Sexvangelicals

Christmas is a strange season for folks who are in the process of exploring and healing from the ways that the church has negatively impacted them. Many of our listeners are deconstructing Christianity in some way; however, deconstruction can quickly move into emotionally cutting off, which don't give you the permission to engage with the complexities and beauty of the family members and stories and institutions. For us, Christmas is the best of the modern Christian tradition. We also acknowledge that Christmas also intersects hope with grief, especially for those of us who have moved out of overtly religious spaces; we identify strategies for tending to the grief and finding traditions that work best for you and your family. 

Jeremiah and Julia take a break from the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins According to the Church and discuss two ways that sexuality can be hard during the holidays: 1) Privacy concerns; and 2) The general pressures of the holiday. They then discuss a myriad of relationship tips, including getting a separate space for you and your partner when visiting family and friends, talking with your partner about the pressures connected to the holidays, and creating intentional transition spaces in and out of sexuality. 

Happy Holidays, from Jeremiah and Julia! Thank you for all of the support that you've given us in 2022! We're excited to share two holiday episodes with you to wrap up December, and launch 2023 with new pictures, new episodes, and a lot of fun!

We continue our series on the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins (According to the Church) with part two on the sin: Don't Have an Affair. We're sharing this story because we need to talk about the commitments that partners make to each other around sexuality, and we need to talk about the ways that people break those commitments, and why they break those commitments, because affairs don't happen in isolation. We name five characteristics of infidelity. 1) Infidelity as one of a bunch of bad choices (or no good choices). 2) Infidelity as an autonomous choice in a sexual history with minimal autonomy. 3) Infidelity as protest. 4) Infidelity as regret. 5) Infidelity as isolation. 

We continue our series on the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins (According to the Church) with Sin #4: Don't have an affair. As the church describes, the marriage is the most foundational relationship in the Evangelical community. It’s a right of passage into adulthood and symbolizes the union between God/Jesus and the church, as the church describes. And, according to the Evangelical Church, any relationship with a person of the opposite gender that is not your spouse is a potential threat to the sanctity of marriage. The Church will use this logic to condemn people who have affairs. Jesus, however, has a very different way of responding to adultery, as we read in John Chapter 8. Learn more about how we might take an approach like Jesus when we engage with the presence of infidelity in our own lives and communities.

The third of the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins is the psychological engine for the church’s position on sexuality: Don’t lust. Which, in the Evangelical Church, quickly reduces to "Don't have wants or desires." Our friends Jake and Sarah talk with us about how growing up in the Evangelical Church (the same collegiate church as Jeremiah, in fact) impacted their relationship with wants as individuals and as a partnership. We explore the concept of lust throughout Christian history, and then describe a three step process that can help give yourself permission to name your own wants and desires.

Jeremiah and Julia continue their series on the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins, According to the Church, with the deadliest of the “sins”, as we were reminded over the weekend in Colorado Springs: Don’t be gay. They discuss the different ways that the combination of “Don’t be gay” and “Don’t have sex before you get married” negatively impacted their development.  They then describe two binaries that the church (and other institutions) place around queerness: 1) Either you're gay or you're straight; 2) Either you're "born this way" or queerness was socialized into you. Julia and Jeremiah close the episode by discussing three strategies to navigate the homophobia of the church and broadening practices of sexuality.

The murders at Club Q on November 20 in Colorado Springs are horrific, as are all acts of violence against the queer community. Julia and Jeremiah bypass the impulse to dissect how church rhetoric impacted the murders, especially given that they happened in the mecca of the Evangelical Church. They name their anger and rage at this and a myriad of other crimes committed against queer bodies. 

The first of the seven deadly sexual sins is the apex of Purity Culture: Don't have sex before you get married. And as Jeremiah and Julia discuss, the Evangelical Church has collaborated with policy makers to ensure that abstinence only sex education is infused throughout public schools nationwide. The Evangelical Church suggests three ways that sexual experiences will be blissful for those who wait until marriage to have sex. You and your spouse will be able to intuit each other's needs. Your honeymoon will be the most incredible experience of your life. Sex will be spontaneous, and will flow naturally without any need to discuss it.  Most couples have a sexual relationship that only occasionally fits into these three categories. Jeremiah and Julia discuss strategies to base a healthy sexual relationship on, including Peggy Kleinplatz's Optimal Sexuality Model and the sexual menu practice.

Sexvangelicals is a podcast about the sex education that the church didn't want you to have. What's the sex education that the church did want you to have? So glad that you asked! Julia and Jeremiah talk about the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins (according to the Church). And you'll notice that they all have one word in common. Don't. In this episode, we talk about the implications and limitations for how the word "don't" can negatively impact sex education, as well as how you can name some "do's" to more effectively communicate what you need. Welcome back to Sunday School! Get some animal crackers, a cup of apple juice, and enjoy the episode!