Lauren Winner on Chastity

At Christianitytoday.com, Lauren Winner has an article, excerpted from her new book, on "chastity."  She cites the prevalence of premarital sex and extramarital affairs among evangelical Christians and writes:

All this suggests to me that our usual strategies for helping people cope with sexuality are not working. Repeating biblical teachings about sex is simply not enough. Urging self-discipline isn't enough. Reminding people of the psychological cost of premarital sex or infidelity is not enough. What we need is something larger and deeper: a clear vision of what chastity ultimately is and the most important context in which it is practiced.

Discipled Sex
What is chastity? One way of putting it is that chastity is doing sex in the body of Christ—doing sex in a way that befits the body of Christ, and that keeps you grounded, and bounded, in the community.

Winner's book is called Real Sex:  The Naked Truth about Chastity (Brazos Press 2005).  In a brief note in the new issue of First Things that I just received (but is not online yet), Richard Neuhaus sees some overlap between the discussion of sex in Winner's book and the "theology of the body" articulated by John Paul II.

Tom B.