross) teaching on sex from the church my entire life.² I try to be hopeful that we are doing better but Howerton’s non-apology chokes my hope. Pastors should be the most practiced at repentance and confession and considering the impact of their words. The non-apology makes me think that Howerton (still) does not see an issue with what he said.³ 

Women were rightfully outraged by the statement. But this is also an incredibly malforming view of sex for men to have.⁴ That “joke” offers a porn-shaped view of sex now baptized by the church. “I’m going to click and search and look until I find exactly what I want to attempt to satisfy my lust.” “Here is what I want and it’s your job to give it to me.” Even in a marriage, this attitude is lust. And whether with porn or marriage, lust will not satisfy. All selfishness in sex will lead us to become shriveled and misshapen versions of ourselves, not someone that looks like Christ. 

It’s hard for me to imagine standing in a pulpit and making this “joke.”⁵ In a church that proclaims the gospel of Jesus—a Savior who came and did not objectify people, who refused to bend to cultural understanding of what women were for⁶ or what sex and marriage were supposed to be⁷—this message is contrary to it in every way. This is not intended as an attack on Howerton, who I know nothing about, but as the starting point for a discussion on sex. 

Every single person is sexually malformed. All of us must be included here, though we are more comfortable with some malformations than others. We are misshapen, bent upon our own desires. We are selfish, seeking to center ourselves instead of loving God and others. The desires that we do have are disordered and out of place; we cannot follow them wherever they lead. We see story after story of this in our own lives, in the news, from our friends. We see this same disordered desire, a misunderstanding of what sex should be, in this story, except of instead of being called out, it is congratulated.

What Howerton’s “joke” suggests is that men should take. Instead of loving and cherishing their wives, they should take from them. This teaches men that their wives exist to slake their lust. This is owed to me and I will have it. It’s entitlement, an explicit statement that men should get what they want when it comes to sex. But when you take, there is no room to receive. Sex should be about mutual giving and receiving. It should be communion with another. Instead of only attempting to satisfy yourself, you should be attempting to engage in joint satisfaction, in bringing pleasure to another as well. If that sounds harder, well, it is. Instead of insisting on what you want and taking it, you have to consider the whole personhood of another. What baggage do they have? Do they feel comfortable and safe with you? Will your commitment to them develop into a deep understanding of one another, flaws and all? Sex is a place where we are formed as humans, whether that becomes transformation or more malformation. 

This is an old news story⁸ that I started thinking about again because we’re talking about sex in my ethics class. It’s been a fascinating conversation that has rolled around and around in my brain all week. 

My professor insists that sex is actually about God.⁹ In our lecture she said, “Meaning that the desires and longings and appetites that are expressed, that are embodied in sex and the erotic, that are felt even if they aren’t acted upon, those are about God.” Sex points beyond ourselves to our desire to be seen and known and loved. Others cannot fulfill this desire because we are a bottomless pit of desire. Ellen Davis, a scholar at Duke Divinity School, says that the Song of Songs is explicitly sexual but focuses on desire and anticipation.¹⁰ Fulfillment and satisfaction are not the end of the story in that book. We are left waiting, longing for something we do not currently have. All our efforts to fulfill our sexual desire will not satisfy us fully, not in any relationship.

My professor said that sex is where we work out what it means to be generous lovers and people who have learned to be loved.¹¹ That is, of course, sex at its best, sex moving toward transformation and not more malformation. Sex becomes a practice of formation where we grow and are changed into people who see others as God does, who desire God more than we have in the past. A few weeks ago, I listened to Annie F. Downs on Carey Nieuwhof’s podcast and when they were talking about singleness, Annie said that purity isn’t for single people. Purity is not something that no longer matters once you’re married. It just changes shape. Purity is as necessary for married people as it is for single people. Marriage is not a “do what you want, demand what you want” ticket. Self-denial is needed in sex in marriage; putting someone else first is needed in sex in marriage. Beliefs and practices about sex should be different for people who follow Jesus.¹²

Sex points to God. “Our sexual desire is God waving a red flag at us. God is a jealous lover who longs for our attention. Our sex life is never about us. We are being taken up into God’s very life.” That is a far different metric for what is good sex—sex moving toward wholeness and transformation—than the metrics that I see in culture or in church where we can do whatever we want or we can order other people to do what we want. Our “want” is not the main point. God is. And God has some things to say about sex. 

1. https://www.christianpost.com/news/megachurch-pastor-says-viral-wedding-night-comment-was-a-joke.html Let’s acknowledge that women also shouldn’t just dream about their weddings but there is a difference between a public ceremony and sex.

2. And the issue goes back far further than that.

3. Especially since he said the same “joke” three years ago and received the same feedback then.

4. It’s almost like what’s bad for women is also bad for men and vice versa. Kidding. IT’S EXACTLY LIKE THAT.

5. Whether or not he had an actual pulpit doesn’t matter. One of my professors pointed out in a lecture that for Protestants the words the pastor says in the pulpit are close to “ex cathedra.” Almost the words of God, for sure words spoken with the authority of the church.

6. Luke 11:27-28. Along with many other passages in the Gospels about women disciples and what they did and how they received Jesus.

7. See Matthew 5:27-32 for how the kingdom of God is supposed to be a safe place for women and 1 Corinthians 7 for sex and authority in marriage. Also this podcast episode from Bible Project.

8. This shows why the Instagram pace isn’t great for me. In that case, I should have talked about it weeks ago. But I didn’t have something to say besides “that’s gross and disgusting” weeks ago. And I don’t like feeling like I “have” to say something.

9. I wish you could just listen to her lecture but that’s not how graduate class content works.

10. See chapter seven of her book Getting Involved with God.

11. Which is a totally different goal than demanding that other people do what we want.

12. And I don’t mean the sexual prosperity gospel that the church has tried to teach for a while to advocate for abstinence. You know it “Wait for marriage to have sex and you’ll have the hottest sex that’s ever existed.”