what people are saying
More Reviews and Posts
"This book was difficult to read, and I imagine difficult to write, not because of how it is written, but because it deals with a subject matter many of us would rather deny the cause of. Hardly a day goes by that sexually explicit music and images are not shown to children both in the home and the school. The idea that there is no long term effects on the make up of children and how they develop is a fool's error, and there are a lot of fools. This book details how sex education is not neutral, let alone beneficial, but rather is extremely dangerous. The book encourages parents to step up and reassume their role as the primary educator of their children. As a result of this book, I am reevaluating many of my positions, and how they have been effected by the lie of sex education."
RevSchmidt
As I write these words, the news headlines abound with the tragedy of the ill-fated aircraft that crashed in the Alps with 150 lives aboard. Recordings available detail the lock-out of the captain from the cockpit and his attempts to open the cabin door and regain control of the plane. And there are the cries of the doomed passengers. It brings to mind Rev. 3:20: “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” When it comes to sex education, the church has a history of locking the “Captain” outside the control room and allowing those with destructive intentions to man the controls. I believe Linda Bartlett is a voice crying out to the church that much harm has been done, but there is still hope. Her book is a wake-up call so that we might join our voices with hers in setting the church on its proper course once again with the “Captain,” namely Jesus Christ, at the “controls” of His ship and with the safe arrival of its passengers at their heavenly destination assured."
Rev. Marvin Flanscha
Author Linda Bartlett asks a simple question in this thought-provoking book: Do we follow the Word of God or the word of Kinsey? The efforts of many in the Church to accommodate Christian thought and action to what is said to be modernity, to conform ourselves to the world, is misguided and can have tragic consequences for our children. Famed British author G.K. Chesterton spoke to this tendency when he wrote: "The Christian life has not been tried and found wanting. It has been tried and found difficult." Today, we have seen many a credentialed "expert" found wanting, instead. It is very fitting that this voice of faith and reason should arise from the American heartland. Thomas Jefferson once said that if you put a moral question to a plowman and a philosopher, the plowman would more readily derive the correct answer. That is because, the Sage of Monticello wrote, "he who knows little is nearer the truth than he who knows much that is not so." Linda Bartlett is a farmer's wife who actually knows a great deal, but what she knows and what she shares in this important book is the Truth of Scripture. No more solid rock can be known.
Bob Morrison,
Former Director of the LCMS Office
of Government Information
Linda Bartlett shows great courage as she confronts the Sex Education enterprise both in society, in churches and church schools. With careful, well documented research and thorough and prayerful analysis, she traces the history of so called Sex Education in schools, universities and society in general. Exposing the misconceptions, false premises, and depravity of Kinsey and his team, some of whom were themselves deviants, she illustrates how it has been uncritically embraced by our culture and some churches. She then explains how acceptance of these false notions has produced a painful harvest of moral decay, disease, and depression. The narrative of this book is built around a solid Christ-centered core of justification by grace through faith, the Bible and historic Christian Theology. It constitutes a call to wake up, put aside our fear and indifference, and take action while there is still time. I strongly recommend this book for serious study by pastors, teachers and any concerned Christian.
Pastor Don Richman,
Founding Director of the
East European Missions Network
This book exposes what has been driving the sexual education movement in Western culture in recent decades. Bartlett speaks truth that will ruffle feathers because she exposes lies on which the PC movement operates. Although she writes with conviction Bartlett is not contentious, meaning only to stop parents, churches, and schools from harming children in the guise of educating them. This book may even startle some very conservative Christians, but what Bartlett argues is convincing. Sex education cannot be redeemed and needs to be rejected entirely because the whole movement is established to forward notions fundamentally contrary to biblical reality. We are never more free than when restraining the flesh on God's terms and never more enslaved than when seeking to follow and express our own fleshly desires without restraint.
Rev. Dr. Daniel R. Heimbach,
Senior Professor of Christian Ethics,
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Author of True Sexual Morality:
Recovering Biblical Standards for
a Culture in Crisis
In The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity Linda Bartlett explains how the Church, during the mid-20th century, put too much trust in “experts” instead of the inspired Word of God and willingly traded in our biblical understanding of manhood, womanhood, procreation, parenting, and purity for a more “scientific” approach to teaching children about the intimacies of marriage. Falsified, inaccurate, and even perverted studies on the “sexuality” of the human male and female conducted by Alfred Kinsey were presented to universities, medical associations, and church bodies as facts which could not be ignored by enlightened academics. Christianized versions of the sexual revolution’s message were then (and still are) passed down to schools and parents to share with children.
The majority of Bartlett’s book appears in the form of a patient dialogue between herself and her readers, including over 100 questions and answers to almost every objection one could think of to the notion that there is anything wrong with the way the Church has been educating her children. Her love and concern for her Church family flow through each section as she gently reminds us all that, “Even well-intentioned sex education in the Church leans the wrong way if built on the wrong foundation,” (pg. 129).
Rebekah, a wife, mom & writer
Sex education "promised to make our kids happier. They are not. It promised to make our kids healthier and safer. They are not. We have all been deceived by ideas from people who opposed God. We doubted God ... then put ourselves in the place of God by speaking what He has not. We dared interpret Scripture in light of 'new' information that 'scientists' were presenting." Linda Bartlett makes this observation near the end of her book (212), and she's proven it beyond measure in the preceding pages. This is a fascinating book on the history and fallacies of sex education, one that will reveal to many Christians the uncomfortable truth that they have indeed followed faux science instead of Scripture. There is little doubt that the current culture wars have taken a toll on both church and natural families, and Bartlett's book is a valuable piece in the recovery of both.
Rev. Timothy Pauls,
Good Shepherd Lutheran, Boise, ID
As much as Linda Bartlett didn't want to write this book, I didn't want to read it . . . I wanted to scream and yell at Satan, the Father of Lies, for destroying so many lives through the euphemism of "sex education" . . . I was stunned by the facts presented on the history of "sex education" . . . My heart goes out to Linda for the cross that she has had to carry, the tremendous burden it must have been, to research this topic and write this book. It is the most relevant, hit-the-nail-on-the-head book on this issue that you will find. Linda Bartlett offers hard facts and Spirit filled hope. Read the book! You will be horrified, but thanks be to God, He will be glorified!
Melissa Blanton,
wife and mother of four
These are serious times. This is a serious book. I am thankful for it. It is informed not simply by theory, but by historical research and actual life experience. It is especially helpful for parents and grandparents who love their children and want the best for them. It is easy to read. It is intensely practical. It would be good to consider at various times through a child's development. If you have trouble understanding our times, finding your voice in them, or being brave in this sexual culture run amok, the author is a beautiful help and encouragement to that end.
Rev. Adrian Sherrill
Trinity Lutheran, Denver, CO
More reviews
on Amazon's book page here.
Please visit
He Remembers the Barren
for a post by
Rebecca Mayes
who encourages the reading of
The Failure of Sex Education
in the Church
and makes a valid connection
between the sexualization
of children and the
sexualization of marriage.
Anna Mussmann, Editor of
Sister, Daughter, Mother, Wife
writes, "This book challenges
the church to completely re-think
the way we approach sex education
and human identity.
I find it fascinating that even
though most Christians would
agree that our culture is
over-sexualized, many people
respond with alarm to the
idea that children should be
taught less about sex.
Please read
Anna's review here.
Pastors of
The Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod:
You may read a four-page review of
the book by Dr. Gifford A. Grobien
in the Concordia Theological Quarterly
Volume 27:3-4
July/October 2014
Participation of Pastors
During the first three years following the publication of the book (2014-2017), the author was invited to speak in South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming, and Iowa. Linda presented the message of the book together with a panel of pastors who participated in dialogue with the audience.
Why? Because she trusts God's order of creation. Men are called to be the defenders of life and, as a woman, she is called to encourage and help them in that task. Over 50 pastors participated in panel discussions.
