The subtle but steady development of obscene open discussions in the church circles in the name of a marriage seminar is a development that must be cautioned through the lens of Scripture. The church lately has witnessed the rise of para-church ministries both within local churches and outside the church circles as Christian family or home therapists who encourage obscene discussion in public in church. This development has the potential to further break down morality in the church.
The effort, as they claim, is meant to solve familial issues that border on intimate relationships that perhaps never existed in the previous generations. Permit my sarcasm. However, my point is this, if the challenge that borders on intimacy facing Christian homes today existed before now, why didn’t the previous generation adopt the modern approach of church-open-obscene discussion in solving the same challenge and yet where able to curtail the challenge? If they could manage the problem by not adopting a method adopted by today’s family therapists, why then do some church leaders consider this unbiblical approach as a way to handle the same challenge that has seemingly yielded no result as family crisis in this regard that attest to this fact seems to abound?
To begin with African culture, conjugal relationships were considered one of the most private secrets a man could keep in society. Revealing or discussing one's intimate experiences was viewed as a religious abomination, moral perversion, and antisocial behavior. Unlike today, society was not filled with the obscenity and immoral consequences that we often see now. It is disheartening that what African culture once condemned, despite its limitations, has now been adopted by the church—an agent of light—as a means to address familial and conjugal issues in Christian homes.
The Bible's stance on this matter is unequivocally clear. In Ephesians 5:3-4, the Apostle Paul states: "Christian faith is rooted in the holiness of God through Jesus Christ and is meant to reflect that holiness both within the community and before the world." Engaging in godless behavior not only portrays God negatively to the world but also obscures the light of the church. Additionally, it undermines the sanctity of those involved and adversely affects the audience, which can grieve the Holy Spirit.
It can be argued that the motive behind discussions is what truly matters. In other words, since these discussions occur on church platforms to promote love and understanding at home, they are not sinful in themselves. While the intentions may be good, executing them in the wrong way can lead to harm or undesirable outcomes. We live in a fallen world with a flawed nature. How, then, can one resist the temptation to sin mentally and emotionally during such public discussions, especially when they may involve individuals of the opposite sex? Church leadership must carefully consider the potential immorality this development could pose for the future of the church.
The value of such an approach to solving consummating familial issues cannot be outrightly denied. Ethically, such deliberations are meant to be private as families with such challenges seek the assistance of a counsellor, family therapist, and medical personnel. Such discussions are not often instigated by families that have such challenges in public meetings, as hardly would one be found who wants such private issues of his or her family made public. Invariably, the church has witnessed lately the facilitator coming up with such topics to captivate the attention of people to attend their programs. This is sort of an “ear-itching topic” that average Christians hardly overcome the temptation to feed their flesh on.
By and large, this development is nothing but a subtle infiltration of secularism in the church. The profanity on our streets and most lately on our screens is making inroads into the church. Social media has helped in desensitizing humanity to the profanity of obscenity and nudity in society. Unfortunately, modern technology, in its downsides, has taken the church off guard on so many grounds.
The unquestionable reaction of the church leadership to the public-obscene-discussion in the church is another ground that modern technology has gotten to the throat of the church. Some church leaders or ministers who may have lost their conscience of chastity have yielded to the secular profanity and thereby gradually stripping the church of its sanity in the guise of family therapy.