Do Christians support sexual health education for teenagers

Zoii said:

. And it seems to me the emphasis is always on the girl.

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Not always. I have known women who divorced their husbands due to some sexual encounter years before they met.

Zoii said:

Doesnt that suggest that marriage is based on a criterion instead of simply loving the person n their past was....well their past

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IMO it comes down to an almost idolized type of worship of "virginity."

A prize to be taken - a treasure to be given.

OR - it could be the assumption that a leopard cannot change his spots. If the person could not keep their pants on back then, it means they will be a cheater in the future.

Zoii said:

And you believe this?

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I do not - but most evangelicals I know DO believe it.

Part of the reason I do not buy into that comes from me marrying someone who had been repeatedly molested as a child and then (almost) raped in middle school. It has had a profound effect on her life.

I have heard some of the teachers that those evangelicals listen to saying to never marry any one who has ever even masturbated. They are NOT virgins.

Dave-W said:

I do not - but most evangelicals I know DO believe it.

Part of the reason I do not buy into that comes from me marrying someone who had been repeatedly molested as a child and then (almost) raped in middle school. It has had a profound effect on her life.

I have heard some of the teachers that those evangelicals listen to saying to never marry any one who has ever even masturbated. They are NOT virgins.

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You know some pretty strange evangelicals then IMHO. Our church most decidedly does not teach any of that which you referenced.

WolfGate said:

You know some pretty strange evangelicals then IMHO. Our church most decidedly does not teach any of that which you referenced.

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Rev Charles Shedd was an Evangelical Presby pastor who used to have a radio call-in show back in the 1960s. It started in the LA area but ended getting distributed nationwide. It was geared for young people.

In 1968 he published a book "The Stork is Dead" (a follow up to his best selling "Letters to Karen") which had a very radical statement (for the era) that masturbation was perhaps God's gift to single people to help them deal with their sex drive until they get married. He received a TON of death threats for even daring to talk about that subject, let alone not condemn it.

That mentality is still around, at least some pockets of it are.

Dave-W said:

Rev Charles Shedd was an Evangelical Presby pastor who used to have a radio call-in show back in the 1960s. It started in the LA area but ended getting distributed nationwide. It was geared for young people.

In 1968 he published a book "The Stork is Dead" (a follow up to his best selling "Letters to Karen") which had a very radical statement (for the era) that masturbation was perhaps God's gift to single people to help them deal with their sex drive until they get married. He received a TON of death threats for even daring to talk about that subject, let alone not condemn it.

That mentality is still around, at least some pockets of it are.

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I'm sure it is around in pockets - no doubt about that - but I still think those are strange evangelicals. I was reacting more to your comment that "most" evangelicals hold those views. Perhaps that was true in 1968 but from what I see they do not.

WolfGate said:

I was reacting more to your comment that "most" evangelicals hold those views. Perhaps that was true in 1968 but from what I see they do not.

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Yeah - that is probably true.

I certainly HOPE it is true.

I've just looked for polls. It looks like around 50% of Christians think premarital intercourse is OK. I didn't look for masturbation, but I'd assume the number would be significantly higher than for premarital intercourse. It depends upon definitions and wording, but even Barna (which typically uses a narrower definition) was 40%.

hedrick said:

I've just looked for polls. It looks like around 50% of Christians think premarital intercourse is OK. I didn't look for masturbation, but I'd assume the number would be significantly higher than for premarital intercourse. It depends upon definitions and wording, but even Barna (which typically uses a narrower definition) was 40%.

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I'm surprised it's even 50%, it seems like it would be lower than that so I'm curious how how they defined it. Barna's 40% seems a bit more realistic though, so I am curious about how these questions were worded. I did look for specifics on masturbation and couldn't find any.

TX_Matt said:

I'm surprised it's even 50%, it seems like it would be lower than that so I'm curious how how they defined it. Barna's 40% seems a bit more realistic though, so I am curious about how these questions were worded. I did look for specifics on masturbation and couldn't find any.

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There are differences depending upon how you define Christian and in the question. Barna's article gives several different combinations. The lowest number is 40%. I would probably cite 41%, for the following:
* Question: is cohabitation a good idea?
* Definition: Practicing Christian: Those who attend a religious service at least once a month, who say their faith is very important in their lives and self-identify as a Christian

But this is across age groups. It varies strongly by age group (though their numbers by age group seem to be for everyone, not just Christian).

It also varies by question. They also give the answer to have previously or are currently cohabiting. For practicing Christians that's 48%. Since 41% say it's a good idea, some people are admitting that they've done things that aren't a good idea. Not a surprise. Most of us have done things we know we shouldn't have.

While they don't report numbers for practicing Christian by age, the difference across age is so strong that I think it's clear that more than 50% of practicing Christian millennials believe cohabiting is OK.

Since almost all churches disagree with this, it will be interesting to see whether official teachings change over time. The Catholic Church shows us (with homosexuality, and even more radically with birth control) that it's perfectly possible for a church to teach things that virtually all of their members reject. That seems less common with Protestants though.

There has been a fair amount of work among Biblical scholars and theologians to justify homosexuality. I'm not aware of much justifying sex outside marriage (though my church is an exception). What happens to a church where members reject teachings with no particular justification? If they do it here, do they still maintain the rest of the teachings?

hedrick said:

There has been a fair amount of work among Biblical scholars and theologians to justify homosexuality. I'm not aware of much justifying sex outside marriage (though my church is an exception). What happens to a church where members reject teachings with no particular justification? If they do it here, do they still maintain the rest of the teachings?

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I have seen some Biblical scholarship on premarital sex, but not necessarily all forms of sex outside of marriage. The definition of inappropriate contentea taught at my university was promiscuous sex more than fornication our sexual immorality, but no theological statements were made about what all that includes. Premarital sex was technically against the rules (I think), it wasn't enforced and I never heard anyone getting kicked out or anything for getting pregnant or anything.

hedrick said:

What happens to a church where members reject teachings with no particular justification? If they do it here, do they still maintain the rest of the teachings?

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I think those are really interesting questions, hedrick, and probably deserve a thread of their own.

But I think it does happen a great deal, even for non-Catholic churches. The example I'm thinking of isn't a moral one, actually; it's my experience that the vast majority of my parishioners - across multiple parishes - reject the idea of the resurrection of the body as our future hope. They seem to almost universally believe in some sort of disembodied spiritual existence in "heaven."

Even when I point to Scripture and Creeds, and prod them to think about why they believe in what they do, and so forth, they tend to look at me and say, "Well I don't believe that," with no particular justification.

But nothing particularly bad happens. We roll on. I remind them of it every now and again. Maybe it matters more when it is an issue of behaviour?

Paidiske said:

Even when I point to Scripture and Creeds, and prod them to think about why they believe in what they do, and so forth, they tend to look at me and say, "Well I don't believe that," with no particular justification.

But nothing particularly bad happens. We roll on. I remind them of it every now and again. Maybe it matters more when it is an issue of behaviour?

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You've got to wonder how serious Protestants really are about Scripture. People seem to pull it out only selectively. Mostly what people believe is what their tradition tells them.

Zoii said:

Sexual education covers a broad range of topics including:

· An understanding of sex physically and behaviourally

· How to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

· Symptoms of STDs and services available to offer assessment and management

· Sexual trauma eg rape, sexual harassment, resource centres.

· Pregnancy
This topic doesn't just apply to western nations but also to other regions such as Africa where AIDS is at an epidemic level.

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I absolutely support sex education for teenagers.

They are at the reproductive age, so they should understand birth control, statistics, and all that jazz.
With their hormones in overdrive, they need to know about STDs, consequences, abuse.

To me it would be wrong not to give them knowledge they sorely need to survive the best they can.

Zoii, what kind of curriculum would you like to see in a comprehensive sex ed class?

And for the guys???