Destructive nature of the Church's silence on sex

I am writing this blog because I am frustrated with the silence of ministers, pastors, and bible teachers in the area of sex. Many religious leaders ignore or skip over passages in the bible that deal with sex. Even the good expository teachers who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible often choose to take an allegorical or metaphorical approach to passages that reference sex. When was the last time that you heard a minister, pastor, or bible teacher give a literal interpretation of the passages in Song of Songs (Solomon)?

A couple of days ago, I was listening to a respected religious leader on a national Christian radio broadcast. He quoted almost all of Proverbs 5:19 but he deliberately left out a key part of the verse that instructs a husband to be satisfied with his wife’s breasts at all times. It appears that he was uncomfortable teaching the full truth of the verse, or perhaps he felt that it was inappropriate to say the word “breast” on a national Christian radio program. Whatever the excuse, it appears that many religious leaders would prefer to remain silent on what the bible truly teaches about sex.

God was not silent on the manner, so why should our religious leaders choose to be silent. Our media and society is more than willing to teach their views on sex, while our religious leaders sit quietly on the sidelines. When we are silent, we send a message to our young people and to our society that we do not know the answer, that we do not have anything of value to share, that we do not care about the topic. The silence from our religious leaders has resulted in many believers, Christians, and religious followers not knowing what the bible really says about sex. It allows the destructive behavior and beliefs taught by certain sects of society to be the only answer and the only source of information.

To make things worse, when most of the religious leaders to choose to speak up, they often condemn sexual activities. The result is that the masses of people are left with the opinion that the bible, church, and God teach that sex is bad, or forbidden. The negative messages or bad information that spews from the mouths of many religious leaders is a good topic for my next post.

The truth is that the bible has a lot to say about sex. There are some passages that would make most people blush if they were translated properly into modern language and terms. The bible is so explicit in some areas that a movie or play based on the literal passages would be rated for mature audiences…and would not be suitable for television broadcast.