Divine Sex Quotes

“when we try to address discipleship through ideas and beliefs alone, “it’s as if the church is pouring water on our head to put out a fire in our heart.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Although we should affirm the wonder and mystery of sexual intimacy and romantic attraction as God's good creations, we need to set these aesthetic enjoyments within the context of the Christian virtues of fidelity, self-sacrifice, and patience in suffering.

Bringing this together, our pastoral approach should be double-edged, seeking to challenge our culture's worship of sexual desire and personal fulfillment while offering a different vision of human flourishing. Christian formative involves both RESISTANCE and REDIRECTION. But is is the redirection of our desires that enables our resistance of cultural idolatries. Failure to attend to the dynamics of our desires leads to inevitable self-deception regarding the 'freedom' of our actions. Especially within our sexual lives, our hearts must be truly captivated by the goodness of the Christian vision of life, so that our whole self is drawn toward it, or our commitment to live in tune with it will be brittle.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Compared with legalism, the Christian vision of sexuality is less like putting out “Do Not Walk on the Grass” signs and more like marking out the boundaries of a field so that the game of life can be played well and with conviction.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“This model basically says, “Knowing and believing the right things about God will determine who we become and what we do.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Automatic pop-ups and linked advertisements create a fast-moving dynamic environment, which tantalizes the user in the heat of the moment to journey into unintended and increasingly extreme areas.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“young men’s emotional well-being seems almost unaffected by their sexual conquests, young women experience a close connection between sexual experience and poorer emotional health.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“We focus on the law of the family rather than on the life of the family, which is what makes it worth protecting in the first place.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“is serial monogamy.19”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“In reality, though, this trend has been greatly exaggerated. Most people still believe that sex should go hand in hand with an ongoing relationship and that it is important to be faithful while in a relationship.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The market economy is marked not by social reconciliation but by competition, and it shapes us in two important ways. At the big-picture level, it seeks to capture our imagination about what we should be aiming for in life, that is, our telos or essential purpose. As well as giving us a goal to live for, a happiness target, capitalism also provides clear pathways and disciplines to help us reach our destination.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Does it make you wonder, given the pervasive presence of these places, what influence they have on us? If retail therapy is our new religion and the regional mall is our place of worship, how does it influence who we are, including our sexual lives?”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“What was most surprising in each case was that they came forward not in order to resign their positions as leaders or to seek counsel but just “to put us in the picture.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Church leaders have often failed to understand how distinctive the Christian vision of sexuality really is and to articulate this vision as a convincing alternative to secular norms.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“It is fine to have strong beliefs, of course, as long as we do not claim any special authority for our way of life or try to impose it on anyone else.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“the Enlightenment split freedom into two very different visions of life that eventually morphed into two mainstream forms of individualism, utilitarian and expressive.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“She observes that America has a high divorce rate compared with other Western countries because it combines a strong culture of marriage with an equally powerful commitment to individualism.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“But the underlying assumptions had radically changed from earlier approaches. Whereas the Reformers believed that we could only live good sexual lives via God’s radical grace and a journey of spiritual transformation, the medicalized view saw sexual health as being available to everyone as part of everyday experience. The identification of virtue/sanctity with “health” provided the key justification for modern sexuality to develop along independent lines.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Ultimately, this form of expressive individualism, with each person doing his or her own thing, leads to a form of soft moral relativism: we should not criticize each other’s “values” because each person’s right is to live as they wish. The only sin we cannot tolerate is intolerance”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Ultimately, this form of expressive individualism, with each person doing his or her own thing, leads to a form of soft moral relativism: we should not criticize each other’s “values” because each person’s right is to live as they wish.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Captured by the tantalizing idea that personal integrity calls for freedom and ongoing choice, people see commitment as a barrier to achieving that freedom. Tragically, many within the church have also been captivated by the romantic myth and its promise of a perfect “soul mate” somewhere out there.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The premise, he explained to us, was that he could choose any one of four million women for a relationship. The bind, of course, was that having so many options made any choice impossible.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“What is the modern self, and how does it approach sexual relationships? How has our cultural moment shaped what we think and do in this area? Having identified the signs of the times and their influence, the second part will propose an alternative Christian vision of personal identity as the basis for a practical model of formation, one that integrates issues relating to sexuality and relationships.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The hugely influential “abstinence pledge” among young people in the United States has had muted success in changing the sexual behavior of young Christians.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The likelihood of rejection made guys reluctant to risk themselves by initiating relationships. Couples who subsequently split up found it difficult to be in church together, and so one or both would usually leave.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The telling truth about many Christian seminaries and graduate schools is that when you dig below the surface, you will find a wide range of deep personal issues that are not being addressed as part of preparation for pastoral ministry. The problem is not that these issues exist but that we are doing so little to address them. We offer men’s groups and counseling services, but only as voluntary add-ons rather than as core institutional priorities. Success is ultimately judged by academic precision rather than progress toward Christlikeness, even when we are careful to couch success in terms of the latter.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Story and testimony are critical to human formation because they resonate with our essential nature as desiring creatures.23 In contrast to propositional information, narrative knowledge—that is, the sort of understanding embedded in a story—is a more complex and comprehensive way of encountering truth. By appealing to the imagination, it engages the whole person.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The badlands have no positive meaning or place within our culture’s romantic narrative. In this romantic paradigm, we are tempted as modern Christians to irrigate the wilderness out of season with an endless conveyor belt of best-selling Christian books promising a “Better You” or “Your Best Life Now.” Yet the waste places in our lives play a legitimate role in our spiritual, moral, and sexual formation. It is in the badlands where our fantasies die, where our vision is clarified, and where we come to rely on God.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“Teaching Scripture as a narrative decisively upends the distorted priorities of the “authentic” self. When we become followers of Christ, we step into a much bigger story. This gives genuine significance to our personal identities and lives because God calls us friends, but it also displaces us from the center of the story. We become followers of the Way rather than the heroes of our own tales. The gospel, rather than our own experience, becomes our primary text. We don’t read Scripture; Scripture reads us.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age

“The secret of all genuine human desire is that God, not humans, is the source of love. It is he who loves in and through us.”
― Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age