sexual morality Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

March 27, 2020March 25, 2020

Cancer and Sexual Promiscuity

The Bible is very clear in teaching that the best way to conduct oneself sexually is to have one partner for life. As people have veered away from God’s teaching and instruction, sex has lost its meaning, and people with multiple partners do not find the joy and satisfaction in sex that God intended. We are now learning that the consequences of multiple sexual partners are more than just a lack of satisfaction and joy in sex. There is also a strong connection between cancer and sexual promiscuity.

USNews.com carried a study of 5722 men and women with an average age of 64. It showed that women who had ten or more sexual partners were 91% more likely to have cancer than those who had either one or zero partners. Men who had multiple partners had a 64% higher risk of cancer. The sample size is too large to just blow off this data. However, some researchers suggest that those with multiple sex partners also had habits that elevate cancer risks, including drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. But the research shows a strong connection between cancer and sexual promiscuity.

We would suggest that God gave us moral laws for our good. The Creator who designed us knows what behaviors will benefit us and which will not. In Matthew 19, some Pharisees asked Jesus why Moses allowed men to have more than one wife. His response was, “Because of the hardness of your hearts, Moses allowed you to put away your wives: but from the beginning, it was not so” (Verse 8). When we violate God’s plan, the consequences are not just emotional and mental, but there are physical health issues as well.

Data from The Week, March 6, 2020, page 21.

February 6, 2020January 31, 2020

Sex and Culture in America

In 1934, British ethnologist and social anthropologist J.D. Unwin wrote a book titled “Sex and Culture.” It was based on a study he made of 86 societies over 5,000 years of history. This is an old study, and some have blown it off because of its age, but when you look at America today, Unwin’s statements are demonstrably true. His conclusion was:

“There is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on both pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence.” (In other words, purity before and after marriage.)

He went on to say that as long as the leaders of society “demanded sexual restraint” the society remained energetic and dominant. When the society became sexually permissive, forsaking sexual monogamy and encouraging premarital and extramarital sex and divorce, the society became less productive economically, scientifically, and artistically.

As our society throws off sexual morality, we see it starting to crumble and fulfilling Unwin’s observations. The political mess in America today shows the deteriorating nature of our country. Many of our politicians, and even religious leaders, engage in immorality. Lying is the accepted and even expected practice. Sex and culture are connected.

Consider these facts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Sexual Health Association:

*Nearly 20 million new sexually transmitted infections occur every year in America–half among young people aged 15-24.

*One in six Americans aged 14 to 49 is infected with herpes.

*One in four teenage girls in the U.S. has at least one STD. Every eight seconds, a teenage girl contracts an STD.

*Chlamydia is running at roughly 2 million treated cases a year. Since it doesn’t show any symptoms in most people, the figure is actually much higher.

*Undiagnosed STDs cause 20,000 women a year to become infertile.

*Gonorrhea infections are at 800,000 new cases a year.

*From 1900 to 2000 the divorce rate in America increased by 700%.

*Every year over 400,000 American teenagers become pregnant–most out of wedlock. In 1960 5% of American babies were born out of wedlock. Today that number is over 40%.

*Half of all American children born today will live with a divorced or never married parent by age 18.

Critics of the Bible maintain that the biblical teaching about sexual conduct is out of date and unwise. Promiscuity and casual sex are promoted in movies, television, and music. Our population seems to have been lulled into the notion that sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are no longer an issue because medical science can cure anything.

Unwin was surprised by his findings concerning sex and culture. He did not take a religious stance and “offered no opinion about rightness or wrongness” of sexual mores. However, we want to say that following biblical morality is not only the best for individuals, it is also the best for society.

January 15, 2020January 14, 2020

Christian Seminary Students in Same-sex Marriages

Yesterday we reported on the LGBT conflict which is breaking the United Methodist Church apart. The dispute over sexual morality is also affecting one of the oldest and most highly regarded theological seminaries in the United States–Fuller Theological Seminary. The conflict involves Christian seminary students in same-sex marriages.

Fuller has a “Sexual Standards Policy,” which states that the seminary “holds marriage to be a covenant union between one man and one woman.” The policy also says that “homosexual forms of explicit sexual conduct” are “inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture.” Two students, one man and one woman, were expelled because the seminary learned that they were in same-sex marriages. They are both suing the school for one million dollars each.

The problem here is that Fuller and many other Christian colleges and seminaries receive government assistance in scholarships and other educational funding. Title IX government funding rules bar “discrimination based on sex.” The original intent of this rule was that women could not be refused participation in educational programs just because they were women. Now LGBT supporters are mounting legal efforts to expand Title IX protections to gender identity and sexuality.

What happens here will have a profound effect on Christian colleges who participate in any scholarship program where government grants or loans allow students to get an education. This would include those with minority and military scholarships. It will also affect those schools and churches that use government commodities in benevolent programs or minority support programs.

Christian seminary students in same-sex marriages is only one aspect of a growing problem. It seems that the government’s beliefs about morality are dictating what Church programs can teach. The only option is for churches and schools not to use government support in any way, or else they must change their moral teachings.

You can read about this on the Christianity Today website at THIS LINK.

May 17, 2018September 7, 2018

Christian Vision of Sexuality

Now and then we find a statement by an author that we think is so good that we need to promote it. Todd Wilson in a new book titled Mere Sexuality: Rediscovering the Christian Vision of Sexuality has such a statement:

“We’ve turned sex into something far less powerful and profound than what it really is. As a culture, we’re quickly growing bored with sex, even as we’re gorging ourselves on it. Something has gone ludicrously wrong. We believe sex is only for marriage, not because Christians are killjoys, but because we have a realistic and exalted view of the power of sex. Sex isn’t a toy or a plaything; it’s a sacred and sovereign power. When something is powerful–think of a downed power line or a loaded gun–you aren’t careless when you handle it. You understand that it can kill or harm you if you aren’t careful. Sex is a powerful creative gift, something God gives us for good purposes. But if we misuse it and are careless, it can profoundly harm us.”

One of the problems is that our culture has zoomed in on the physical, mechanical aspects of sex, and not the love and oneness that God created sexual expression to be. The lessons of how humans have contaminated one of God’s most beautiful creations fill the pages of the Bible. In the Christian vision of sexuality, we have no excuse for pornography or sex outside of a committed marriage relationship. We have no tolerance for unwanted sexual advances and actions by anyone, including political figures. The fact that there is no excuse doesn’t change the fact that there will always be those who will place their lust above God’s plans for us.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

February 8, 2017October 8, 2018

Where is God in the Gender Revolution?

We live in an age of pluralism. While the word “pluralism” is applied to religion and the idea that there are many equally valid paths to God, the concept also applies to other areas of life. There is a push in intellectual circles now to say that democracy is not the only path to political stability, that even dictatorships may be equally valid. The current rage in the popular media, however, is to say that “gender is a spectrum”–a plurality of sexes. That was stated in National Geographic‘s January issue (page 61) which was totally dedicated to what it calls “the gender revolution.” Television specials and documentaries on transgender cases have become a major feature of the media, and people are flooded with a pluralistic view of the whole gender question.

The biblical position on this issue is quite clear. Genesis 1:27 indicates that God created male and female and blessed them. Genesis 2:21-24 tells us that woman and man were distinct with the Hebrew issa being used to differentiate woman from man who is identified by the Hebrew word is. These terms indicate how close man and woman were, but the wording leads to the conclusion that woman was taken out of man to meet a specific need–to be a “help meet.” So what do we make of the current situation where we have boys claiming they are really girls and girls claiming they are boys?

Let us say from the outset that it is not our job to judge or condemn those who are transgenders. We do want to suggest some causes to the gender issues and suggest that God has given us tools to deal with the issue whether it is in our bodies, families, communities, or culture. As you read through the National Geographic issue on “The Gender Revolution,” you have to be impressed with the fact that culture has a huge effect on the gender issue. The magazine has gone to one culture after another to show how the culture impacts and forces sexual identity and sexual roles on their people. As Westerners, we may be appalled at what is forced on children in other cultures, and yet in our own culture drugs are used to control and facilitate sexual identity. It may also be true that human pollution of our environment has caused some changes in our genome and in the chemistry of human hormones.

God gave us the ideal sexual arrangement. Not only is there a unity with woman being taken out of man, but we also see a combined oneness in Genesis 2:24 where man and woman were to become “one flesh.” That isn’t just a sexual reference, but a stable platform from which man and woman could live, make decisions, and build a family. In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 Paul emphasizes this oneness in very clear terms. In Romans 1:24-32 he castigates those who consciously reject God and His plan by deliberately corrupting God’s ideal sexual arrangement. There are adults who would be condemned by these verses for their attitudes and practices. However, that certainly does not apply to innocent children who are struggling with sexual identity due to culture or perhaps by drugs forced upon them.

There are real questions about whether claims of sexual feelings and biological drives have psychosomatic causes, as expressed in an article in New Atlantis by John’s Hopkins researchers that we discussed yesterday. But our role as Christians in this and all other moral issues is to offer help and support to those victimized by the culture, the drug establishment, or human contamination of God’s intended system of life. We are not the judges of others or the enforcers of God’s plan. At the same time, we do encourage others to realize that God’s plan for man and woman works. The lesson of history is that attempts to change that plan have universally brought pain and frustration to humanity.
–John N. Clayton © 2017