Rob Bell is a bestselling author and international teacher and speaker. He is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His books include Velvet Elvis, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and Love Wins. He was profiled in TIME Magazine as one of 2011's hundred most influential people. Visit Rob Bell at www.robbell.com.

For Rob Bell, sex and spirituality go together like a horse and carriage. We all have erotic energy, certain ideas and apprehensions about our bodies, the capacity to deal with heartbreak, the challenge not to allow lust to lead us down a dead-end street, and the dream of an intimate relationship that fulfills our sensual needs.

According to Bell, whenever we deal with sex and all its ramifications, we come back to spirituality which encompasses everything we do, say, or think.

Human beings are inveterate meaning makers and so we seek to solidify the connections with God, the earth, each other, and with ourselves. This is both a sexual and a spiritual project.

We are a mixture of angel and animal when it comes down to sex. We swing between the two and are amazed at our capacities for yearning, passion, and physical union with another.

When conservatives get upset about sex, Bell suggests they reread the Bible which is filled with lust, violence, and the nasty things people do in the name of power, anger, jealousy, and other hot emotions.

Sex and spirituality are siblings who have a lot to say in this paperback about marriage, agape, intimacy, shared partnership, and the "light [that] shows how things really are."