Tuesday, 16 October 2007 01:00 | and posted in Book Reviews
God and sex go together. You can't separate the two, says Rob Bell, because this physical world is intimately linked to deeper spiritual realities. And so, in order to make sense of sexuality, at some point you have to talk about God.
To be really unfair to Rob, you could label Sex God a book about relationships. It is, but it's not either. It covers the boy-girl angle without ever being about that. "This" (sex, marriage, dating, relationships) is always about "that" (God).
Many relationship books get stuck in advising what relationships should be or look like and consequently do not always end up very inspiring. In Sex God, it's like Bell bypasses all of that chat and takes us on a totally different route altogether.
Firstly, he doesn't narrow his talk about relationships and sex and sexuality down to merely opposites attracting, but covers the full breadth of human relationships. This is most seen in his definition of human sexuality. We would probably define sexuality as relating directly to our maleness or femaleness, but Bell instead defines our sexuality as, 'all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God.'* In this way he makes Sex God relevant to all readers.
Secondly, he is always taking physical relationships and looking at them from a spiritual perspective. He is always putting the focus on who God is and how our sexuality is linked to what it means to have been created human by him.
It is this unique perspective that makes Sex God an incredibly refreshing book to read. You come away from Bell's work feeling as if you've just stepped out of a cold shower on a really hot day. I felt excited about God every time I picked the book up and more importantly whenever I put it down!
Particular highlights for me were chapters three, four, five and six (which if you know the book is almost half of it - I couldn't narrow it down further!)
Chapter 3, Angel and Animals, demonstrates how our sexuality is neither a biologically impulse ("going at it like animals") nor should it be repressed ("acting like angels"). Instead it is part of what makes us human and created in God's image.
Leather, Whips and Fruit is the heading of chapter 4 (!) and tackles the issue of lust. Bell talks about how God designed us to live in freedom and that freedom is actually 'going without whatever we crave and being fine with it.'**
Chapter 5, She Ran Into the Girl's Bathroom, looks at what love is all about: 'Love is giving up control. It's surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two - love and controlling power over the other person - are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.' This is one of the great quotes you'll find in this section.
Worth Dying For (Chapter 6) delves into the hot potato of what submission means within marriage. You'll not find clearer teaching on what it means for a husband and wife to submit to one another than in this chapter.
Having said all this great stuff about Sex God, part of me is still hesitant to recommend this book to ignite readers. Part of me thinks that the first time you come across Bell explaining what a specific word means in the Hebrew language will turn you off from reading further (he does this lots!).
But that's only a very small part of me.
The rest of me wants to make it one of the books all ignite readers should read, it's that refreshing and inspiring!
FOOTNOTES:
* Page 42
** Page 75
*** Page 98
Sex God is written by Rob Bell and you can buy it from Amazon
