For years, the aggressive presentation of the American Psyc. Asso. has been that homosexuality is innate, that any attempt at reparative therapy amounted to abuse and that therapists who offer such should be banned. They further promoted the idea (and aggressively attempted the enforcement of such) that schools must affirm and even market homosexuality/bisexuality/lesbianism/transsexualism as a great idea for youth or risk being seen as and create children who are bigoted.

It would be nice if they had founded all of this politicking on anything more then rumor and thin air — but, they didn’t — the science just isn’t on their side.

Finally, the push back is coming — and coming VERY hard — from none other then the American College of Pediatricians in the form of a letter stating the obvious:

(1) individuals with unwanted same sex attraction often can be successfully treated;

(2) there is no undue risk to patients from embarking on such therapy and

(3), as a group, homosexuals experience significantly higher levels of mental and physical health problems compared to heterosexuals. Among adolescents who claim a “gay” identity, the health risks include higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, alcoholism, substance abuse, anxiety, depression and suicide. Encouragingly, the longer students delay self-labeling as “gay,” the less likely they are to experience these health risks. In fact, for each year an adolescent delays, the risk of suicide alone decreases by 20%.

In light of these facts, it is clear that when well-intentioned but misinformed school personnel encourage students to “come out as gay” and be “affirmed,” there is a serious risk of erroneously labeling students (who may merely be experiencing transient sexual confusion and/or engaging in sexual experimentation). Premature labeling may then lead some adolescents into harmful homosexual behaviors that they otherwise would not pursue.

Optimal health and respect for all students will only be achieved by first respecting the rights of students and parents to accurate information and to self-determination. It is the school’s legitimate role to provide a safe environment for respectful self-expression for all students. It is not the school’s role to diagnose and attempt to treat any student’s medical condition, and certainly not a school’s role to “affirm” a student’s perceived personal sexual orientation.

Here’s a couple more sources of real information from NARTH and Liberty Counsel.

Don’t expect the politburo at the APA to agree though…

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican’s representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is “more correct” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17,” said Tomasi. His statement is backed up by a report commissioned by the US bishops that found that in the overwhelming majority of cases the clergy involved were homosexuals, with 81 percent of victims being adolescent males.

Ok, I’ve been waiting weeks for someone to finally go public with this reality: it’s not often I find myself supporting much that comes out of the Vatican — but this is brilliant — and, perhaps, hope for change…

(Yes, I fully recognize this guy is gonna get roasted alive for sheer political stupidity — but it’s not like I can’t relate to being such a driven truth-teller that I end up looking like a bull in a china shop myself. Yes, I realize that the latter part of the article is a whiny and pathetic attempt at deflection — but HE’S STILL TELLING THE TRUTH in the first part.)

Here’s what he is saying:

Accusing the Roman Catholic clergy of Pedophilia is actually letting them off the hook. The majority of the offenders are really gay and, in addition, they seem to lack the ability to relate even to other adult gay males.

Let me translate that for you:

The RC Church has, through celibacy, created a situation where men who struggle with sexual orientation seem to be inordinately selected for the clergy. It selects them simply by creating a place where they easily find that their lack of desire for members of the opposite sex will not come under scrutiny and will even be applauded.

But, it’s beyond even that…

The RC Church, through a system of alienation from normal society, has also created a situation which attracts those who are unable to properly relate to adult sexuality.

Ephebophilia is an attraction to adolescents or people in puberty. By itself, it has NOTHING to do with gays, or even men. Thus, what is really happening is that the RC Church has created a system which not only selects for Homosexuality, it also further down-selects for those who, largely, could only see themselves as exercising such towards 11-16yr old boys (and, thus, do not simply ignore the rules of the RC Church and have sex with other men.) In other words, a very rare breed indeed.

Ok, first, let’s get a few things on the table:

(1). His popeliness is in this — and in it up to his eyeballs:

The future Pope Benedict XVI took over the abuse case of an Arizona priest, then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood, according to church correspondence.

Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that in the 1990s, a church tribunal found that the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., had molested children as far back as the late 1970s. The panel deemed his behavior — including allegations that he abused boys in a confessional — almost “satanic.” The tribunal referred his case to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005.

But it took 12 years from the time Ratzinger assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Teta was formally removed from ministry, a step only the Vatican can take.

As abuse cases with the pontiff’s fingerprints mushroom, Teta’s case and that of another Arizona priest cast further doubt on the church’s insistence that the future pope played no role in shielding pedophiles.

An abuse hotline set up by the Catholic Church in Germany melted down on its first day of operation as more than 4,000 alleged victims of paedophile and violent priests called in to seek counselling and advice.

The numbers were far more than the handful of therapists assigned to deal with them could cope with.

In the end only 162 out of 4,459 callers were given advice before the system was shut down.

Andreas Zimmer, head of the project in the Bishopric of Trier, admitted that he wasn’t prepared for “that kind of an onslaught’.

(3). In the first article, the following statistics were published:

The vast plurality of Protestant churches in the US, numbering more than 224,000, including thousands of independent non-denominational groups, make the kind of organized tracking and recording of individual abuse cases as was done in the Catholic Church all but impossible. Nevertheless, some of the sex abuse cases in other religious communities have been documented piecemeal.

In June 2007, the Associated Press revealed that three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in the US said they receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. Church Mutual Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co. and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., which insure 165,495 churches for liability against child sex abuse, emphasized that their figures did not always specify which cases were against minors and added that not all allegations were followed by convictions or even investigations.

National surveys by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR), a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 congregations and 1,000 denominational agencies, has also issued a report that found that child-abuse allegations against American Protestant churches averaged 70 per week since 1993, with a slight downward trend starting in 1997. The same report also found that among Protestant churches, volunteers are more likely than clergy or paid staff to be abusers.

Basically, the 70 per week number is meaningless headline mongering as no insurance company in the world would touch that sort of risk and 3 of them obviously have. But, we can trust the 260/yr figure — the insurance companies in question have a vested interest in maintaining the accuracy of those statements.

Of the approximately 350,000 churches in the US, only 5 per cent are Catholic. If we use the same reporting period (52yrs) the Catholics are using, scale by capita (in other words X .5) and then use 40% of that number to separate the actual numbers of Protestant clergy/staff abusing minors from volunteers/parishioners, we end up with a per capita comparison of 2740 : 10,667 of Protestant to Catholic abuse victims or 389% higher rate of abuse by Catholic Clergy. Protestant circles apparently have, per capita, even less VICTIMS then the RC Church has ABUSERS!!! (And few abusers only abuse once…)

The RC Church can rant all they like about this not being a problem of celibacy — but, apparently married people seem to not score as homosexuals with ephebophilia anywhere near as often as the celibate…

In other words, It’s already a huge problem, it’s been suppressed from the top and the lid (judging from their call center crash) is about to blow off of thousands more victims. There are only about 400,000 Catholic clergy worldwide. “1.5-5 percent” is not much of a defense – it’s actually a completely damning figure. Their own numbers really mean 6,000-20,000 abusing priests world wide — the majority of which their own stats say they have done nothing about. The occurrence of homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia in the general population is a tiny fraction of that. Honestly, if the Vatican decides to sell stock, I wouldn’t be buying any for the next few decades as the payouts are going to be mind blowing…

But, here’s the interesting part of all this — the hope inducing part:

For years, the general public has been screaming for the RC Church to do something about the problem of Pedophile priests. And, the RC Church has been responding with statements about how it is unfortunate that positions of power attract Pedophiles and with statements about plans for addressing that problem (And real action). That’s blatant denial. It’s the equivalent of saying: “We have a weasel problem in our hen house and all of our chickens are getting eaten. We need to erect an electrified bear fence to keep out large predators.”

What this rather whiny but still highly placed Vatican leader is really saying here is that the Church finally gets it, is admitting it and, hopefully is going to do something about it. Now, what is going to be interesting to see is if they attempt to put in place some band-aid screening test for homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia or if someone at the top is finally going to grow a set of them and admit that the only sure way to select for non-homosexuals who are attracted to and can maintain healthy sexual and romantic relationships with adult members of the opposite sex is to make sure the priests are married — you know, kinda-sorta like Paul’s idea…

It’s not like we DON’T know that around 20% of them are already married and doing just fine… (Which, by the way, makes that 6,000-20,000 number all the more extreme…)

Women who took the birth control pill beginning in the late 1960s lived longer than those never on the pill, a new study says.

British researchers observed more than 46,000 women for nearly four decades from 1968. They compared the number of deaths in women on the pill to those who never took it.

In the study, women on the pill generally took it for almost four years. Experts concluded the pill cut women’s risk of dying from bowel cancer by 38 percent and from any other diseases by about 12 percent.

The research was published Friday in the British medical journal, BMJ.

After all those years of health food nuts freaking out over the birth control pill, it seems they may have signed their own death warrants by NOT taking it…

Of course, correlation does not prove causation. This could just as easily prove that non-health-food-inclined women who have lots of sex also chose to go on the pill — and it is having lots of sex that makes them live longer…

Several recent studies have shown the limited effectiveness of abstinence programs, leading many to the conclusion that we have simply set the bar too high for the advanced libido of today’s average teen. Our young people already face enough stresses in life without adding unnecessary ones. Churches should be building up our future leaders, not crushing them under a load of guilt. The answer to this problem is both clear and simple: If the expectations can’t be met, then lower the standards. Though we have already learned this principle in the arena of public education, once again, the Church is slow to catch on.

Jesus Himself said “My burden is light.”

That’s why we are proud to offer a “lite” version, or re-visioning of a popular abstinence program. We confront specific areas in which previous abstinence methods have failed, and offer exciting options.

Thanks Kathy for pointing this out…

Some links just don’t deserve to be hidden in the comments… Yes, it’s a parody — but it’s just as real as the insanity of purity ball/ring thing.

On the one side, we have Fundamentalist Evangelicalism — with their useless shame and purity balls. On the other we have the liberal left — with teachings that (Though well hidden) really do sound allot like the above link.

Seems either is so much better then addressing the real issue: Shame, guilt, fear and shattered relationship — you know, things WE WOULD actually have to change instead of just hammering our kids…

At least nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, says a new report. And premarital sex isn’t new — the high rates include the sexual habits of women born in the 1940s, challenging the idea that sexual behaviors used to be more restrained.Sex has apparently become something of a young American habit. “It’s hard to stop the evolution of that urge,” said Judy Kuriansky, a sex therapist, media personality and adjunct professor of psychology at Columbia University Teachers College in New York.The report, published by the private Guttmacher Institute in New York, challenges the thinking behind government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

So to summarize, everyone is having premarital sex. All the Christians are having premarital sex too — even those subjected to purity balls and purity rings. In fact, it matters not at all what race, sex or religion the persons hold, they are all having every sort of sex and the only reason they are not having babies all over the place is that, in spite of the US government and abstinence education, more and more of them have figured out contraception.

Oh ya, and 5% of Americans apparently lie on anonymous surveys about having sex…

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn’t successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

This is a remarkably well done study. We have known for years that Fundamentalist Evangelical states tend to have really high rates of teen pregnancy — but this reality was always written off under the line that the other states are just aborting the children.

A line, we now learn, that is not even remotely true.

Apparently, even when you factor in those abortions, the fear, denial, shame, avoidance of the subject, abstinence based education, teen chastity balls/purity ring thing and the absence of credible teen education in contraception is doing nothing to stop teen sex — and a lot to help the whole, “Be fruitful and multiply,” thing.

Perhaps someone should have had a talk with Paul… His contention that the, “The law kills but the Spirit brings life,” seems to have finally been proven false.

The laws of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism DEFINITELY do bring forth life from teen girls…

Ms. Wisteria, who holds a degree in early Christian fabric and drapery design from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, worked as a model during her student days, and she came to a conclusion: Christian women needed a lingerie line that would let them look sexy but still retain that sense of modesty required for bedtime prayers and morning quiet time.

There’s a widespread misconception, she said, that Christians fear pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, and see it as degrading, corrupting and tainted.

“That’s a dirty, rotten LIE,” she yelled, stamping her foot on the marble floor.

“But it’s always so hard for a couple to transition from kneeling together in awe before the gates of heaven — praying for famine victims in Darfur, for instance, or the political situation in East Timor–and then jumping into the sack for a session of hot carnal pleasure. I wanted to help bridge that gap. That was my sacred mission.”

The result was her first popular cutting-edge design– the breakaway flannel granny gown.

If I wouldn’t take so much heat out of the fundamentalist Evangelical right (And reverends thereof), there’s a twisted part of me that would want to not bill this as the parody it is — and see how many would take it seriously.

But, having been drawn and quartered for not condemning a client who bought his wife sweaters from Victoria’s Secret, for linking to a site which sells foam wedges to support couples for love making (Especially disabled couples), for suggesting a Pyrex toy could be used to treat vaginal spasms, for suggesting that God created our ability to have fantasy and for having the nerve to suggest a sexual teaching guide (with [GASP] pencil diagrams) was not leading a couple into pornography, I must refrain — and wonder how much of the article really is parody; or if it’s history…

When a teenage girl knowingly sends provocative pictures of herself to friends or a boyfriend, is she guilty of child pornography or simply practicing self-expression?

New research that looks at the criminalization of self-made images exchanged among consenting minors argues that the laws and public service campaigns designed to protect girls from becoming victims may actually be blaming the girls themselves and curbing their natural desire for sexual self-expression.

Teenagers sending provocative and even pornographic images via cellphones — a practice known as sexting — is really just a modern variation on "playing doctor or spin the bottle," Peter Cumming, an associate professor at York University in Toronto, argued in a paper on children's sexuality defending the practice.

"Technology does change things, and there can be very serious consequences," Prof. Cumming said. "But that obscures the fact that children and young people are sexual beings who have explored their sexuality in all times, and all cultures and all places. A distinction has to be made between nudity and child porn," he added.

In the last couple of months, the media suddenly seemed to discover that teens had phones (With cameras) as well as computers (With WebCams) and, as usual, the sky was falling. News outlets ran stories, prosecutors suddenly started charging girls who were even photographed in their underwear and, “Dr.” Phil commenced his usual clueless moralizing and grandstanding to shame girls into ceasing the practice of sending erotic pictures of themselves to others (Which, of course, he and others immediately commenced calling pornography.)

Ignoring the reality that this doesn’t fit any scientific definition of rage based erotica (Which Porn is). Ignoring that even under the blunt instrument of the law, nudity does not even remotely equal erotica/pornography and ignoring the raw senselessness of punishing a victim as her own perpetrator, this insanity has provided an interesting window into the collective self hatred present in the sexual psyche of North America. It’s like the veil has been violently pulled back and people are suddenly exposing the attitudes about sex that make them so uncomfortable:

Sex as a means of manipulating others.
Sex as a means of violating others.
Sex as a reason for marital failure (If marriage itself doesn’t kill sex in advance.)
Sex as pure sleaze.
Sex as a means of keeping one gender or another under your thumb.

No more are those attitudes hidden in the back room — but the weird thing is that the proponents of such are hardly hanging their heads in shame over the obvious shattered reality now visible in their belief systems. The above attitudes are actually the foundations of their sudden outrage and activism with rants about how boys will use girls, how gullible girls are for being sexual, how no one will want a girl who does this and how badly girls who do this are gonna get hurt.

As far as I can tell, this is the first researcher who has squarely faced the key question: Why are we shaming/punishing/condemning young girls for being sexual beings (Yes, very stupid ones…) instead of addressing those who would distribute the evidence of said stupidity?

The stunning irony in this entire debate is that neither Oprah, “Dr.” Phil, Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, WiredSafety nor any of the major news outlets launched their campaign with a set of messages to young boys about respecting the sexualities of young girls, how a woman’s sexuality (especially offered to you) is a precious gift, how much of a moron you look like when you treat a girlfriend (Or her picture) like a piece of meat to hand around to your friends, how women are attracted to men of honor and how those that violate the above should be charged and educated to grow up.

Naw… Because that would expose our own attitudes about sex and, particularly, women’s sexuality. Like, perhaps the fact that we think sex is evil, dirty, sick and nasty — and you should only do it with the one you love…

Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins’ advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the “triad.”

Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That’s closer to bigamy. Instead, triads—”triangular triads,” to use precise polyamorous jargon—demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other. In the Lessins case, that can be varying pairs but, as Sasha, a psychologist, puts it, “Janet loves it when she gets a double decker.” In a triad, there would be no doubt in Elizabeth Edwards’ mind whether her husband fathered a baby out of wedlock; she likely would have participated in it.

But, But, But — they PROMISED!!! They were so sure it wouldn’t be a slippery slope…

In a message posted on the Miami archdiocese Web page, the archbishop apologized to parishioners and radio listeners for what he called a “scandal.”

“Father Cutie made a promise of celibacy and all priests are expected to fulfill that promise with the help of God,” Favalora said. “Father Cutie’s actions cannot be condoned despite the good works he has done as a priest.”

Cutie apologized in an online statement Tuesday, saying he “wants to ask for forgiveness if my actions have caused pain and sadness. … I assure you that my service and dedication to God remain intact.”

Isn’t it interesting how an archdiocese well known as a safe haven for sexually abusive priests suddenly manages to get so pissy assertive when the other person involved is old enough to vote. And has ovaries.

It says something about the priorities and underlying patterns of brokenness here that this is what would finally be called a, “Scandal…” In any other church, everyone would be cheering that the one leader in the area who is actually doing something productive to really change people’s love lives has now, himself, found love.

You always see this pattern in systems of religious power: Those actions which undermine the power system are always deemed to be so much more evil then those which are neutral or actually maintain said system. The rating process really has nothing to do with any sort of evaluation of the actual damage sustained by human hearts…

Grove City student suspended over gay porn video

Says film income helped pay tuition

Thursday, May 07, 2009

The Associated Press
GROVE CITY, Pa. — A student is appealing his suspension from a Christian college in Mercer County for appearing in gay porn videos using a pseudonym.

Twenty-two-year-old John Gechter, of Philadelphia, was suspended for one year pending appeal from Grove City College after a student saw him last month in a video posted online.

Mr. Gechter is appealing the suspension and says he may sue, claiming that the gay porn job isn’t any of the school’s business, especially since he performed using the name “Vincent DeSalvo.” Mr. Gechter says he used his porn income to pay for his schooling.

School officials say Mr. Gechter is suspended because he was well aware his porn involvement “exhibited behavior contrary to the values” of the school about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Three interesting things here:

The most interesting part of this is still being recognized by precisely nobody… Apparently, the student who was looking at same-sex oriented erotic videos and narc’ed him out — well, s/he’s still a member of the student body…

It seems that, on this week’s edition of the naughty list, the sex acts involved in viewing same-sex erotic materials are not quite naughty enough to qualify as a, “Really bad sin,” — but performing them (at least on film) is. Or maybe, the real issue is just that the public can’t identify which student reported the problem — thus the school can still claim the problem doesn’t exist in their back yard, avoid dealing with it and still retain their carefully crafted public image…

The second interesting fact is that this guy is telling the truth about his financial needs. It seems that, for no better reason then hiding their finances from the government, the school canceled every student’s ability to subsidize an education in the normal (student loan) way.

The third interesting thing is that no one stated considering keeping them both there, admitting that the entire student body is overloaded with broken hearts and working with all of them to heal such…

Fundamentalist logic…

And just as we were beginning to acknowledge this and trying to overcome the stigma attached to the disease our attention has been diverted by court cases in which people infected with HIV, mostly men, have been convicted for conduct that risks, or is simply perceived to risk, transferring the disease.

Johnson Aziga of Hamilton is the first person in Canada — possibly in the world — to be convicted of first-degree murder for having unprotected sexual intercourse with two women without telling them that he was HIV positive. He’s received a “life” sentence.

This has to be one of the most striking and disturbing articles of the day. Here’s the logic:

Forget the fact that this man knew what he was doing would kill. Forget the reality that he got the ability to bring that kiss of death through his own actions. Forget the fact that he lied to get that ability to bring this kiss of death to another. Let’s blame the victim of this deadly gift for the crime of trusting him and curse the injustice of the legal system for arresting him for this deliberate homicidal act.

Why? Well, here’s the logic: We live in a world of AIDS where everyone should live in fear of this pervasive plague or at least some other STD.

Really? Lets talk about a pervasive plague that impacts around 2/3rds of one percent (0.7%) of the population, is mostly transmitted by male on male sex (40—49% of new cases) and, in the United States, a known population (African Americans) make up about 48% of the total HIV-positive population and more than half of new HIV cases — despite making up only 12% of the population.

Is it any wonder that, so called, condom fatigue has set in? Is it any wonder that the general public still seems to think of STD’s in terms of chlamydia or the like? Is it any wonder that a few (Yes, even at the chlamydia level) very foolish individuals have begun playing a condom free game of Russian Roulette and could also be at risk to this order of calculated homicide?

Naw — let’s decry the failure to, “Overcome the stigma attached to the disease.” In English, that means, “Convince the population that this is everyone’s problem instead of still mostly being the byproduct of limited (Mostly homosexual) extremely high risk behaviors centered in a known population.” It means, “Ignore that there are some who actually pursue infection with the HIV virus.” It means, “Let’s all act like it makes sense to pretend obvious and rampant irresponsibility on the part of one known population group should be destigmatized while demanding hyper-responsibility in another.”

Once again, forget standing up, telling the truth about where the problem is centered and demanding that the core of the problem deal with it. Let’s deflect it by talking about other STD’s and make the whole world responsible.

Is it any wonder this completely preventable disease called HIV/AIDS is not going away?

The pastor of Willow Creek Chicago — the city campus of the evangelical megachurch Willow Creek Community Church — has resigned and admitted to “sexual impurity,” a church spokesman said.

The pastor, Rev. Steve Wu, could not be reached, and the church would [not] specify what took place.

Wu, 43, moved from California’s Silicon Valley in early 2006, hired by senior pastor Rev. Bill Hybels to lead Willow Creek Chicago, the downtown branch of the South Barrington-based church.

And further down…

The statement said: “He admitted to sexual impurity and has taken full responsibility for his sin. He has expressed a desire to participate in a restoration process.”

The usual drama continues — yet another collection of sex obsessed evangelicals find yet another in their midst who slipped Willy across this week’s line and, yet again, have tossed him out on his, er, nether-regions as a form of utterly useless restorative therapy that is sure to result in both zero change and a speaking tour — probably with a book deal. (Clearly, we assume, this is necessary because sex is so much badder then all the rest of the antics they are involved in.) None of this is new. What’s interesting is how honest they have been this time…

“has taken full responsibility for his sin.”

Two errors in seven words — pretty much a record I think…

Last time I checked Scripture, it tells me Jesus took responsibility for the sin of the entire world, took it all upon Himself and died for it. Paul further tells us that (Rom 7) we died with Christ to all of the elemental principles of this world (Col 2:21) and the very concept of the naughty and nice list style of living that got instituted in at the Fall in the garden of Eden. Sin was such a serious problem that no one other then God Himself could do ANYTHING about it — and He had to die, kill us and then raise all of the above to a new life to do it. And, He did it — once and for all

But not in Bill Hybel’s inferno… It’s a special place of image and performance where people handle sin with so little seriousness that they actually believe that a human being can do something to fix it. Here, sin (At least whatever of it is on the latest naughty list) is still front and center (Because apparently Jesus only died so we can eat Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers) and people are still scaled by it until they can work hard enough to appear to clean up their own acts.

But don’t worry, it’s a caring place where they help people reach that sinless state — by ensuring their unemployment…[SIGH]

I’m still waiting for a church with the guts to stand up and say,

Today pastor _________ came to us to admit that he’s been having an affair with our women’s ministry coordinator. We’re leaving both of them in their jobs and are going to set out as a community to experience what it is like to see Jesus do what He said he would do in setting the captives free if we actually become the safe place He talked about. This week we are going to start that journey by talking about guilt, shame and condemnation and how that unholy trinity keeps people doing stupid things that will never satisfy. Bring what you have been conned into believing is your own dirty laundry at 11am and we’ll see if Jesus can do the stain removal you never could even get started on…

Ya, I know — never mind…[SIGH]

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is “completely heterosexual” and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

Ya, ok, not so much… (To say nothing of the idiotic delusion of reparative therapy being completed in three weeks…)

ap.org

Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard – a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

But of course, the church is clearly living out their commitment to a transparent, open reflection of a new life in Christ… We think… Ok, maybe they are mostly covering it up better then even Haggard himself and even paying hush money…

Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.

Boyd said a Colorado Springs TV station reached him Thursday to say the young man was planning to provide a detailed report of his relationship with Haggard to the station. Boyd said the church preferred to keep the matter private, but it was the man’s decision to go public.

But no, of course it’s not hush money — it’s just compassionate assistance… Um, no wait…

“It wasn’t at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story,” Boyd said. “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance – certainly not hush money. I know what’s what everyone will want to say because that’s the most salacious thing to say, but that’s not at all what it was.”

Boyd said the church will not take action against the man if he tells his story in the press.

“We have legal standing to do that, but not the desire to,” he said.

Yep, compassionate assistance — with a Non Disclosure Agreement. I’ll bet the church also makes patrons of their food bank sign one though so I’m sure it’s all standard procedure…

It isn’t often that Evangelical Christendom manages NOT to make me ashamed to be associated with them — this is not their lucky day…

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

Ok, this is so striking it just screams out for a comment. One of the foundational rules in statistics is the law that, “Correlation does not equal causation.” In other words, just because you can prove that the rising or falling levels of one thing (Say the number of rum runners in Boston during prohibition) are exactly linked to the same in another (Say the number of Baptist Ministers in Boston during prohibition), you have NOT proved that they actually have ANYTHING to do with each other (No, all Baptist Ministers are not rum runners — they are all a function of population growth).

Oh yes, every researcher on the planet is taught this fact.

So, then we have this genius — Dr Thomas Pollet claims that because he can link the success of a man giving a woman an orgasm with his success in making money, women must be biologically programmed through some strange evolutionary adaptation to like sex (And therefor have better orgasms) with men who have money.

Of course, there’s a problem with this — Ros has had the same number of orgasms from our lovemaking today that she had when I was a starving grad student living on student loans. Shouldn’t her sex life have improved dramatically since I started earning a living?

Or, perhaps men who can make a decent living tend also to be educated men — men who are willing to get off their butts and read a book about sex — men who are willing to learn from someone smarter then Hugh Hefner…

Naw, couldn’t be that — gotta have something to do with a woman’s vestigial primate tendencies to be a gold digger…

Just remember this the next time someone says, “But Science says…”

But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception. This could be because evangelicals are also among the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the message that they are looking for sex. It could also be because many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease. More provocatively, Regnerus found that only half of sexually active teen-agers who say that they seek guidance from God or the Scriptures when making a tough decision report using contraception every time. By contrast, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult consistently use protection.

The gulf between sexual belief and sexual behavior becomes apparent, too, when you look at the outcomes of abstinence-pledge movements. Nationwide, according to a 2001 estimate, some two and a half million people have taken a pledge to remain celibate until marriage. Usually, they do so under the auspices of movements such as True Love Waits or the Silver Ring Thing. Sometimes, they make their vows at big rallies featuring Christian pop stars and laser light shows, or at purity balls, where girls in frothy dresses exchange rings with their fathers, who vow to help them remain virgins until the day they marry. More than half of those who take such pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse.

The stats just keep rolling in — Evangelical shame and Catholic guilt once again just doesn’t seem capable of arresting the misplaced human teen’s longing for love. Whatever shall we do???

Perhaps that might be a reason to offer it to them some other way — like maybe just being fathers and mothers to the fatherless and motherless???

Or, we could just launch another purity ball instead…

‘One of the saddest moments when I was thinking about my marriage was when I realized that sex with Brad was the only thing we shared that was unique to us.

‘It was what made us more than roommates, and yet I was denying our marriage that aspect.’

But did it change their marriage for the better?

‘It changed completely,’ says Charla. ‘We started being more attentive to each other, not just in bed, but about the trivial little things. Brad would offer to do some chore or run an errand, and I wouldn’t be thinking he was doing it to gain sex points.

‘We became so much closer. You can’t have that sort of regular intimacy in bed without it spilling over into the rest of life.

‘There was a lot less narking and sniping. You just can’t do that all day then want to get into bed with the person at night.

‘My self-confidence was greatly improved, too.

Ten years ago, saying this earned me the ire of several church leaders and one green-paper-with-pink-ink piece of beautifully scented (and unsigned) hate mail from a feminist type who figured I was a male pig. Now it’s making the news in our post-feminist culture as though it’s a novel idea just invented — speaking in suddenly awed tones about figuring out that daily sex could be good for all.

Our society is finally waking up — finally figuring out that our barter system for sex in marriage is an insult to both partners and an inversion of how we were designed to function. (Sex was designed to be the platform on which all other areas of intimacy are integrated. It is a servant to all the rest of the areas of intimacy rather then the pinnacle of all intimacy to be used as a reward for good performance in the other areas.)

Books are being written. People are rediscovering thousands of year old East Indian and Asian texts where daily sex is reported to be the best idea for a marriage. People are doing anything but acknowledge how short a time ago it was that we forgot this truth:

1 Corinthians 7:4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. (5a) Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer (and fasting.)

But hey, it’s just Paul — what did he know anyway???

Calling it a way to “open the door for dialogue” between the resort and its homeowners, Anne Hathorn, of the Clearwater firm of Becker & Poliakoff, said the resort must cut off ties with Web sites that promote the swinger lifestyle, tighten control on the use of Caliente’s name in event advertisements and where the ads are distributed, and get Caliente reinstated in the American Association for Nude Recreation.

Caliente Resort said it plans to keep on marketing to those it calls “nontraditional nudists.”

Caliente was embroiled in controversy last month when the association temporarily suspended its membership and opened an investigation into sexually charged monthly parties at Caliente organized by Aahz Party Lifestyle Group, a “lifestyle,” or swingers, group with Caliente’s blessing.

The association promotes family-friendly nudism. Its investigation puts at stake Caliente’s access to marketing assistance and membership subsidies for tourists, among other advantages.

Here’s one for the category of ironic parallelism…

They come there looking for freedom, a chance to throw off the oppressive constraints of society and run free in their (largely) wrinkled, middle-aged birthday suits — “just as God intended it.”

Then they create a complicated series of rules and regulations for what constitutes appropriate freedom, a homeowners association to back it and retain a lawyer to enforce their definitions of freedom… It seems oppression follows wherever rule-keeper type people are…

Sounds a lot like Evangelical Christianity doesn’t it??? We too set out to create a place supposedly based based on grace with its calling of freeing people from the bondage to law and judgment that has trapped them in that which formerly was (A system of law, sin and death) and unable to breath free.

Then we create a place sanctioned by Revenue Canada, governed by a federally approved charter, led by a talking head (we misname a pastor), controlled by an elected board issuing edicts (which we misname the elders) and managed by staff people (often misnamed the deacons) hired under their agreement to uphold a code of conduct and do what that board tells them to do. We preach a gospel of performance and moralizing and flood people with good-works systems and, “Opportunities,” to perform such in to prove that they really belong — and guilt them into doing such.

And, then we wonder why it becomes a place of fear, shame and the bondage of a tiny minority’s control with people living in the exact opposite of what Jesus came to bring.

And, worst of all, we do so because we can’t believe that Jesus/the Gospel has any real power. We can’t believe that setting people free will unleash love and community — not selfishness. We can’t believe that preaching real grace (Not the performance based version) will draw people to heal — not to wreak the lives of others. We can’t believe that creating a church where the broken messes of our lives are spilling out all over the place (where everyone is ok with those messes being there) and relying on God to heal them (Rather then using judgment based performance to fix it) could actually create a church where it is safe to be — not a haven for abusers. We can’t even fathom that the absence of structure could actually inspire creativity — not anarchy.

We can’t — because, if we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t really believe that Jesus is real or that He can heal. So, we’ve created our own systems. Surprise surprise, they suck.

Maybe men had it right all along: It doesn’t take long to satisfy a woman in bed. A survey of sex therapists concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes.

The findings, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, strike at the notion that endurance is the key to a great sex life.

You know the sexually intimate couples of a country are in trouble when even the healers are so totally out of it they collectively espouse the insanity of whatever this is as wisdom…

5000 years of research and tried and true practice to the contrary now swept from public view — by a survey…

“I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming,” the husband told the newspaper Wednesday.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

Ok, so I have to post this — if only to ask the odd question…

It’s been known for 50 years that where there is one broken person in a marriage, there is always another — just in a very different (And usually enabling/codependent/co-addict) sort of way. Even in light of that psychology, this still is a strange sort of hyper-congruent validation of the idea if there ever was one…

I’ve just gotta ask though: Is she divorcing him because he visits hookers — or is he divorcing her because she is one??? At least on the surface, it would seem that in the middle of this mess of a marriage, the couple has finally found SOMETHING they can agree upon. Their sex life had to of really sucked in terms of intimacy anyway — so it’s not like they each had high expectations there… She apparently was successful at her profession — and he was obviously intent on purchasing it so the variety of acts likely was not at issue…. Why are they divorcing such ‘perfection’ in first place?

Or, just maybe we have proof positive of what I’ve been saying for the last decade — it’s really NOT ABOUT THE SEX!!! Never has this constant of marriages the world over been more clearly demonstrated: neither can point at the other and say, “I’m ok and you are broken so I need to leave.” In this case, there are two perfectly matched human hearts — hearts totally distrustful of love — now divorcing because their previous distrust driven distance has now been multiplied through absolutely identical offenses.

Divorcing — because they are still too afraid to bring their hearts to the table and be loved — because they are still equally afraid of rejection — from an absolute equal — who is just as desperate for love.

“It’s been shown repeatedly that women who are young when they lose their virginity and women who have had many sexual partners are at higher risk of the disease. However, most people have been exposed to HPV in their lifetime.People who smoke are at higher risk of this disease, as with most cancers. The risk also increases steadily with age. Women over age 65 are the most likely to develop cervical cancer. In Canadian studies, people with low incomes had consistently higher rates of cervical cancer. The most dramatic risk elevation was found in First Nations women, who are 2 to 6 times as likely to develop cervical cancer as non-Native women.”

Now, Davis and other local sex workers have banded together to establish Canada’s first cooperative brothel in an attempt to offer women a safe place to work.

The group, formed by a sex workers’ alliance based here, called the British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Women, will incorporate next month and is already setting the groundwork to open the co-op brothel.

Members have begun scouting for a location and are enlisting the backing of local businesses, police and labor organizations.

Faced with the task of cleaning up the city to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver authorities said they are open to the idea.

“We would be willing to explore anything that . . . would be helping the situation of sex trade workers, and make it safer for them and make it better for the community,” said Vancouver police spokesperson Howard Chow. He noted one requirement: “It has to be something that is lawful.”

So, let’s see: we’ll take an abuse of women that clearly is also a social blight, mix in the idea of creating a central edifice for it and then ice it with a thin veneer of socialist yammering about cooperative business being a wonderful thing. Take this lovely cake and get an idiot police spokesman to endorse it — now there, don’t we have a warm fuzzy story to tell our children about social progress?

Or, we could endorse the idea, get all the sex trade workers in there and arrest them. Then put in a whole raft of plain cloths officers posing as hookers and arrest all the Johns too. Get a judge to sentence the lot of them to treatment. Find two deserted patches of forest somewhere, set up a bunch of oilfield camp trailers, bring in the therapists and get to work on actually fixing the problem.

Naw, the warm fuzzy stories are more fun…

CALGARY – Officials at a Calgary church have admitted they were aware of an allegation of wrongdoing against an adult volunteer at his previous church but allowed him to continue working in youth programs under increased supervision for two years.

Police have charged the volunteer with sexually abusing three girls under the age of 14 at Centre Street Church.

According to a statement made by Brian Spiers of Westview Baptist Church during Sunday morning services, church staff investigated the allegations against the volunteer but found no corroborating evidence. As a result, the man was permitted to continue working in church programs.

“Unproven allegations are very difficult for a church to deal with,” said Dayle Medgett, senior pastor of Westview church, after the service.

Although officials declined to comment on the nature of the allegation or how they learned about it, they said the man worked for three years as a missions co-ordinator and parent volunteer in the youth program – but was never alone with children.

Medgett said upon learning of the allegation the church placed the volunteer under “increased accountability conditions.”

This happens to be going on in Calgary — but it could be anywhere. If it’s happened once, it’s happened a thousand times:

Person is in, “Ministry,” in a church, so many are creeped out by his actions, church does some sort of due dilligence via. police checks, nothing is found, person continues ministry/abusing until there is a huge blast radius, everyone pleads innocent claiming there was no proof and the lawyers pick over the remains.

Of course, for years I’ve spoken in one church after another addressing so many different areas of brokenness — and so many of them have responded with the same assumption, “It’s so good someone is helping the sexually broken — but we don’t have that problem here.” (Many times I’ve actually had a couple of their members in one program or another at that very instant…)

Problem is, few of those broken ones stayed in their churches. It’s not that they abandoned their faiths — but it is a departure from church. Not just that church — the institutional church in general. They have become part of the emerging or emergent church and their church is now a home group somewhere. And, the pollsters are very clear on this one: They are NOT coming back.

With their departure, the institutional church lost their first and last line of defense — a broken-and-now-healed-one who can move in on a clear and present danger like the above mentioned individual and bust them — hard. The old saying that it, “Takes one to know one,” has never been more accurate.

It’s kinda like the gun argument in the USA. (When you finally outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.) When we finally get the last broken-and-seeking-to-be-healed person out of your church, you will only have the predators remaining.

“But wait,” you say, “We never ran the broken out of our church.” Yes, you did.

When the Gospel of grace and freedom was exchanged for a gospel of rules, when ethics became the standard and control became the means, when you embraced some 12 step model of performance in place of the healing Christ has to offer, when fear and shame was allowed to sneak back into the one place on Earth Christ created to be free from it, when you allowed your 50yr veteran little-old-lady-babes-of-legalism-in-Christ to stand in condemnation of one broken heart (thus letting it stand as a warning to others), when you allowed some paranoid lawyer on your church board to tie the entire group up in a knot over the liability issues surrounding having a program of healing in your church, when you had the stunning arrogance to forget that your job was to introduce people to Jesus and then teach them to listen to His voice alone, you ran the broken out.

To Center Street’s rather significant credit, they seem to have had at least enough wounded healers remaining to eventually make it hot enough for the abuser in question — so he left. That’s remarkable for a church these days. Perhaps it was soon enough to keep the wolves from gathering.

In most other cases, the only hope is that lawyer…

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors’ expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter’s senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”

First we have Daddy telling them that God told him that he needs $8 million for Roberts’ university, or else he would be, “Called home.” Now we have his son and his son’s wife spending it — and they apparently are catching up… The apple truly has landed in a nice shady spot — right under the tree.

What is most striking to me is that this insane show should have been shut down twenty years ago when the first 8 million dollar lie was told. All the believers of North America would have had to do is stop giving. Roberts would have lived — and his little corner of a false gospel would have died.

Instead believers continued to flood this charlatan with money. Now they point in horror at the fruit of their refusal to think for themselves — aghast at the possibility that a man who so obviously serves a false god could violate their hearts and pocketbooks.

News flash Church: If the god you serve is leading you through fear, shame, judgment, condemnation, guilt, rejection or the iron fisted control of the law the real God died to free you from, then you are serving a false god and living under what Paul called, “Another gospel.” Not even the prophecies of the Old Testament (Jer 31:31 –> for example) would have endorsed this.

Bonno put it well when he stated, “The God I believe in is not short on cash…”

P.S.: Dr. Roberts, it’s time for you to meet again (For the very first time) the fruit of your loins and the fruit of an evil that would dare to defraud God — they’re now a package deal…

“ Victims of sexual assault are apt to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts and attempts – even months after the attack. With this in mind, every attempt should be made to encourage crisis intervention with trained counselors and social workers who are committed Christians.”

“Women’s
relationships today follow

a very
predictable pattern:

 

 


They
push men
for commitment


They get what they want


They



lose interest
in sex



They
become attracted to someone else



They
start cheating


They become angry
and resentful

They begin telling their partners that they need time apart

They blame their partners for
their behavior…

               

and then…


They
slowly destroy their relationships and marriages”

This is a typical pattern. However if one gives the fear of love in the intimate relationship to the Lord, God’s sufficient love for the partners to give can flow once again. There is no blame necessary because the person does not realize they are doing the old and really doesn’t deep down want to do it. The new person in Christ is what is true.

“Quick ideas about setting boundariesChildren and teens need boundaries for their safety. Children should understand the consequences of breaking family rules and boundaries. Consequences should fit the severity of the rule. The following are a few boundaries to discuss with your teen:CurfewTransporting other teens: who or how many people ride in one car together Drinking alcohol or using drugsDrinking alcohol or using drugs and driving Lying to parents or adults in authorityAllowing opposite-sex company in bedrooms Having friends over while parents are absent Age at which dating can beginDating vs. courting: discuss family values and guidelines”

This is a good article of a vision for teenage relationships. However, the law-based Christianity mindset is laced through it. The piece needs to be changed to focus only on Jesus.

“One day she said, ”I don’t think you love me. All you ever want to do is kiss.“ She spat the last word like poison. Her bitterness ran deep. Having thrown away the boundaries, they had ”kissed“ far more than each others lips. She almost gave him back the ring.
Dave wanted to scream, that it wasn’t his idea to kiss in the first place. But he didn’t. Dave knew that being the relationship’s leader, he’d made bad choices. He couldn’t blame her.
The couple backed off to cooler, more manageable boundaries. They stopped kissing, but the scars were there. Scars don’t go away.
When the wedding day came, technically Dave and his bride were still virgins. But as ”technical virgins“ on the most special day of their lives, they didn’t feel too special. They had acted like impatient children at Christmas. The gift of sex had been partially unwrapped. When they finished unwrapping it the night they got married, it wasn’t much of a surprise.
Years later, Dave still feels the sting of his wrong choices. With the clarity of hindsight, here are a few of the lies he believed:”

This is an excellent article that outlines the progression of physical relationships. However there is still an emphasis on the rules, even though it says there are none. The law-based legalism of the culture is what causes the guilt. The Lord just wants us to have as much happiness/surprise that anticipation elicits. The lies need to be given to God so His perspective and way can be lived out in the believers.

In the Netherlands people can be naked in their gardens, the beach and recently the gym. But in America, even chocolate sculptures cant be without clothes. What gives?

Another, perhaps sobering, reality: America has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, according to the American Association of Pediatrics, and a rate that exceeds the Dutch by nine-fold. A healthy attitude to nudity as well as sex, something the Dutch are regaled for, might have a positive impact as more exposure typically leads to greater information.

You know, some questions just beg to be asked. Of course, they still missed addressing the obvious rant fundamentalist Christianity has been on for years by asking: What makes anyone think nudity is in any way required for lust anyhow?

It’s funny how sex factors into the way people describe the state of their relationships. Studies show that, when things are going well, sex contributes only 15 percent to the overall satisfaction of a relationship. But if things aren’t going well, it contributes 85 percent to the overall dissatisfaction.

Sex has many advantages to both people involved. Here are just a few.

Strange, a few years ago, only the ancients could be counted on to state the obvious — finally the rest of the human race is waking up. Forget about if it feels good — just do it anyway. Yes, fix it if it doesn’t feel good — but don’t stop.

The results showed that, unlike many adult networks, there was no core group of very sexually active people at the high school. There were not many students who had many partners and who provided links to the rest of the community.

Instead, the romantic and sexual network at the school created long chains of connections that spread out through the community, with few places where students directly shared the same partners with each other. But they were indirectly linked, partner to partner to partner. One component of the network linked 288 students – more than half of those who were romantically active at the school – in one long chain. (See figure for a representation of the network.)

Ok, let’s cut through to the core of this: Researchers have finally mapped out the sexual connections of an entire school — proving once and for all it’s not the, “Bad kids,” who are having sex. It’s everyone’s kids. No, they are not doing the whole school and, no, they may or may not even be having full on vaginal intercourse (not that that makes much difference to a virus.) In fact, these teens are so limited in their exploration they are each likely only having sex with two different partners — but they are having sex and it’s strikingly well organized.

In my mind, this is a serious assault on the whole silver-ring-thing movement that regularly claims that teens who take their pledge avoid sex or at least limit sex to a very small number of partners. (Though I fully admit it’s never going to be taken notice of…) Reality check: They are all having sex with limited partners.

Not-In-My-Back-Yard thinking is as prevalent today as it ever was. We have a lot of good luck charms we use to convince ourselves that it makes sense — even in the face of research. One of the most common responses to this is simply, “Oh yes, but that’s not my kid — s/he wears a purity ring — and must be numbered in the smaller percentage of students who were not sexually involved.” It’s usually these same parents who are then fighting against the HPV vaccine being administered to their kids or having their kids taught about condoms. (For a brief synopsis of how well purity rings work — not at all — see a recent study published by Medical News Today.)

It’s really easy to believe it will not be your child — and easier still for the teens to believe it won’t be them considering they are bound to know one of the two or three in the entire school who has MANY sexual partners. Trouble is, with the social pressure not to be seen as taking a friend’s, “Leftovers,” there is a self organizing nature to the sexual networks that ensures that whatever diseases one student has are likely to be systematically distributed to the whole works of them.

Sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Brueckner (Columbia and Yale, respectively) found that when virginity pledgers do have sex, they are less likely to use a condom that could save their lives than non-pledgers. So, if they are having sex and it is always with limited numbers, then two questions arise: How can we keep kids from even the limited sex they are having (Seeing as the rings are not working) and/or at least keep them from the unsafe sex the rings are CAUSING. Interestingly enough, these same researchers also found that found that adolescents who make an informal promise to themselves not to have sex WILL delay sex, but adolescents who take a formal virginity pledge DO NOT delay sex.

In my mind, that last sentence is key in answering those two questions:

Parental ignorance, acculturated shame (A.K.A: Purity Balls) and the absence of freedom leads to rebellion — stupid rebellion that gets teens pregnant or dead.

Parental knowledge, shame free involvement, the presence of freedom and the provision of options, when coupled with direct and clear teaching about God’s best for your life, leads children to make decisions for themselves and deeply embed those decisions within their own hearts. Strangely enough, they actually manage to stick to those decisions or at least fail to do so in less dangerous ways.

The number of Christian organizations presenting totally false statistics to back up their ring sales, purity balls and opposition to teens being taught about condoms is staggering. (No, I will not link to them.) Apparently, it’s better to go on marketing the same fictions then to admit that our rather macabre little road show hasn’t worked — and then actually parent our kids.

For me, the final irony is that the purity ring was initially a beautiful original creation of Jack McLemore, a Mississippi jeweler, who actually did love, engage and teach his daughter and intended it as a special symbol meant only for her. He never intended it to become a mass marketed control tactic or a quick-fix Bandaid that allows parents to hide their heads in the sand.

But this time, we know what it’s all about, don’t we? Not joyful, simplified Christianity but a pulling-up of drawbridges. Anglican archbishops in Dar es Salaam are struggling to avoid “schism” in their vast communion over the issue of ordaining, or indeed tolerating, Christians whose unsought orientation is to pair up with others of their own gender. And it will be the illiberal, genitally-fixated wing of Anglicanism that sidles towards unity with Rome. It will do this because it thinks — accurately, more’s the pity — that Rome is where you find the most intolerant attitudes towards homosexuality.

It always intrigues me to watch liberal/postmodernist columnists going to war against fundamentalism on issues of sexuality. They start out with all the fire and fury of their supposed passionate love for the broken hearts of others and their desire for, well, something or other… They then vent their frustrated rage at the Churches’ incurable obsession with genital sexuality which, they hold, “Cripples every good intention, impedes every good work,” as though it were definitively the core of the problem that is causing the pain of those they claim to defend. Then, they present their solution:

The irony is, their solution is simply, “Let’s not talk about it.” They state that, “Christianity could just grow up, and stop treating sex as if it were innately toxic or radioactive and yet irresistibly interesting,” ignoring, for a moment, that these voices may actually have noticed something real. (Not that sexuality is innately toxic, but that there may actually be some seriously broken hearts resulting from the misuse of sexuality…) How do they substantiate this position of willful obliviousness?

The present Pope’s use of expressions such as “objectively disordered” is not only cruel, but unfounded in any solid fact. Nor is real homosexuality, as evangelicals love to claim, “curable”. You can persuade, inspire or bully people out of committing crimes, but not out of perceiving a particular kind of beauty, loveability, caressability and companionableness more in one sex than another. You can condemn people for doing bad things, but you cannot dictate where they will see beauty, a reflection of divinity.

Well, never mind that the very man that removed Homosexuality from the DSM has released his studies stating rather conclusively that homosexuality can be changed. Never mind that there are thousands of persons world wide who’s personal journeys beg to differ with this position. Let’s ignore all the research and just make a raw batch of categorical statements about your own opinions. In other words — they just don’t substantiate it — in fact, they don’t even engage any research that disagrees with them while upholding research as that which will vindicate them.

Ironically, the solution they offer — just ignoring the broken hearts of those trapped in this lifestyle — is exactly the same solution actually being currently practiced in the fundamentalist churches they rail against. In fact, it’s the solution nearly exclusively practiced on both sides (except for a very few.) While one side rails against behaviors and the other side praises the same, the real problem is that neither side is prepared to engage the broken at a level that actually matters.

And, what would engaging them look like? It would start with reading Romans and Galatians again for the very first time, walking away from the idiocy of our ethical revision of Christianity and figuring out that there is no other way to describe Christianity but with the word, “Freedom.” It would continue with the recognition of the dignity and sonship/daughtership of every child of God (regardless of their behavior) and a reexamination of the radical nature of both love itself as well as the call of Christ to do so. It would continue with an honest recognition of the reality of human broken hearts — especially in the case of those who are settling for so much less then what they were created for. Then it would require figuring out that love doesn’t tell a person who is settling for such that that’s all they can expect for their lives.

Just maybe, somewhere in there, the church might discover the point Paul was making back there: That love, grace, freedom and an intimate relationship with God/others can heal what no amount of hiding our heads in the sand or shouting our judgments at the broken will ever even touch.

But then, that would require us to actually go into the dark places of the human heart that Jesus hung out in — instead of acting like the damage is beautiful or, conversely, too evil to do anything but mark the person as fuel for the fires of hell…

Oh wait… Never mind… That would cut into the stained glass window budget…

Throughout the Islamic Middle East, men and women are taught to be vehemently opposed to pleasure, especially of the sexual variety. Men are raised not only forbidden to touch women, but to even look at them. Sex before marriage is not just a sin — but a criminal offence. It is punishable by a severe beating at best, and an execution at worst.

The sexual privileges that are allowed in Islamic cultures are permitted to men. Women’s sexuality and social independence represent major threats to male supremacy and are tightly controlled. Thus, as the Moroccan feminist Fitna Sabbah reveals in her book Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, there is a disturbing conflict in the Middle East between sexual libido and repression. A deep-seated fear of, and hostility to, individuality prevails, and its main expression exists in misogyny.

Ok, this is a disturbing article. Jamie Glazov writes about how deeply embedded same sex sexual abuse is within fundamentalist Islamic cultures identifying how the seeds of rage and fear combine to produce a hyper-masculinization (based upon conformity) that renders the affected male both powerless and controllable — even to the point of death.

His contention is that this damage is both legitimized and then rationalized by a society that teaches that the damage is nonexistent and understands the inflicting of such as a need.

In this culture, males sexually penetrating males becomes a manifestation of male power, conferring a status of hyper-masculinity. It is considered to have nothing to do with homosexuality. An unmarried man who has sex with boys is simply doing what men do. As the scholar Bruce Dunne has demonstrated, sex in Islamic societies is not about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male’s achievement of pleasure through violent domination.

I am unsure of the accuracy of this, though the author is rather prestigious. It has had me reeling intellectually for most of the day — first to assess, then to evaluate this info (and previous experience living in a predominantly Islamic culture) and finally to rethink the implications of such. I’ve run this past a number of evaluators this afternoon and all have — disturbingly — either confirmed or been unable to deny it. Additionally, those who have posted against it seem to be limited to nothing more substantive then mocking the author. (It sickens me to admit it but I have to wonder if Bush was right to invade Iraq — even if his stated reasons were nothing more then an attempt at thought control…)

Given the work I have done with the victims of the damage therein described, this article has a strange ring of truth. We know even from Biblical history that this twisting of sexuality and culture was well under way thousands of years ago. History has a way of repeating itself…

So many authors have recognized that negotiation with the Islamofascist world is nothing more then, “Allowing both sides to reload.” Perhaps it has something to do with an internal sense that to negotiate is to be penetrated again — and nothing will stand in the way of defending against that abuse. War driven by this deeply embedded of a wounding is irrevocable, nonnegotiable and to the death.

The spread of Islam across most of Africa was done under the banner of:

“Know that paradise is under the shades of swords.,” Narrated by Bukhari, Vol.4, book 52, 73

If so, democracy and North American culture/civilization is very possibly not going to stand against Islam for we clearly lack the backbone to exercise the only option we have: All out war to take out a culture (and likely, with it, a religion) and then hold it (as we did with Nazi Germany) for at least a generation to stop this abuse and, thus, the insanity.

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BTW: anyone who is going to email to tell me that Islam is a religion of peace should take note of the following:

“Islam spread by means of proof and evidence to those who listened to the message and responded to it, and it spread by means of force and the sword to those who were stubborn and arrogant, until they were overwhelmed and became no longer stubborn, and submitted to that reality.” Sayed Qutb: Fiqh Al-Da’wa, 217-220 – Fatawa Al-Lajnah Al-Daaimah 12/14

“I have been ordered to fight people till they say, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah”, and whoever says, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah”, his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his reckoning will be with Allah, (either to punish him or forgive him). Narrated by Abu Huraira, Buchari, Vol.4, book 52, 196

All anyone has to do is watch his or her television to figure out that this, “Religion of peace,” will only be at peace when they have killed or subjugated everyone who disagrees with them.

Look, I’m an evangelical Christian who firmly believes that sex should be reserved for marriage. But I just can’t imagine going about it this way with any of my four kids, son or daughters.

For starters, something like a ”purity ball” essentially minimizes a young woman’s very humanity. But, of course, if we value her we know that her sexuality and the choices she makes about it as an adult are hers.

Besides, I can’t help but wonder if a single-minded focus on virginity is an ironic, and unintended way, of sexualizing youth in a different way.

In any event, what bothers me most is that these dads and daughters may be falling for the misperception that ”the sin is in the thing” instead of the heart, or conversely, that some sort of righteousness is inherent in the status of virgin, or any outward appearance of propriety.

But what if that same virginal girl has a heart full of bitterness, envy, lust, greed? Would her dad still be proud? Would she? Should they be?

Somehow, I just feel this is worth a little recognition: The stunning emergence of common sense from an evangelical columnist — and in the Times no less.

Our young friend, in a moment of teenage brilliance, decided to post some naked pictures of herself to the internet and (GASP) kept copies of said pictures on her computer.

She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.

Puritan ethics and the American legal system unite in stunning wisdom to create this heart warming example of common sense guidance for a child. (I’d assign 10:1 odds they are also going to add her name to the sexual offender’s list and force her to continually report her address for life.)

For one thing, I can’t help but wonder where we as a society finally lost our collective mind and our ability to differentiate between the stupid pranks of a kid and real criminal behavior. Reality is, by charging her, we have reduced the charges and likely the sex offender registry to an absurdity. Next stop, let’s ban mirrors from homes…

Darker then that though, our sex negative society has finally spoken — her naked body was so evil and offensive that taking self portraits of such is abusive. Even simply owning (forget looking at) those pictures of herself must be charged as a crime.

All things considered, the sexual revolution appears to have been a bust: It managed to take a society where the human body was evil and dirty and sex wasn’t done and make it into a society where the human body is evil and dirty and sex IS being done (By evil and dirty people). Then, we taught our little girls that sex was all they had to offer and that the same freaked out shame is modesty — all the while telling them an inverted flaunting of such is normal. The sexual revolution totally ignored the shame based core of the problem.

This little girl has a problem: her parent’s modeling (and inability to monitor her internet usage) appears to have conspired with society at large to create a hyper sexualized child. She’s a kid who’s obviously hungry for love and is willing to settle for so much less. All of them — especially her parents — need to get help before it’s too late.

Oh, I forgot. Never mind. That would require dealing in reality. It’s more fun to charge her as a child abuser anyway…

Mike Jones, who has a forthcoming book, told The Denver Post that several people shook his hand and told him, “God bless you.”

“I had read a lot about the church, but there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself,” Jones told the newspaper. “It wasn’t to rub anyone’s face in it by any means. I was wanting to get some perspective, to see where they are coming from, what the magnet is.”

Haggard resigned last year as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after Jones alleged Haggard paid him over a three-year period for sex and sometimes took methamphetamine during the encounters.

Interesting how we have a double standard for grace isn’t it. We talk about grace and even (Correctly) show such along with strikingly unconditional love to the non-Christian broken in a welcoming of Haggard’s accuser to his home church. (The same church that just fired Haggard because — like all of us — he couldn’t perform…)

On the one hand, the entire story has stunningly ironic elements of, “You made your [legalism and performance based] bed, now lay in it…” Not that two wrongs make a right or anything but, maybe the experience will finally break his heart of legalism and heal him. (In any case, we can always hope that the new pastor will actually get the Gospel and rescue the congregation.) That being said though, it is a useful case study of our true beliefs here in the church so we can proclaim them to the world:

So, after all these years of mistakenly listening to Paul, let’s get this message of the Gospel straight once and for all: Now that grace and freedom has touched your life and brought you to Christ, the Jesus who died to set you free from the law now (apparently) wants you to get off your butt and perform to measure up to it?

I think the technical term for that is, “Bait and switch.” Trouble is, it’s not even that simple:

On the other hand though, Haggard has obvious talents given to him by God to do what he was doing. I’d love to see Haggard finally get the Gospel and, with all of his broken heart, be restored to ministering to others — but that’s not gonna happen either. Here in the church, we shoot our wounded; then keep them on life support so we can demand they perform anyway.

He’s as good as dead: Dead as in an outcast forever and dead as in forever consigned to the ongoing legalism (as penance and proof of a heart change) that will keep him trapped in the brokenness which was wreaking his life in first place. (Kinda like a wounded soldier being required to shoot himself dead as proof he is still alive…)

Now, we’d like to welcome Haggard’s accuser to join the same system? Do we really think Jones is that crazy? Are we???

If theta waves are taken as a criterion, the entire brain emits theta waves when women reach an orgasm that are close on 10 times stronger than when men climax. So, if theta waves are an indication of an orgasm’s strength, then women experience an orgasm that is physically impossible for men to go through. Putting it a little crudely, if the intensity of a woman’s orgasm was played through a man’s brain, there’s a danger that the shock to his system would kill him. That risk makes it impossible to experiment on a man at the moment. And men can never become women. But my co-author, Kaneko, used the experience of people who have undergone a sex change (either a woman born with a man’s brain or vice versa) to explain the pleasure women feel.

Just in case you ever bought into the myth that women hate sex because they get little out of it and thus avoid it, step back from your preconceptions and observe what nothing more then our shame based (and highly sex negative) socialization can do to those who biologically are clearly the beneficiaries of God’s greatest gift in terms of desire for and capacity to experience sexual pleasure.

“Hypervigilance Anxiety and fearDysfunctional relationshipsSpiritual void or disillusionmentDifficulty concentrating Performance-based self-valueIntimacy problemsTrust issues”

This is a good list where one needs to come to the end of the way they are coping to deal with it, surrender to the Lord so His loving responses/hope emerges.

“No inhibitionsThis literalist view cuts both ways. Beam has been attacked by some conservative Christians for his liberal take on certain subjects. Much of what he preaches contradicts the teaching of other sects, such as Roman Catholicism. But he argues that if the Bible does not forbid it, you can do it. So bring on masturbation. Try any position in the Kama Sutra (but refer to drawings, please, not pictures of real people). Wife away on business? Have phone sex. Birth control is good. Even anal sex is OK if (and Beam believes this is a big if) it does no harm to the body.”

This is a refreshing article on sex. It even has suggestion on how to make male oral play more pallitable for the women. I disagree with the law parts.

Westboro Baptist Church is a U.S. religious organization headed by Fred Phelps and based in Topeka, Kansas. It runs the website GodHatesFags.com, and GodHatesAmerica.com, and other websites expressing condemnation of homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims and other groups. The organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, and as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

While its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is an independent Baptist church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles, though it has been accused by others of Hyper-Calvinism.

This is a letter Fred’s son Mark Phelps wrote to citizens of Topeka and northeast Kansas. As of July 7, 1994, Mark Phelps said the letter still represents his feelings. He also cautioned people against taking the letter out of context, saying there is “gentleness” in the context of the letter and a hope that the community can better understand Fred Phelps based on what the letter contains.

Note: I refuse to link to the waste of digital space web site I got this from.

Hell Pizza has outraged family groups and morals campaigners by delivering innuendo-laden condom packets to letterboxes.

The controversial fast-food chain is promoting its meat-lovers’ pizza – named “Lust” – with a mail drop of 170,000 branded condoms.

But it has provoked criticism from groups who say it is indecent to link pizza with sex and inappropriate to distribute condoms where young children might find them.

The packet includes explicit instructions for condom usage.

I wonder when the fundamentalist Christian right is finally going to figure out marketing firms regard their pathetic moral outrage as the best source of free advertising to ever be invented?

I mean, [GASP] what if a child discovered a contraceptive and [SHUDDER] his or her parent had to actually sit down and talk with him or her about [SOB] sex???

“These groups offer promises they can’t deliver, and deliver disasters they didn’t promise,” said Wayne Besen of Truthwinsout.org. “The destroy families in the name of family values.”

Hattie Ellis’ 25-year-old son is gay. She has a message for the hundreds of parents who signed their children up for the church group’s conference.

“Don’t do it,” she said. “If you try to change your child, you will lose your child. You will break their spirit and you may never get them back.”

Well, Focus on the Family is barely out of the gate with their latest Love Won Out conference (a conference seeking to connect GBLT individuals who deeply long to change their sexual orientation with resources to do so) and, predictably enough, the fur is already flying.

Forget about the reality that one of the key individuals involved in getting Homosexuality removed from the DSM as a disorder (Dr. Spitzer) has published evidence that homosexual individuals can change their sexual orientation to heterosexual and are remarkably better off emotionally for having done such, the strident cries against this supposed bigotry, homophobia and, most importantly, the imposition of beliefs on innocent victims still ring out.

It’s all strangely myopic from where I sit: Christians trying to turn gay people straight is no worse than secular humanists trying to make male children act like female children (because, well, all boys are just nicer on Ritalin…) Everybody has an idea of how to, “Improve,” their fellow man. The difference here is that Christians have to get people to volunteer for the effort, while secular humanism generally uses the public school system to force their more politically correct viewpoint of acceptable behavior on their victims.

Apparently though, they still need to rally against those who would simply invite those volunteers? Seems like a little too much in the way of smoke and fury here for this to really be about freedom…

Embattled minister Ted Haggard this morning admitted receiving a massage from the Denver man who claims to have exchanged sex for money with the Colorado Springs church leader for three years.

After years of pushing the White House to crack down on gays and to fight gay marriage, Ted again proves the above title is still as true today as the day the great play-write penned it.

More and more, the most vocal and aggressive voices of condemnation for same sex brokenness are beginning to be discovered as actually being the broken ones. Men who wear the cover of judgment and condemnation as a cover for their broken hearts.

Why won’t the broken ones willingly pursue healing? After all, no one is buying their religious fervor anymore — it’s too obviously a cover. It’s only a matter of time before they are forced into healing anyway — maybe it’s time for the church to rise up en-mass and tell these people to:

(A). Shut-up.
(B). Take the log outa yer own eye.
(C). Get healing so you can actually be of some real use to the kingdom.
(D). At least stop smearing egg on your own face and the collective face of Christianity by trying to act like you are holy.

Some of us are just plain tired of people playing out this pathetic parody we call holiness theology. (At least those of us who’ve figured out that the only righteousness we’re ever gonna have has got to be a gift.) The rest are tired of trying to play it out and desperately could use a rest — whether or not they know it yet.

Either way, no one except the press is listening — and they are doubled over laughing.

University of California professors Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna compared what happens on those weekends. The bottom line: More violence on the screen means less violence in the streets. Probably that’s because violent criminals prefer violent movies, and as long as they’re at the movies, they’re not out causing mischief. They’d rather see Hannibal than rob you, but they’d rather rob you than sit through Wallace & Gromit.

A brief but interesting rebuttal of the idea that what people watch makes any difference in the crimes that they commit. Apparently what we have always known is still true: Contrary to the screeches of the fundamentalist right, art still imitates life — and not the other way around.

” If we believe that the Bible sets the pace for our worldview, then asking it to reflect our desired beliefs will not lead us to a biblical worldview. It will simply lead us in a circle back to what we wanted to believe in the first place.”

This is a good article which helps clear some of the frustrating confusion of our beliefs. Having more questions than answers is disorienting. We doubt, when we have in mind what we feel a verse should be saying. It is so crucial we give God our presuppositions/beliefs in order for God’s truth to manifest in us. Lord, may it be so. Unfortunately a person wants his/her understanding to be correct so badly that what he wants to be true, or liked to think of as true determines truth for him/her.

“If it appears your spouse may have viewed pornography on limited occasions in the past, pick a time the two of you can talk confidentially about the matter. You may want to wait until you have a free evening together. One idea is to plan a date. On the way to your favorite restaurant, take three or four minutes to calmly talk about what you have discovered. Then quietly wait for your mate to talk. Be careful not to raise your voice, make accusations of a worse problem, or impart shame. Over dinner or dessert, reaffirm your unconditional love for your spouse. For women, it is important not to shame your husband. Affirm your relief that his connection to pornographic Web sites has been infrequent and not a recent occurrence. Inform him that you’ve deleted the photos and links from your computer. Acknowledge that you love your husband unconditionally, respect him greatly, and realize it’s normal for men to be tempted to look at pornography.”

This article exemplifies a truth encounter with love which one can feel. It does not continue to talk about what it means to encourage a believer that one is to focus on the spiritual self as the physical (sinning one is dead).

“In my last article on 1 Corinthians, I looked a little at some of the various contexts that characterized Corinth during the first century A.D. One of them involved these two opposing groups: the hedonists, who thought that various perversities were just fine, and the ascetics, who thought that things having to do with the physical world (e.g. sex) were inherently evil, whereas spiritual things were inherently good, or at least better.”

An interesting article on the extremes of good and evil. I disagree that we are to be made righteoous. We already have been in believing in Christ’s resurrection.

Really, these “Marriage = One Man One Woman” people need a lesson in cultural anthropology.

Much of the evangelical church today is obsessed with ethics. The basic strategy usually used in creating such is simply a searching of the writings of Paul and then a subsequent codification of his statements into a law seen as, “The way it always was.”

The irony is that, as this blogger so clearly points out, it really never was. In fact, usually what was is stunningly different from what Paul had to say for himself.

So, should we punt any sort of ethical standard and rush off into a three-some, a gay marriage or maybe a sexually open relationship? No. But, we do have to pull our non-thinking heads out of the sand and start to engage our worlds instead of our simplistic presuppositions. In case it isn’t already clear, the rest of the world responds to a line of logic that starts with, “Well the Bible says…” with a well deserved sneer. While it may be a mental starting point, if that’s all we got, we are already dead in the water.

There is a place in Christianity for ethics — but it is not the starting point nor is it ever a self contained entity. Ethics must always start from the solid foundation of Grace and total freedom to, for example, engage in that three-some and know that God’s heart has not changed towards you (for we are totally free from the law) though tears are running down His face. Not tears of rage — but tears of love for your heart has been smashed by the decision to engage in such.

In other words, ethics must always start from our anthropology. Anthropology is the study of what it means to be human. It is an assessment of our hearts, minds, souls and bodies that determines how we function — or don’t function as the case may be. It is the core of an assessment of what is good for us or for a society.

Yes, it almost goes without saying that Paul’s writings are a study in great wisdom in this area — but they are, at least to some degree, culturally specific and require generalization to present day life. That generalization is, by it’s very nature anthropological.

A marriage between one man and one woman is the best idea — but not just because the Bible (Or for that matter the Koran) says so. It is a good idea because there is clear evidence of design (Or, if addressing a secular audience, evolutionary programming) present in the hearts of men and women that enables each to meet the needs of the other and offers critical developmental resources to any children present in ways that no other combination (Say two men) allows.

We have further found that a high degree of security and intimacy is required for such to occur and this is why most cultures have instituted the rite (and thus the standard definition) of marriage. While other combinations may have varying degrees of success, they are less then optimal and are less worthy of protection/promotion then that which is optimal.

Once we have actually thought out why we would state that marriage between one man and one woman is the best idea, we can then go back to Paul as a credible voice of historical thought who arrived at the same conclusion.

Otherwise, we just end up looking like idiots…

(Just for the record, I don’t have enough faith to believe in evolution…)

“he stages of a relationship that start with a glance and eventually lead to the honeymoon, the author charges us three times, ‘Do not arouse or awaken love until it pleases,’ or, as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in The Message, ‘Don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, until the time is ripe, and you’re ready.’ I often point to this book when people, usually young singles, ask me about relationships and pre-marital sex. They want to know, where, exactly, does the Bible talk about pre- or extra-marital sex, when neither partner is married. They know about the adultery prohibitions, and they agree you shouldn’t have sex with someone who is someone else’s spouse. But where does it talk about not having sex if there is no spouse involved? You have two consenting adults, and neither has made any vow to any other person, so it’s not technically adultery. What’s wrong with that? Does the Bible speak to those situations? I like to start with Solomon’s Song, because it celebrates the whole package of the relationship initial attraction, exciting emotions, longing, and sexual intimacy and it connects all of this to the proper context or timing, “

This is a good guideline on Scriptural guidelines and a vision for love and sex in God’s timing when you are both ready.

This was sent to me. I have no idea where it came from but it is worth a read. Here’s what living the Playboy fantasy is actually like.