“Christians should be having great sex lives! We should be having better sex than anybody else! So drop your inhibitions at the door of your own house.”

That’s Joe Beam, a Southern preacher out of the old school, a self-described “book-chapter-and-verse guy,” and leader of the Christian ministry Family Dynamics in Tennessee.

Then why such controversial talk, and in front of large audiences made up of married, straight, conservative Christians?

The information he dispenses is a mix of scriptural interpretation and mainstream sexology. He does not speak in euphemisms or metaphors and his plain spokeness makes a few listeners squirm, at first. But Beam is also part entertainer with a patter that is almost vaudevillian in its timing: “Why can women be multiorgasmic and men not? Well, I’ve decided God just likes you better! ... What’s the difference between a woman with PMS and a Doberman? Lipstick.”

The humor and the brazen talk, coming from a man who is not only one of them, but a leader who rubs elbows with James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, gives them permission to relax and hear his message.

It’s a simple one: Sex is good. Good sex makes people happy. It deepens relationships. So it helps marriages last and that pleases God and makes society better.

Check out the extensive MSNBC coverage of Beam, including an interview on the “Today” show:

One preacher’s message: Have hotter sex
Minister Joe Beam says good Christian marriages walk on the wild side

And what do you think? Is this just too racy for believers? Or is it a breath of fresh air in a Puritanical church culture?