Joshua Harris is the current lead pastor at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. His writing ministry received considerable attention early on with I Kissed Dating Goodbye and later when he ‘kissed courting hello’ in a book called Boy Meets Girl. I confess, I never read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, but I did find his sequel, not a little ironically, quite relevant for Christians couples in regards to pursuing marriage responsibly and thoughtfully in the context of community. Sex is Not the Problem, Lust Is was first released under the title Not Even a Hint, in reference to Ephesians 5:3 (“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.”), but the reference proved too subtle for even Christian readership. This is yet another reason why a book on sexuality is necessary to a church sub-culture that has grown increasingly illiterate when it comes to the Bible. Rather than an in-depth analysis of this little book, I simply want to give a short plug based on its strengths. You can draw your own conclusions about its weaknesses, but only after you’ve read it.
1. It’s short. Due in part to the fact that I had a lot of sexual guilt and in part to the fact that I was in a relationship, I read the book over the course of a single Sunday afternoon. Its brevity is brilliant for impatient teenagers and busy adults.
2. It’s Bible-saturated. The final chapter of the book lays out a pathway for repentance based on strategies to do spiritual autopsy on your sexual failures and practice transformative thinking using key scripture verses. From confession, to listing the behavioral ‘triggers’ that precipitate your sin, scripture is used as a source for good news as well as practical life-change.
3. It affirms the goodness of sex. As anyone can tell from the new title, pastor Harris is emphatically clear to recapture an appreciation for the good design of God in sexuality. Drive, passion, and the sexual hustle towards intimacy that humanity knows all too well is not seen as a curse or a misfit impulse. Rather, these are God-given desires that reflect His own nature. He is a God who loves to both give and receive pleasure. However, it’s when we follow this pursuit of sexual fulfillment outside of the pathways God has designated for blessing that we are in fact sinning. Nevertheless, even in the prayer Harris teaches to use in temptation, he models a way of thanking God for sexual desire even while confessing that this desire has become corrupt due to selfishness.
4. It addresses masturbation as ‘solo-sex’. Harris is nuanced as he deconstructs the selfishness at the root of sexual sin. Using this same critique of sexual sin in other areas, he levels a response to the Christian biblicist who decries prohibitions against masturbation because it is not mentioned in the Bible. Harris is not as harsh in his arguments as I would have liked him to be, but I also realize that he will transgress the toes of others who will label him ‘pharisaical’ for his stance. Nevertheless, this was one of the first books I encountered that dealt directly with the issue of ‘solo-sex’ using a blend of sympathetic humility and biblical logic.
5. It includes group discussion guides (for men & women). The book is written from a man’s perspective and Harris admittedly communicates from his own genders biases and situation. Nevertheless, he has introduced elements all along the way to invite a female audience to use the book as a tool. Consequently, group discussion materials have been developed uniquely for both genders in small groups.
6. It’s pastoral. Each of the previous five strengths engenders this final strength in each of them. The book is marked by a concern for real people in the real world. As a pastor he is intimately acquainted with his own temptations towards lust and those of his congregation. I found his vulnerability and leadership extremely helpful during a time of sexual and spiritual vertigo in my life. When I didn’t know which way was up, he communicated clearly and applicably to my situation.
In a world that’s increasingly difficult to live in sexual purity, Harris navigates through the overgrown pathways of sexual purity and blazes a trail with the gospel for anyone whose looking to find a way out.
- Ryan Donell