SEX
AND GUILT

Topics: Behavior; Guilt; Sex; Shame; Uncleanness

References: Genesis 1:27–31; 2:24; Matthew 19:5; Ephesians 5:31

In Music through the Eyes of Faith, Harold Best tells the true story of a young man who became heavily involved in a satanic cult that developed an elaborate liturgy focusing on the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach. The young man later became a Christian and started going to church. Everything went well until the church organist played a piece composed by Bach. The young believer was overcome by fear and fled the sanctuary.

Bach’s work “represents some of the noblest music for Christian worship,” Best writes. “To this young man, however, it … epitomized all that was evil, horrible, and anti-Christian.”

Sex is that way for some Christians. Past associations and guilty feelings about sexual behavior have created severe spiritual roadblocks. Christians try hard not to believe that sex is inherently evil, but because of previous experiences, it certainly feels evil.

—Gary Thomas, “How Sex Points Us to God,” Marriage Partnership (Winter 2005)

PART 11: HEALING