By Paul Proctor
November 19, 2008
 

The Dallas Morning News recently reported the following in an article titled Grapevine pastor wants married couples to have sex every day for a week:

God may have rested on the seventh day, but the Rev. Ed Young wants married couples to have sex all week long.

Once a day.

Beginning this Sunday.

The call to action will headline his sermon that day at Grapevine-based Fellowship Church. He plans to deliver his challenge while sitting on a bed.

Here we have another pragmatic preacher from a seeker sensitive church competing with the culture for our attention by presenting a tantalizing topic that is sure to tickle the ears. And, considering all the press he has received thus far, it appears to be working – but maybe not the way he planned.

I remember when the Word of God made men tremble. But, it seems we’ve now traded the Cross of Christ for a bed of iniquity, revealing a rather startling change in pulpit priorities. Apparently, the power of God has taken a back seat to the “power of sex,” as Young referred to it in a videotaped interview for CNN.

Of course, when the mainstream media gets hold of a story like this, evangelical Christians are, yet again, stereotypically portrayed as silly hypocrites. And to make sure everyone who proclaims Christ is thoroughly discredited in the eyes of a watchful world, those who speak out against such pastors and churches are themselves labeled as fundamentalist extremists because they won’t go along to get along.

In the world of marketing, I believe they call this a lose – lose situation.

As we consider the collapse of our country brought on by, among other things, a dearth of decency, it’s hard to stomach preachers who willfully turn the things of God into titillation and amusement for jaded churchaterians looking for ever-more gratification in life – especially when they use the institution of marriage to try and justify their carnal appetites and agendas.

I mean – do we really need churchy cheerleaders in our bedroom encouraging us to “connect”?

How is it that the reporter who interviewed Pastor Young on CNN recognizes, at least in part, the perils of his highly-publicized “sex-periment” and the well-known Baptist preacher does not?

When this vulgar venture no longer arouses the brethren at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, what’s next? Will they bring married couples up on stage to disrobe and dramatize the preacher’s more passionate sermon points in dynamic detail for all to see as witnesses to the transforming power of an erotic binge?

After all, only 10 years ago, bringing a bed into a church service to talk about sex would have been considered outrageous, even by liberal standards. But, there are those in our pews today who would think it no more voyeuristic to view something like this than reading from the Song of Solomon.

And, now that the line of decency and discretion has been moved, where do we place it next, to keep them coming?

If you haven’t noticed, Christians are carefully and continually being conditioned to accept the unacceptable by pastors pushing the envelope of expediency, rendering the sacred and the salacious increasingly indistinguishable.

As filthy as television and movies have become, none of it offends me as much as the smiley-faced smooth-talkers who peddle flesh from the pulpit as if it were their calling from God.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” – Isaiah 5:20-21