A friend sent me a link to a Rolling Stone piece that is absolutely the best secular media piece I've seen on young, hip Christian types I've ever seen. The focus is all on the strange Christian appetite for virginity.
I recall telling a friend in grad school I was waiting for marriage. His reply: "I thought you people were like unicorns . . . you don't exist." This article captures the unicorns pretty well and reminds me a lot of what it was like rooming with a bunch of Christian guys struggling with the purity issue.
The Rolling Stone writer comments that these Christians talk about sex all the time and he's right. We were the same way. But that's sort of how the Christian life is. You talk about the major tempations and when you're young, sex is the one. Money and possessions are usually far lower down the scale at that point.
I strongly advise anyone who wants to better understand the freaky Evangelicals and Catholics to read this article. It'll be good for you, like reading National Geographic.
11 comments:
The other day I saw the movie preview of “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” in the theatre; the movie’s title is self-explanatory; this guy is a nerd, 40-years-old and a virgin, so his buddies laugh at him and try to get him laid, etc. etc. While I chuckled at a few funny lines, I really couldn’t bring myself to like the premise. What’s wrong with being a guy in America who hasn’t had sex before marriage? Must he (or she, for that matter) be a nerd, misfit, shy, unsuccessful, and perhaps stupid, to qualify to be a virgin after 19? I’m glad this Rolling Stone article reveals that adult virgins in America are not a monopoly of nerds. These young people live in Williamsburg, NYC, probably as hip as it gets nowadays for NYC singles. The timing of the article coincides with this weekend's Billy Graham Crusade in Queens, NYC. I wonder if Roller Stone knew about it.
Secularists often claim that one does not have to be Christian in order to be moral. The trouble with this claim, however, is that in order to make it seem plausible the definition of what is moral must be lowered in certain areas. Indeed, lowered so far that those who actually abide by Christian standards in these areas are rendered to freak or unicorn status.
Wow, you sure smashed that claim! You're right; you do have to be Christian to be moral.
So then you agree that premarital sex is morally wrong and that Christians who abstain should not be regarded as freaks or unicorns?
I'm sorry?
You were being sarcastic, were you not?
"Premarital sex is no different than post-marital sex."
There is a radical difference. Post-marital sex occurs within the context of a public promise of exclusive life-long love that, amoung other things, agrees to accept responsibility for all the consequences and implications of sex. Pre-marital sex lacks this context; it promises nothing; it is the failure or the refusal to promise. And that is why it is immoral.
"The problem with Christianity is not that it waits but that in order to compell waiting it has to so villify sex that it becomes massvely unhealthy."
This view of yours is certainly not the biblical view. In the Bible, sex is a creation of God and is inherently good---as long as it occurs within the context of the promise. Sex outside of marriage is immoral, not sex itself.
Amen to Mr. Huisman's point about the misrepresentation of Scripture. In the same way, we often hear the Bible quoted as saying that money is the root of all evil when, in fact, that's not what It says -- rather, "the LOVE of money is a root of all kinds of evil." (1 Tim 6:10).
I also agree that Scripture hardly villifies sex; in fact, the Song of Solomon is a celebration of sex, but within the boundaries of marriage.
Tlaloc,
You keep referring to "They" -- who are "They"? Are you suggesting a grand conspiracy among the 40 authors, throughout the 66 books, over the 1600 years during which these books were written?
Conspiracy indeed.
Tlaloc, I'm a gay and a virgin by choice. I'm waiting for marriage...but probably in courthouse, church. Of course this puts my comments at odds with the other pro-virginity posters. But anyway, I believe in firm commitment and I only want sex in that context.
courthouse, not a church, rather...but that depends on what our good old Supreme Court decided
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