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issues: sexuality questions
issues: sexuality questions
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Listed below are questions asked of me by a group of students from the University of
South Florida. The group was studying "religious responses to current sexual issues".
My answers were to be thorough, but brief...really hard for me to accomplish!!
What are your beliefs on premarital sex?
It’s clear that God created us as sexual beings. Sex was His idea all along, so the
impulses and attraction to sexual activity are perfectly natural. With any good thing,
there are boundaries within which it can be enjoyed to the fullest. For example, I love
roller-coasters, but my enjoyment would be cut short if there were no restraining
devices to keep me in the car! The seat belts allow me to experience the ride safely
and completely. The boundaries for full and safe sexual experience are those of the
marriage relationship, where couples can explore and experience sex with a person
committed to the relationship. Studies actually show that it is married couples who are
having the best sex! (1) I agree: sex is best when you’ve married your best friend!
Therefore, I go way beyond the simple line that “sex outside of marriage is wrong”.
Ignoring God’s plan for sex often results in a great deal of confusion, pain and
emotional baggage being brought into relationships. I believe God wants us to have
the best sex in the universe, and His way of providing that is by instructing us to wait
until we are in a committed marriage.
Within marriage, what role do you believe sex should play? For example, do
you believe sex should be for procreation purposes only, for pleasure, for
maintaining healthy relationships, a combination of these, or for other
reasons not mentioned?
All the above. Sex is the vehicle by which humans reproduce, but it also serves to
deepen the emotional intimacy of a man and woman. The pleasure of sex is no
accident. The Song of Solomon contains very graphic and explicit descriptions of a
husband and wife indulging in their sexual expression…and they were enjoying it! The
book of Proverbs records the instruction “May your fountain be blessed, and may you
rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer-- may her breasts
satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.” –Proverbs 5:18-19
Do you believe the public school system, the parent(s), the church, or a
combination of all three should be responsible for educating our youth
about sex?
I believe the primary source of instruction for all of life’s major decisions should come
from parents. It is ultimately their responsibility to raise children to be healthy,
educated, contributing and wise members of society. So naturally instruction and
information about sexuality should come first and foremost from home. The church
and the school system should work alongside families to provide informational and
practical support to families navigating this issue.
I do realize this is not usually the case in the world we live in, but I do think each
societal segment (home, church and school) can still work together by recognizing the
role they play, and the boundaries those roles should have.
The schools can provide valuable information on research from medical and social
sources on the physical aspects of sexuality. However, I do not believe schools should
provide moral instruction. Their role should be strictly informative.
Churches simply need to be better informed about sexuality so that the moral
instruction provided is consistent with the teachings of the scriptures, but applicable in
light of the scientific material available. I grew up being told that having sex outside of
marriage would guarantee a horrible, genital dissolving venereal disease! While I know
my pastors were trying to teach me from good motives, their information was simply
wrong. Churches need to support parents and students by providing the best possible
moral instruction with the best possible information.
Parents need to understand that above all, their kids are looking to them for answers
(2). Moms and Dads should be diligent to enlist the help of schools for information and
churches for moral support, while understanding it is ultimately their role to prepare
their children for life as sexual beings in a sexual world.
Are there any methods of birth control that you condone? If so, can you
please explain these methods?
I do condone any measure of birth control which prevents the woman’s egg from
becoming fertilized. I would oppose any abortifacient, or method that destroys a
fertilized egg.
Some people claim to have problems identifying with their biological sex.
For example, a male that feels inside he is female. If someone were to
approach you with this issue, what advice would you give them?
I would want to know their story first. I have encountered this issue on several
occasions and have found a great deal of pain and confusion in the person’s history.
Such pain is usually the result of a sense of rejection during very sensitive and
sexually formative periods of their development. Therefore, the person embarks on a
search to find a community that will accept and embrace them for who they are. If that
community is made up of others struggling with the same issue, the confusion can turn
to confidence as they have now a group that cares for and understands them.
My advice to them would depend on the degree to which their sexual confusion is
rooted in their upbringing or in their biological makeup. It would be naïve to pretend
there are not people whose gender confusion is legitimately biological. These cases
must be handled differently than those whose confusion is primarily social.
In both cases, my approach as a minister is to affirm and accept them as people
created in God’s image, and in need of support and compassionate direction.
Notes
1 "The public image of sex in America bears virtually no relationship to the truth." In
fact, it explains, "in real life, the unheralded, seldom discussed world of married sex is
actually the one that satisfies people the most." - Robert T. Michael, et. al., Sex in
America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1994), p. 1, 131.
2 MTV/ Time magazine survey “Sex in the Classroom”, 9/27/2002. According to the
survey, young people look to their parents for guidance on sexual issues but aren't
exactly keen on broaching the subject with them. Nearly 70% say that their parents
are "absolutely/very responsible" for teaching them about sex. But only 31% feel
comfortable getting information about sex from their parents.
South Florida. The group was studying "religious responses to current sexual issues".
My answers were to be thorough, but brief...really hard for me to accomplish!!
What are your beliefs on premarital sex?
It’s clear that God created us as sexual beings. Sex was His idea all along, so the
impulses and attraction to sexual activity are perfectly natural. With any good thing,
there are boundaries within which it can be enjoyed to the fullest. For example, I love
roller-coasters, but my enjoyment would be cut short if there were no restraining
devices to keep me in the car! The seat belts allow me to experience the ride safely
and completely. The boundaries for full and safe sexual experience are those of the
marriage relationship, where couples can explore and experience sex with a person
committed to the relationship. Studies actually show that it is married couples who are
having the best sex! (1) I agree: sex is best when you’ve married your best friend!
Therefore, I go way beyond the simple line that “sex outside of marriage is wrong”.
Ignoring God’s plan for sex often results in a great deal of confusion, pain and
emotional baggage being brought into relationships. I believe God wants us to have
the best sex in the universe, and His way of providing that is by instructing us to wait
until we are in a committed marriage.
Within marriage, what role do you believe sex should play? For example, do
you believe sex should be for procreation purposes only, for pleasure, for
maintaining healthy relationships, a combination of these, or for other
reasons not mentioned?
All the above. Sex is the vehicle by which humans reproduce, but it also serves to
deepen the emotional intimacy of a man and woman. The pleasure of sex is no
accident. The Song of Solomon contains very graphic and explicit descriptions of a
husband and wife indulging in their sexual expression…and they were enjoying it! The
book of Proverbs records the instruction “May your fountain be blessed, and may you
rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer-- may her breasts
satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.” –Proverbs 5:18-19
Do you believe the public school system, the parent(s), the church, or a
combination of all three should be responsible for educating our youth
about sex?
I believe the primary source of instruction for all of life’s major decisions should come
from parents. It is ultimately their responsibility to raise children to be healthy,
educated, contributing and wise members of society. So naturally instruction and
information about sexuality should come first and foremost from home. The church
and the school system should work alongside families to provide informational and
practical support to families navigating this issue.
I do realize this is not usually the case in the world we live in, but I do think each
societal segment (home, church and school) can still work together by recognizing the
role they play, and the boundaries those roles should have.
The schools can provide valuable information on research from medical and social
sources on the physical aspects of sexuality. However, I do not believe schools should
provide moral instruction. Their role should be strictly informative.
Churches simply need to be better informed about sexuality so that the moral
instruction provided is consistent with the teachings of the scriptures, but applicable in
light of the scientific material available. I grew up being told that having sex outside of
marriage would guarantee a horrible, genital dissolving venereal disease! While I know
my pastors were trying to teach me from good motives, their information was simply
wrong. Churches need to support parents and students by providing the best possible
moral instruction with the best possible information.
Parents need to understand that above all, their kids are looking to them for answers
(2). Moms and Dads should be diligent to enlist the help of schools for information and
churches for moral support, while understanding it is ultimately their role to prepare
their children for life as sexual beings in a sexual world.
Are there any methods of birth control that you condone? If so, can you
please explain these methods?
I do condone any measure of birth control which prevents the woman’s egg from
becoming fertilized. I would oppose any abortifacient, or method that destroys a
fertilized egg.
Some people claim to have problems identifying with their biological sex.
For example, a male that feels inside he is female. If someone were to
approach you with this issue, what advice would you give them?
I would want to know their story first. I have encountered this issue on several
occasions and have found a great deal of pain and confusion in the person’s history.
Such pain is usually the result of a sense of rejection during very sensitive and
sexually formative periods of their development. Therefore, the person embarks on a
search to find a community that will accept and embrace them for who they are. If that
community is made up of others struggling with the same issue, the confusion can turn
to confidence as they have now a group that cares for and understands them.
My advice to them would depend on the degree to which their sexual confusion is
rooted in their upbringing or in their biological makeup. It would be naïve to pretend
there are not people whose gender confusion is legitimately biological. These cases
must be handled differently than those whose confusion is primarily social.
In both cases, my approach as a minister is to affirm and accept them as people
created in God’s image, and in need of support and compassionate direction.
Notes
1 "The public image of sex in America bears virtually no relationship to the truth." In
fact, it explains, "in real life, the unheralded, seldom discussed world of married sex is
actually the one that satisfies people the most." - Robert T. Michael, et. al., Sex in
America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1994), p. 1, 131.
2 MTV/ Time magazine survey “Sex in the Classroom”, 9/27/2002. According to the
survey, young people look to their parents for guidance on sexual issues but aren't
exactly keen on broaching the subject with them. Nearly 70% say that their parents
are "absolutely/very responsible" for teaching them about sex. But only 31% feel
comfortable getting information about sex from their parents.