Thu 7 Feb 2008
We’re in the beginning stages of Sex Camp in our ministry. (a phrase coined by some students during our sex/dating/relationships series.) We’re officially calling it Sex and Dating, but the students are calling it Sex Camp 1.0. Last week Stef started us with some thoughts from Scripture, paired with some principles from Sex and The Supremacy of Christ. This week, I pick up with ‘guys issues’ (whatever that is…) which deals with teen sex and porn. BTW, 1 of ever 3 pornsite visitors is female…
So, in preparing and researching for Sunday morning’s discussion, where else to turn to but my favorite ‘christian pornsite’, XXXchurch.com ? According to their statistics, porn is a $57 billion dollar a year business, more revenue than pro baseball, basketball and football combined. That translates into 4.2 million porn websites (12% of the entire web), 372 million pages, 68 million daily search engine requests, .jpg)
and 4.5 daily emails to the average email user.
I used to plead with parents of teens to be aware. To install the FREE X3 Watch software. To get our high school guys to move their computer out of their bedroom and into the family room.
Not anymore.
The stark reality is that if you are reading this, you need accountability. You need X3 Watch regardless if you have ‘good kids’ or not. If you’re a dude or not. Move your computer out of the bedroom and into the family room. Get the software. Talk about it. Move the issue away from secrecy and towards healing and accountability.
Check out the resources provided by XXXCHURCH:
The Porn Debate (with Ron Jeremy)
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February 7th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I suppose I’ll ooze back out of the woodwork. I think some of what I’ll say may sound negative. And I don’t really intend it to be. I also don’t have any problem with the particular behaviors we are trying to teach. And yet …
What do they call it when you keep doing the same thing while expecting different results?
I’m serious. As far as I can tell, the Church in the US has more or less continued to operate a program of morals-based behavior modification training for the past half-century in the face of a radically shifting culture. I suppose what it was doing might have sufficed (though that’s questionable in and of itself) when it was simply reinforcing the broader cultural shaping, but just look at the results as that culture has shifted toward a different form of post-Christian pluralism. On certain key markers (premarital sex, adultery, divorce, and access to and of pornography) you can’t really distinguish Christians from non-Christians.
That should tell us something. As I only recently recognized, the actual (as opposed to verbalized) sexual ethic of most in at least the ‘evangelical’ branch of the American church is more or less sexual serial monogamy. Since that is also one of the common (if more ‘conservative’) sexual ethics of our broader culture, it’s not particularly surprising that Christians share many of the key markers with that culture. (I do think the age of first actual intercourse is a year or two later than the cultural norm, but that’s the only major difference that comes immediately to mind.)
In one way or another, most of our efforts focus on behavior modification. We try, with varying degrees of success, to change specific behaviors. The results, by now, should be predictable. But we keep expecting something different.
I am coming to believe we need to step further back. Most people in the Church seem to assume they have (or at least know) what a true Christian sexual ethic is. But simply by comparing our life in an increasingly pluralistic culture to the life of the ancient Church in a deeply pagan culture, I don’t think that’s true. We may have some intellectual knowledge about what a Christian sexual ethic ought to be. But we lack the deeper noetic knowledge and incorporation of that ethic in the deep fabric of our lives and spirits. Is there any other explanation for the reality around us?
As such, when we simply try to modify sexual behavior, I think we may be starting at the wrong place. We need to step further back. I don’t pretend to really have any answers, but I do have a few thoughts. They are really just signposts, markers that I think may be important.
First, it should go without saying that, even as it impinges on every aspect of our being, sex is deeply physical. And it is my observation that many Christians in our evangelical branch in the US lack a deeply lived and integrated ‘theology’ of the body. (I’m sure there’s a better term for what I’m trying to describe, but I don’t know what it is.) We seem to be more concerned with some disembodied aspect of the human and take an almost dualistic approach to the body. Unless we stop doing that, I don’t think we will ever be able to truly change the perception and practice of sex among ourselves.
Which leads to the second aspect. Just as it is deeply and innately bodily, sex also crosses all boundaries of relation. It is inherently relational. And shapes our entire relational lives — whether we are actually having sex with anyone or not. Yet we treat sex as a personal and individual moral choice and act. That’s complete nonsense. Sex both reveals and shapes not only how we view ourselves (in relation to others), but how we perceive others. It’s clear to me that a truly Christian sexual ethic can only be formed and maintained within the context of a Christian community. If we learn to love the other — truly love them — we would never consider using them as an object to gratify our desires, which is where much of our cultural sexual shaping (and indeed most of our consumeristic shaping) leaves us. We will either live or fail to live a true sexual ethic as a community. And if we do not approach purity as a communal rather than an individual lifestyle, we will not achieve it at all.
Finally, this all leads to the ultimate goal. If true, Christianity does not just describe right and wrong behavior. If our story is the true story, then it tells us what it means to be a true human being. And when we act in a different manner, we have not simply done something wrong for which we need forgiveness. Rather, we have dehumanized ourselves and those with whom we have related. How many of us actually believe that to be true? I never hear anyone talk about it. Yet is that not central to our story?
Anyway, just a few thoughts. It sorta hijacks your post. I wish I had could find better words to express what I want to say.