Sex God

If you refer back to my review of Abraham Heschel's "God In Search of Man," you will notice that I mentioned that there are two types of geniuses when it comes to writing. Rob Bell definitely falls into the first category as someone who can convey complicated ideas with clarity and simplicity. When you read Rob Bell or listen to his sermons, most everything just seems to make complete sense. Light bulbs are going on all over the place.

"Sex God" is an incredible book that explored the connection between God and sexuality. I think that you would be wasting your time reading about my opinion of the book instead of actually reading the book for yourself, so I will not really offer much of a review. This book is a must read for everyone, especially those looking for a Jesus language to communicate sexuality.

I will, however, attempt to describe one idea in the book that captured my imagination. In one chapter, Rob Bell made the distinction between Animals, Humans, and Angels. Animals have a physical body and physical desires, but they do not have a soul. Angels have a soul, but they do not have a physical body or physical desires. Humans sit somewhere in the middle of the two, having both body and soul. Rob Bell made the observation that all too often, humans tend to act like animals or angels in regards to their sexuality. Animals, as you know, cannot control their desires and engage in sexual activity out of a deep and seemingly uncontrollable urge. I think that this mentality is behind much of the sexual revolution in our world today - people acknowledge that they have these desires, and since they are natural, they must be right and therefore fulfilled in any way possible. I think that Christians often react against this by moving too far toward an angel perspective and pretend like we do not (or at least should not) have sexual desire at all. Rob Bell suggested that the answer lies somewhere in the middle of animals and angels, and really the entire book was a beautiful depiction of human sexuality as original designed by God.

So yeah, you should probably read this book.