Sex Education, The Family, And Others

 One of the traits found in the authoritarian personality type is the preoccupation with violence and sex. And if anyone or group is preoccupied about sex today, it is conservative Christian leaders. Carl Trueman has written a plethora of articles on sex in society today. Many of his articles target the LGBT community and show a frustration with society as it moves to no longer marginalize that community.

Articles against masturbation can be found on the Gospel Coalition website (click here and there), on the Theological Apologetics blog on Patheos (click here), is listed as an unnatural sin by Thomas Aquinas (click here), is classified as fornication by some at the Mere Orthodoxy website (click here) just to name a few. The gist of those articles says that the only Biblically form of sexual participation is in a monogamous heterosexual marriage. 

However, some of those articles also include that even in such a marriage, the only Biblically approved form of sex must never preclude procreation. And so even when it is not explicitly stated, what is implied is that use of any form of birth control is a sin. And it draws into question, despite the denials by the writers of many of these articles, whether spouses in a monogamous heterosexual marriage can have sex when either they can no longer reproduce or when their bodily capabilities are less capable of having sex in the ways that allow for procreation. What is strongly suggested by those articles is that procreation alone keeps sex from being dirty. One has to wonder whether such teachings ask us to bite off more than we can chew.

I mention all of this because the article that is being reviewed today is about how Christian parents should teach their kids about sex. And what is mentioned above gives a backdrop on how many religiously conservative Christian leaders regard sex. That is not to say that the author whose article is being reviewed agrees with all that was cited above. But my guess is that he would at least agree with most of it.

The article being reviewed here is called Teaching Sex And Gender Rightly (click here for the article). Here we should mention the backdrop for this article that the author is addressing: sex education in the public schools. And he seems to think that a sexual practice is sin if it does not allow for the possibility of procreation even if practiced by a couple who are in a monogamous heterosexual marriage.

Scott Yenor (click here for a bio) is rightfully concerned about Christians following the Biblical rules for sex. He is worried because he believes that fewer and fewer Christians are doing so. And his concern is a legitimate concern. And the backdrop so briefly described above shows not only what Yenor thinks those rules are, but what many Christians from Church history think those rules were. And here we must consider whether what many Christian leaders from the past have mixed in their own personal misgivings about sex with what the Scriptures say.

Yenor blames sex education in the public schools as the chief culprit for why so many Christians have compromised Biblical sexual standards when they are having sex. After all, Yenor seems to believe that Public Education has deliberately supplanted the role of parents in teaching their children about issues like sex. He quotes one of the founders of Public Education, Horace Mann, to make his case since Mann said that parents were 'too poor or too neglectful' to prepare children for citizenship.

Yenor seems to have reacted to Mann's claims as being ideologically based just as many religiously conservative Christian leaders and teachers reacted to the claim by both Marx and Lenin who described religion as being drug for the people. The point here is that when Lenin described religion that way, he did so out of observation. And so the question is whether when Mann said that parents were too poor or neglectful to prepare their children for citizenship, was he speaking from his own ideology or from observation? When one looks at America's past social problems and injustices, there is a fairly strong case that Mann both spoke from observation and fairly accurately.

Yenor claims that because of how Sexual Revolution has influenced Public Education, our public schools are teaching our children to adopt the sexual morals from that revolution. He also claimed that education reformers claimed that schools should teach children sex education for the same reasons that Mann insisted that public education should teach children about citizenship. And again, we have to ask, if Yenor's claim is true, whether those education reformers were speaking ideologically or from observation. And so Yenor complains that public schools are teaching children about LGBT issues, and not in a negative light.

Yenor goes on to cite the work of sociology professor David J. Ayers in proving his claim that the sexual morals of many Christians have been corrupted. If true, Yenor's claims are tragically sad for the Christian community because both Jesus and the Apostles said and wrote a lot about the need for Christians to be sexually pure. 

In the end, Yenor also blames parents and pastors for leaving sex education in the hands of Public Education alone. And he finishes the part of his article that will be reviewed here with 5 general principles for how sex education should be handled in the Church. Those principles are:

1. Don't believe the hype. The hype refers to the views of Mann and the Public Education reformers who claimed that parents were unable to adequately educate their kids about sex
2. Sex curriculum on the right premises. In other words, what we teach about sex should be based on the Scriptures rather than what was taught by the Sexual Revolution
3. Stigmatize the Don'ts and praise the Do's. What this principle means is rather obvious. But one problem with this principle is when we try to stigmatize in society what we stigmatize in the Church. Plus, we need to carefully review our use of stigmatizing behaviors that we cannot accept. That is because such reactions to those behaviors can be more motivated out of an authoritarian bent and thus become counterproductive.
4. The Do's must be connected to marriage. In the case of sex with another person, this is biblically sound. The question is whether this should be followed when teaching about masturbation.
5. The vision of marriage must be thoroughly sexed. Here Yenor is referring to gender roles in marriage.

In short, Yenor believes that Christian schools and parents must work together not just to teach what the Scriptures teach about sex, but to build Biblically stronger families. 

After all of that, Yenor lists the attributes of honorable men and honorable women all of which will not be reviewed here.

What should we say to all of the above? First, we must never underestimate the pull that sex has on many people. It can easily pull people into toxic relationships. It can easily cause people to throw caution to the wind when it comes to risking receiving an STI. Relegating sex from being a need fails to recognize the pull that sex has on the lives of many people. The fact that sex can cause us to risk toxic relationships or diseases supports the notion that sex should be reserved for monogamous heterosexual marriages.

At the same time, noting the pull that sex has on us, we Christians need to be aggressive in obtaining all of the legitimate resources for help us hold to Biblical standards. Those standards include reserving sex for a monogamous heterosexual marriage relationship. However, one needs to push Yenor and others into proving why our sexual practices must always include the possibility of procreation. We must also question the prohibition against masturbation made by Yenor. Neither of those claims by Yenor have New Testament support since the New Testament describe sexual immorality solely in the terms of multiple participants.

Something else must be challenged here. Though what Yenor wrote indicates that he believes this way, stating or implying that sex outside of procreation is dirty goes against the what the Scriptures have said. Sex carries with it a unitive function for the husband and wife. In addition, sex is to be employed by a spouse to help one's mate resist temptation. In neither case, is procreation included in the Scriptural passages about the unitive function or as help against temptation.

Also, what Yenor fails to mention regarding what influences Christians about sex, especially those who are teenagers to those in their 30s, are what we learn from and get approved for doing by peers. Tragically, many teens are expected to have had sex as early as their middle school age. That isn't taught by any teachers. That is taught by peers as they seek to  consume more and more experiences. 

It is easy for some teens to be stigmatized for not keeping up with their friends in terms of their sexual experiences. And so what we need to teach all young people including unbelievers, is that they can have two kinds of friends. There are friends we hang out with and there are friends whom we can trust. The difference between these two sets of friends is that the latter group always helps us do what is right. The former group doesn't necessarily do that and so we need to be able to separate ourselves from the former group of friends when they seek to lead us astray.

Finally, Yenor needs to understand the trials and limits of Public Education. The trials include having to step in for parents to teach them certain lessons that many parents are not teaching their children. The limits of Public Education is that it is there to educate both believers and unbelievers. It is there to socialize us and so it teaches us to treat others as equals. And thus it is not there to teach Biblical sexual standards nor should it do that. That is the duty that we Christians have toward one another.

Finally, much of the Christian reaction, not just Yenor's, to society's and culture's direction regarding sex has more to do with our discomfort  when  living and being near those who believe and think differently than we do. For too long a time, Christianity had a significant place of influence over our society. And during that time, many Christians insisted on marginalizing different groups of Americans because of differences. To desire a return to the good old days can appear to be nothing else than a desire to repeating the marginalizing of certain groups of people. But that desire can cause us to harm the reputation of the Gospel as we hurt and abuse others. Therefore, we must embrace a multicultural environment and defend the equal rights of those we disagree with the most.