Purposeful Sexuality
Purposeful Sexuality

Author: Ed Shaw

Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press

Published: 2021-01-21

Total Pages: 53

ISBN-13: 1789743117

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If God means for us to save sex for marriage, why doesn't he just zap us with sexuality on our wedding night? Why do most of us experience sexual feelings throughout our adult lives, not just in the safe confines of marriage? Is limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman anything but outdated prejudice? What is our sexuality actually for? Today's culture overwhelmingly tells us that sex is essential for human flourishing. Far too often the church perpetuates the same message - as long as you are married. But far from being liberating, this idolising of sex leaves us even more sexually broken than before. With refreshing honesty and clarity, Ed Shaw calls on the church to rediscover its confidence in the Bible's teaching about our ability to experience or express sexual feelings. He points us to how God's word reveals that sexuality's ultimate purpose is to help us better know God and the full power of his passionate love. He shows us how this is surprisingly good news for all our joys and struggles with sexuality.

Same-Sex Attraction and the Church
Same-Sex Attraction and the Church

Author: Ed Shaw

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2015-11-09

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 0830899790

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When Christians have same-sex attraction, how should the church respond? Pastor Ed Shaw experiences same-sex attraction, and yet he is committed to Scripture and the church's traditional position on sexuality. In this honest book, he shares his own experiences and shows us that obedience to Jesus is ultimately the only way to experience life to the full.

A Change of Affection
A Change of Affection

Author: Becket Cook

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Published: 2019-07-30

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1400212340

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The powerful, dramatic story of how a successful Hollywood set designer whose identity was deeply rooted in his homosexuality came to be suddenly and utterly transformed by the power of the gospel. When Becket Cook moved from Dallas to Los Angeles after college, he discovered a socially progressive, liberal town that embraced not only his creative side but also his homosexuality. He devoted his time to growing his career as a successful set designer and to finding "the one" man who would fill his heart. As a gay man in the entertainment industry, Cook centered his life around celebrity-filled Hollywood parties and traveled to society hot-spots around the world--until a chance encounter with a pastor at an LA coffee shop one morning changed everything. In A Change of Affection, Becket Cook shares his testimony as someone who was transformed by the power of the gospel. Cook's dramatic conversion to Christianity and subsequent seminary training inform his views on homosexuality--personally, biblically, theologically, and culturally--and in his new book he educates Christians on how to better understand this complex and controversial issue while revealing how to lovingly engage with those who disagree. A Change of Affection is a timely and indispensable resource for anyone who desires to understand more fully one of the most common and difficult stumbling blocks to faithfully following Christ today.

Permanent, Faithful, Stable
Permanent, Faithful, Stable

Author: Jeffrey John

Publisher: Darton Longman and Todd

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9780232529579

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‘I am writing this because I believe we have an absolute duty in the Church to offer homosexual couples not only practical support, but the same theological understanding of their relationship that we offer to heterosexual couples, to help them fulfil the same hope, the same ideal – of permanent, faithful, stable love.’Drawing on many years’ personal and pastoral experience, Jeffrey John explores the meaning and context of the mentions of homosexuality in the Bible and also considers the moral arguments, before offering guidance to same-sex couples on forming a lasting, covenanted, monogamous relationship.Earlier editions of this book have become essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the theology of same-sex relationships in a Christian context. It has been cited by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, as one of the most helpful books on the subject. This new edition has been updated to take account of the latest thinking on the issue.In a brand new Preface and Postscript, Jeffrey John speaks forthrightly about the Church of England’s failure to move positively in support of same-sex marriage.

Mere Sexuality
Mere Sexuality

Author: Todd A. Wilson

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0310535360

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What do Christians believe about human sexuality? In Mere Sexuality, author and pastor Todd Wilson presents the historic Christian consensus about human sexuality, the Great Tradition of the church for centuries as taught in each of its major expressions - Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Wilson highlights the stunning shift of opinion on issues of sexuality in the evangelical church and why this break with the historic church is problematic for the future of Christianity. Along the way he provides ordinary believers with an introduction to the historic Christian vision of sexuality, yet does so in conversation with some of the twenty-first century’s leading challenges to this vision. In a culture that is deeply confused about human sexuality, Wilson believes it is time for evangelicals to retrieve the historic Christian tradition and biblical teaching on the question of sexuality. Mere Sexuality seeks to guide readers back to the beauty and coherence of this vision of sexuality in the face of an aggressive and all-consuming pagan and secular worldview.

Still Time to Care
Still Time to Care

Author: Greg Johnson

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0310116066

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At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure. With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel. Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, "I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted." For orthodox Christians, the way forward is a path back to where we were forty years ago. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on care--not cure--for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus. With warmth and humor as well as original research, Still Time to Care will chart the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care. It will provide guidance for the gay person who hears the gospel and finds themselves smitten by the life-giving call of Jesus. Woven throughout the book will be Richard Lovelace’s 1978 call for a "double repentance" in which gay Christians repent of their homosexual sins and the church repents of its homophobia--putting on display for all the power of the gospel.

Space at the Table
Space at the Table

Author: Brad Harper

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780997066906

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Love does not begin with condemnation. Can an evangelical theologian and his gay son overcome the differences in belief that threaten to destroy their relationship? For Brad and Drew Harper, that question wasn't theoretical and neither was the resounding yes they found after years of struggle. Writing to each other with compassion, grit, and humor, Brad and Drew take us on their journey as parent and child from the churches of Middle America to the penthouses of New York's party scenes, through a pastor's-kid childhood and painful conversion therapy to the hard-won victories of their adult relationship. But Space at the Table is more than just a memoir. It is a guide, showing us a way through the roadblocks that threaten to devastate both families and the broader evangelical and LBGTQ communities. Speaking from their own experience, Brad and Drew offer an invitation to join them at a place where love is stronger than the beliefs that divide us.

Redeemed Sexuality
Redeemed Sexuality

Author: Andrew A. Boa

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2017-12-12

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 0830889922

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Sexual brokenness permeates our culture and is often a source of fear, shame, or secret sin for emerging adults within the church. But as we experience love, joy, and intimacy with God and others, sexual shame and sin lose their power. Incorporating peer-to-peer leadership, this small group curriculum invites us to seek sexual maturity and discipleship in the context of community.

Is God anti-gay?
Is God anti-gay?

Author: Sam Allberry

Publisher: The Good Book Company

Published: 2013-07-01

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 1909559318

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A practical and sensitive exploration of the Bible's teaching on homosexuality. A practical and sensitive exploration of the Bible's teaching on homosexuality. It's the hot topic of the moment. Christians, the church and the Bible seem to be out of step with modern attitudes towards homosexuality. And there is growing hostility towards those who hold a different view to the culture's. So is God homophobic? And how do we relate to both Christians and non-Christians who experience same-sex attraction? In this short, simple book, Sam Allberry wants to help confused Christians understand what God has said about these questions in the scriptures. Drawing on his own experience, he offers a positive and liberating way forward through the debate. This revised and updated version includes answers to some new questions, including: * Should Christians attend gay weddings? * Isn't the Christian view of sexuality dangerous and harmful? * Is it sinful to experience same-sex attraction?

Eros Ascending
Eros Ascending

Author: John Maxwell Taylor

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2011-07-05

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1583944265

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***FINALIST, USA Best Books 2010 Awards – Spirituality & Self-Help: Relationships The quest for lasting love is one of life’s essential pursuits, in some ways the most essential. But it’s also a quest that’s impossible to separate from spiritual and sexual needs. In Eros Ascending, author John Maxwell Taylor offers a wide-ranging study of sexual dysfunction in society and explains how healthy sexuality can be an entryway to universal love and higher consciousness. Based on Taylor’s twenty-three-year experience with Taoist practices, the book presents an engaging analysis of love, relationships, and sexuality from spiritual, romantic, and sexual perspectives. Taylor melds essential ideas by Jung, Gurdjieff, and Taoist Master Mantak Chia with science, biology, spiritual tradition, and current popular culture to shed new light on this eternal yet misunderstood subject. Not just for couples, the book is equally useful for single people who want to understand the methods for “learning to love yourself ” in preparation for a fulfilling, long-term relationship. Taylor draws on his eclectic background as a successful playwright, composer, actor, and musician in this persuasive plan for converting ordinary sexual energy into food for the soul.