Sex Sells the Church: the Update

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the travesty of Grapevine Fellowship Church's "tawdry publicity stunt" of going to the local newspaper to publicize a Sunday sermon that would involve minister Ed Young parading around a platform featuring a bed as a prop and urging married congregants to have sex every day for a week.

If publicity was, in fact, the goal, Mr. Young is no doubt gratified that his exploits have been captured in the pages of the New York Times. However, Ann Althouse is right in characterizing the Times story as "creepy." Ms. Althouse suggests that this shtick was done more effectively by Madonna.

However, there is something worse than Rev. Young's smarmy sermonizing about sex. While most people are not terribly concerned about how much their ministers know about sex, they do expect the pastors to know something about God. The New York Times, which describes Rev. Young as an evangelical, also says that he preached that having regular sex would "bring you closer to your spouse and to God." Really? Evangelicals used to understand that closeness to God had to do with faith in Christ and the Cross, not acts of copulation. The means of grace were things like prayer and the word, as applied to us by the Holy Spirit, not acts that we perform, sexual or otherwise. While it is legalism that is pleasurable for many, Mr. Young is nothing more than a legalist, in any event.

And, he's creepy and an embarrassment to the faith. Just read the article.