Like many people I grew up with one sort of faith and spent my late teens and 20’s evolving that faith into something different. The new faith is not totally unrelated to the first, in fact the core of it remained the same.
I find myself re-examining my opinions on issues and discerning if those opinions have changed in light of my changed faith. Sometimes my original opinions hold up and I keep them, but sometimes my opinions change.
This is the case, for example, in my opinion of abstinence-only sex education in public schools.
Have my opinions changed about Gods design and desire for sex to be in the context of marriage? Definitely not.
Although some will disagree with me, from what I read and can tell, abstinence-only sex ed in the public school system doesn’t work. There seem to be some exceptions, but the preponderance of evidence seems to show that it’s not very effective.
Now, please don’t get stuck on this if you disagree on this issue, because the merits safe-sex education isn’t the point of this post. So, just to be clear, there’s no reason to leave a comment saying that it’s scum like me who are responsible for the denigration of American society by promoting orgies for teenagers. Ok?
Here’s what this is about….
I’m proposing that the failure of abstinence-only sex ed in public schools serves to show us something valuable…
Morals – Jesus = Disaster
Public schools can teach the morality of Christianity, but they can’t teach the relationship. They can’t teach the love of a God who’s most perfect representation is that of Jesus on the cross.
Christianity is not simply an adherence to a code of conduct or a set of rules, although some even within the church have effectively made it this. Christianity is being crucified with Christ and following him.
Again, in my case, I would rather prefer it to have a relaxing effect on the muscles, because after awakening, I feel a nasty tension in the muscles of the back, as https://medtecllc.com/ambien-online/ if I were carrying bricks.
Jesus is the cure for sin. I realize that’s simplistic & that even in Christ we still struggle, but it’s still truth. When we remove him and try to keep the moral correctness, we fail.
It’s like trying to decide that we won’t have a headache anymore instead of taking an aspirin.
I whole heartedly agree with the notion that “abstinence only” sex education has been a failure. But I whole heartedly disagree with the notion that morals – Jesus = disaster. Since Aquinas the church has taught that morals – Jesus = a degree of goodness that humans can achieve on their own. Morals + Jesus = a greater goodness that comes by communing with God.
The problem isn’t that public schools are teaching morals – Jesus. The problem is that public schools have long since given up providing any sort of instruction in virtue. When my parents were young, civics courses were a major part of school curriculum. Now, civics is a one semester course taken in the 11th grade which contains almost no instruction in virtue. Once upon a time training in the virtues (wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance) was a major part of school curriculum. But in the last 40 years education has become so data oriented that there is no place for this kind of instruction.
We might be able to teach Jesus in public schools, but going back to basic instruction in virtue would be a nice start.
I should have more carefully edited this. The final sentence should read: “We might not be able to teach…”
I’m not completely sure, but I don’t think I disagree with you. I would however say that any goodness from a person comes from Jesus. I know that many who don’t profess to be believers have done good things in the world, but I think that is still God working through those people.
I think my point here is that the power of horny teenagers is a force to be reckoned with, and nothing less than being made new by Jesus’ blood is going to help.
@beardonabike Our disagreement is only a matter of degrees. God has created man with the natural ability to be wise, just, courageous, and to have a certain degree of self control. These are indeed gifts from God that all people can have. Those who believe in Christ are given the additional virtues of faith, hope, and Christian love.
Without Christ a person can be good but they cannot be justified, they cannot be utterly righteous. Therefore, in thinking about what to do with horny teenagers, nothing will help as much as a new life in Christ – but training them in virtue would certainly help.
Yes, this is probably the most minor of disagreements. 🙂
We may in fact be saying the same thing with different words. My only problem is with the idea that good can exist outside of Christ. You’re right God created man with those abilities, and that’s just it, those abilities came from God, and therefor do not exist outside of him.
@beardonabike I just tried to “like” your reply but guests aren’t allowed to “like” comments 😉
Really? I didn’t know that and am also not smart enough to know how to change it. I could like it for you but that would seem pretty pretentious of me.
I agree with you completely, and would add that not only do we fail to achieve the desired effect when we remove Jesus from the equation and try to keep the moral correctness, we could mislead the ones that we are putting this burden upon in a spiritually fatal manner.
To try to “live like a Christian” without having Christ living in you will ultimately result in eternal separation from God. It is the ultimate conundrum: in order to be godly, you have to ultimately give up on the human ability to achieve godliness. But if we choose to impose the ‘burden’ of absolute morals on a group of people who are not equipped to bear that burden, we are actually dooming them instead of rescuing them.
We have moral capacity factory installed, but there is a limit to our inclination and ability to consistently maximize toward the ‘good’. Clearly, moral regulation is necessary outside of a fully-realized rule of God. As Jesus lives in and through us, and as we submit to his rule, we need increasingly less outside moral regulation. That is the best scenario. But, morals apart from Jesus are necessary for the function of society.
So, it strikes me that we must inform society what is morally correct and perhaps more importantly, demonstrate what is morally correct. But, in the doing we can’t be surprised if a people not yet in individual submission to the direction of the Spirit of God often choose self over God.
In the context of sex-ed, the challenge must be that it’s not just a matter of ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’, which fails in the face of hormones in overdrive, but a matter of the image and glory of God reflected in his creation. Misdirected sexual expression is not ‘bad’, it’s using an original Van Gogh as a placemat at a chili cookoff…
The answer in the end, must be the people of God expressing the good news of God to the broken world around them.
Morality is a fancy word for legalism. Without Jesus, we don’t have the why. We don’t have the hope.
frognparisSuccinct is good. No Jesus – no hope.
But, some amount of legalism is healthy for society. eg no murdering, please.
Moralistic sex ed isn’t useful, because unlike murder, other people doing sex with you doesn’t have an obvious downside. At least not in the moment.
In the context of the blog post, the question to the Jesus folks is, how do we communicate a right understanding of ‘made in the image of God and therefore super special’ to a secular society?’ Interestingly, this whole topic extrapolates from the right and wrong of how people conduct themselves sexually to the rights and wrongs of what people do when sex results in unanticipated and unwanted new life…