1 of 1

Related: • 3 Fibs and a Truth About Sex

As Lauren Winner points out, we don't do much good using flawed arguments to dissuade the unmarried from sex. In addition to the "fibs" Lauren cites, I hear another: our foundational premise that it's a matter of "objective morality."

Some pastors complain that today's generation has no absolute values; that "There is no right and wrong." But this is likely to strike hearers as flat-out wrong. The students I know believe it's objectively wrong to dump someone in a callous way. It's wrong to have sex with someone who isn't willing. It's wrong to transgress any of a hundred subtle cues about who may sleep with whom under what circumstances. They think there's plenty of objective morality on their side. As far as they can see, theirs is working and ours looks pointlessly extreme. Why should they switch? Our argument sounds like nothing more than "because I said so."

What we really mean, of course, is "because God said so." And indeed, persevering in chastity is so difficult that no other motive except self-abandoning love of God is sufficient. Doing the right thing is not guaranteed to make you happy, and the wicked sometimes thrive. But because the love of God constrains us, because our bodies are not our own but bought with a price, we persevere in a difficult path, pressing on toward the light ahead.

Now, this is a difficult sell to people who don't believe in God. But I believe the only conversation that will currently make sense begins with faith in God. The best we can do is speak passionately about our own transformative contact with God, and how it has reordered actions and relationships, and empowered ever-greater deeds and greater love. It's not a bad story, actually, and authentic passion connects with an audience in a way that theoretical propositions cannot.

I say "currently" because I think there is long-term hope. Look at It Happened One Night. While that excellent 1934 film exhibits good sexual morality, it also condones behavior we consider unacceptable today: drunkenness, smoking, threats to "sock" the female star. Hollywood wouldn't include such elements today, because the culture changed. Bad behavior hurts, and eventually this becomes undeniable. Chastity has been such a fixture of human history that the current situation is wildly anomalous, and I expect it will eventually right itself, probably due to women realizing that promiscuity doesn't make them feel empowered, but endangered.

"God hates sin," some emphasize. But God hates sin like the parent of a leukemia victim hates cancer. God really does love the sinner. In order to reach the sinner, we will have to love them, too, and offer ourselves humbly and authentically as examples of what God's power can do.

Frederica Mathewes-Green is author of Gender: Men, Women, Sex, and Feminism (Conciliar, 2002).

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.
Click here for reprint information onLeadership Journal.

 1 of 1

share this page

				Try an Issue of Leadership Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Leadership coming, honor your invoice for just $22.00 and receive three more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Leadership as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletter Sign up for Leadership's e-mail newsletter, Leadership Weekly. You'll receive illustrations, resources, practical advice, and a devotional for the leader's soul every week!    RSS Feed   RSS Help