"Our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so 'natural', so 'healthy', and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth-- the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is 'normal' and 'healthy', and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness."--Mere Christianity
2 comments:
Sex is indeed a natural "gift", whether one believes in God or not. But, the question of how to use that gift is the real question. Christians believe in marriage, where sex is a means of communication between two committed adults. Other Christians narrow that definition to two heterosexual adults for the procreation of children. Family is of upmost importance to these.
The cultural wars between the conservative and the liberal should be resolved by addressing the purpose and reasons for sex, in the first place. Is sex only about procreation? Then, should two adults cease from sex when they become mature (past the age of procreating)? Should a marriage be dissolved if the couple cannot concieve?
If nature is not affirmed in sexual expression in religious communities, but only within the bonds of marriage, then, why is "natrual birth control" (the rythme method) understood as "God's intended means" of birth control...as God superintends "all things"? ETC...
BTW, how one defines "temptation" and 'sin" is dependent on how one understand what is "right" or "good".
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