“When a person has become addicted to drugs he has to go through a process called detoxification, or detox for short. In detox the person’s body is cleansed of the drug that he has become dependent upon. It is a difficult process of letting go of the old realities and embracing a new normal. Many men need a kind of sexual detox before they can be equipped to be the kind of pure, loving, attentive, sacrificial husbands that God calls them to be” (7). I’ve seen enough detox in my life to know that this process is a hard and painful one for recovering addicts. I’ve also seen enough young men trapped by pornography to believe that detox is an appropriate term. In Sexual Detox Tim Challies offers us help in the detox process. The short book is an incredibly accessible and useful tool in one particular phase of the process: reshaping the way an addict thinks. I have read and re-read this book for several years now and I am continually reminded of its usefulness. I might wish for it to be expanded in some areas, but it is, nonetheless, just a great introduction to the sexual detox process that young men need.
Challies isn’t overreaching with this book. He offers no strategic practical plan for fighting back against porn. He gives us a list of resources in the back of the book which he defers to. He isn’t interested in any sociology of sexual sin in our culture or the long-term damage done to men who are exposed to and indulge in pornography. Such books exist and I’ve written about some and will write about others I am sure before the year is over. Challies, a pastor in Toronto, has a very specific goal with this book.
I want to use this short guide to help you discover God’s plan for sex and sexuality. I want to help you track down the lies you have believed about sex and I want to help you replace them with truth that comes straight from God, the one who created sex for us. (4)
The biggest issue that a porn addict must face is that his brain has been rewired by the consistent viewing of porn. He has trained his brain to think about sex in certain ways that are unbiblical and unhealthy. They have come to think about sex through the lens of pornography. Long-term indulgence in porn alters one’s entire perception of sex.
Along the way, a person’s whole perception of sex is changed. No longer is sex simple intercourse between a man and a woman. Instead it becomes a series of acts, even acts that are in some way uncomfortable or degrading. Pornography teaches that sex is everything but intimate person-to-person, body-to-soul contact between willing spouses. And, as they say, life soon imitates “art.” Young men enter into marriage with their minds full of pornographic images and their hearts filled with the desire to fulfill pornographic fantasies. (6)
What young men need, then, is to have their minds “renewed” by the foundational understanding of sex that the Bible gives us. To that end Challies walks us quickly through a theology of sex.
Challies begins with the common ground that God is the creator of sex and therefore sex is good. But he is not so much interested here, as some are, with the idea that sex is a pointer to the gospel. Challies believes we tend to over-spiritualize sex. “Neither I am convinced that we need to find some deeper meaning in sex in order to affirm its goodness. Sex is inherently good because it was created by a good God” (13). When we broach the subject of why God created sex Challies turns to the role of desire in relationships. Sexual desire exists to make men pursue godly relationships with their women that they will marry, and once married to keep pursuing them. There is a reason that men want sex more frequently than women: to make him work on his relationship. Sex, according to Scripture, is about building up unity and intimacy between a husband and wife. Therefore God gave man and woman unequal sexual desire in order that they would work on their relationship together, consistently, and have lots of enjoyable sex as a part of it (not the whole of it).
Challies has written a wonderfully helpful book in Sexual Detox. Some will say it lacks practical application, others will accuse it of not being “gritty” enough like Driscoll’s book. But it is honest and helpful in what it sets out to achieve. Challies seeks to expose the lies of pornography, to undermine the attempts to pursue self-centered sex, and warn readers of the dangers of pornography for their marriages. It’s a book I should start my counseling sessions off with. I made the mistake earlier this year of using Porn Again Christian, and I won’t do it again. This is the book that starts us off on the right foot. The book that takes aim at how we think and seeks to help reform and renew our understanding of sex from Scripture.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 