Mark Driscoll's seven sex essentials from the bible.

A while back, Michael John Scott over at Mad Mike's America shared an article by Mark Driscoll on sex and the bible.  He did so for the sake of how absurd it was, not in support of it.  At one point in the article, Mark includes a list from his and his wife's book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, & Life Together.  The list was about seven sex essentials from the bible.  Unfortunately it was not about the seven sexiest references in the bible (excluding the Song of Solomon bit).

In the comments I referenced that I hadn't had a chance to properly give a list a proper taunting in quite a while.  So here I am today to rectify that.  Let the snark commence!

1. God created us male and female in His image and likeness with dignity, equality, value, and worth. Men and women are different and complement one another (Genesis 1:27-28).

Male and female in his image?  Mark, you are already not getting off to a good start.  If your idea of females is that they are modeled around the image of males then I doubt you have the requisite expertise to be writing anything on sex.

As for the equality part, I wonder if he has even read the book he is writing about.  Unless being essentially property is his idea of 'equality'.

2. Love is more like a song than a math equation. It requires a sense of poetry and passion to be any good at it, which is why people who are stuck in their heads struggle and are frustrated by it, and lovers prefer songs to syllogisms (Song of Solomon, all of it).

Take that brainy intellectuals!  We know you all suck in bed and cannot possibly have any sense of passion or understanding of how to please your partner!  What do you mean there are actually people who are turned on by intelligence?  They couldn't possibly be Christians and therefore are evil.

Though I cannot really argue with his reference to the Song of Solomon, it is probably one of the few things worth reading in that dust old tome.

3. Marriage is for one man and one woman by God’s design. This is the consistent teaching of the Bible from the table of contents to the appendix and the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself (Genesis 2:24-25, Matthew 19:4).

Translation:  gay people are icky.

The fact that he is supporting his bigotry with a book that involves a guy who lives in the sky who created a naked man and then proceeded to give him everything he could desire and watch over him daily seems to have eluded him.  And don't even get my started about the part where the sky man grabs Adam's 'bone' to create a women from it, bad touch god, bad touch!

4. God created sex. God made our bodies “very good” with “male and female” parts and pleasures. When our first parents consummated their covenant, God was not shocked or horrified, because He created our bodies for sex. The reason that sex is fun, pleasurable, and wonderful is because it is a reflection of the loving goodness of God who created it as a gift for us to steward and enjoy (Genesis 2:24-25).

So what you are saying is that god created sex to be the way it is as the first porn flick?  Well in that case, I think I have a few 'holy visages' to observe myself...

5. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. Sinful sex includes homosexuality, erotica, bestiality, bisexuality, fornication, friends with benefits, adultery, swinging, prostitution, incest, rape, polygamy, polyandry, sinful lust, pornography, and pedophilia (I Corinthians 6:9-11,18-20, Hebrews 13:4).

So according to Mark, having dirty thoughts about someone you find attractive is one slippery slope ride away from going on a child and animal raping spree.  You know, perhaps we should let these people keep their holy book, it seems to be the only thing keeping them from destroying civilization as we know it.

Or perhaps this is the real rationale as to why the sheep always seem nervous in conservative areas...

6. Sex is to be done in such a way that there is no shame (Genesis 2:25; Proverbs 5:18-23). Many people experience shame in regard to sex. Sometimes shame is a gift from God in response to our sexual sin, sometimes it is the devastating feeling we bear because we have been sexually sinned against, and other times we have not sinned or been sinned against sexually but feel shame because we have wrong thinking and feelings about sex in general, or a sex act in particular.

Shame is god's way of telling you that he is actually kind of vanilla and would rather watch you in the missionary position as he gets his heavenly rocks off.  Either that or it is the affect of some kind of brainwashing done from being raised in a religion that sees sex as evil and dirty, but that couldn't possibly be the case now could it.

7. Your standard of beauty is your spouse. God made one man and one woman. He did not ask them if they wanted someone tall or short, light or heavy, pale or dark skinned, with long or short hair. In short, He did not permit them to develop a standard of beauty. Instead, He gave them each a spouse as a standard of beauty (Genesis 2:23, Proverbs 6:20-35).

Your god given standard of beauty is the person you are married to.  To marry someone you should, ideally, be attracted to them to start dating them and eventually marry them.  To find them attractive you must be married to them.  To...eh...I...*error*...rationality centers overloading due to circular logic...system rebooting.

Is this really some sort of argument to shut up the whinny believers who just couldn't do any better and settled for a spouse they have no desire for?  I'm kind of sad now...