Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality by Rob Bell

I loved this book. You should go out and read it right now.
If you don’t recognize the author, Rob Bell also wrote Velvet Elvis which you should read right now as well. This book was good because it opened up a scriptural view of marriage as I had never experienced before. This also included expounding on the marriage language that God uses in scripture to refer to the Body of Christ.
Read it!

Favorite Quotes/Ideas:

-Bell expands on the idea when Jesus talks about gouging out your eye before your whole self ends up in hell from lusting. He points out that the main purpose of this teaching is that something hellish happens when we treat people as objects, as something less than human. And that something hellish happens to us; it happens to our hearts, souls, and mindsets about other people. He provides a great example of appreciating people: this woman, named Lil, has devoted herself to taking care of another woman that will be developmentally six months old for the rest of her life. Lil says that her family can’t imagine life without the disabled woman. This is appreciating life.

-We need to be connected to the Earth-to look at trees and hike to see a view and to plant things, because this reminds us of God. We also need to be connected to people of all ages and socioeconomic statuses because we are connected-and to be connected has a sexual dimension.

-Bell’s definition of sexuality with connection in mind: “If we take this understanding of our natural state seriously, we have to rethink what sexuality is. For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that’s only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God.”

-“When I meet someone who has been burned by an institution, my first question is, “What was the person’s name?”

-“There are these two extremes, denying our sexuality or being driven by it, and then there’s the vast space in between.” In the thought that we can’t be angels or animals, we have to live in the tension of being human. “When we deny the spiritual dimension to our existence we end up feeling like animals. And when we deny the physical, sexual dimension to our existence, we end up living like angels. And both ways are destructive, because God made us human.”

-“He (Paul) insists that everything God created is good, and we come to see this through what he calls “the word of God and prayer,” which is the hard work of study and reflection and meditation and discussion and debate. The temptation is always to avoid things that are difficult and complex. To go around them rather than through them.”

-“The problem for Adam and Eve isn’t the food. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the food. The food is good. This is what Eve notices about it, that it’s “good for food.” It’s created by God for the enjoyment of people. The same goes for most of the things and people we lust for. In most cases, there’s nothing wrong with them inherently-her body, that product, this food. The problem for Adam and Eve is what the fruit has come to represent. Rebelion against God. Rejection of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Another way.

-“Adam and Eve fixate on this one piece of fruit from this one tree when God has given them endless trees with infinite varieties of fruit to enjoy. Which is often our problem. There’s so much to enjoy, and yet we fixate on something we don’t have.” Favorite quote, hands down. We need to get in the groove of thanking God for what He has given us. What are you fixating on? One pomegranate doesn’t compare to the rest that He’s given you…..ok you get the picture.

-“God made us to appreciate aesthetics: taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight. Shape, texture, consistency, color. It all flows from the endless creativity at the center of the universe, and we were created to enjoy it. But when lust has us in its grip, one of the first things to suffer is our appreciation for whatever it is we’re fixated on.”

-“Whatever it is that has its hooks in you, you will never be free from it until you find something you want more. It’s not about getting rid of desire. It’s about giving ourselves to bigger and better and more powerful desires. What are you channeling your energies into?”

-Bell talks about love as a risk. He uses the Song of Solomon-talking about the lover coming home to the beloved and asking to come into their bedroom. She does not respond favorably and then he leaves. And God takes a risk with us.

-“Love is a giving away. When we love, we put ourselves out there, we expose ourselves, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.”

-“If you’re God and you want to express ultimate love to your creation, if you want to move toward them in a definitive way, you have a problem, because just showing up overwhelms people. You wouldn’t come as you are. You wouldn’t come in strength. You wouldn’t come in your pure, raw essence. You’d scare everybody away. The last thing people would perceive is love. So how would you express your love in an ultimate way? How do you connect with people in a manner that wouldn’t scare them off but would compel them to want to come closer, to draw near? You would need to strip yourself of all of the trappings that come with ultimate power and authority.”

-“For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.”-Ephesians, v 23 somewhere. “The word head is the word kephale in the Greek language. We could spend hours analyzing exactly what it means, but the larger point is that the husband is supposed to be like Christ. And what does that look like? Notice how the text continues. Verse 24 repeats the submit command, and then verse 25 reads, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Christ’s “headship” comes from his giving himself up for the church. His sacrifice. His surrender. His willingness to give himself away for her. His death. Whatever authority the word head carries with it is rooted in the sacrifice of Christ, and therefore the sacrifice of the husband.” Or to quote Corrie’s pastor: “This is not the ‘headship’ that we think of in corporate America-to be the ‘head’ of a company, or the likes.”

-“Agape doesn’t love somebody because they’re worthy. Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love. Agape doesn’t love somebody because they’re beautiful. Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful. There is a love because, love in order to, love for the purpose of, and then there is love, period. Agape doesn’t need a reason.”

-“Now often the Ten Commandments are seen as the harsh rules of a God who is looking for ways to judge and control people. Just follow the rules and no one will get hurt. As if the best that God can come up with is a list of things people shouldn’t do. Often religion with this understanding of God has very little to say to people beyond “don’t do this and don’t do that.” But the Ten Commandments are about something else. In a Jewish wedding ceremony, a legal document called the ketubah must be agreed upon and signed by both parties. Essentially it’s a list of what they are entering into. Both the bride and groom must be clear with each other on what they are committing to, what they both affirm it will take for this relationship to work. The Ten Commandments are the ketubah. They’re the agreement between the people and God about how they’re going to live together, which is why the first one deals with having other gods. It’s essentially an agreement that this relationship won’t work if they have other lovers.”

God continues to bring Jewish thought processes to my mind. I’ve been voluntarily reading Lauren F. Winner, but here it is again in Sex God. I’m excited about my Judaism classes at Greenville this coming year.
Another exciting thing that has come with my premature understanding of Judaism this summer is a newfound appreciation for tradition, more specifically the fact that we can acknowledge God through everything as aided by the liturgy, remembering why we do things like celebrate Easter, and, of course, our own specific rituals like taking a walk every night to ‘notice nature’ and see God through that.
I’ve been reading Nehemiah. He gets Israel on track to rebuild the wall and the chapter I read today had to do with the leaders reading the law and the people crying. Nehemiah quickly said ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength’ verse, but was more important for me is that they reinstated the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. And my devotional talked about having a healthy balance of celebrating what God has down in our lives concerning grace, and contrition, repentance, and sorrow. My love for putting a material quality to scripture was enflamed as I read about the ‘booths’ that Jews reconstruct to symbolize the booths that the Israelites dwelt in during the 40 days in the desert.
This all makes me want to celebrate something. I’m thinking about celebrating purity….seriously. And a couple of things came to mind. I need to get scripture on purity-a sort of packet that I can read from and have floating around in my mind as I research these next couple of weeks under the umbrella of: what is purity? I need a community to celebrate with. And I need concrete ways to celebrate—like the booths that are made during Sukkot. Of course, the mindset would be that we are celebrating purity, and therefore celebrating God. And the point would be celebrating the fact that we are a new creation, that sexuality is about being connected (ala Rob Bell), and that God gives us the grace to live pure lives.
Of course this would have to be balanced by the repentance that would occur for the ways we haven’t lived pure lives.

Just a few ideas….

And then all of this thought about celebration made me think about the way the Christian year is ordered, and then, more specifically, the way that we gather every Sunday with a community to partake in both a celebration, a remembrance, and an offering of repentance. Church : ).

Today I was looking at a magazine my mom bought that had to do with weddings. There was a page with a featured cake from each state. I asked her if she could pick out my favorite one. She picked it out in 30 seconds. My dad picked it out in a minute. Out of 50 states! I guess I'm predictable....or they just know me well.