I recently read the first chapter of Rob Bell’s forthcoming book Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality. If you’ve been around here long enough you’ll know I have a lot of respect for the guy, and that I got to meet him back in November.

Here’s a brief quote I liked…

“Moments when all of the ways that we divide ourselves and rank each other and convince ourselves of how different, better, and unalike we are disappear, and we are faced with the fact that first and foremost, we are humans. In this together. And not that much different from each other.

Jew. Gentile.

Marine. Iraqi.

Orphan. Family.

Pastor. Prostitute.

We could be them.

We could be them. I’m stuck by how easy it is to lose sight of people’s humanity, their dignity. I walk down the street here and every day I pass numerous Big Issue sellers… I don’t do enough to help these guys and it’s so hard to find a balance of knowing how to help. I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that the tension is so important. It’s not insignificant, but rather the tension is a vehicle for God to continually be prompting me to keep my heart soft, to remember that I could be them. There are no hard and fast rules that I can follow… “Give this amount…” etc. It is subjective, changing, and progressive… there are no rules… I could be them.

Get the first chapter of Sex God here.

sex god

SYNOPSIS:
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. With beauty and unusual insight, Sex God explores this connection.