sex Archives - Keith Shields

Redeeming Sexuality

Debra Hirsch has written her first solo book and I want to highly recommend it. Hirsch previously wrote Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship with her husband Alan Hirsch and now she turns to the topic of sexuality with her book, Redeeming Sex: Naked Conversations About Sexuality and Spirituality. In it she reveals much…

Live a Life Filled With Love

I have been slow-reading Ephesians 5 for a few days. There is a wealth of material packed into one chapter of this letter to the ancient church at Ephesus. The letter was written in the first century of the Common Era, most likely around the year 62 and most likely by the Apostle Paul. The…

Love and Reward

In Theology of the Body for Beginners: A Basic Introduction to Pope John Paul II’s Sexual Revolution, Christopher West says, “In the moment we reject our receptivity before God and grasp at our own ‘happiness’ we turn our backs on God’s love.”1 He is making a significant point about the nature of love and sexual…

Sex Matters

This post is also available on the website of Bow Valley Christian Church. Considering all of the trouble, pain, selfishness, and loneliness resulting from our sexual longings, what was God thinking when He made humans to be sexual beings? It might have been better to create us with the ability to go off into the…

Surprised by a Book

One of the great pleasures of my life is being surprised by a book. A friend recommended one to me and so I read it. I didn’t expect much from this thin book by an Eastern Orthodox theologian. But, as I read it, I began to realize that, despite the short chapters, it was a…

I Can’t Get No – Satisfaction

I find Solomon to be one of the most tragic figures in all of the Old Testament. Read about him in First Kings and particularly 1 Kings 10:1-11:13. He becomes king of the greatest kingdom in the world and is humble enough to ask God for wisdom in ruling over the kingdom. God granted him…

Making the Best of It

I have a friend who works in criminal law in downtown Vancouver. Daily, he faces the “real world” of robbery, domestic abuse, drunk driving, murder, and many other indications of the brokenness of this world. My own experience with the real world comes from previous work in the ethics of a molecular genetics lab, years…

Habits of the Soul

A couple of days ago I quoted C.S. Lewis regarding “wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” As a follow-up to that allow me to direct our attention to another quote from the same book. In this section Lewis is speaking very specifically about…

Humanae Vitae

A few days ago I wrote about chastity as discussed in the recent “Pastoral Letter to Young People on Chastity” written by the Canadian Catholic Bishops. As I said in that post, I found the article to be a helpful letter which gave guidance and encouragement to Catholics and other followers of Jesus. But,one sentence…

Chastity

A few weeks ago the National Post ran an article about a letter written by the Canadian Catholic Bishops regarding “chastity.” The majority of the letter entitled, “Pastoral Letter to Young People on Chastity,” is directed to young single people and states that “living a life of chastity is an ongoing journey which requires both…