Sex, for God's sake

I came across two interesting reports about Christians who try to make a difference in the area of sex. An apology to everyone who uses Filternet or another internet filter - the use of the words sex, pornography and XXX in this posting probably means that my blog will be labeled as an 'adult' site. But I didn't want to ignore these reports, they're quite innovative.

'Good Sex': Christian late night television

"Sex sells. And the most conservative Anglican diocese in Australia is hoping it will sell God," The Australian reports. Sydney Anglican Media - which is under the control of the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen - has created a television show on the Ten Network. The program, titled 'Good Sex', features Christian panellists, including sexologist Patricia Weerakoon and advertising copywriter Janet Evans talking frankly with invited guests about all kinds of sex-related topics.

Mark Hadley, director of radio and TV for Anglican Media, said the church had the bright idea after Ten offered it an 11.30pm slot on Wednesday nights. "When we looked at the timeslot we said to ourselves there's no way a traditional Christian program is going to work well here," Hadley said. "Instead, we did what any producer does - we researched the demographic and looked at the carry-over audience from Sports Tonight. We were looking at men between the ages of 25 and 35. What is it that captures the attention of men in this age group? We thought, hey, we'll put on a program about sex."

Good Sex, which is garnering an average of 350 email responses a week, is now part of the diocese's evangelical strategy. Under Dr Jensen, the church aims to convert 10 percent of the population of Sydney to Christianity by 2012. Dr Jensen said he regarded the show as great fun with a serious underlying message. "God created sex. He created it to be very good and we should enjoy it in the right circumstances (read: inside marriage)." The response from parishioners has been good, but it is too early to tell if the program has increased church attendance.

Pete the anti-pornography puppet

Newsweek runs a story on the remarkable initiative of two pastors and a pornographer to create a Public Service Announcement to keep children sheltered from obscenity. The star in this not-for-profit TV advertorial is Pete, a scraggly haired skater boy puppet, who pops up onscreen and announces "I'm here today to talk to you about pornography… Have you gone into your daddy's closet and found a bunch of magazines with naked mommies in them? Did this make you feel yucky inside?"

The ad is cute, if a touch creepy. It's got a children's show flavor with a no-brainer message for adults: If you have kids in your home, get rid of your stash. And the fact that it was filmed by a pornographer for an anti-porn Christian group should make it a surefire hit with the media. But the PSA is meeting resistance at just about every network and local cable outlet. Nobody wants to air it as it was intended. The Christian Broadcasting Network's flagship program The 700 Club planned to run a segment on it last week, but it was killed at the last minute by evangelical host Pat Robertson who stated that "Jesus would not go into a porno shop.”

The two young pastors are convinced that if Jesus hang out with prostitutes, he would also hang out with men who are addicted to pornography. They created a website, XXXchurch.com, to minister to porn stars and pornography addicts.

Comments

[Rev. Paul H. Byerly]

Bravo to Sydney's Anglican diocese for not leaving sex and information about sex to the world! Boo hiss to Christians who would rather ignore the growing destruction of porn than do something to help keep our kids from being sucked into it.
We deal daily with couples who are devastated by the aftermath of pornography. Women who are ashamed to be naked in front of their husband because they don't look like the artificial woman of porn, and men who have become so addicted to the artificial woman of porn that they can not function sexually with their own wife.
The folks in the church have gone to the world for sexual information for decades. Shouldn't it be the other way? Shouldn't the world be coming to us for the truth about sex? Dr Jensen is right - God created sex, and when it's done according to his guidelines it's better than anything the world can offer.

<>< Paul

[Jim]

Thank you for this article, it was very informative in an area that is taboo in many Christian circles.

I am making the rounds of many web sites on the internet in hopes of improving my own Christian web site.

Feel free to take a peak if you have time.

Yours truly,

www.Hopefortoday.truepath.com