Sexuality

Thoughts about how faith affects our approach to gender and sexuality

"Looking for Ways to Build Bridges"A conversation with CT editor Katelyn Beaty about blogging, books, and what's next.
"Looking for Ways to Build Bridges"
Image: Kuster & Wildhaber Photography

Fifteen months ago, this blog began with a conversation with Katelyn Beaty about my hopes and dreams for Thin Places. As I conclude this blog, we thought it fitting to have a concluding conversation as well. Katelyn and I had a chance to talk about the most exciting and most challenging aspects of ...

Nine Favorite Posts from Thin Places The best of faith, family, disability, and culture as I say goodbye to blogging.
Nine Favorite Posts from Thin Places
Image: flickr

One of the wonderful aspects of blogging is that I get to write about pretty much anything that is on my mind and might connect with readers. Over the past 15 months of blogging for Christianity Today, I've written or edited nearly 200 posts. As I wrote last week, many posts soar to the top of ...

Contraception and FaithA compilation of the past three weeks of posts about contraception.
Contraception and Faith
Image: Selbe <3

I've been interested in the topic of contraception and faith for quite some time, both in light of my own unwillingness to think about contraception in theological terms in the early years of my marriage (an unwillingness I have observed in others as well), and also in the way decisions about ...

From Depo-Provera to Natural Family PlanningWhat I learned about sex, my body, and the rhythms of life.
From Depo-Provera to Natural Family Planning
Image: Dr PS Sahana * Kadamtala Howrah

As this series on contraception comes to a close, Emily Heady offers a Protestant perspective on Natural Family Planning.

When my husband and I married in 2001, we were graduate students with tiny salaries, tiny living quarters, and gargantuan workloads. It was not a good time for a baby. So a few ...

I Stopped Using Natural Family PlanningBut I am grateful for what it taught me about my body and God’s role in welcoming children.
I Stopped Using Natural Family Planning
Image: Word By Word

My her.meneutics colleague, Liuan Huska, joins the conversation today in describing the choices she and her husband have made to first use NFP and then a barrier method as forms of contraception. I am so grateful for Liuan’s gracious approach to this topic:

When my husband and I first married, ...

Why I Had a VasectomyLoving my wife meant limiting the number of children we conceived together.
Why I Had a Vasectomy
Image: phalinn

As I mentioned last week, we will be offering a variety of personal essays about the choices Christians have made about the use of contraceptives. Today, Matthew Towles, PhD, explains why he decided to have a vasectomy:

I wonder how many life-changing conversations happen in the parking lots of doctors’ ...

From Banned to MandatedA history of contraceptives in the United States.
From Banned to Mandated
Image: Seattle Municipal Archives

Last week, I began a series of blog posts about contraception and faith. Rather than rehashing the debate that ensued, please refer to Friday's post that discusses contraception, Margaret Sanger, and women's health in the developing world. Last week also featured a doctor's perspective on ...

Why I Have Seven ChildrenOur Decision to Follow Catholic Teaching about Marriage
Why I Have Seven Children
Image: amiefedora

Mary Alice Teti offers the first of a handful of personal Christian perspectives on contraception here in the United States. She writes about how her Catholicism has shaped her view of marriage, and next week we will hear a diverse series of Protestant views:

Any young person who was raised in a Christian ...

A Doctor's View on Hormonal Contraception The ethical and personal questions that arise with the advent of hormonal contraceptive methods.
A Doctor's View on Hormonal Contraception
Image: +mara

Dr. Emily Gibson has written about contraception for her.meneutics in the past, and I asked her to offer her perspective as a physician when it comes to the questions Christians might want to ask about hormonal contraception in particular. I appreciate her measured tone and informative approach:

As ...

Contraception Saves LivesReconsidering Margaret Sanger as one who was opposed to abortion but emphatic about the personal and social good of contraception.
Contraception Saves Lives
Image: Jenny Lee Silver

To begin our conversation about contraception and faith, I asked my friend and colleague Rachel Marie Stone to reflect upon her time working as a doula in Malawi. Here are her reflections on contraception and global health:

The young nurse was one of eleven living children -- one of eighteen, if you ...

Are Christians Afraid to Talk about Contraception?Introducing a series on contraception and faith.
Are Christians Afraid to Talk about Contraception?
Image: spentpenny

The Christian response to contraception tends to make news headlines, particularly in recent years. When the Affordable Care Act mandated employers pay for contraceptive methods, both Protestants and Catholics objected. Lawsuits ensued. Decades after the introduction of “the pill” to ...

What Google Searches Tell Us about SexAnd how understanding sex as gloriously ordinary might help make it better.
What Google Searches Tell Us about Sex
Image: laradanielle/flickr

I had been married for a few years when an engaged friend asked me about sex. She wondered if I had any advice for her wedding night or beyond. I told her two things. One, that sex is more wonderful than our culture ever admits. Two, that sex isn’t nearly as dramatic as our culture (including ...

The Myth of the Exceptional WomanThe false premise that divides women who lead from women who might.
The Myth of the Exceptional Woman
Image: bbaltimore/flickr

I had been at Azusa Pacific University for less than a semester when I found myself riding along with my mentor, Sarah Sumner, to a speaking engagement in downtown L.A. Once we arrived, I was floored by the depth of her knowledge and by her captivating teaching style. She taught for five hours with ...

Sex and Sunday SchoolA Small Talk Guest Post by Megan Hill
Sex and Sunday School
Image: tamarajohnsonbelieves/flickr

In anticipation of my new book, Small Talk: Learning From My Children About What Matters Most, each week I'm featuring a different writer for a guest post. These posts dicuss the ways children's questions, comments, or actions have prompted deeper reflection for the adult. The series began with ...

Why Men Should Read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean InChange depends upon women and men working together to transform the social structures of work and family life.
Why Men Should Read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In
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When the COO of Facebook writes a book about women and leadership, the world takes notice. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, turned heads when it came out in March of 2013, and it sparked heavy criticism (see, for example, the Washington Post’s Recline, don’t ...

Four Questions I Have About Transgender IdentityStruggling to love my neighbors in grace and truth.
Four Questions I Have About Transgender Identity
Image: wikicommons

Last week I wrote a post called "Let Kids Be Kids Instead of Sexualized Little Adults," in response to a YouTube video about a "transgender" girl whose parents helped her "transition" into a boy at age 6. I cautioned against the idea that children's gender identity ...

Let Kids Be Kids Instead of Sexualized Little AdultsWhat both conservative and liberals miss about children’s gender identity.
Let Kids Be Kids Instead of Sexualized Little Adults
Image:

For a long time, my little sister Elly was a boy. It started on her second birthday, when she received her gift from Kate, another of my sisters (I'm the oldest of four girls). Elly opened the box—a blue corduroy dress Kate and my mother had stitched themselves—and threw it down: ...

Kids--Naked and UnashamedFor years, I’ve erred on the side of modesty. Maybe we need a little nudity after all.
Kids--Naked and Unashamed
Image: Kymberly Janisch/Flickr

I've heard Christians say that if we still lived in the Garden of Eden, we would all be walking around naked. The story in Genesis 2 seems to support this idea. It was only after God confronted Adam and Eve about their tragic and rebellious decision to eat the fruit that they realized they were ...

How Sex, Busyness, Mobility, and the American Dream can Impede FriendshipHouse of Cards, my kids, and a Tedx talk all got me thinking about the nature of friendship
How Sex, Busyness, Mobility, and the American Dream can Impede Friendship
Image: Dani vr/Flickr

I've been thinking about the nature of friendship.

It started, oddly enough, with House of Cards, a show in which no one has any true friends. But as the season progressed Rachel—a former call girl who is trying to keep her head down and create some stability in her life—was befriended ...

Women Don't Need to Become Men in Order to SucceedIn the classroom and the workplace, boys and girls aren't the same. We need to figure out how to support them both.
Women Don't Need to Become Men in Order to Succeed
Image: Alex/Flickr

I have always been an overachiever and a perfectionist. It might be because I'm a girl, or because I'm the firstborn of four, or because my parents are type-A personalities or just because. But either way, I remember the panic that shot from the center of my torso in every direction when ...

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