... No, not the kind with underage boys and girls.
MELBOURNE, Fla. - One of the longest-running religious disputes has been why, if sex is shameful, did God make humans capable of orgasm? And if God wants only heterosexual sex within marriage, why did s/he make it possible for men and women to receive pleasure from pretty much any type of sex: Married, unmarried, masturbation, anal, gay, BDSM, etc., etc., etc.?
These sorts of questions are so compelling that it's no wonder that ministers of all stripes are beginning to take the sex questions seriously. For instance, Rev. Dan Smith of the Momentum Christian Church spent two Sundays in October, 2008 telling his congregants about "Bringin' Sexy Back," which according to a press release on the subject contained "a lot of relevant, heart-to-heart teaching that will help us better understand why God created such a powerful magic."
Going a step further, Rev. Ed Young, pastor of a Dallas, Texas mega-church, challenged his congregant couples to have "seven straight days of sex," the object of which was to force couples to explore each other's bodies and sexual attitudes within marriage, while Rev. Timmy Gibson of Olathe, Kansas upped the ante, asking his membership to have sex - he called it "hanky panky" - every day during the month of February, 2009, stating in an interview that sex is a topic that "should be talked about from a biblical perspective."
The latest adherent to this philosophy appears to be Pastor Bruce Cadle, whose New Hope Church in Melbourne has been meeting at the Sherwood Elementary School after the crowd of churchgoers became too large for the church's former location, an aging yellow building on Post Road across the street from the school.
But perhaps Pastor Cadle made a slight mistake in titling his new "worship series" "Great Sex For You," and stuffing fliers - 25,000 of them - headlined, "Is Your Sex Life A Bore?" into local mailboxes and newspapers. The screed invited local residents to "learn how to have the Great Sex that God created you to enjoy!"
And it probably didn't help that the flier had a picture of a pair of bare feet snuggling beneath a bedsheet.
According to a story on the Florida Today website, Pastor Cadle charged that the Christian church had been "shamefully silent" on the topic, adding, "Sex between married believers is a holy activity. It's not a dirty activity. It's not a shameful activity. It's a holy activity. And the Bible is so clear about this. But it's still hard for us to get it."
And sure enough, that was Cadle's topic for yesterday's sermon - but the topic for Brevard County school officials is whether they'll allow the New Hope Church to continue holding services at the elementary school, for which it pays $600 per month. The officials have received a number of complaints about the flier, many focusing on the barefoot image.
"A man and a woman with their feet sticking out from under the sheets, that's all there was," Cadle said. "Nothing above their feet and ankles. I'm just shocked in this day and age that anyone would be offended by that."
But this is Florida we're talking about.
"We believe the type of advertising used is not appropriate for students to read in any elementary school," said Mark Langdorf, the school district's director of risk management, who received six complaints about the impending service.
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