Good thing.

Laura, I'm a bit more sympathetic to the charge of chauvinism because I suspect (though don't know) that it is of a piece with a renewed chauvinism in evangelicalism as a means of trying to parse (or "contextualize") a growth in male infidelity or sexual sin by trotting out the stereotype that wives are responsible for their husband's infidelity for "letting themselves go" (as was floated after the Ted Haggard story broke http://artsandfaith.com/index.php?showtopic=11882&st=300) or not meeting their "needs."

According to the article, the church's website says: "An epidemic of breakups proves the needs that lead to a great sex life are being overlooked. Dirty dishes, frumpy clothes, and a lack of authentic connections are killing the romance."

Okay maybe the "dirty dishes" are a comment about stress making us inattentive, but the "frumpy clothes" seems to me clearly gendered and hints (to me) that there is some coded language going on here to suggest that the challenge here is really to women and not couples. Granted this stereotype of marriage contains stereotypes of men that are as offensive as the stereotypes of women (e.g. men can't control their sex drive), but I do think one big difference is that within the stereotypes of both there is a more damaging message there that the woman needs to take responsibility for the man's fidelity, which I think is a dangerous assumption to let go unchallenged.

The words of the challenge continue: "A great sex life is a challenge and takes focus, determination, and planning. Some say it’s an
unrealistic goal, but we disagree. We believe you can have a great sex life, in fact we believe God wants you to have a great sex life."

This is better, but it is still problematic to me. The best spin I can put on the challenge is that it is acknowledging that a good sex life doesn't just happen but (like a good prayer life, study life, work life) requires work. In other words, this may be being suggested as a spiritual discipline--a period of focused concentration or practice on some element of the holy life in order to try to learn the practice.

It seems to me to be common sense that there COULD be things couples could learn from practice--how to break the expectation that every encounter has to be perfect, spontaneous, and effortless; how to communicate, etc.

My concern over parsing it in this way is that Foster, et al stress in The Spiritual Formation Workbook that a big danger in spiritual disciplines is making the "challenges" (they use the word "goals") ends in themselves. The historic purpose of the disciplines (fasting, silence, solitude, celebration as a discipline) is to make yourself available to God to teach you about the subject, not to have an economy of works. So for this to be effective as an exercise I would have to think there would be an infrastructure within the organization capable of helping people process the experience and apply the lessons that they learn from the exercise. And I doubt from the description that this church would be that.

The rhetoric/attitude from the web site is more typical of a "Purpose Driven Life" mentality--change your life in 30 days!
In most of those sorts of books that I've read the argument (specious, I think, but with a seed of truth) is that 30 days is supposed to be this magic threshold that allows something to become a habit. (Almost all Bible reading programs I remember encountering as a teen were centered around trying to meet an "every day for 30 days" goal.)

In this mindset (I'll call it the self-conditioning mindset as opposed to the spiritual discipline mindset), the point of the exercise is to internalize the behavior as a habit, and the underlying assumptions include that the action is prima facie good and that the practice can (and should) be sustained at (or close to) the level of the challenge period.

To summarize:
I really see a confused mix/conflation of mindsets in this challenge--there seems to be the confusion as to what is the purpose and outcome goal of a 30 day challenge for anything, and I think that is quite a different issue from the object of the challenge. There also seems to be an expectation that simply doing the exercise is what will lead to the better sex life, which I would question. Disciplines of abstention might in themselves be their own success (an alcoholic not drinking for 30 days would be success) but spiritual disciplines of practice need to be something other than "I met my quota" to be really meaningful. Is God pleased by my having a daily quiet time in which I read a chapter of scripture every day if I make no effort to apply what I read and simply assume that by doing the discipline I have met the criteria for having a good devotional life? Thirdly, while not everyone doing the challenge would have to believe the stereotypes in order to benefit from it (or benefit for the expected reasons), those promoting it

Just do it!

Hal,

Thanks for the laughs! As always, you are succinct and witty.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the thoughtful commentary, as always. It's odd to me that I read the website and blurred right over the portion you (correctly) nailed as chauvinistic. Perhaps too many years of glossing over things whilst sitting in Baptist pews (in order not to stand up screaming) conditioned me to ignoring the rhetoric.

I haven't noodled all the way through the guide that goes with the challenge, but there are some interesting questions at the outset which strike me as an excellent starting place for couples to open up communication in their lives about this intimate topic.

If that opening is a sample of the whole guide, I think there would be value there for many couples (Christian or otherwise) who would like to integrate their sexuality with their spiritual lives. (Or even those who just want to be more comfortable as sexual beings.)

I'm only tangentially familiar with the The Spiritual Formation Workbook, so I can't offer much by way of comment on this exercise as a spiritual discipline.

On the question of whether more sex leads to better sex...I suppose it's a good place to start.