Sex
Sex
Let’s talk about SEX!
Read more: Let’s talk about SEX!It’s that time again, or perhaps still, to have a meta conversation about the conversation. Today I am having the conversation about god, religion and sex on the Swedish podcast Dirtytalkpodden. And so the questions come, the question that always comes up: Why do you always talk about sex? Barbara Carellas once wrote: “I give…
Pleasure is not gendered!
Read more: Pleasure is not gendered!It is one of the biggest myth in the heteronormative world we live in, that pleasure somehow is gendered. I personally had to do some heavy lifting in terms of shadow work to root out this deep conditioning. Pleasure is experienced though our various senses touch, taste, smell, sound, and through what we see. While…
Holy censorship or mistranslation?
Read more: Holy censorship or mistranslation?I was given a book the other day, as I was leaving my talk on SA and HBTQ. Honestly I didn’t expect much but it looked interesting enough. The book was “Holy censorship or mistranslation?” By K. Renato Lings and I learned once again that you should never judge a book by it’s cover. The…
#meetoo
Read more: #meetooThe last couple of days my Facebook feed has been flooded with the #meetoo tag highlighting sexual assault and harassment against women in our society. The thought that “ordinary men” need to be made aware how ubiquitous the problem with violence against women is in itself not a bad one but rather a well intentioned…
7 ways to become a better lover over night
Read more: 7 ways to become a better lover over nightWhether we like it or not sexual prowess is one of the yardsticks we use to measure our self worth. Many of us feel that we fall short in the bedroom. Mostly this is due to a lack of practical sexual education when we grew up and a lack of communication between partners, we don’t…
Getting lucky
Read more: Getting luckyIt’s just been New years eve and many of you have been out at different parties, dinners and get-togethers. Some of you may have had the aim “to get lucky” and some of you may feel that you did. It really disturbs me to hear people say that they are going out, hoping to get…
Theo-Erotic
Read more: Theo-EroticYou may have noticed that the blog changed title. This to reflect the changing tone and content of the blog over the past three years. As I started studying theology in earnest I started at a very broad spectrum deconstructing and reconstructing everything from creationism to eschatology. Slowly though I realised that the spirituality that…
What is Sacred Sexuality
Read more: What is Sacred SexualityI have an ambivalent relationship to the term sacred sexuality. Using the word seems to imply that there is such a thing as not sacred sexuality or unholy sexuality. To me Sacred sexuality simply means that I hold all sexuality sacred. All intimate moments are sacred whether or not we acknowledge that they are. I…
The refugee crisis is more important than LGBTQi rights, sexuality, tantra and spiritual nonsense
Read more: The refugee crisis is more important than LGBTQi rights, sexuality, tantra and spiritual nonsenseI have had this expressed to me, maybe not in those exact words but the sentiment is there. Why focus on LGBTQi rights and human sexuality when there is poverty, war and other atrocities going on in the world? Coming out of the closet and breaking up with shame Coming out of the closet, owning…
Let’s stop vilifying male sexuality
Read more: Let’s stop vilifying male sexualityI am following the current debate over social media. Men are harassing women left and right. Normal men, Swedish sensitive men…. I get angry at the men for not knowing how to communicate and own their desires. I get angry at the whole party/dating scene devoid of both communication and clear boundaries. But deep down…
Freedom
Read more: FreedomFor freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 (NRSV) It is a pertinent question, why did god give us freedom? Why where we burdened with choice? Hindsight being 20/20 it seems that it was a mistake to allow the human race…
Did I go to far?
Read more: Did I go to far?After more than half a decade of deconstruction I face this question. It all started with deconstructing our worldview and how we view god. Moving on to deconstruct our traditions and our ways of being Christian. This is not weird and is done all the time. In progressive circles the hermeneutics of different Christian…
Tantric what???
Read more: Tantric what???A friend of mine pointed out that I talk a lot about tantra, but I never explain what it is. So here is my attempt at offering a brief view on what tantra is and the tantric tradition has to offer. Wikipedia defines tantra as: Tantra, also called Tantrism and Tantric religion, is an ancient…
The naked truth
Read more: The naked truthAnother week has past since I posted “Our sacred journey” and there have been countless of private messages and questions, ranging from: “How dare you?” to “Congratulations, now tell me how I can get there.” Although in every conversation there is this dancing around the question: But are you having sex with others, outside of…
Reclaiming eros
Read more: Reclaiming erosLove is such an important word. Regardless of who you are and what path you follow love is somehow at the centre of things. Love is a many splendoured thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love! (Moulin Rouge) In the sacred scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition there are four…
How tantra saved our marriage
Read more: How tantra saved our marriageAnyone that was around when Hanna and I met knows that we had such an energetic attraction that generated sparks. And anyone we ever met assumed that when we got married that vibrant passion was carried into the marriage and into the bedroom with us. Nothing could be further from the truth. From our wedding…
Sacred sexuality
Read more: Sacred sexualityI am getting some carefully worded questions on email and Facebook about this new direction we are moving in. Especially after the announcement that we are teaching at the Sacred Sexuality conference in Jerusalem. Any reader of this blog will know that I not only think that sexuality is an important part of being human…
The secret to getting what you want in life …
Read more: The secret to getting what you want in life …I am truly blessed, not long ago I had a conversation with a friend who accused me of “wanting to have it all” and in response I simply replied, yes, I do wan’t it all, and you know what, reflecting on it I do think I have it all. In fact the way my life…
What if we could own our inability…
Read more: What if we could own our inability…So in light of my most recent post on the Ashley Madison reveal and the churches inability to provide a positive alternative to the schools sex education (or lack of sex ed). I have been pondering what could we do … when I read this article voicing some of the same concerns and citing a…
Cover that up now please!
Read more: Cover that up now please!I am reading on facebook that 400 church leaders, Pastors and Deacons are resigning of the resent Ashley Madison reveal (article here). People are outraged and indignant. I am confused. Why does it surprise us when we have wrapped up sexuality in so many layers of taboo and shame? Does it really surprise us that leaders…
Being queer – The censored post
Read more: Being queer – The censored postThis post was originally posted in september 2012 and taken of the blog that same month as requested by the Salvation Army national leadership. I am now reposting it as it was an important step on the journey. This post in itself was an experiment in being open, authentic and vulnerable. The post pushed a…
Owning my desire
Read more: Owning my desireBeing Swedish, it has always been quite a challenge for me to really own my desire. In the church desire is in general frowned upon if not outright demonised, unless of course it is the desire for god. All other desire has at least in my mind been a temptation from the dark one. A…
I love you, now get out of my bed!
Read more: I love you, now get out of my bed!In most of my conversations with couples or persons in a couple relationship the subject of polarity comes up. It seems one of the hardest things to do is to keep polarity in a couple relationship. Partly this is simply biology. We are biologically programmed to lose sexual desire for anyone we live in close…
Sex: A highway to god!
Read more: Sex: A highway to god!I confess I have borrowed the title from Johan Ekenberg but it is true. God gave us the wonderful gift of sexuality not as a racy past time and not only as a means of reproduction but rather as a gateway to experience oneness and higher states of pleasure, bliss and consciousness. As Dossie Easton…
Oh no you didn’t!
Read more: Oh no you didn’t!Oh yes I did! I blogged about sexuality again, and after having had more traffic than usual on the blog with loads of people contacting me privately and publicly commenting on the blog posts the last week, after the post on sexuality, silence. [insert cricket sound] Talking about feelings and being openly emotional on the…
Sex has become poisoned, this is why we cannot talk about it let alone celebrate it!
Read more: Sex has become poisoned, this is why we cannot talk about it let alone celebrate it!No matter how much the evangelical church might try to ignore or pretend that it doesn’t exist and in other ways silence the conversation, sex is still a foundational, central part of the humnan experience. Sometimes I think the religious movement hopes that if we just ignore or oppose it strongly enough it will dissapear…
Shameless!
Read more: Shameless!A while ago I wrote about the importance of self love and how self love is the first step to loving others since you can only love others as much as you love yourself. Now we know we should love ourselves, and we hopefully feel that it is ok to love oneself. The question then…
Sex is not filthy
Read more: Sex is not filthyIT’S TRUE!! Not even when it’s really good! Not even when it’s long or loud, wet and rowdy. Sex is not even filthy when it is public or outside or taped. Sex is not filthy when it is between two men or two women. It is not filthy no matter what clothes we dress up…
Love
Read more: LoveSo let’s talk about love. What could be easier, love is after all the foundation of the Christian faith right! Love is the cornerstone, Love is the air that we breathe, all you need is love! Then again for as long as humans have walked the earth we have tried to define love and make sense of…
Love is not a theory
Read more: Love is not a theoryWe talk about love a lot, we say that: God is love! The scriptures say it over and over again, they even say that unless you are in love, saturated with love, bubbling over with love, you are not with god. And so we realise that love is necessary, it’s a fundamental part of our…
Is god opposed to pleasure?
Read more: Is god opposed to pleasure?In recent conversations the topic of pleasure has come up time and time again. It seems that from a Christian point of view we are as a community ambivalent about god’s view on pleasure. It seems that somewhere deep down we do believe that although god is good and want good things for us, we…
Sexuality in the Song of Songs – Part 5: Conclusion and bibliography
Read more: Sexuality in the Song of Songs – Part 5: Conclusion and bibliographyThe primary focus of the Song is the passion and the desire between the two lovers yet there seem to be something deeper underneath the surface. Rob Bell astutely asserts that: “You can’t talk about sexuality without talking about how we are made. And that will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some…
Sexuality in the Song of Songs – Part 4: Sexual Ethics
Read more: Sexuality in the Song of Songs – Part 4: Sexual EthicsIt should be very clear at this point that the Song is unashamedly and explicitly sexual. Describing the growing love and passion between two individuals. While It remains uncertain if they are married (what the Song has to say about marriage will be considered later in this essay) the Song clearly describes a passionate love…
Sexuality in the Song of Songs – Part 3: Symbols
Read more: Sexuality in the Song of Songs – Part 3: SymbolsBefore looking at the Song’s message and theology, some of the Song’s symbols and images must be decoded. It is important to not get carried away in doing this. While the Song is rife with sensual images appealing to all five senses, it is easy to take this decoding too far and end up with…
Sexuality and the Song of Songs – part 2: Interpretation
Read more: Sexuality and the Song of Songs – part 2: InterpretationSong of Songs have been read and interpreted in several different ways, the predominant interpretation is some form of allegorical interpretation (Estes, 2005: 396). Most scholars throughout history have approached the Song this way. Starting with Theogenes who interpreted the Song to be about the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. In this tradition great Christian…
Sexuality and the Song of Songs – part 1: Background
Read more: Sexuality and the Song of Songs – part 1: BackgroundThe Song of songs is a much debated and unique book in the Old Testament. It is near impossible to find consensus on any statement about the book except that it is unique. The book has no parallel in the rest of the Jewish or Christian Canon. It becomes difficult to assert anything about authorship,…
People are still having sex
Read more: People are still having sexI have been putting of writing this post for nearly a week now, I get both uneasy and angry just by thinking about it. Stephen Court wrote the following in his blog the other day: Evangelicals Encouraging Contraception for Singles? It turns out that 80% of American Evangelicals are going to hell. That is, they admit…
The big masturbation post
Read more: The big masturbation postNot so long ago I sat in a room with a group of young Christians, no longer teenagers but rather young adults. We where talking about the bible and Jesus. Was it possible that Jesus could have sinned and what does it mean that Jesus felt every human emotion, did he then lust? Masturbate? The…
Sex at dawn …
Read more: Sex at dawn …I have just finished reading Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan. It may be the first time in a long while that I read a book that so persuasively and thouroughly deconstructs one of the often unspoken meta-narratives of our contemporary culture, namely the hetero-normative monogamy centred narrative of human sexuality. I also realize that this…
Who is queer?
Read more: Who is queer?I am not underprivileged, marginalised or persecuted in any ways. I am a Caucasian, heterosexual male with a DipHE in Theology and Mission. I am employed as a full time minister, doing what I love to do: to teach theology; to build and nurture relationships; to be a sign towards a mystery I may never…
Getting down and dirty with god.
Read more: Getting down and dirty with god.“God is not sexual” my friend stated matter-of-factly. It is odd that he did because he also does not believe in god. How the god he does not believe in can be, or not be, anything is beyond me. It is a common notion though to separate the divine from the worldly. It is even…
Sex as a sacrament.
Read more: Sex as a sacrament.There was this praise song on my favorite worship album, it always bugged me. “Take me, I am yours”, the woman sang with such throaty passion that it sounded almost sexual, indecent. I mentioned it once to a friend who told me, it’s just your perverted mind that hears it like that. I never broach…
Meeting an adulterous god
Read more: Meeting an adulterous godI don’t know how I never saw it; One of the tenets of classical biblicism is faithfulness, I mean I even have it tattooed on my body, inked onto my skin so as to never forget. It is a label given to me by the voice of god on top of a mountain in wales.…
The centrality of sexuality
Read more: The centrality of sexualityWhy is this such a big deal? Why does it matter? It should be a non issue! This is what both right wing and left wing, conservatives and liberals are saying all over the place. In churches people are taught that their sexuality, while important, is not essential. Sexuality does not define you, or who…
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