Sex, God, and the Conservative Church

Sex, God, and the Conservative Church guides psychotherapy and sexology clinicians on how to treat clients who grew up in a conservative faith-mired in sexual shame and dysfunction-and who desire to both heal and hold on to their faith orientation. The author first walks clinicians and readers through a critique of Western culture and the conservative Christian Church, and their effects on intimate partnerships and sexual lives. The book provides clinicians a way to understand the faulty sexual ethic of the early church, while revealing the hidden mystical sex and body positive understanding of sexuality of the Hebrew people. The book also includes chapters on strategies for a new sexual ethic, on clinical steps to heal religious sexual shame, and on specific sex therapy interventions clinicians can use directly in their practice. Finally, it offers a four step model for healing religious sexual shame and actual touch and non-touch exercises to bring healing and intimacy into a person's life.

Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified sex therapist, as well as a professor of sexuality and medical family therapy in the graduate Family Therapy Department at Seattle Pacific University.

Acknowledgements  Introduction  1. Christianity and Sex: What's Going On?  2. How Did Christian Sexuality Get Derailed?  3. American Consumerism  4. Hope for Clients: The Lost Message of a Sex-Positive God  5. In Pursuit of a Sex Positive-Gospel: Strategies for a New Sexual Ethic  6. Clinical Applications: Four Steps to Healing Religious Sexual Shame  7. Sex Therapy Interventions: The Anatomy of Intimacy  8. Sex Therapy Interventions: The Practices of Intimacy  Epilogue: Are You a Renegade Therapist?