Book Review: Sacred Sex

Sacred Sex Embracing Your Sexuality as God Designed it

Author: Dr. Tony Evans

Publisher: Moody Publishers

Number of Pages: 74

Nonfiction: Sexuality, Christianity

Date Read: 04/22/2014

Summary:

     Morality. Relativity. Right and Wrong. The issues we face are complicated and everyone has an opinion. But who has the answer when it comes to sexual issues?

Sex dominates our popular culture to a degree we've never seen before and unrestricted sex is being touted as a shortcut to personal fulfillment and satisfaction - but it's a counterfeited and cheapened imitation of the real thing. Respected pastor Tony Evans refuses to let the voice of God be drowned out amidst the clamor of the crowd. Discover what God says in His word regarding why your sexuality is important and why sexual immorality is devastating. Discover how to maintain purity and enjoy true intimacy in marriage - the real fulfillment and satisfaction that God intended.

This summary was taken from Goodreads.

Star Rating:

     3.5 Stars

Content Rating:

     PG (recommended to 16 & up)

Reaction:

There were some good points made in this book about sexual purity, here are four things I liked about it:

1. I did enjoy the focus on the spiritual aspects of sex, and it did outline the emotional affects pretty well (though it would have benefited from more definition, and scientific facts to back it up-- citation, citation, citation, people...). The spiritual aspects have never been very well explained or talked about in depth with me, so it was enlightening to actually read how so.
2. Fun fact that I learned (but possibly knew in the past), was in biblical times if a husband found his new wife not to be a virgin on their wedding night and charged her for it, the family would have to provide the cloth that they slept and she bled on to prove she was and save her from the charges. Don't ask me how they got it, because I don't know.
3. I really enjoyed learning more about how the marriage covenant reflects God's covenant with us. Yeah yeah, we know sex is good within marriage, blah blah, but this book did make the connection and showed how it reflects God's covenant with us, and how when I husband and wife are together intimately, they renew-- recommit-- to that covenant with each other.
4. I liked the section that touched on when a husband says he wants to meet his wife's sexual needs, but does not meet her emotional needs throughout the day so he can later then meet her sexual needs, then he does not mean he really wants to meet those needs. He wants to meet his needs.   For women, it's different; if you aren't there for her when she needs you at 10am, until you want her at 10pm, then you're fooling yourself and it's just about you. (This does not justify or give a wife reason to deprive her husband and not meet his sexual needs though.)

Unfortunately, I expected a book that was going to enlightenment me on why I needed to make sex something sacred in my life, something that explained to me how it was more than just physical pleasure or even emotional connection while backing it up with facts, and an eye-opening attempt at convincing and proving to me that this was better for my life.

Instead I was disappointed and found a book that told me what to believe, though it did use a lot of Scripture well, rather than sharing more supportive evidence.

If I am completely honest: this book feels like it is an "advanced reading copy" and still in need of work. I do not regret reading it, because in truth there are some good qualities to it, but I will be looking to read other books on the subject of "sacred sex" because I am sure there is another book out there that shares this principle better.

Critique:

Truly, what bothered me most about this book were the few times that Tony made statements and did not further back them up with research, facts, personal experiences... something other than his own word.

Here is one of the few examples from the book that bothered me deeply:

"So Paul says that to avoid immorality, what men and women must do is save themselves for marriage. The fact is that some people were so sexually active before they got married that they were running on low octane after they got married. Their passions burned too early, and now they had burned low because they did not keep what was special and sacred for the marriage bed. This helps explain the high sales of Viagra and other performance-enhancing drugs. (page 49)"

This one in particular gets me fired up. Where is your proof? He makes a pretty sound statement, but I see nothing that truly holds up, "This helps explain the high sales of Viagra and other performance-enhancing drugs." I cringe at that sentence. Tony opens up an entirely new topic, slapping it onto a somewhat decent paragraph to make it sound dependable, and then drops it. He never touches on the subject again throughout the book.

Did he really only want to get his two-cents in there and that's it? Back it up, please. 

Secondly, this is not a very approachable book for those who are not a Christian. I understand Christians may be the target audience, but this is a huge downfall and I am very disappointed because I expected a book that was approachable. Sacred Sex is filled with Christian words that lack definition and explanation. Rather, I would prefer if Dr. Evans had taken the time to avoid those cliche, church words all together, even that would have made this book more reader friendly.

Aside from those two things, my last quarrel are a couple sections in Dr Evans book where he could have expanded upon the thought he was expressing. It's a bit harder to share an example of this, but there were times when I was reading, it was getting interesting, and then the section was over. That's it? Ran through my head a couple times.

Ultimately, I am not embarrassed to have read about sex, it's a topic that interests me. What this book lacks, however, is content. It really needed to be longer. Of course I enjoyed that it was short and easy to read, but it was too short.

Reading this review make you squirm?
Did you find it too harsh or unforgiving?

DISCLAIMER: I received this book for free from Moody Publishers in exchange for posting an honest review. Thank you, Moody! If you are interested in having a book reviewed by me, you can check out my about page and contact me here.