Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance

Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance

by R. Albert Mohler
Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance

Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance

by R. Albert Mohler

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Overview

Are you ready to respond to the most relevant questions of sexuality today?

Lifetime monogamy is passé. Pornography infiltrates nearly every home. Homosexuality is accepted. Lust has been redefined. The family as an institution is questioned.

We are reminded every day that assumptions about what is right and wrong, sexually, are different today than they were fifty–or even ten–years ago. Christian principles that formed the pattern for generations of American families are conspicuously absent. What happened and why? How do we respond to the dramatic shift in our culture’s perspective on sex?

As one of today’s most influential thinkers, Dr. Albert Mohler addresses these critical topics in a thoughtful, cut-to-the-chase style in Desire and Deceit. As you follow Mohler’s guidance in applying biblical solutions to today’s most highly charged issues, you will be not only equipped but also inspired to speak the truth in a society hungry for answers.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781601421999
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Publication date: 09/16/2008
Sold by: Random House
Format: eBook
Pages: 176
File size: 335 KB

About the Author

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Considered a leader among American evangelicals by Time and Christianity Today magazines, Dr. Mohler hosts two podcasts: The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview, and Thinking in Public, a series of conversations with the day’s leading thinkers. He also writes a popular blog and a regular commentary on moral, cultural, and theological issues. Dr. Mohler has been quoted in The New York TimesThe Wall Street JournalUSA Today, and The Washington Post, and has appeared on programs such as NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He and his wife, Mary, reside in Louisville, Kentucky, and have two children.

Read an Excerpt

PREFACE

Sexuality is now a major fact of public life in America and around much of the world. In one sense, this is hardly new. After all, sexuality is a major part of human existence–an unavoidably complex and potentially explosive dynamic of human life. But sexuality is now a public issue–front and center in some of the biggest and most contentious debates of our times.

Sex and sexuality now drive much of our advertising, entertainment, and the cultural scripts that citizens use in common conversation. The sexual revolution of the 1960s was, in retrospect, only a signal of what was to come. By the early years of the twenty-first century, issues of sexuality were seemingly unavoidable. Elementary school students are being introduced to “family diversity” curricula, and major newspapers report on the phenomena of sexual promiscuity in homes for the aged. There seems to be virtually no part of the culture that is not dealing with sexuality in one way or another–and often with significant controversy.

Christians have a special stake and stewardship in the midst of this confusion. In the first place, Christians know that sex is both more and less important than the culture of laissez-faire sexuality can understand. Unlike the naturalistic evolutionists, Christians believe that the realities of gender and sexuality are intentional gifts of the Creator, who gave these gifts to His human creatures as both a blessing and a responsibility. Unlike the postmodern relativists, Christians cannot accept the claim that all sexual standards are mere social constructs. We believe that the Creator alone has the right to reveal His intention and commands concerning our stewardship of these gifts. Unlike the marketing geniuses and advertising gurus, we do not believe that sexuality is intended as a ploy to get attention and to create consumer demand. Unlike the pandering producers of sexualized entertainment, we do not believe that sex is primarily about laugh lines and titillation. Unlike the sexual revolutionaries of recent decades, we do not believe that sexuality is the means of liberating the self from cultural oppression.

In other words, we believe that sex is less important than many would have us believe. Human existence is not, first and foremost, about sexual pleasure and the display of sexuality. There is much more to human life, fulfillment, and joy. Sex simply cannot deliver the promises made by our hypersexualized society.

On the other hand, sex is far more important than a secular society can envision. After all, the Christian worldview reveals that sex, gender, and sexuality are ultimately all about the creature’s purpose to glorify the Creator. This frame of reference transforms the entire question and leaves the creature asking this: how do I celebrate and live out my stewardship of my sexuality and my exercise of this gift so that the Creator is most glorified? Needless to say, this is not the question driving the confusion in our sex-saturated culture.

This book is an attempt to look at many of today’s most controversial and troubling issues concerning sexuality from the perspective of biblical Christianity. Every one of us has a stake in this, and Christians are responsible for a special witness to the meaning of sex and sexuality.

And all this, we know, is not only about how we are to think about these issues, but how we are to live.

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