Protecting women from abortion’s harm
By / Feb 10

Every year in this country, nearly one million babies are aborted. This is a heartbreaking reality in itself, but there is more. For every aborted baby, there is a woman who has been subjected to a horrific act of violence that harms her.

Those of us who are pro-life should be concerned about the wellbeing of women who seek abortion, as well as their unborn babies. We do not have to agree with their decision in order to help them survive it—it is an act of neighbor love. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he didn’t say what kind of man had been left for dead. He was simply making the point that his disciples should seek the wellbeing of others, and this applies to women seeking abortions. We can, and should, vigorously oppose abortion on demand, but we should do all we can to help women survive if they make this unwise choice.

Incredibly, the pro-abortion community promotes abortion in the name of women’s reproductive health. They insist that abortion helps women. However, abortion does not benefit women’s health. It harms women physically, emotionally and spiritually. And there is no way to protect women from much of abortion’s harm because it is inherent in the act itself. The best thing a woman can do to avoid the harm of abortion is to choose life for her baby. But for those who choose abortion, some harm can be prevented and some mitigated by commonsense regulations.

Texas law seeks to protect women

Texas sought to reduce the harm of abortion to women by requiring abortion clinics and their staff to meet a few basic health and safety standards. The state required abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Surprisingly, not all of them do. This requirement improves women’s chances of surviving if complications arise from an abortion. In 2009, at least 12 women died as a result of complications from a legal abortion. No doubt, thousands of others came near to death. Planned Parenthood has even conceded that at least 210 women in Texas annually must be hospitalized after seeking an abortion. Stories abound of women being dumped at hospital emergency rooms because of abortions gone awry. Women have had their uteruses punctured, their intestines torn and suffered in countless ways as a result of abortions performed in unsafe, yet legal, environments by people without proper training or adequate emergency precautions. These are the kinds of things we were told would end when abortion became legal.

Texas also required the facilities where abortions are performed to meet certain ambulatory surgical center requirements. Staff at abortion clinics must be trained in sterilization of instruments, abortion devices must be clean and free of rust, sterile supplies must not be outdated, staff must be trained in CPR, and appropriate emergency medicine must be immediately available. You would think anyone performing abortions would be doing these things already, but some abortion clinics in Texas have been cited for failing to meet these basic standards of responsible health care.

Many abortion advocates do not want to be held to these standards as they destroy millions of babies and devastate the lives of women. They claim such requirements place inappropriate hurdles in the way of women seeking abortion. They have taken their opposition to the Texas law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court—Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

The ERLC supports Texas law at the Supreme Court

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission believes the Texas law is entirely appropriate. We are working for the day when convenience abortion is illegal and every abortion mill is shuttered, but while it remains legal, some basic measures should be required. We joined with other faith groups recently in submitting a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the law. In our brief, we argue the law will help protect women. Requiring abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges will lead to greater continuity of care in the case of complications, increase quality of care and reduce the risks of complications. Additionally, rooms with sterile, functioning, well-maintained equipment and trained staff will help ensure a safer environment for women.  

Abortion is about as serious as it gets. Not only is an innocent human being killed without mercy, but the mother is at risk of devastating complications, including death. Some people believe women deserve whatever happens to them if they have an abortion. I understand this reaction. I just don’t think it is a Christian response. The Supreme Court should uphold the Texas law. It’s distressing that abortion will still be legal if it does, but at least it will help ensure the safety and wellbeing of women who, along with their babies, are created in the image of God.

The Pastor and Pro-life Ministry
By / Dec 1

Garrett Kell, a pastor in Virginia, discusses pro-life ministry and the hope that Jesus offers to the one who has had an abortion.

Finding forgiveness and freedom after abortion
By / Sep 2

Millions of women and men, both in society and in the church, are suffering under the guilt of abortion. If you’re a woman who’s had an abortion or advised another to have one, this blog is for you. If you’re a man who’s been involved in an abortion decision, whether it concerned your girlfriend, wife, daughter or anyone, it’s also for you.

It’s counterproductive to try to eliminate guilt feelings without dealing with the cause of the guilt. You can only avoid feelings of guilt by denying reality. You need a permanent solution to your guilt problem — a solution based on reality, not pretense.

The good news is that God loves you and desires to forgive you for your abortion, whether or not you knew what you were doing.

The bad news

But before the good news can be appreciated, we must know the bad news. The bad news is that there’s true moral guilt, and all of us are guilty of many moral offenses against God, of which abortion is only one. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Sin is falling short of God’s holy standards. It separates us from a relationship with God (Is. 59:2). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).

The good news

Jesus died on the cross as the only one worthy to pay the penalty for our sins demanded by God’s holiness (2 Cor. 5:21). He rose from the grave, defeating sin and conquering death (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 54-57).

When Christ died on the cross for us, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek word translated “it is finished” was written across certificates of debt when they were canceled. It meant “paid in full.”

Because of Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf, God freely offers us forgiveness.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12).

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

Salvation is a gift: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). This gift is not dependent on our merit or effort but solely on Christ’s sacrifice for us. God offers us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life, but it’s not automatically ours. In order to have the gift, we must choose to accept it.

You may think, “But I don’t deserve forgiveness after all I’ve done.” That’s exactly right. None of us deserves forgiveness. If we deserved it, we wouldn’t need it. That’s the point of grace.

Once forgiven, we can look forward to spending eternity with Christ and our spiritual family (John 14:1-3; Rev. 20:11-22:6). You can look forward to being reunited in Heaven with your loved ones covered by Christ’s blood, including the child you lost through abortion (1 Thess. 4:13-18).

God doesn’t want you to go through life punishing yourself for your abortion or for any other wrong you have done. Your part is to accept Christ’s atonement, not to repeat it. No matter what you’ve done, no sin is beyond the reach of God’s grace. He has seen us at our worst and still loves us. There are no limits to His forgiving grace. And there is no freedom like the freedom of forgiveness.

The need for support

Joining a group for post-abortion healing can help you immensely. You may have bitterness toward men who used and abused you and forgiveness issues toward those who helped you with your abortion decision (see Matt. 6:14-15). There are post-abortion Bible studies designed for women, and others for men. Many online resources can help you find the support group you need. (See Healing Hearts and and afterabortion.org

You need to become part of a therapeutic community, a family of Christians called a church. (If you’re already in a church, share your abortion experience with someone to get the specific help you need.) You may feel self-conscious around Christians because of your past. You shouldn’t. A true Christ-centered church isn’t a showcase for saints but a hospital for sinners. The people you’re joining are just as human and imperfect as you. Most church people aren’t self-righteous. Those who are should be pitied because they don’t understand God’s grace.

A good church will teach the truths of the Bible and will provide love, acceptance and support for you. If you cannot find such a church in your area, contact EPM, and we’ll gladly do what we can to help you.

A healthy step you can take is to reach out to women experiencing unwelcome pregnancies. God can eventually use your experience to equip you to help others and to share with them God’s love. My wife and I have a number of good friends who’ve had abortions. Through their caring pro-life efforts they’ve given to other women the help they wish someone had given them. Telling their stories has not only saved children’s lives, and mothers from the pain of abortion, but has helped bring healing to them. It can do the same for you.

Addressing the guilt of abortion with grace and truth
By / Aug 26

Editor’s Note: Visit the ERLC’s page for the current Planned Parenthood videos.

Millions of women and men, both in society and in our churches, are suffering under the guilt of abortion. The heavy emotional burden of abortion isn’t limited to those who’ve had one. A schoolteacher in her forties said, “Advising my daughter to have an abortion led me into a long, suicidal siege. I’m not over it yet.” (Another group of people affected are those who work in abortion clinics. Check out this article, “Mugged by Ultrasound,” about why so many abortion workers have become pro-life. Wow.)

I encourage you to read through the following perspectives from Diane Meyer, a close friend of ours. In fact, she’s like a third daughter to me and Nanci. She lived with us when our daughters were small, and she was a young unwed mother. We had the joy of seeing her come to Christ and helped her place a baby for adoption.  (Just this last year she was reunited with her 33-year-old son, and it was our privilege to be there with Diane’s family and the adoptive parents.)

Over the years, we’ve seen Diane honor Christ and serve the needy, with a great heart for women damaged by abortion (She, Dan Franklin and I spoke together about abortion to our church several years ago; video is available on our site.) I can’t express how deeply my wife and I respect Diane. She’s a courageous and insightful voice who deserves to be heard. She has helped countless women, including those she’s worked with in prisons, come to terms with their abortions and seek forgiveness and healing in Christ.

Diane’s thoughts that follow remind us that as we continue to speak out about abortion, we should do so in a spirit of grace and truth, always pointing to the hope and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ. Christ died for the sins of all of us; and his forgiveness is freely available to all: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Here is what Diane says:

Diane’s perspective

Because of the mountain of blogs, posts, statuses and tweets on social media concerning the Planned Parenthood videos, I hesitated before adding my own voice. But then I remembered that I am a witness, and it is my job to speak the truth.I am encouraged by these videos being released because it is good that, however horrible, this truth is coming out and is being discussed. It is being seen.

The really difficult part for us to stomach is not so much the profit being enjoyed by Planned Parenthood but rather the simple truth that there are baby body parts to harvest because there is a baby’s body.

Along with many thousands of other women, I don’t need to watch these Planned Parenthood videos (in fact, I cannot) because I’m a firsthand witness to what happens at abortions. I have my own unwanted videos that play in my head. There is no unseeing that, there is no unhearing that and there is no unknowing that. I am a witness to the truth. Not “my” truth. THE truth.

These videos are so enflaming because they are making us actually see what is happening.

The truth of these videos may make women who have chosen abortion, or had abortion chosen for them, lash out in self-righteous indignation and bitter anger. They cannot face this truth because it would mean that they ended the life of their own child. Or they may howl in pain and despair because how are they supposed to live, supposed to go on, supposed to breathe at all, knowing what they did? We are missing our babies.

You have an opportunity to be [like] Jesus here. Cry with us as we miss our children. Show grace. Show love. Be kind. Be gentle. I want to gather all these women up and hug them until they don’t hurt anymore.

Please convince me, convince all of us, we are wrong. Show us that Planned Parenthood is not actually harvesting children’s body parts; that [they are] just unorganized, unrecognizable blobs of tissue. Don’t just tell us; prove to us that we didn’t really kill our children. Show us evidence that they could feel no pain during the violent procedure that took their lives. Tell us that the parts weren’t taken for profit. Convince us mothers that we’ve not experienced great loss and that we should not grieve for our children.

I wish you could do that. But you can’t, nor can anyone else. Because I am a witness to the truth. So how am supposed to live with myself? I can’t. I don’t. It is only because of Jesus Christ who forgives me for even this, and it is he that lives in me. Can you imagine that God that would come live in me? Amazing grace is what that is. He redeemed me from shame and sin and death, and he calls me his own. And I, who am more unworthy than most, will proclaim this unbelievable, preposterous truth until the very end. Praise God.

God’s forgiveness and community help

As Diane shares, because of Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf, God freely offers us forgiveness, for abortion and every other sin. Here are just a few of those offers:

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. . . . As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. (Ps. 103:10, 12–13)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1)

If you or someone you know has had an abortion, there are Bible studies designed for women, and others for men, offering compassionate help and healing. Many online resources can help you find the support group you need. Those in the Portland, Oregon area can learn more at Portland Heart. For those in other areas, see Silent No More, Heartbeat International’s Abortion Recovery Ministries or Hope After Abortion to connect with a post-abortion healing group in your area.

This article originally appeared here

Abortion, Weeping, and Hope
By / Aug 3

I grew up believing strongly that every person should have equal rights–every person living and walking was made with the potential to do great things and contribute to society. If you were to label me, perhaps you’d say I was feminist, pro-choice and politically liberal. Like much of America, I believed that a woman had a right to determine what was best for her body. I believed wholeheartedly that I was also pro-women. No one, I thought, should be allowed to control the outcome of an unwanted pregnancy except for the mother. The male partner didn’t have rights to voice an opinion either. I actually don’t believe I thought the baby was a baby. In other words, I adopted the idea that he or she was a fetus of cells that weren’t fully developed and therefore disposable. There wasn’t anything in my mind that would have convinced me otherwise.
But God.

Something radical happened to all of my perceived notions of rights when God captured my heart with his gospel. Nothing was the same. As my heart was being transformed, so was my worldview. As I opened the Word I discovered that what I thought was a bunch of cells in a petri dish was actually the created work of God knitting and molding into a mothers’ womb (Psalm 139:13). God wasn’t creating a specimen. Rather he was creating a human—a man or woman made in His image.
Miscarriages proved to drive home this point as I continued to grow in Christ. I got it. I understood that my loss was real. I mourned the deaths of those babies because I knew that children were a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward (Psalm 127:3). And now that I have two busy and joy-filled children, I understand the joy of a human being that has been born (John 16:21). Oh what joy!

Lately, as the topic of abortion has reentered the public square with great ferocity, I’ve found myself weeping, without words, and unsure where to begin as I think about discussing the topic with my neighbors, I find myself weeping.

Here’s the thing, I know many (many) women who’ve made this choice, the choice to abort their baby. I want them to know that I am indeed pro-women. Not that I affirm their choice but rather that I believe in a God who hates sin and sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. I believe in a God who says, if we confess our sin he’s faithful to forgive us and purify us (1 John 1:9). I believe that all of Romans 8 applies to me and to her and to anyone who has trusted in the Lord.

You, my friend, my sister, are not condemned. That is how I am pro-woman. I want her to know that truth in God’s Word—all of it—and know the love found in Jesus.

Weep with Hope

There is an appropriate time for everything and now is an appropriate time for weeping (Ecclesiastes 3:4). We weep for those babies who lost their lives. We weep for the doctor, nurses, and staff who performed the procedures. We weep with the hundreds of thousands of mothers who are now weeping because of their decision to abort (some of which are near and dear to my heart). We weep with you, mothers. We don’t chastise you; we pray that your next decision would abstinence or life and swift repentance if it has been delayed.

But we don’t mourn as those without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We can weep with hope knowing that God sent his son Jesus as a propitiation for our sins and he will return vindicating his righteousness. He will make all things new. And we hope in that future grace because we know that his word is true. And though we are restless and ready for his return, we thank God that he is patient not wanting anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9).

The accuser in the mirror: The danger of false guilt
By / Jul 25

Feelings of guilt, like feelings of pain, are a gift from God. Both are warning systems alerting us that we are in danger. When these gifts are absent it poses a crisis—a person with a medical disorder in which he can feel no pain (congenital analgesia) lives in constant danger, and a person who never experiences the feeling of guilt may very well be a sociopath. Both of these are horrifying conditions, which often result in harm to self and others, but we do not need a diagnosis to misuse or abuse what God has intended for good.

Feelings of guilt and pain can be easily corrupted. Though pain is a gift from God, when someone needlessly physically mutilates him or herself, they are dishonoring God by harming his image bearer. Likewise, harboring false guilt for things that are beyond our control or because of our personal limitations in certain areas of our lives is a wicked form of spiritual self-mutilation.

It’s not about humility

False guilt is not humility. It is the result of an unhealthy self-preoccupation that is often rooted in our expectations about what we think we should be able to do and accomplish. The problem is that we do not often distinguish between true guilt and false guilt, and we mask our false guilt as humility. Wallowing in false guilt is the fruit of fixing one’s gaze on oneself rather than on the acceptance and freedom found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We are objectively guilty because we have sinned against God. Our subjective feelings of guilt, when they accurately reflect what the Scripture names sin, are a path to confession, repentance and a renewed experience of the grace of God. But often our subjective feelings of guilt are not rooted in what the Scripture describes as sin, rather in our own misplaced longings and identity. Often with false guilt, the standard is not God’s revelation but our perception of how we compare to those around us. We think we should have or be able to do what we see others around us doing, so we feel guilty and begin to accuse ourselves.

Falling prey to Satan’s tactics

When we harbor false guilt we become a malicious witness, not against our brother (Deut. 19:15-20), but against ourselves. Satan’s name means adversary and accuser. He is the accuser of the brothers, and he will answer to Christ for his malicious accusations (Rev. 12:10). When we accuse ourselves and bear false guilt, we are unwittingly imaging the evil one in the world. False guilt is one of the primary weapons of Satan’s parasitic rival kingdom. I once heard my friend Russell Moore explain, “No one is more pro-choice on the way into an abortion clinic than Satan and no one is more pro-life on the way out of an abortion clinic that Satan because he thrives on hopeless accusation.”  

Genuine feelings of guilt that lead to conviction, confession and repentance do not leave the believer in self-oriented groveling but rather declaring, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). False guilt cannot lead to an experience of grace because its root is satanic self-deception. Satan’s temptations of Jesus were fundamentally accusations, based on Scripture but abstracted from the cross and the gospel. “If you are the Son of God . . .,” Satan asserts, you should be able to claim these promises right now (Matt. 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13).

Satan’s tactics have not changed. He longs for us to be gripped by the constant ache of false guilt: You do not have that? You cannot do that? Look at how much everyone around you is doing. Why didn’t you do more? You are worthless if you do not have what others have. You are not bright enough, attractive enough, credentialed enough, and successful enough to really be useful. You are a burden to those around you. This kind of false guilt is a self-feeding beast. It produces hypersensitivity and a paralyzing self-loathing that often projects self-accusation on others.

The answer found in gospel-esteem

When we become our own accuser based on false guilt, the gospel becomes eclipsed in our thinking. False guilt accuses but offers no hope. Instead of taking every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), every thought becomes a referendum on whether or not we are measuring up and whether others think we are measuring up. The answer is not found in the prevalent notion of contemporary American culture that all feelings of guilt are bad and we should focus on our personal self-esteem. The flattery-oriented, “everybody is always a winner” culture is vacuous. The answer is found in gospel-esteem. We are guilty, but Christ died for sinners, and there is forgiveness found through faith in him.

Embracing gospel truth on a daily basis means viewing our lives through the lens of Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2). God’s love demonstrated on the cross of Christ atones for the sins of those who trust him and removes their condemnation. It is an act of rebellion to develop a new self-generated legalistic standard and to make accusations against oneself based on that standard. Paul declared, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

Trusting God and his all-wise providence means living the life we actually have in faithfulness to him as the most strategic and influential thing we could be doing for the sake of the gospel. Wishing we had a different life and could attain some level of self-defined success is the most worthless anti-gospel thing we could waste our time doing (Matt. 25:14-30). We are called to surrender our lives, strengths and weaknesses, ability and disability, to Jesus for his glory. Do not let anyone rob you of your gospel freedom in Christ—including you.

TRANSCRIPT: We haven’t consummated our marriage.
By / Mar 28

Hello, I’m Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and you are listening to Questions and Ethics. This is the program where we take a question that you are struggling with and take a look at it through the lens of the kingdom of Christ. And our question this week comes from a pastor who says to me, “Dr. Moore, I pastor a small congregation made up mostly of younger people, college students and young couples. And we have a problem that I don’t know how to deal with. There’s a couple, married, they’ve been married for eight months, and they have yet to consummate the marriage. At issue is the husband. The young man is unwilling to consummate the marriage. There is no medical problem. I have investigated asking him if maybe there is a sexual orientation issue. He says, no. He is not attracted to men at all. He loves his wife, but he finds sex to be “gross,” in his words. So they haven’t consummated the marriage yet. I don’t know what to do or how to help them. Is this something that is a church discipline issue, or is this just something I ought to pray for them about and move on?”

Well, pastor, that is a difficult one, and it is something that—you know, I find myself getting this question more and more these days. It seems that I am finding more and more young couples having sexual difficulties. And a lot of times what people tend to think about are older couples, whether medical problems, or they’ve been married a long time and kind of the romantic energy is lagging in the marriage. But I am finding this situation with young couples.

The situation that you are talking about here is a crisis. Eight months without any intimacy within this marriage for a newlywed couple, that is a really significant thing. And it is significant biblically since marriage, biblically, is made up of a vow—a commitment that is being made before God and before the rest of the community—and also consummation, that one-flesh union. “Therefore,” the scripture says, “they shall be joined together,” Genesis 2, “and they shall become one flesh.” So, an unconsummated marriage is something that throughout the history of the church has been recognized as no marriage at all, especially where there is a refusal to consummate the marriage. So this is a serious matter.

What I would say to you is that there are several things I would keep in mind. You said there is no medical issue; that has already been looked at. I would make sure that that’s actually been examined. Make sure that as you are counseling that he has a doctor weighing in on this, not that he’s just assuming that there is nothing wrong. You’ve already investigated the sexual orientation issue. It might be worth talking that through one-on-one with him, without her there, to see whether or not that is an issue.

There are a couple of other possibilities that might be happening. One of them is pornography. And by that I don’t mean that pornography generally leads to this, but it can if you have someone who has been exposed to pornography for a long time, especially prior to that person being shaped and formed sexually during puberty. So you may have somebody who has been exposed to porn since he was nine, ten years old, so he is unable to think of a real-life woman in a way that causes the sort of response to her that God initiated and that God wired within us. And it also may be that somehow he has been involved in porn for so long, or something, that there is a sense of shame that he is attaching to sex. Maybe there is a sort of guilt that he is attaching, and being in the presence of her, there is that sense that the Bible says is the result of the fall, that the man and the woman were naked and they were ashamed before each other. It’s creating a rift between her and him. I would take him one-on-one and say tell me about what’s happening in your past with porn.

Another possibility is that there is some sort of trauma that has happened in his life. It could be that this is someone who was sexually abused. It could be that there was some type of psychological wound that he experienced. Spend some time talking to him. And I think in this case, after eight months, it’s worth bringing in professional help with a professional counselor who can come in and help work him through this, maybe even before you put the two of them together in the conversation. Work him through this to say is there some sort of trauma that is going on.

Now, if this is simply just someone who says I don’t want to have sex with my wife. I refuse to carry out my responsibilities to love and to care for me wife including in the area of sexual intimacy, well, yeah, I think that would constitute an abandonment of her, and that would mean that the leaders of the church should come in and deal with it. My suspicion here, just based on the general stuff that you are giving to me, though, isn’t that. My suspicion is that there is some sort of trauma going on in his life, and you need to help him with that and to provide whatever help that you can give to him.

For her, it sounds to me, based again on the very little that you have said to me, that she is wanting to fight this through; she is wanting to be there with her husband and work through this. She has stayed with him for eight months. So, give her the resources that she is going to need. That includes keeping her from thinking somehow that she is to blame. I mean, of course she is going to think that this is very unusual, and it is an unusual situation to be married eight months and have no sexual relationship with one another. She is going to feel as though she is somehow unwanted or unattractive, or maybe even freakish. That’s not the case. This is not her problem, I am willing to say right here. This is something that is going on in his life. So help her to see that, and give the ministry to her that she is going to need as you work through this situation.

And just find out what the problem is. If it’s a medical, hormonal issue, well, that can be fixed. If it’s a psychological, trauma issue, well then you need to have people who are able to help him work through this. If it’s a sense of attaching shame and guilt to sex, then you need—and that can happen. Sometimes you have Christians who have been diligent watching their hearts when it comes to sexuality in an unbiblical form. They are avoiding, as the scripture says, “flee fornication,” but they don’t cultivate that sense of the goodness of sexuality and the healthiness of sexuality, so they have some difficulties. It doesn’t cause eight months of not being able to consummate a marriage. So there is probably something else going on here. But help him to work through, as you are moving forward, that sexuality is a good thing, a good gift that God has given to us. And just help them to fight through this. But you are right to be concerned about it; this is a crisis in the marriage, because sexuality isn’t something incidental to the marriage. That one-flesh union, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and physically is really important in a marriage.

Thanks for listening to Questions and Ethics. For more resources on living the Christian life check out our website at erlc.com, and send me your question. Maybe you have been reading your Bible, and you notice something there that you have a question about. Or maybe you are having a conversation with somebody in your neighborhood, and a question came up. Or maybe it’s something you are wrestling through in your family or in your church or in your workplace. Just send me your questions at [email protected] or Twitter at the hashtag #askrdm. Until next time, seek the kingdom and walk the line. This is Russell Moore.