Christianity and the demoralisation of
sex
Dr ES
Williams
Evangelicals Now,
May 2006, page 14
One of the great
triumphs of the early Church was its witness in the arena of sexual
conduct, marriage, and the family. The surrounding pagan culture, which
was deeply immoral, was profoundly influenced by the sexual purity of
the Christians. It became widely known that chastity was the
quintessential Christian virtue that flowed from the holiness of God.
Young women, trained in the meaning and purpose of chastity by older
women, strove to keep themselves pure for their future husband. Young
men learned the virtue of self-control. Christian men were taught to
treat women with honour and respect, to love their wives and to be
faithful to their marriage. The biblical message was clear—it is God’s
will that his people should be holy; that they should avoid sexual
immorality (1 Thessalonians 4:30). Moreover, our Lord warned that the we
should not tolerated that woman Jezebel, who by her teaching seduces the
church into sexual immorality (Revelation 2:20).
The Christian
virtues
Most people in society
came to understand that Christian sexual conduct is expressed in the
four virtues—modesty, chivalry, chastity and fidelity. While each
virtue applies to an aspect of sexual behaviour, together they form a
coherent inner belief system that expresses the biblical attitude to
sex, marriage and the family. Sexual purity is the foundation on which
these virtues are built. In his great wisdom God has instituted moral
laws around human sexual conduct that preserve marriage, secure the
family and protect children. These virtues are based in the holy,
righteous character of God, and reflected in his moral law. When God’s
people live by these virtues they have a profound impact on the moral
condition of society.
Sadly, in our time, the
teaching of God’s plan for sexual conduct has become the lost message of
the Bible. Unlike the early church, the modern church appears to have
lost its saltiness and is no longer influencing the surrounding pagan
culture, but coming to an accommodation with its amoral teachings.
Rampant sexual
immorality
It is now common
knowledge that British society is plagued by rampant sexual immorality.
A recent parliamentary Select Committee identified what it called a
crisis in the sexual health of the nation. Increasing numbers of
children are becoming sexually active. Latest figures show that about
17% of girls aged 15 (that is, 55,000) attend family planning clinics
for their supply of contraceptives, as do 6% of girls aged 13-14.
Furthermore each year about 27,000 girls under 16 are dispensed
emergency contraception at family planning clinics, often without their
parents’ knowledge. The rate of unwanted teenage pregnancies is the
highest in Western Europe (half are terminated by abortion), and there
is an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease among young people. These
appalling statistics follow three decades of intensive sex education
aimed at schoolchildren.
Sex education and
the sexual revolution
During my 10 years as a
Director of Public Health, I came face to face with the realities of the
government’s policy that provides contraception to under-age children
without their parents’ knowledge or consent. When I left my post I
determined to understand the ideology that was driving the government’s
policy. After three years of research, it became clear that sex
education had evolved out of an ideology that was vehemently opposed to
biblical moral standards. This ideological assault, commonly referred
to as the sexual revolution, was led by a group of secular humanists,
which included Fredrick Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Marie Stopes, Margaret
Sanger and Alfred Kinsey, who were profoundly hostile to what they
regarded as repressive traditional morality. They wanted a society that
was liberated from the restrictive moral code of the Christian faith.
They understood that for their revolution to succeed marriage and the
family, which they correctly identified as the bastions of moral
teaching, needed to be destroyed.
It is my contention,
documented in my book Lessons in Depravity, that we can only
understand the motivation behind sex education if we grasp the essential
point that it has evolved out of the ideas of the sexual revolution.
Demoralising sexual
conduct
The strategy of the
sexual revolutionaries, in a nutshell, is to demoralise sex. They demand
the right to teach other people’s children about sex without reference
to any moral standard. In other words, they promote an amoral approach
to sexual conduct. Non-judgemental sex education means that no form of
sexual conduct can be described as wrong or immoral. Phrases such as,
‘don’t impose your moral views on other people’ and ‘don’t moralise’
express the new orthodoxy. Children, freed from the restraints of
traditional morality, are encouraged to develop their own standards of
behaviour, to decide what they feel is right in their own eyes. Any
attempt to introduce a moral dimension into sex education is portrayed
as unhelpful or even harmful. The ‘moralisers’ are dismissed as bigots
who threaten children by their strict, judgemental and unreasonable
rules. Consequently, the model of sex education being promoted in our
schools takes no account of the moral teaching of the Bible.
Christian compromise
As we survey the scene
of sexual devastation that is being visited on the children of our
nation, what is the Christian response? Who cares that biblical
morality is being traduced in the eyes of our children? Who cares that
our children are being trained to accept an amoral view of sexual
conduct? In my view, the Christian witness has been ineffective because
of the widespread reluctance to use biblical truth to expose and oppose
the amoral ideology that drives sex education. We now have the situation
in the UK where few Christians are prepared to tackle without compromise
the moral evils associated with sex education. On the contrary, most
Christians accept, without any biblical justification, the view that
children need sex education—and so the challenge is to find a sensitive
‘Christian’ version.
My research has shown
that many evangelical Christian organisations are teaching about sexual
matters in a way that is little different from the secular sex
educators. The so-called ‘Christian’ versions of sex education are
inconsistent with biblical morality. Some of the materials used in the
name of the Christian faith are deeply shocking. One video contains
smutty, foul language and uses the agony aunt of the salacious magazine
Just 17 to advise children on sexual behaviour (Make Love Last).
A teaching manual for churches encourages Christian parents to construct
a chart of rude/offensive words. This sex education manual provides
ground rules for Christian parents that are based on non-judgementalism,
simply another word for moral relativism. Most Christian sex education
programmes accept that children need to be taught about contraception.
One programme provides education about condom use in accordance with the
World Health Organisation’s position, which is ‘abstinence and fidelity
between uninfected partners and safer sex can prevent the transmission
of HIV. Safer sex includes non-penetrative sex and sex using condoms.’
The difference
between abstinence and chastity
One of the subtlest
ways of demoralising sexual conduct is to substitute the notion of
sexual abstinence for the biblical virtue of chastity. Yet many
Christians are deceived into believing that abstinence is consistent
with biblical morality. But this is not the case. Abstinence is a
lifestyle choice to refrain from certain, unspecified sexual activities
for an unspecified period. The abstinence message is fundamentally
amoral and does recognise the concept of sexual immorality.
Chastity, which is
based on purity of the heart and mind, is a way of life that seeks after
God’s holiness in every aspect of behaviour. As a Christian doctrine, it
encompasses every aspect of our life, the way we think, the way we
speak, the way we act. Chastity is a moral decision to obey God’s will
in the realm of sexual conduct. Purity and holiness are our calling in
Christ.
A consensus around the ABC approach to sex
education
A number of Christian
organisations are committed to the promotion of abstinence as a key
component of comprehensive sex education. Consequently, there is now a
concerted campaign to develop a consensus between Christians and secular
humanists around the so-called ABC approach to sex education (A for
abstain, B for be faithful and C for use condoms). Some even claim that
ABC is consistent with biblical principles and are campaigning for
churches to work constructively with UNAIDS and the World Health
Organisation in tackling the global HIV crisis. Churches are being
encouraged to use the resources available on-line from the website of
the Joint United Nations HIV/AIDS Programme, despite the amoral nature
of much of the material.
Those who are trying to
promote a ‘Christian’ version of sex education have failed to grasp that
it is a weapon of the sexual revolution. In my view it is imperative to
oppose sex education on moral grounds—the reason sex education is wrong
is because it is contrary to the moral teaching of the Bible. As
Christians we need to repent of our indifference to the moral ruin of
our nations children. The Church needs to regain the lost message of
the Bible with regard to the divine plan for sexual conduct. The
Christian position is for parents to instruct their children about
sexual conduct within the framework of God’s moral law, and this
includes teaching the biblical view of marriage and the virtues of
modesty, chivalry, chastity and fidelity. |