by Lisa Graham McMinn

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review by Richard Sartwell

WE ALL KNOW from personal observation and/or experience just how obsessed our culture is with sex. We were reminded of this in the recent controversy surrounding the Super Bowl half-time show. Much attention has been focused on an exposed breast, but just about everybody agrees that particular display fit logically within the context of that half-time show. The larger “shock” to some of us is that this was the show that executives from the television network, the NFL, and others thought appropriate to broadcast for this “family-friendly” event at a time when children would surely be watching. This incident illustrates, across the whole spectrum of reactions to it, that as a culture we have great brokenness in our understanding of the place of sexuality in our lives.

Lisa Graham McMinn's book probes deeply into the specifics of how our personal and cultural understanding of sexuality is broken. But be clear on this: she is writing about much more than “sex.” She is writing about what it means to be male and female in such a culture; about how something as precious as our sexuality can be distorted by the Fall. She also writes about how our sexuality can be redeemed. Yes, the culture negatively influences all of us. But so can Christ and the Church influence all of us with positive messages of grace and healing.

The chapters of this book deal with rites of passage into womanhood and manhood, with adolescence, with singleness, with marriage, with parenthood and more. Lisa McMinn approaches these subjects with the skills of a trained sociologist but also the warmth and wisdom of a woman who knows that the grace of God can and does touch who we are as sexual beings. She leads us to new understanding and hope.

I'd like to think that if this book had been available to me years ago I would have been a better man, a better husband and father, and a better pastor. I certainly would have been shown a way of discussing difficult subjects with candor and grace. I am thankful that such discussion is available to all of us now. Lisa McMinn has brought to her subject a healthy realism about what to expect and not to expect from our sexuality and the relationships we build out of it, but she also points with great clarity to the ultimate intimacy we find in God alone.

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