When you think of Christianity and sex, what do you think of?Gay sex is wrong. Sex out of wedlock is wrong. Birth control is wrong. To many people, the message from pulpits across the world seems to be that sex is wrong.Enter the Rev. Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. Recently, the pastor decided it was time to talk about sex. But instead of giving his congregation the birds and the bees or condemning intercourse as a sin, he issued them a challenge.Every married couple in the audience should attempt to have sex every day for one week.This carnal call-to-arms is being termed a “sexperiment.” The pastor is asking all of the couples who choose to participate to keep a journal detailing their feelings during the week.A warning: if you’re looking for more information, be very careful with Google. There are much less innocent sexperiments out there.The church’s Web site contains a testimonial wall — under the heading “Leaving Lust Vegas” — where the participating partners can post their thoughts on the exercise.Most of the posts are positive. Some people say it kick-started their libido, invigorating a sex life that had become stagnant with time. Some say the experiment has strengthened their relationships, leading to an increase in devotion and effort in making the marriage work. Although most admit that keeping up the nightly ritual can be difficult — sometimes the couples have to make a concerted effort to schedule sex —  most claim that it has been an extremely meaningful experience. Some were less excited. “Trying to ‘do it’ every day actually took away from our sexual relationship,” said one poster. “We were no longer ‘doing it’ out of love and desire but because we were told to.” For once a couple was exasperated because their church was telling them to have too much sex, instead of the reverse.At first, this might seem like the most awkward sermon ever delivered. A pastor may be the only person with whom a sex discussion would be more awkward than your parents.But when you really think about it, hearing a pastor talk about sex shouldn’t be awkward in the first place.”Sadly, the church has been silent on a topic that God has not been silent about,” Young said, in the sermon he used to issue the challenge. There’s nothing in the Bible that says sex is wrong. There are even verses in the Bible that encourage sex. Song of Solomon — the book the nuns don’t want you to read — is a love poem with some language so sensual it borders on pornographic. No book better explains the Biblical view of sex: intimacy is a beautiful and powerful thing — when it is done in the right context.The problem is that public religious figures tend to overemphasize the ifs and the don’ts. Church leaders spend so much time and effort pointing out all the evils about sex that they forget to mention that sex itself isn’t evil. The image of Christianity shouldn’t be a great forbidding authority that stares down with disapproval every time you even think about making love. Yes, Christianity places rules on when and with whom you have sex. Yes, if you truly keep a Christian faith you will have to make some sacrifices. But by no stretch of the imagination does Christian faith condemn sex.I applaud Rev. Young for doing his part to cut down the myth that God hates sex. God doesn’t hate sex. He just hates it when people screw it up.—-Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]