Category: sexual ethics

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/14/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The fairer sex have always been seen as worth pursuing in the eyes of men. Who can blame us? Have you seen them lately? Women are absolutely beautiful. Many an honorable man encounters a woman he is attracted to and comes to love and treats her right and marries her and spends the rest of his life loving her.

Sounds good.

Sadly, there are men out there that are less than honorable. We understand that. Some of them are teenagers in a rebellious state. Some of them are criminals that are behind bars. You can find them in all places. Fortunately, many a woman can find a safe haven in the church since the church does its job of protecting those women and….

Wait.

What’s that?

You mean that these people can be found in the clergy?

That many people who claim to follow Christ can also be mistreating and abusing women in a sexual way?

And the church tends to side with the accused more than with the victim?

What can the church do to make sure we are a safe haven for victims of abuse? How can we love victims of abuse? What steps can be taken to help someone overcome a paralyzing trauma that has the potential to wreak havoc on the rest of their lives?

My guest is someone who went through that abuse. Her story is both horrible and helpful. She is a survivor who has gone on to be a thriver and she wants to raise awareness. There are plenty of people in the church that sadly prey on others. It doesn’t have to be that way though. Her name is Mary Demuth and her book is called WeToo.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

Mary DeMuth is an author, speaker and podcaster who is passionate about helping you live a re-storied life. A survivor of neglect and sexual abuse, Mary was gloriously rescued by Jesus when she was 15. She has spent her life healing from trauma so she can help others not feel so alone. She is the wife of Patrick and mom of three adult children. For more information, visit wetoo.org.

I hope you’ll be watching for this episode. I hope by the end of the month to be all caught up. We’ll be talking about a lot of material that could be very adult-oriented so please be mindful of that if you have children around. Please also go and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast on iTunes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Art of Falling in Love

What do I think of Joe Beam’s book published by Howard Books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Joe Beam has an interesting story. He was married and then divorced his wife and got remarried. However, when he remarried, he remarried the woman he had divorced prior. In doing so, he has also spent years studying love and what it is and how one comes about falling in love.

Many of us have this idea from our culture that falling in love is just something that happens to you and you have no say in the matter. Many of us know the experience of falling in love. The problem is we don’t realize that we can do things to help us fall in love with another person. This is known as the Love Path.

The path starts with attraction. This is basic enough for us to understand. For many of us, this is how our relationship began. I remember in my men’s group a question being asked what first drew us to our wives. Now I didn’t see Allie in person first but talked to her and spoke about that, but many guys came out and pretty much talked about their wife’s body. That’s not a bad thing. That’s not a guy being a perv or objectifying a woman. That’s him being a man and knowing that a woman has a beautiful body and wanting to get to know her better. If after some time in a relationship the body was all that mattered to him still, there would be a problem, but it’s fine to start there.

This can also mean that in marriage still, we need to work on this. I have had to change my appearance in some ways since marrying for Allie’s sake. Many men and women sadly let themselves go after they marry. It’s the message of “I have them, so now I no longer have to try.” Sure, but that’s taking them for granted. Taking care of yourself to be attractive is showing love to your spouse as well.

The next step is acceptance. Attraction is never enough. Many of us guys have known being attracted to a woman and never doing anything with it and the relationship only exists in our own heads. When you act and speak to them, eventually both of you get to the place of acceptance where you decide to give one another a chance. Thus, the second place on the path is Acceptance.

After that comes Attachment. This is where you get more serious about your relationship. It could start with something like going steady. After that, you can get engaged and of course, get married. In this, you build a position where the other person becomes a more central part of your world.

Finally comes Aspiration. In this step, which is often neglected, both look at the dreams of one another and see what can best be done to meet those dreams. If the two contradict, as they often can, there is some compromise reached whereby both parties are happy.

There’s also something said on what love truly is. We often confuse it with what is called limerence. This is a super strong infatuation with another person you are not married to. When acted on, 99% of the time the limerence eventually fades and the person wakes up and says “What have I done?” Beam says marriages can recover from this and it is extremely common.

Falling in love is not just an emotional response. It’s a choice. It is a position of the will and a deliberate action that is done. I can say on my part my love for Allie has only grown over the years.

If you are in a marriage wanting to improve or needing to be saved, this is a very good book to get. I highly recommend it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Draw of Beauty

What role does beauty serve? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last week I didn’t blog due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We had someone who was super generous to us who paid for Allie and I go to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville. We stayed there from Tuesday night to Thursday morning. We went on a boat ride in the hotel there and also went to the ICE program which had the movie A Christmas Story done in ice sculptures followed by a beautiful nativity scene done in ice.

The boat ride involved going through the hotel where there were several waterfalls and exotic plants. Our guide told us about so many of them and we were able to easily ride down the river that is inside the hotel. All of this leaves me thinking about the role of beauty.

We could say that all of this beauty is a draw to the customers and that would be something because there is no functional role to all of this other than that. Having a river in the hotel with exotic plants and waterfalls doesn’t improve the function of the hotel. It could possibly be said it creates more expense and leaves some other needs for the hotel that have to be maintained.

Yet this expense is probably worth it because it draws so many people in. We have this idea that it’s a waste to focus on making things beautiful. Think of the responses often given to the building of a magnificent cathedral, the one Bill Maher gives in Religulous. Couldn’t this have been given to the poor? What’s the point of all the grandeur and beauty?

The purpose is to draw us into the beauty of God. It is to leave us with awe. This is something I think we have missed in many of our churches today. I get that not everyone is going to come to a church that’s designed like a cathedral. I do think though that if we are presenting God, we need to make Him as beautiful as possible with what we have.

Consider also how this works with the opposite sex. Aside from men who are gay, we normally don’t say, “That is one good-looking guy. I want to get to know him better.” It is what we say with women. How many guys have wanted to get to know a girl and it has been started solely by her appearance? This is something that women know, but I don’t think they fully utilize to their advantages.

If you’re a single woman wanting to marry, let your beauty be a draw, because it will be, but don’t share all of that beauty until a wedding night. If a man is not willing to pursue you to that point, then he does not really want you for you. He wants your body mainly and he’s not willing to go the distance to prove he loves you.

For married women, you have a great power to enthrall and motivate your husbands. Even after decades of being married, many men are still enthralled by the beauty of their wives. I have been married nine years and the beauty of my own wife is still brand new. As someone with Aspergers, for years, people tried to get me to change my diet and I refused to budge. Allie did it and she didn’t even have to try. Why? Beauty. She is a motivation.

Let’s face it. If guys weren’t attracted to women, we really wouldn’t bother. We have to change so much of who we are and spend so much money and give so much of ourselves over and over. The relationship a man has with his wife is radically different from any relationship he has with a male friend. Why do we do it? Beauty. We want that beauty.

Our society knows this well. This is why we have a make-up industry. Beauty sells to people. Now I’m personally not a big fan of make-up, although there was a time recently Allie’s eyes were quite stunning with some, but some guys are. I also remember one time Allie wanted to get a dress that was on sale at Wal-Mart. I waited outside of the dressing room while she tried it on. When she came out, my jaw just dropped immediately. This was my wife? Seriously? She looked like she walked right out of a fashion magazine and it was incredible.

Maybe all this beauty doesn’t help the woman in any other way, but it does help her draw a man who will love her for her. Doubtless, it doesn’t really start that way, but it does change over time. Most of our loves start with selfish reasons. We want the other person for ourselves for some reason. In time, the habits we do to get that person end up changing us. Through the use of these habits, I now say easily I love Allie more than I did on our wedding day. Love has been a practice. It has been a choice.

Some people deny objective beauty. This is a ridiculous position. It means a stick figure drawn by a small child is more beautiful than the Mona Lisa. It means a pile of dung is beautiful just like a bouquet of flowers is. It means that nothing in this universe is truly beautiful. It is just an idea we have created and imposed on the universe. If such is the way we think, then be consistent and say nothing is truly beautiful, but I suspect many of us don’t want to do that.

I regularly give thanks for beauty. Being a married man, I particularly give thanks for the beauty of my wife and think that when God made women, He knew what He was doing and did it good. Beauty serves to draw us in and may it draw us into the beauty of God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Where Are The Adults?

Are there any adults in the room? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, a school in district 211 in Illinois allowed for a transgender boy to have full access to the girls’ locker room. This was voted on by people who are called adults and after, you see the boy crying as he’s so happy about this decision. You see another student crying, but it’s for a different reason and she’s a girl, so what do we care. Right?

You see, this girl actually has some concerns about being naked around a boy, and in particular a boy she doesn’t know. You could say for all we know many of these girls get naked around boys often, but that would be by their own decision. Outside of marriage, I still think it’s wrong, but nevertheless, it is something different.

The girl in the video is scared about this prospect and who can blame her? Many women have a hard enough time getting naked in front of other women. Just yesterday I was reading an article by Shaunti Feldhahn on how she encourages women to let their husbands see them. Leave the lights on and don’t hide from him. Why bring that up? Because even Christian women in Christian marriages to Christian husbands have a hard time sharing their bodies sometimes.

After years of being married to a woman, I have come to the conclusion that when a woman shares her body willingly with a man, something sacred is going on. It is the ultimate message of trust that she is giving him. She is putting everything on the line knowing she could be rejected and the more freely she does it, the more she sends the message that she knows she won’t be. (Hint women. That’s very appealing to us men when you’re confident in yourself.)

Keep in mind that in marriage, this is talking about adult women.

The school district has teenage girls.

Who’s going to protect them?

It used to be a thing of chivalry for a man to protect a woman. Feminists might get angry with me, but I don’t care. I still hold open the door for a woman when I go somewhere. When I used to work at a movie theater and we would all get off work at midnight, I would walk out with everyone else and I told the girls the same message. If someone comes after us, run. Don’t look back. Don’t worry about me. You just run and protect yourself. After all, the theater was at a mall and who knows who could be out there late at night?

Who was supposed to protect this girl and others like her in District 211? Adults.

Where were they?

You see, most of us still hold to the common-sense reality that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. You don’t change your sex based on how you feel any more than you can change your age or your height or your weight. We still hold that we need to show love to people who say they are transgender, but we’re not doing favors by giving into what we think is a delusion.

We also know that this has no end really. So this boy who identifies as transgender gets to have access to the girls’ locker room. How many guys in that school district now are saying to the others, “Hold my beer.”? (And again, they shouldn’t be drinking, but we know it happens.) How many will identify as girls just because, well, this might be a shock to you, but men and boys typically enjoy seeing naked females?

Who is to say that these boys aren’t transgender after all? Could they not claim discrimination? What is the test for someone who is truly transgender and who isn’t? Hint. There isn’t one. All we have is their say so.

These adults who voted were supposed to protect the girls in their district. They didn’t. If the girls feel betrayed, it is for good reason. They are being told that their feelings are subservient to those of a boy. Are you listening feminists out there?

The district should be ashamed of itself for this horrid treatment of the women and especially the young women in their midst, but what can be done? Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. What can be done to help stop the insanity?

First, protesting peacefully is always good. Let the district know what you think. Contact Congressmen and Senators. Pull your children out and homeschool them or get them in other schools.

Second, if you’re a student at the school, do what you can to protect. Try to encourage real manliness at your school if you’re a man. You see, if a real man wants to see a woman’s body, he wins her heart. He doesn’t claim to be transgender to get a free peep show or ask for sexts from her or sit at a computer watching pornography. A real man protects a woman’s body and allows her to share it when she wants to and with who she wants to.

Third, if you’re a girl, if you have to quit the sports teams. You can practice at a gym elsewhere and if the sports start losing support, the school starts losing support. If you don’t change anything, then nothing is going to change.

Ultimately, most of this falls with the parents. There weren’t adults in the room apparently when this vote took place. Be the adults. If you need to, run for school board yourself. Take charge of what is going on around you. Be as gungho for reality as others are for a delusion.

There was an age when men protected women.

We can still have that age.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/23/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Most any joke today about a Catholic priest is fair game. After all, everyone knows that they’re all secretly pedophiles. Never is this kind of joke made about the public school system, but with Catholic priests, all bets are off. Hasn’t there been a cover-up? Isn’t the Catholic Church defending these priests?

For those of us who are Protestant, it could be tempting to see this as a matter that the Catholics need to deal with, but we do as well. After all, this is used as an argument against Christianity in general as well. Second, it could be a case that if we don’t stand up for truth now, who is going to stand up when our opponents come after us?

Speaking of truth, if we’re talking about different relationships, maybe the priests should be out of that position if they can’t help it, but maybe homosexuals can’t help the way they feel as well. What if as the joke song says about it, that homosexuality is in your DNA and you’re just born that way? Does that mean that it’s okay if you’re gay?

These are important issues today. The second one definitely hits home to a lot of us. If someone has a genetic basis for homosexuality or even a disposition to it, is that something that we can blame them for? Are we not going against their nature?

To deal with these issues, I am bringing on a guest who has looked at both of them seriously. He is a Catholic himself and we will discuss how he handles the claims about the church that he belongs to. We will also discuss homosexuality and how we should discuss the question of if homosexuals are born that way. My guest’s name is Paul Sullins.

So who is he?

Paul Sullins SociologyTaken – 10/15/08 – 1:20:58 PMphoto by Ed PfuellerSullins_Paul_003.JPG

According to his bio:

The Rev. D. Paul Sullins is Research Professor of Sociology and Director of the Leo Initiative for Catholic Social Research at the Catholic University of America and Senior Research Associate at the Ruth Institute.  He has written four books and over 150 journal articles, book chapters and research reports on issues of faith and culture.  He recently published  “Is Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse related to Homosexual Priests?” (National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Winter 2019); “Danish-like regulations may improve post-abortion mental health risk” (JAMA Psychiatry, January 1, 2019),” “Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression among Adults with Same-Sex Parents (Depression and Research Treatment, Sept 2016)”, “Abortion, Substance Abuse and Mental Health in Early Adulthood: Thirteen Year Longitudinal Evidence from the United States”, available via Pubmed or at http://ssrn.com/author=2097328, Keeping the Vow: the Untold Story of Married Catholic Priests (Oxford University Press, 2015), and co-edited (with Pierpaolo Donati of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences) The Conjugal Family: An Irreplaceable Resource for Society (LEV Press, Rome: 2015).  Fr. Sullins is also the Director of the Summer Institute of Catholic Social Thought; a member of the board of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists (SCSS), the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), and the Natural Family Journal; a Fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI); Associate Pastor of the Church of Saint Mark the Evangelist, Hyattsville, Maryland; and (not least) a Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus.  Formerly Episcopalian, Fr. Sullins is a married Catholic priest with an inter-racial family of three children, two adopted.

I hope you’ll be looking forward to this episode. We are working quickly on getting new episodes up. Please also leave a positive review for the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Yes. You Should Still Avoid Temptation

How should a man handle his intimate affairs? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I read something this morning about how it’s not biblical or helpful to follow the idea of refusing if you’re a man to be alone with another woman who is not related to you, though the exception might be dating. After all, Jesus would have his hair washed by a prostitute and was alone with the woman at the well. Shouldn’t we be more like Jesus?

Neither one of these examples convinces me.

When Jesus has His feet washed by a prostitute and dines with them, these are communal events. There is a crowd nearby. That decreases greatly the odds that mad passionate sex is going to break out right then and there. Note also Jesus was already gaining a reputation anyway for communal meals with these people. A private meal would have been even more of a scandal.

What about the woman at the well? The well was a very public place. Anyone could have come walking up at any time to speak to Jesus. This isn’t Jesus meeting a woman in a back alley somewhere where they can be alone. This is Him interacting with her in an epicenter of the town.

So yes. I still follow this advice. Why is that?

We live in a day and an age of MeToo. A lot of these are legitimate, but also today many women can want to hurt men in their lives and an accusation can be enough to do it. If you avoid being alone with a woman like that, then you have less chances of something like that happening.

In an apartment complex we used to live in, my wife and I had two neighbors that were single women. I never went over to their apartments without my wife being with me. It is a hard rule I stand by. Apart from my relationship with Jesus, my relationship with Allie is the most important relationship in my life. I don’t ever want to put that at risk.

Now if you are dating, try not to be with a woman in a place where there is little chance for interruption. Allie and I would be at her parents’ house very often since she still lived with them and they knew where we were at all times and could walk in on us at any moment. They trusted me with Allie, obviously since they let me marry her, but that doesn’t mean being foolish.

And ladies, please consider some advice on this point. If a man invites you to a hotel room, never take him up on the offer. I don’t care if it’s your boss even. The overwhelming majority of the time, there’s one reason a guy is inviting you to his hotel room. I’m not blaming the victim here, but use some common sense.

Also, I realize women have temptations too. I write this for men because normally, but not always, men have the higher drives. Women should follow similar rules as well and I would even encourage a woman if she doesn’t know what kind of man could be in a place to carry mace, pepper spray, something of that sort.

Men. Your reputation is extremely important to protect. One mistake that can happen in minutes can ruin a lifetime. Please also don’t think you are above the temptation. If you do, then you have already taken the first step to falling into it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

On Chick-Fil-A’s Donation Stance

What do I think about what has happened with Chick-Fil-A recently? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Okay. I don’t have a real personal interest in this. Contrary to many Christians, I don’t care for chicken. It’s the thing about having Aspergers. My diet is extremely limited. I do like the fries there, but that’s about it.

Like many of you, when I heard about Chick-Fil-A not donating anymore to some causes, I was shocked. There are two sides to every coin and I have heard Christians arguing on both sides, but I think CFA did a great mistake yesterday that will damage not only them, but the people they are not supporting. I want to try to understand as much as I can still and explain the best I can, but that’s where I fall at the end of the day.

Of course, just because someone or something stops supporting someone, it doesn’t mean that they think the cause is not valid anymore. If someone stops being a supporter of Deeper Waters, should I think that they no longer care about Christian apologetics and ministry? It could be that, but it’s not necessarily that.

One reason given for this lack of supporting these organizations is that they are supposedly anti-LGBTQ. It is never explained what this means. Today, we live in a day and age where disagreement with a behavior is seen as hatred towards the person. (Does that mean people who hate how Christians practice their belief hate Christians?) One such organization being dropped from donations is the Salvation Army.

You know those hateful bigots. Right? They’re the ones standing outside of grocery stores on Christmas ringing the bells and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I am not going to claim everyone who works there is a saint, but they care greatly for the homeless and those in need. Are they anti-LGBTQ? Well, let’s see what they have said.

Does The Salvation Army serve the LGBTQ Community?

Yes. Any person who walks through our doors will receive assistance based on their need and our capacity to help. Our mission is to the preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human need in His name without discrimination. 


Does The Salvation Army provide shelter to transgender people?

Yes. When a transgender person seeks help from us, we serve them in the same manner as any other person seeking assistance. Too often, LGBTQ Americans experience unacceptable homophobia or transphobia when seeking shelter. The Salvation Army seeks to be a welcome, safe place for all men, women, and children.


Does The Salvation Army consider the sexual orientation or gender identity of an applicant in its hiring practices?

No. We embrace talented people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Our hiring practices are open to all.


Does The Salvation Army provide benefits to the spouses of employees in same-sex marriages?

Yes. We provide the same benefits to opposite-sex and same-sex couples.

Some have said CFA is doing this because of contractual agreements to only support for a few years or to get into a UK market. Neither one of these is good reasons. Unfortunately, there are some effects that can follow from CFA’s decision because of this.

Years ago, CFA had the most successful day ever in fast food history with Chick-Fil-A Day. My family and I were ones that stood in line for about half an hour to get something there. It was arranged by Mike Huckabee. CFA never personally endorsed the day, but they reaped the benefits. Why did they get these benefits?

Because many Americans today still believe in traditional marriage and they were proud to see one restaurant standing by their principles and not caving even when the other side was pushing in on them. They have done this consistently. Unless there is some emergency in an area, they are not open on Sundays when they could be making profits on those days.

So CFA has some happy and loyal customers who support them because of their stances. Now I’m not saying CFA should go somewhere just because of the money, but at the same time, if they believe their stance is right, they should stick with it. Yesterday, the conservatives got the message from CFA that appeasement to the left is the proper way to go.

It’s been seen by many as a slap in the face and foolishness. After all, give the left an inch and usually they take a mile. These people will not be satisfied until CFA is donating money to pro-LGBTQ organizations and until they have a requirement that every employee show up to work in drag and refuse to serve to those bigoted Christians and close not on Sundays, but on Muslim holidays.

Not only that, now all these organizations that CFA has refused to donate to have been labeled as anti-LGBTQ, which will make it all the harder for them to get support. The mission that they are seeking to do will be less likely. In essence, they have been thrown under the bus.

Some Christians are wanting to boycott CFA. If you are going that route, I can honestly understand it even if I don’t support it. Buycotts like Chick-Fil-A Day work if there is a concentrated effort. When Duck Dynasty was pulled from the air, a concentrated effort worked to get the station to reverse its decision.

My only concern with this is if Christians go this route and CFA responds positively, just like with Duck Dynasty, please do not stop there. The message I got with the Duck Dynasty event was that Christians will get up in arms when a TV show is removed because of its Christian principles, but once they get what they want, Christians sit back down again. If that is the case, all that matters is the TV show. It is not the greater cause of the Kingdom.

If you do a boycott, do it not because CFA matters so much, but the cause of Christ does. You think CFA has betrayed that cause and you will not support them while they are doing that. Note also this is your personal conscience. Some Christians might still go from time to time because they just see CFA as a chicken sandwich restaurant. As Paul would say, let each be convinced in their own mind.

My own hope is that CFA will reverse this decision. It’s not going to keep me up at night or anything like that, but I think they sent a very bad message yesterday. It’s really just bad business also to do something to anger your largest support group and try to appease your most vocal critics instead that won’t be pleased.

CFA. If you read this, please reconsider.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Wired For Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks The Male Brain

What do I think of William Struthers’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Women are beautiful. Seriously. If the only evidence I had for the existence of God was my wife’s beauty, I would say the case is closed. I honestly can understand why some men get obsessed with pornography. We want to see beautiful women and they are such a mystery to us.

Pornography seems like an easy fix then. You get to see women and you get to experience their beauty. You don’t really harm anyone either. Right? What’s the harm.

Struthers writes that there is a great deal of harm. I want to stress at the start that I know pornography is becoming more of a problem for women as well and Struthers would not deny that I’m sure, but his main focus is writing about men. Men are often the ones who are much more the pursuers when it comes to sexual love and men don’t tie sex to emotions as much as women tend to. Men and women on average tend to treat sex very differently.

Struthers writes from a biblical perspective, but also from a psychological perspective. He writes about how men view sex and how pornography is degrading to them as men and degrading to the women. Pornography doesn’t enhance the joy of sexual pleasure. Instead, it winds up diminishing it. This book is ten years old and I think even more now it’s diminished than it was before. Today, there are men who are in their 20’s on viagra because they can’t get an erection watching real women because they’ve been watching women in porn for so long.

Struthers writes about the psychological and chemical effects that pornography has on the brain. He talks about how it is that a man experiences sexuality and how women should be aware of that. He writes about how many men experience shame with pornography and how it affects them. Sadly, there are too few men today who do not have any experience with pornography.

He also helps build up a worldview of sex and how it should properly be exercised in a marriage covenant between a man and a woman. This doesn’t mean that single people don’t have to have a proper worldview of sex. A single person has ways of bringing glory to God in their celibacy that a married person doesn’t. A married person has ways of bringing glory to God in their marriage and sexual intimacy that a single person doesn’t.

Also is the need for good masculinity. Today, we hear a lot about toxic masculinity. For many sadly, masculinity is measured by how good a man does in the bedroom. Naturally, a man wants to do good in the bedroom, but his masculinity is measured by far more than that. The measure of a man is really how much he can love, and when it comes to marriage, that will include showing love in the bedroom, but it also includes showing love everywhere else.

Also, men do need intimacy and by that is not just meant sex. There is a myth among women that all a man wants is sexual release when it comes to the act of marriage, which is just wrong. A man really wants to feel close and connected and loved by his wife and sexual intimacy is one of the loudest ways that a man gets the message that he is loved and accepted like that.

Finally, there’s a section on rewiring and restoring. There is hope and redemption for those whose lives have been damaged by pornography. Repentance and forgiveness is available to all who have stumbled.

I really encourage you to get this book and do something to address the problem of pornography. To sit alone looking at a computer screen to get aroused doesn’t require you to be a man. It just requires you to have a male body and a working computer with an internet connection. To go out and be a husband and maybe eventually a father as well, that requires you to be a real man. To have the desires for women but not feed them by viewing porn also requires you to be a real man. Go that route.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: We Too

What do I think of Mary DeMuth’s book published by Harvest House? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A few years ago, the #MeToo movement started. It really gained a lot of momentum when the Kavanaugh hearings were going on and sadly, that’s when I think it also lost a lot of it. Many people started viewing the claims with suspicion. There are also concerns now that a guy and a girl can hook up somewhere and later on she can cry rape.

Despite this, no one would deny that sexual abuse is a problem today and it is sadly a problem in the church as well. This isn’t just the Catholic Church I’m talking about. It’s in other churches as well, including the Protestant ones, and our atheist friends are more than happy to point out when a pastor falls into sexual sin. Not only pastors, but many men in the pews are involved in this kind of thing. Even if a man is not actively using a woman in front of him, many men struggle with porn and women become objects.

Mary DeMuth writes from the position of a sexual abuse overcomer. I say overcomer instead of survivor because I prefer that term. Survivor refers to someone who lived through it. That’s great, but it’s even better when you pick up the pieces of your life and work on healing and overcome it so you can function still. The experience will always be with you, but God is a powerful healer.

DeMuth’s message is a simple one. I could sum it up this way. Listen. Really. Just listen. Too many times victims are not heard because the accused perpetrator is such a good man supposedly. When court hearings take place, the victim often stands alone while the church comes and sits on the side of the accused.

I was also pleased to see her reference the activity going on around Paige Patterson recently. That’s a topic I did some coverage on and what happened to him is a testament to how much more seriously we’re taking this now. The sad reality though is that women still often don’t think they can safely talk about what happened at church services.

By the way, that’s one criticism I do have of the book. DeMuth does state how much this happens to women. Something that is left out is that while it is rarer, men are abused too. I would have liked to have seen it pointed out that all abuse is wrong including that which happens to the male of the species. Men might be even less likely to report sexual abuse to them since that male pride kicks in.

I also do think it’s important that we teach women still some tips on safety. I know the victim isn’t to blame, but in this day and age, women need to be careful. If you’re a woman and your male boss invites you up for a meeting in his hotel room one night, I wouldn’t take it. We all know of stories about the casting couch at various places.

We men need to be protectors as well. A woman can feel much safer I suspect if she has a father, a husband, a brother, an uncle, a cousin, or some man who is willing to be there for her and let her know she’s not to be abused this way. We could all do our part to help fight the pornography institution and its constant objectifying of men and women both.

Sexual abuse is a shame when it happens anywhere, but especially so when it happens in what’s supposed to be the body of Christ. We who represent the one who honored women the most ought to be a place where any woman can come and feel safe. We also need to provide counseling and support to these women who have been through such abuse. Hopefully, a book like this will help us all be more aware.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Primal Screams

What do I think of Mary Eberstadt’s book published by Templeton Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Wolves are not solitary animals. They travel in packs. They form families. They have tribes. They work together in a community. People might have believed the lone wolf was typical some time ago, but today those who know animals know that that is a myth.

People also tend to travel in tribes. For most of us, the first tribe is the family, but what happens if the family isn’t a tribe? What happens if the family is in disarray? What happens if you don’t know who your Dad is and you don’t have siblings to relate to and Mom is bringing home a new man on a regular basis?

Our culture has changed drastically since the sexual revolution, which is what Mary Eberstadt is writing about in this book. In the past, it was the norm for sexual behavior to take place between a husband and a wife in marriage. Today, no more. In the past, you used to see a man and a woman go into a room in a movie and heard a lock click and you knew what was going on. Today, you have to see them taking each other’s clothes off because that’s the only way you can know what is happening.

This leaves men and women wondering what it means to be a man and a woman, especially our young people. Is it any wonder there’s so much confusion? If I don’t know who I am, I will jump at any chance to have a rock I can put my identity on. I need something stable. This also assumes that God is not there properly understood. We are alone in a universe adrift and we have to figure out how we’re going to make it.

So here comes individualism and identity politics. Why do we have so many people running to safe places and talking about being offended and cultural appropriation? Because they really feel unsafe, they are offended, and they do think their culture is being taken from them. We’ve heard them complain about this and we have called them snowflakes, but how many of us have considered that while we disagree with what they’re saying, they really are convinced of it?

After all, if your culture defines you, what happens if someone tries to take your culture for themselves? They are really attacking your identity. How can that make you you if I can take it for myself? You thnk you need a safe place because you think you as a person are under attack. You see yourself being offended because you think you again are being attacked.

In this culture, men don’t know what it means to be men. Men don’t really know how to approach women and how to treat them. Big shock that they’re trying to just demonstrate their manhood and they think the best way to do that is to conquer as many women as possible, which leads to women becoming notches on bedposts. Pornography isn’t such a big deal then if women are just bodies to bring about pleasure.

Women also don’t know how to handle men. What does a woman think is going to happen when any man invites her to a hotel room for the night? The MeToo movement has shown that many women are not aware of how to handle things. Could women have come forward en masse because women didn’t know they were allowed to do that? Did women think this is par for the course with men? Did they also think that because men failed to be protectors and instead solely became predators? After all, in many of these stories about women being assaulted in some way, where are the good men?

This thinking also leads to transgenderism. Why not? The lines between the sexes have blurred so much that there is now getting to hardly be any distinction between them. As it turns out, now men are truly superior at everything. Men are superior at being women.

So it is that we have a culture that does not know who it is and Eberstadt’s book is sounding the alarm. The wolves normally don’t travel alone. Sometimes they leave the tribe for whatever reason and then you hear their primal screams of abandonment.

The culture is screaming.

Let’s do something about it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters