real sex.

it's okay if you tune this post out.

i really like to record when books speak to me and right now,

i am reading a great book:

source

so i'm just going to share some random quotes from the book.

long ones... and ones a bit difficult outside of the context.

the book is really about what "real sex" is

that idea will be summed up in one of the quotes i'll share.

i'll make that one bold or something.

"But the point is not to harp on how difficult chastity is. (Indeed, the instruction to just zip perhaps fails to recognize that one resists strong bodily urges like sexual desire not primarily through willpower, but through grace.)" page 22

"But conversion makes one a new Christian, not a mature one, and though it effects a change in one's heart and one's very being, it does not usually effect an instantaneous change in all one's habits or assumptions." page 23

"What sits at the center of Christian sexual ethics is not a negative view of sex; the Christian vision of marriage is not, as its most concise, merely "no sex before marriage." Rather, the heart of the Christian story about sex is a vigorously positive statement: sex was created for marriage." page 25

"...we need to ask whether the starting point for a scriptural witness on sex is the isolated quotation of 'thou shalt not,' or whether a scriptural ethic of sex begins instead with the totality of the bible, the narrative of God's redeeming love and humanity's attempt to reflect that through our institutions and practices." page 30

"...'God's command speaks to us, how and why it addresses us not only as a demand but as good news'" page 31

"It would be a dramatic overstatement to say that today I am a model of simplicity (I do still own a few silk tops), but I have begun to take steps toward simple living, and those steps were goaded not merely by hearing Jesus's harsh words to the rich young ruler, but by hearing them through the scrim of centuries of church teaching on ownership and possession, by coming to see how Jesus's words were not isolated instructions but integrally related to basic Christian themes of creation, ownership, and salvation."

"God made us with bodies; that is how we begin to know that He cares how we order our sexual lives." page 32

"That is the beginning of any Christian ethic- any moral theology- of how human being in bodies interact with other bodies."

"So an investigation of God's vision for human sexuality would begin with God's vision for human bodies..... Bodies are not simply pieces of furniture to decorate or display; they are not trappings about which we have conflicted feelings ('body images' that we need to revamp or retool); they are not objects to be dieted away, made to conform to popular standards, or made to perform unthinkable athletic feats with the help of drugs; they are neither tools for scoring points or burdens to be overcome. They are simply good." page 33-34

more to come.

so i didn't get to the quote where i really feel

she sums up why she titled the book the way she did

and what it all really comes down to.

but i will later.

i don't type as fast as i once did :)

i enjoy this author.

she has a pretty intellectual grasp of theology.

i may not agree with all of her theology.

but boy is she intelligent.

i read her first book

girl meets god

a couple years back.

definitely enjoyed it.

she was once an orthodox jew

and converted to christianity.

alright, gaga on glee

then parenthood

i'm out.