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Chastity, asceticism, and teenagers

How do religiously conservative parents prepare their children to live by the religion’s teachings on sex and sexuality? Back in Dallas, I once listened to a conversation among Evangelical women who talked about how damaging their church’s teaching had been to healthy sexuality within marriage. They were grateful that they all remained virgins until marriage, […]

How do religiously conservative parents prepare their children to live by the religion’s teachings on sex and sexuality? Back in Dallas, I once listened to a conversation among Evangelical women who talked about how damaging their church’s teaching had been to healthy sexuality within marriage. They were grateful that they all remained virgins until marriage, but said that the “Don’t do it or ELSE! And don’t even THINK about it!” mentality that had been inculcated within them had made it difficult to receive marital sex as a divine gift, as a healthy thing. And yet, they all conceded that that approach had helped them achieve a valued good. This is such a difficult thing to reason through, especially in our “anything goes” eroticized culture.

Via Joe Carter, I found this interesting Christianity Today interview with a communications authority named Christine Gardner, who evaluates the effectiveness of the rhetoric in contemporary Evangelical campaigns promoting teenage chastity. Gardner says that some Evangelical campaigners have take a sex-positive approach, telling teens that abstaining now guarantees them great sex within marriage. Here’s the passage I found most compelling: the part where she discusses how these campaigns work on an essentially consumerist, risk-reward calculus: delay gratification now, enjoy greater rewards later. The problem is that it’s neither true — saving sex for marriage doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily have better sex within marriage — nor, as Gardner points out, does it do anything to help unmarried Christians, gay and straight alike, remain faithful to Scriptural teaching. Here’s a clip:

What did you find missing from the campaigns?

The campaigns largely avoid talk of sexuality as sacrifice or suffering. But of course it’s not sexy to talk about sacrifice and suffering to young people who are raised in a sexualized culture. On the other hand, perhaps this is where the evangelical church is selling out too fast. Language of sacrifice and suffering can be transformative to those who know that sex sells everything from cars to deodorant and, now, abstinence. It’s a new kind of asceticism for the generation that has it all.

Instead of trying to master the idioms of the day, we could emphasize the difference the gospel message makes. The gospel is radical enough all on its own, even without the music of Usher or Beyoncé in the background. It’s truly an alternative lifestyle. I think that too could be very persuasive among our media-savvy young people. That language of sacrifice and suffering for the purpose of worship to God, and understanding our sexuality as a gift of God, is key.

How might this self-fulfillment language potentially impact a future marriage?

I’m concerned that we may be raising a generation of abstinent teens but setting them up for divorce. I don’t think that you need to promise fabulous sex in marriage to make marriage winsome. If we are focusing on great sex in marriage as a reward for abstinence now, then when those young people marry and the sex isn’t great—then what? I’m afraid we are making marriage all about sex. So if it’s not that, then what is marriage?

You suggest that abstinence is part of a larger endeavor.

By daily acting on that commitment, young people understand through their bodies what it means to become more like Christ. It’s essentially a call to holiness that the Scriptures give us. It’s just like practicing scales on a piano if you want to become a concert pianist. It’s practicing abstinence that allows young people to inhabit their faith commitments in practical and tangible ways.

The largest study and the most quoted critique is that these kinds of pledges only delay sexual debut by about 18 months. I wonder if a more richly theological undergirding to some of the programs could help lengthen those commitments. When the going gets rough, and there is no marriage partner on the horizon, and the abstinence pledge starts to grow cold and stale, what is going to be there for them? I hope that it’s something more than a funny skit, a dramatic rock song, or a winsome testimony from a cute guy. I hope there is something deeper from God’s Word that’s going to stay with them.

I think you have to start early, by building a personal culture of asceticism, which in turn depends on building a sense of real holiness within the community (= family and church). But that would require an approach to religion that’s not merely a “what am I getting out of this?” model.

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