In one of the best moments of irony in recent prime time comedy, Jim from The Office gave an heartfelt speech about waiting until he could marry the love of his life. This was interrupted by Steve Carrell’s character Michael Scott, who spills the beans that Jim and Pam have been living together and are pregnant.
As a 20-something single in a city that is rampantly de-churched AND a top rated place for young singles to live, it doesn’t take much of a sexual ethic to stand out from the crowd. I’ve heard all kinds of stats- 90% of teenagers have given up their virginity by age 19, 54% of marriages are preceeded by cohabitation, and 63% of children grow up in families with only one biological parent. Many people think they are helping themselves by “test-driving” a relationship, when in fact only about 43% of cohabitation relationships last past the ten year mark.
I can’t blame people. It’s not surprising that a person whose body is teeming with hormones is not going to be able to wait from age 12 to 27 to make use of their plumbing. And considering the number of my peers raised in divorced homes has effected all of us, it makes sense that we’re all commitment-phobes.
The reality of this situation has a huge effect on how I do relationships and how churches do ministry. I remember the exact moment in college I realized that a true understanding of grace required that I be open to relationship with girls, who had given up their virginity and since then repented. As I get older, I’m beginning to encounter single moms and divorcees for whom the same rule applies.
Churches have to understand that our culture considers Christian sexual ethics are a thing of the past. As The Office teaches us, sleeping around, cohabitation and homosexuality are now the accepted norm. Waiting has become such a high virtue that it isn’t be taken seriously. It might be interesting to trace the history of societal change, or invigorating to rail against it, we must instead focus on how to respond to it.
This has very personal implications for single guys like me. I must learn to practice grace with others, hold myself highly accountable, and not get lost in what seems to be the norm. For churches and families, we need to do more than simply preach about keeping your pants on. I once heard Tim Keller make a statement somewhere along the lines of “chastity is impossible outside of deep community.” Do our churches provide the emotional nourishment necessary to help a single person deal with loneliness, boredom, and the endless sexual messages in our culture? Perhaps we should even consider that there is a danger in putting off marriage. Do we bring anything to the conversation besides “sex before marriage is bad?” It’s time that we pitch into the redefinition of sexuality.
How do you teach and facilitate a godly sexual ethic in a culture that is so obsessed with sex that it assumes anyone who isn’t is pitifully old fashioned?
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