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Wow. Thanks so much for this topic. So I found out the other day that “fornication” is this:
The word derives from Latin. The word fornix means “an archway” or “vault” and it became a common euphemism for a brothel as prostitutes could be solicited in the vaults beneath Rome. More directly, fornicatio means “done in the archway”; thus it originally referred to prostitution.”
And there goes the number one verse preachers use to condemn those who have premarital sex. I recall my dear friends who had to stand in front of the whole church, confess that they had had (premarital) sex and ask the church’s forgiveness. What insanity! It was then that I started to feel something was deeply, deeply wrong with the institution of the Church.
@Gary: Gee, I’m so touched and saddened by your story! You said that you have extensive scriptural studies showing that the typical church ethic concerning sexuality is not biblical… can you share those with me/us? I’d really appreciate it.
Anonymous@happylee – thank you for the word study, I really enjoy those. It is so helpful for me to see what the bible is actually saying and not some “pastors” interpretation as if it’s a fact when he/she is clearly wrong.
As a parent … Ok, here goes… we sat our teenage daughter down and told her that we would prefer she wait to have sex until she is out of high school. High school is complicated enough! We told her we would prefer she wait to have sex when she knows better who she is and the kind of person she would want to be with. THEN we said, and here is a promise ring. YUP we did… except we said the promise ring is a promise to her as much as her to us…to please tell us if she is sexually active because we would help her. We would get her birth control and whatever she needed. We told her we had heard it all and nothing surprises us.
and now we are going to hell.
(or so the rumor goes…)
I wish I had a concise summary of my studies on this subject but it has been very topical and spread out over several years. A number of books on the Christian sexual ethic such as “Divine Sex” and “The Poisoning of Eros” have been helpful as well. Mostly I began by seeking to harmonize the church teaching with biblical example. The standard defense from the church when one does this is to simply say that just because something is in the bible does not mean God approved or endorsed it. This is of course true, but the blanket application of this principle to every challenge is simply lazy. The truth is there is MUCH non-church approved sexuality in the the bible which God did both allow without any type of reproach and at times actually supported and/or provided for.
A number of topics such as adultery, lust, pre-marital and extra-marital sexuality, marriage, etc, have been of great interest to me and I have many resources on each of them.
Gary, I can’t imagine what you must have gone thru with your daughter. That hurts to know it has caused so much pain for all of you.
Star, I think what you did took a lot of guts and love. And if that means going to hell, then hell should be one fine place!!! But I don’t believe there is a ‘hell’, so we’ll go somewhere else.
Ang, wherever we end up, we can be there together with our dogs and friends.
Yes, friends and dogs! We will be in a wonderful place. Hugs to Corrie!
Ang, woof!
There should be a “like” button, LOL.
AnonymousWow – this is why I LOVE this site! It’s so refreshing to hear the views of real people in real life – it really is like music to my ears!
My personal experience…I had started seeing a guy and he was desperate to know God so I took him to church with me. And instead of opening their arms to him, they dismissed him. After one of the meetings my small group leaders cornered me in the foyer and told me I shouldn’t be with him, I should not be holding hands with him, I should not spend any time alone with him…I was 29 years old.
This topic has plagued me for years – having been part of a church that dictated how I should live in every area of my life, I grew up with the belief that I should wait for marriage to do anything intimate. Sex was always pretty taboo until they would decide to do a “session” for all the single people, where they would tell you how NOT to put yourself in any position where you might be tempted. Sex was always a no-no. There was even teaching along the way that we shouldn’t even spend time alone together, or hold hands, let alone anything else…! If you were to do anything intimate before marriage you were “stealing the right of your marriage partner”. Couples who were interested in each other had to seek the advice of the elders, who would then meet with them and discuss boundaries and curfews etc. They would reconvene every few months to discuss the relationship. They called this “covering” and “being accountable”… Couples who had confessed to have had sex would be told to stop, if not excommunicated. Those who were about to getting married were subjected to very personal questions about their past relationships and anyone who was not a virgin had to go through some sort of “purification” session…! There are single people in the church who are in their 30s, waiting in line to be the next pick of the bunch and totally afraid of any intimacy, having been starved of it their whole lives. You are made to feel guilty for not being a virgin but I just felt more guilty about the fact that I didn’t feel guilty…?! Personally, I think it’s none of their damn business!!!???
So I thank you all for releasing me from the emotional binds that have plagued me all these years. I can now free myself from the guilt of believing something different to what I have been programmed with…!
Love to you all xx
JustLove, Yay you!!!! Glad you’re here. Peace.
AnonymousTrue love waits… until it can find a condom…
True love waits… until after foreplay…
True love waits, for Kirk Cameron to leave the room….
True love waits for pastors, and preachers and moralists and sexually inexperienced and repressed individuals to butt the hell out of your sex life…
Okay, I’m done…
I think “waiting til marriage” was one of maybe three topics my youth pastor would tirelessly talk about and I became very big on it as a result. In addition, there was always at least a night or two devoted to the subject at the christian summer camp I attended 10 years in a row.
When I dated my last girlfriend though and I found out that not only was she not a virgin a few months into our relationship, but she had been with one of my best friends, I was extremely unprepared with how to deal with that. I truly did have a love for her that went beyond that and I made that known to her, but the fact that she didn’t meet the christian ideal deeply haunted me and I suspect my occasional mention of that struggle only helped destroy the relationship between us later that year.
That was four years ago and I still feel bad, not only for letting something stupid like that bother me but expressing that struggle to her and only amplifying her guilt. Since that experience, I haven’t had much respect for the purity movement. I’m sure many within it are well intentioned but it makes you chase an ideal and doesn’t prepare you for real life. I mean, how does someone being a virgin or not before marriage have any bearing on their worth or their relationship with you? Maybe I haven’t yet had sex to really know but I have a suspicion that that’s a bunch of bull.
AnonymousThe idea that marriage constitutes true love is a myth IMO. Marriage is just that, two people contracting to join together in public. I have seen much more committed relationships outside of marriage – ones that produced beautiful and well loved children. I have also seen beautiful and committed relationships among those who were not allowed to marry. Couples who have indeed raised children in loving homes but because of the prudish nature of the laws in their State were not allowed to be married. So, the whole idea that there is “ONE” good and acceptable way to relate to one another, and somehow the church has the corner of that market, just blows me away. If we want to examine the Bible about real committed romantic relationships, we should look to David. He had 8 wives, of which he seemed committed to. But then also he had concubines. This was a blog post that I wrote in regards to “Biblical Marriage” by the way: http://www.indiefaith.org/2012/07/david-man-after-gods-own-heart-really.html
AnonymousI can see a couple of sides to this. The preachy side with churches. Churches at least in my expereince don’t do sex very well. I’m led to believe that some churches in histroy omitted the Songs of Solomon because they thought it too crude. Others have interpreted the Songs of Solomon as being a metophor for Jesus and the church. How Jesus could delight in the church by deliginting in his lovers breasts as twin deers feeding among the lillies is beyond my comprehension! NO! This is erotic poetry.
So so much guit about having “done it” and so much false piety about not having “done it” with a load of crap happening in relationships because of it and so much crap goign on in churches that has more to do with appearances looking good in front of others and down on “them” when those with real issue about this are left to flounder. Particularly the church is bad a criticising homosexuals – looking down on LBGT because for a lot of people the issuse in that group don’t acffect them so – easy to deomonsie them about something that for many in church is behaviour they woudn’t engage in because of their heterosexuality.
I would at the same time share a little about my own expereinces. I have made a choice to be celebate and have done so for the last 15 years. I came to the church later in life and before that was sexually active. What I did find with breaking up with the last sexula partner I had, was that it took about 2 years to recover from it. I have had relationships since then and when they have finished yes it has been difficult, but because there has not been the sexual union, I have been more able to move on without the 2 year grieving. I find now that when I am attracted to someone, it isn’t the desire for sex that is as powerful for me in that attraction but the personality, the person in themselves. Of course looks, sexual chemistry etc are all important. But what if that is the thing that drives the relationship and there is littel else? The passion is important but if there is nothing deeper going on then what’s there to keep going when the passion isn’t there – which it won’t always be. So for me choosing to be celbate is choosing to be free from the kind of hurt I have had before and free from chosing someone with an imbalance of the sexual attaction compared to elements of her personality, common interests, community etc. And choosing to express myself sexually within marriage. Of course marriage doesn’t guarentee there will not be a break up in the future and hurt to experience form that. And there are some couples that don’t get married that have better relationships than those who are married. But for me, I like the idea of having made a public declaration of love and commitment to each ither, having that sealed legally before God before having a sexual union.
Most of this I have to say has been throught the choices I have come to through my own life expereinces, not what the church has taught. And like I say this area odf life is something I thik the church handles very badly in my expereince.
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