Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 32:1 (Winter 2018)
Article: My Resounding “Yes” To God And Embracing My Sexuality: Singleness And The Song Of Songs
Author: Elizabeth Gentry

PP 32:1 (Winter 2018) p. 15

My Resounding “Yes” To God And Embracing My Sexuality: Singleness And The Song Of Songs

Elizabeth Gentry

Liz Gentry holds a BA in Bible from Milligan College and is currently a Master of Arts in Theology and Mission student at Northern Seminary near Chicago, Illinois. She served as Pastor of Hospitality at NewStory Church in Chicago, though she recently entered a time of sabbatical. In the meantime, she finds herself pastoring as a full time barista and is excited to see where God may lead her next. Liz’s mother, Dawn Gentry, also authored a sermon for this issue of Priscilla Papers.

A Sermon by Elizabeth Gentry

“A sermon on Song of Solomon! But single people aren’t supposed to read that book!” This was my friend’s surprised and sarcastic reply as I told him I was working on this sermon. I laughed one of those rather somber “this is too real” kind of laughs, realizing the great irony of writing a sermon on a book that has had a painful history of being repressed or denied for those of us who are single.

I grew up in the I Kissed Dating Goodbye era of evangelical church history (for which my mother has recently apologized for ever having me read).1 The purity culture was a strong force in my childhood and adolescent years, teaching all of us that sex and any form of sexual expression was to be feared.2 Men were highly sexual beings and therefore women tossed on their loose turtlenecks, baggy pants, and wore little makeup to make sure we didn’t become labeled “temptress.”3 Now before I get too far, I need to dismiss some concerns you may have about where my sermon is heading. Before my words are dismissed as the ramblings of a progressive twenty-six-year-old pastor who’s too easily swayed by modern culture—I am (at least partially) grateful for my conservative evangelical upbringing when it comes to my sexuality. For all the flaws I see within it, the purity culture did indeed keep me safe. My fiancé and I are indeed abstaining from sex before marriage and we would both advise others to do the same.

But the purity culture also, inadvertently, taught me to embrace shame. Something I didn’t realize until my fiancé kissed me for the first time and my physical reaction made me blush, lower my eyes, and feel as if I had done something wrong. From conversations I’ve had with many other single women— both older and younger—I’m not the only one wrestling with this experience. It seems as though, for single women, our sexuality is to be repressed until the marriage bed (which, of course, is then supposed to simply explode out of us o...