Wagner’s Response to TGC’s Morris’s Review of “Non Toxic Masculinity” – and Morris is Incorrect About Singleness, Among Other Issues

Wagner’s Response to TGC’s Morris’s Review of “Non Toxic Masculinity” – and Morris is Incorrect About Singleness, Among Other Issues

TGC is the same group that brought us all that cringe, weird book about sex called “Beautiful Union,” whose author claimed that sex can point us all to God, which is a disaster for those of us over 30 who are still virgins and living celibately.

I had a few comments I wanted to make below this:

(Link):  A Response to Shane Morris’s TGC Review of Non-Toxic Masculinity

Excerpts:

[The review that Wagner is responding to is located here, on TGC’s site: Sexual Ethics Is More than Not Being Evil]

by Zachary Wagner

…I want to note some of my ongoing disappointment with The Gospel Coalition on their engagement with issues of sexuality, gender, and masculinity.

…For many of my friends who have left Christianity, the straw that broke the camel’s back was not merely that Christianity was sexually restrictive. It was the hypocrisy of those who condemned the culture’s sexual permissiveness while indulging in sexual sin themselves or excusing it on the part of Christian leaders and heroes.

…In particular, the juxtaposition between purity culture on the one hand and sexual scandal on the other has opened a floodgate of apostasy for Millennials in particular, including members of my family and many very dear friends. How should evangelical pastors respond to this? Morris has little to say on this point, but he seems to imply that defending purity culture and doubling down on its good intentions is the correct approach. …

This is pastorally irresponsible. Parents, pastors, and authors were the ones who should have known better, not teenagers with raging hormones and half-developed brains. The sons and daughters of purity culture have repeatedly been told that they were the problem. Any suffering or frustration or confusion they experienced was their fault, a result of their sinful and broken inclinations.

The Gospel Coalition Says – in Sex Won’t Save You Essay – that (Married) Sex is a “Salvation Icon” that Supposedly “Points People to God” – TGC Making Christianity Irrelevant to Single, Celibate Adults

The Gospel Coalition Says – in Sex Won’t Save You Essay – that (Married) Sex is a “Salvation Icon” that Supposedly “Points People to God” -TGC Making Christianity Irrelevant to Single, Celibate Adults

I first began composing this on or around March 1 (or 2?), I have it set to be auto-published on March 4, and as of today, March 3, there’s been a lot more commentary on Twitter about this awful TGC marital sex article, to the point, TGC removed the original tweet linking to it, and I learned that one guy I quote-tweeted about it, a Brent McCracken, deleted his tweet that I quote tweeted (but I have a screen capture of it), and I was informed McCracken is head editor of TGC.

NOTE: I will edit this post after publication to add any more links or new content pertinent, so you may want to periodically re-visit this page and scroll down and skim over to find new links / videos, etc

I may be writing a follow up to this post later – a part two, if you will.

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Un-freaking-believable. I’ve been blogging here for over ten years, and during that time, have I not been pointing out that not only do most Christians now, even the conservatives, attack sexual purity, sexual abstinence, virginity-until-marriage, but they have also turned sex (and marriage, parenthood, the nuclear family) into idols that they worship, to the point they act distressed when they hear that fornication among singles has declined? (I have a few examples under “Related Posts” towards the bottom of this page.)

There’s more of this nonsense, courtesy of The Gospel Coalition.

It starts off well enough by recognizing that many in secular society have turned sex and relationships into idols, and seek to find love and purpose in romance and sex, but then it goes on to make the very distasteful point that sex can, or does, point people to God.

Also… if such a book begins by acknowledging that singleness is fine in a page or two (or paragraph or two) but then never-the-less 99% of the book remains focused on a Jesus-marriage-sex analogy, it’s undercutting any “it’s okay to be single” or “you don’t have to be married and having sex to have a relationship with God” message.

This is no different from the idiot pastors who make every other sermon in church about “how to have smokin’ hot sex with your spouse” but who thinks it’s okay to overly focus on marriage constantly, if they merely toss in the token, “Hey, you may be single, but this marital sermon can be applicable to you too.”

I’m sorry, but evangelical Protestants or Baptists making the majority of the non-stop deluge of comments, sermons, or books about marriage and married sex, while only offering passing lip service, to adult singleness and celibacy, is still elevating marriage (and sex) to an unhealthy, bizarre, un-Biblical degree that still marginalizes singleness.

Screen Cap of Gospel Coalition Tweet

While it is true for a long time that many in American culture have turned sex and romantic relationships into idols, or seek to find identity or purpose in such, it’s also true that for the past several years, many news headlines and studies have been published showing that a larger number of adults are declining to have sex, date, and/or marry.

If you’re trying to titillate a secular public into giving Jesus a try by using sex-God analogies or metaphors, in a society where having sex, dating, or marrying are no longer the norm and not very popular, it’s not going to work.

I mean, while Butler is writing his book comparing knowing the Trinity to marital sexual intercourse and pro-creation, other conservative outlets have been in pearl-clutching, severe worry mode, that marriage is on the decline, and they’re shaming women for not choosing motherhood, and some conservatives are even upset that single adults are not having as much sex prior to marriage as they used to.

(Link): Sex Won’t Save You (But It Points to the One Who Will)

Excerpts (citing free use):

by Josh Butler
March 1, 2023

…Our culture looks to sex for salvation too. We want romance to free us from solitary confinement, to deliver us into a welcome embrace. But idolizing sex results in slavery.

Sex wasn’t designed to be your salvation but to point you to the One who is.

Union with Christ
Sex is an icon of Christ and the church.  …

[The author then goes on to refer to a Bible verses which seem to refer to marriage, such as a man leaving his family and cleaving to his wife, etc]

… A husband and wife’s life of faithful love is designed to point to greater things, but so is their sexual union! This is a gospel bombshell: sex is an icon of salvation.

Americans Are Cheating More, Are Less Keen on Monogamy – Survey Results – This is One Result of Christians Not Advancing and Defending Sexual Purity – The Slow, Steady Decline of U.S. Christians Defending Celibacy, Virginity, etc

Americans Are Cheating More, Are Less Keen on Monogamy – Survey Results – This is One Result of Christians Not Advancing and Defending Sexual Purity – The Slow, Steady Decline of U.S. Christians Defending Celibacy, Virginity, etc

I don’t know about this – the report says that more America adults are not as into monogamy and so on. This must be a smaller percentage of people.

In the years I’ve run this blog, I’ve seen studies, reports, etc in the last few years that more adults are staying single, and that singles are having less sex, so that ones who are married or coupled up must amount to a small number.

I’ve also seen more and more people, even self proclaimed feminists and liberals, start to write more essays and books in the last few years about how the “sexual revolution” did a lot of harm to people (especially women), how younger women now reject “sex positivity” feminism, and how young men would rather stay at home on Friday nights playing video games than date women or have sex with women.

As to any single, hetero sexual adults who are having sex outside of marriage, if this new report is accurate and true:

I’ve been warning on this blog the last ten or so years that American Christians have dropped the ball on teaching about biblical sexuality.

What I saw as the progression of events concerning this subject are as follows (the first step below seems to have started around 2005 or there abouts):

• (Step 1) Pastors, churches, and Christian authors, bloggers, online influencers and personalities at first stopped preaching on the importance of staying a virgin until marriage and stopped openly, regularly condemning pre-martial sex (they just went silent on the topic),
  while, during or around this time, idiot sex-obsessed pastors (such as Ed Young,  Mark Driscoll, and others) started giving more frequent, inappropriate, salacious, “How to Have Great, Steamy Sex With Your Spouse” type sermons, to,
• (Step 2)… they assumed (wrongly) that because all single adults are fornicating horn dogs, might as well start giving sermons about how God will forgive you of your sexual sins, since, the assumption goes, all adults are fornicating now (no mention of condemning fornication and encouraging and honoring those adults who are chaste to keep on hanging in there and remain chaste), to,
• (Step 3)… when the liberal and progressive Christians, some of whom are self professing feminists, began complaining about 1980s and 1990s era “Purity Culture,”
  the pastors and Christian bloggers and influencers decided to chuck sexual purity out the window altogether as even a possible option,
  all to soothe and placate the offended feelings of (mostly) women who had fornicated,
  and they further disgraced biblical sexual morality standards by disturbingly beginning to fall all over themselves to blog and tweet vomit-worthy, groveling apologies to all the hurt fee-fee’s of any Christian woman who had felt stung or offended by 1980s or 1990s purity culture messages, to,
• (Step 4 – we are now here in this depressing journey)… this gross attitude of, “Let’s re-define sexual purity and virginity in such a way to make purity abstract, to make purity all about loving Jesus and “purity of the heart,” so that for all the adults who have LITERALLY engaged in actual physical sexual activity, they won’t feel so icky, shamed, and guilty about their sexual sins”

So, the church opted to cave in to in-church and out-church (secular society) views and trends on sex.

(Edit and disclaimer: in so far as old school Christian Purity Culture contained things like sexist double standards, no, I do not support all of “Purity Culture,” but I also don’t agree with Christian feminists or other anti-Purity Culture Christians who insist that “virginity is nothing but a patriarchal construct,” that virginity (for men and women) just does not matter, that fornication is a-okay, and that sexual purity is merely an abstract, of being “pure in heart” with regards to Jesus. -Actual, physical virginity, literal sexual purity, is of import as well, not just “purity in Jesus.”)

I am not surprised, therefore, that the culture at large (at least the small percentage that is still dating and marrying) is practicing all sorts of weird, deviant, distasteful, and sinful sexual and relationship behaviors these days.

There is no longer any American Christian voices out there regularly speaking up on behalf of remaining a virgin until marriage, speaking against fornication, and repeating the Bible’s message that self control in all areas, including sexual ones, is possible.

Hey, moderate to conservative Christians, including preachers: the following result is what happens once you give up and cave in and/or neglect to uphold sexual purity messages! You get a nation that drifts more and more off course and into living gross sexual lifestyles and seeing nothing wrong with it.

Instead you idiot preachers either ignored the topic altogether, or else gave “how to have sizzling sex with your spouse” sermons, or, you apologized for churches that actually did the right thing (but carried it out wrongly) of the 1980s and 1990s of preaching that sex before marriage was sin.

In the meantime, virtually nobody in Christendom was speaking up in favor of virginity- until- marriage and its benefits, and pointing out that the Bible condemns pre-marital sex.

(Link): Americans Are Cheating More, Are Less Keen on Monogamy – Survey Results

by James Reinl
February 23, 2023

Americans are increasingly cheating on partners, are more open to multiple lovers, and less keen on monogamy, a new survey on changing attitudes to sex and love has revealed.

YouGov polling this month shows that while most Americans still want a wholly monogamous marriage, the numbers are slipping as people increasingly accept some degree of dallying.

Meanwhile, polygamy — the custom of having more than one spouse at the same time — remains mostly taboo, but nearly a fifth of US adults say it will be legal within 50 years.

For many, the trend is not surprising, echoed in the celebrity cheating scandal involving stars Meghan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly and the open marriage between Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

But for others, including conservative DailyMail.com columnist David Marcus, the trajectory is a worrying progression from the collapse of traditional norms about family life.

‘Polygamy will be legal in parts of the US within a decade,’ Marcus posted on social media.

‘There is no logical basis to oppose it once you accept gay marriage.’

Married Pastor, Father of 3, Faces Prison Time For Sex (ie, Sexual Abuse) With Teenage Intern During Counseling – by L. Blair

Married Pastor, Father of 3, Faces Prison Time For Sex (ie, Sexual Abuse) With Teenage Intern During Counseling – by L. Blair

I’m grateful that the site or reporter mentioned that this guy is a MARRIED FATHER. Too often in culture – especially among Christians – there’s an assumption that single adults are perverts, when, quite often, these news reports of perverts are married perverts, and sometimes, these married perverts have biological children of their own.

This guy is so gross for 50 different reasons, some of which are, that he groomed and sexually abused these kids in churches – during counseling sessions. Lord. So nasty.

Also note: marriage and parenthood did NOT make this man more godly, mature, ethical, or responsible (as so many hyper pro Nuclear Family conservatives and Christians teach), and no, obviously, since this pervert got a spouse, God is NOT keeping spouses from single adults until they achieve some level of godliness or perfection.

(Link): Married pastor, father of 3 faces up to 35 years in prison for sex with teenage intern during counseling 

Excerpts:

by Leonardo Blair
December 19, 2022

A married Minnesota pastor and father of three is facing up to 35 years in prison and $90,000 in fines for allegedly having felonious sex multiple times with a teenage intern during counseling sessions at his former church.

Investigator Shawn Bohnen of the Sleepy Eye Police Department declared in a probable cause affidavit filed in Brown County Court that from about October 2019 through February 2020, Pastor Nathan Van Alfred Luong, 36, engaged in a sexual relationship with his underage victim multiple times while he counseled her at Trinity Lutheran Church.

Under Minnesota Law, members of the clergy can be charged with criminal sexual conduct in the third degree if a complainant is not their spouse and sexual penetration occurred during a meeting where the complainant sought or received religious spiritual advice, aid or comfort from the perpetrator.

Ending Priestly Celibacy Would Not Stop Abuse by E. Condon – Celibates Are Not Pedophiles

Ending Priestly Celibacy Would Not Stop Abuse by E. Condon – Celibates Are Not Pedophiles

Celibacy is not engaging in sexual activity.

Not having sex does not cause sex or sexual abuse. Celibacy does not cause pedophilia.

It’s highly insulting to adult celibates, such as myself (and no, I do not molest children or have any desire to) to suggest or plainly state, that celibacy leads to pedophilia.

Celibates are not pedophiles. Pedophilia is one type of sexual attraction or sexual behavior, and celibates do not engage in sexual behavior.

I am not a Roman Catholic, by the way.

I was raised Baptist and believed – and still believe – that the Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is sin, which is one reason of several I did not engage in sexual behavior.

Studies have shown that a percentage of male pedophiles are married (and having regular sex with a wife) when they are molesting children. I have blog posts on this blog with links to news articles about married men (some Christian pastors) who were arrested for molesting children or using child porn.

Being married (in a hetero marriage and having regular sex with one’s spouse) does not make a person less capable of, or unwilling to engage in, sexual sin. When they’re not fondling children, hetero married persons sometimes hire and use prostitutes, have affairs with other married people, or view pornography.

(Link): Ending Priestly Celibacy Would Not Stop Abuse by E. Condon

Excerpts:

Trotting out the canard that married priests would mean less abuse isn’t just ignorant. It’s a shocking disservice to victim-survivors.

by Ed Condon
July 31, 2022

The Economist recently ran a lead article arguing that if the Catholics “want to reduce the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, they should demand an end to the rule requiring priestly celibacy.” I found myself checking the year of publication. Surely this must have been an article from 20 years ago.

But no: In the same week in which the Catholic bishops of the United States published their annual report on the (still falling) number of abuse claims made in American dioceses, the Economist was running with a tired, discredited argument.

[The author goes on to explain that the Roman Catholic Church has horribly dealt with child sex abuse, and he acknowledges that fact.]

… But the suggestion that abuse is caused, amplified, or sustained by the unmarried state of clergy isn’t just without evidence: It flies in the face of the experiences of so many survivors of abuse in other settings.

No one who has followed the terrible reckoning the Southern Baptist Convention has had with its own institutional failure to protect children could cite the “successful” example of Protestant clergy as proof that married pastors mitigate the risk of abuse.

Likewise, consider the heartbreaking experiences of survivors of abuse in families, schools, youth organizations, the Boy Scouts, and the child-welfare system.

Women Threaten to Go On Sex Strike In Protest Over SCOTUS Overturning Roe V Wade

Women Threaten to Go On Sex Strike In Protest Over SCOTUS Overturning Roe V Wade

So, it takes the overturn of Roe Vs Wade to get secular feminists (and probably some progressive religious ones) to think seriously about celibacy now? Are they for real?

I’m in my 50s, still haven’t had sex because I was waiting until marriage to have sex, never got married, so I’m still a virgin. I have a normal libido. There is no such thing as a “gifting of celibacy,” as so many Christians assume; God, if he exists, did not remove my libido.

I discussed in a previous post a couple years ago why I made the choice I did to sexually abstain, but I will repeat one reason of several from that post: I did not want to get pregnant out of wedlock.

Birth control is not totally effective, it costs to maintain, I didn’t want to see a doctor periodically to get check ups to get birth control, etc.

I realized years ago – even as far back as my teen years – that a possible outcome of consensual sex was pregnancy which I didn’t want to happen. I didn’t want to use abortion as birth control (I don’t believe in abortion).

I managed to live my life practicing sexual self control, and I expect others to be capable of the same.

Any time you have sex with another person, that is a choice you’re making. As I’ve said before, sex with another person is a luxury not a necessity.

Having sex is not a biological necessity for you to stay alive – you will continue to live even if you’re abstaining. You can enjoy life without sex with another person.

If you are a woman thinking you can get or keep a boyfriend by giving him sex, think again. That won’t work, and you’ll only attract manipulative, selfish men who don’t make for good boyfriends anyway.

I just find it ludicrous that now that Roe V Wade was overturned, that all these women (many of whom are probably self-identifying feminists who spent years promoting “sex positivity”) are willing to practice celibacy, probably for the first time.

I’ve been celibate my whole life. I never bought into the hedonistic sex messaging of feminists, not even when I was a teen in the 1980s or a college student in the 1990s.

A lot of the “sex positive” feminists always came across to me as though they are really infuriated that men get to have (in some regards) consequence- free sex but not women; some of these feminists assume that all women want to be just as gross and promiscuous as most men are.

Why on earth would it take limitations on abortion to get a woman to think twice about when to have sex, with whom, and so forth?

Abortion will not be out-lawed in all fifty states going forward. Currently, some states still permit abortion, while others still allow it but with more stipulations.

Things should never have gotten to this point in the first place.
Pro Choice feminists reassured all of us pro-lifers back years ago that abortions would be “safe but rare” if it were legalized, but now I see all these air-headed Gen Z or younger Millennial women screaming and yelling on social media about how “proud” they are that they had an abortion.

Some of them are acting like abortion getting limitations strips them of all birth control – were these sexually active young women not already on the pill, or making their boyfriends use condoms? Abortion should never be used as a form of birth control.

Maybe the best things is to abstain and not have ANY sex with another person, unless and until you marry.

I’ve seen a lot of women in the past 30 years write in to advice columnists broken hearted because they wanted a meaningful, lasting, committed relationship but although they were having sex with men, they weren’t getting the marriage proposals they expected to get, as liberal feminists assured them that having free sex anywhere, at any time, with anyone was “empowering.”

But for a lot of women, all that casual sex, or whatever type of sex prior to marriage (outside of a loving, committed relationship), wasn’t fulfilling or empowering.

I just find it so hypocritical that after years and years of seeing so many people, whether secular feminists, or progressive Christians, mock the concept of sexual abstinence and celibacy (or staying a virgin until marriage)
– and yes, I’ve even seen conservative Baptist and evangelical Christians give up on defending purity until marriage –
to suddenly see all these women advocate for celibacy!

Where were all these bitches for the years I’ve been on this blog advocating for celibacy or virginity-until-marriage to at least be respected as a viable life choice for women (and men) instead of something to mock and ridicule?

A lot of you women out there now having conniption fits and screaming about having a Sex Strike should have given sexual abstinence an honest consideration YEARS AGO, prior to the overturn of Roe V Wade.

By the way, I am specifically talking about consensual sex.
Too many feminists have the dishonest tendency to conflate the topics of consensual sex with rape and then condemn any and all discussion of female (or male) sexual restraint as being cruel or victim-blaming.

Links About Pro Choice Women Going on Sex Strikes

(Link): Sex Strike! Abstinence trends on Twitter in wake of Roe v. Wade ruling

June 25, 2022
By Emily Crane and  Irie Sentner

Big Apple abortion protesters were in support of a sex strike Saturday — as “abstinence” started trending on Twitter in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“If you’re a man who won’t get a vasectomy, even though it’s reversible, and you’re not out in the streets fighting for my rights, you do not deserve to have sex with me,” Brianna Campbell, a 24-year-old EMT, told The Post.

Caroline Healey, a 22-year-old event coordinator, also questioned why sex was more important than women’s rights.

“I think it’s absolutely valid for us to be withholding the Holy Grail that men seem to think is important,” she told The Post at an abortion protest in Manhattan’s Union Square.

…“If this world thinks that they can oppress women forever, then we close our legs.”

Pastor Who Resigned Over Adultery Accused of Taking Virginity of Purity Ring Wearing Teen Girl on His Office Floor

Pastor Who Resigned Over Adultery Accused of Taking Virginity of Purity Ring Wearing Teen Girl on His Office Floor

This news story is 50 levels of gross and terrible.

If you’ve visited this blog before, you should know the drill:

Being married and/or a parent, contrary to what many churches and socially conservative think tanks teach, is NOT a guarantee of making a person loving, ethical, godly, or responsible.

(Not that marriage or parenthood are horrible or wrong, but neither life station necessarily produces upstanding, loving, ethical citizens, either.)

Self professing Christian men fail so often, and sexually exploit so often, that churches need to start re-evaluating their “male headship” and “complementarian” teachings, because obviously, men are not fit to lead, and, the “Equally Yoked” rule is a waste of time (and quite possibly a misapplication of a Bible verse).

If you’re a single Christian woman who was raised (as I was) to believe in “Equally Yoked” (Christians should only marry other Christians), and that church would be a good, safe place to meet “Mr. Right,” this goes to show that you’d be better off chucking those teachings to the curb.

The professing Christian man you meet at your corner church is not necessarily going to be any more stand-up than the non-Christian Joe Blow you meet on Tinder or Match.

This pastor, or his church, mischaracterized statutory rape as being “adultery.” Churches really need to get on the ball about this – stop depicting statutory rape as being “adultery.” This was not a case of “adultery.” (Edit: The articles say that the woman’s age at the time – 16 – is legal. But the nature of it, the age gap – it looks like he exploited her.)

I think the pastor in this story was or has been married for years – this goes to show that the standard Christian advice to singles I used to see all the time that says you, the single, have to obtain some level of perfection or spirituality before God will permit you to have a spouse is false.

If God allows deviants like this pastor to get married, rest assured, He is probably not with-holding one from you because you don’t read the Bible often enough, or whatever.

(Link):  ‘I was just 16 when you took my virginity on your office floor!’ Astonishing moment Indiana woman, 43, stands up in church to accuse married pastor of grooming her as a teen – forcing him to ADMIT IT in front of stunned congregation

May 24, 2022
by Jennifer Smith

A 65-year-old Indiana pastor has stepped down from his role in the church after admitting he had an affair with a 16-year-old girl in front of his entire congregation. 

Pastor John Lowe II stepped down from the New Life Christian Church after being confronted on stage by Bobi Gephart, a 43-year-old woman who came forward with a microphone to tell their church in Warsaw, Indiana, how he’d groomed her as a teen, starting when she was 16 – the legal age of consent in the state.

…He begged for the church’s forgiveness, then received a standing ovation. 

Bobi then stormed towards the stage with her husband, Nate, to say it ‘was not just adultery’ because she was so young at the time. 

(Link): Pastor Who Resigned Over Adultery Accused of Taking Virginity of Purity Ring Wearing Teen Girl on His Office Floor.

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Features Reporter

May 23, 2022

A Warsaw, Indiana, pastor who drew a standing ovation from his congregation after telling them he was stepping down because he committed adultery with one person at least two decades ago drew their wrath minutes later after a woman tearfully alleged she was only 16 when the pastor took her virginity on his office floor while she sported a purity ring.

Pastor John Lowe II told his congregation at New Life Christian Church and World Outreach on Sunday that he needed to make the confession because it was the “biblical” thing to do, according to a (Link): Facebook Live broadcast shared by Maisey Cook.

[The pastor – Lowe – stood before his church during a service and confessed he had committed adultery years prior.]

…  He [Lowe] painted himself as a hypocrite who applied discipline to others for sexual failure while hiding his own.

He asked the church for their forgiveness and announced that he would step aside and face discipline from the church.

…Soon after he stepped down from the pulpit, a woman and her husband went to the pulpit to address the congregation. The woman said that what Lowe did was not just adultery but a crime because she was only 16 when he took her virginity in his office 27 years ago.

While the age of consent in Indiana is 16, a person who is at least the age of 18 in a position of supervision or trust that engages in any sexual activity with a child over the age of 16 but under the age of 18 commits child seduction, according to state law. …

The SBC and Whether God’s Word ‘Whispers’ About Sexual Sin by K. Williams

The SBC and Whether God’s Word ‘Whispers’ About Sexual Sin by K. Williams

The link (with excerpts) to the essay by K. Williams is farther below in this post. Here are my opening words about the subject:

Most Christians – even the moderate to conservative ones – stopped advocating or defending the concept of sexual purity years ago.

I’m not sure, but I suspect that the constant complaining about “Purity Culture” by mostly center-left to progressive Christian women who grew up in churches with Purity Culture complaining about it constantly on twitter or writing books and blog posts about it contributed.

I’m not in total agreement with all aspects of Purity Culture, but I do believe that Christian liberals or feminists who ditch the concept of sexual purity with all the rest of Purity Culture are in error.

Now, conservative Christians – it seems males especially and interestingly, even the ones who are complementarian – are too cowardly to keep defending “virginity until marriage.”

Christians, including pastors, in the past decade or so, have fallen into these false, default assumptions that any adult over the age of 25 is going to have pre-marital sex, that lifelong celibacy is too difficult – so they have started excusing or down-playing sexual sin (such as fornication) in their social media comments, books, sermons, podcasts, and You Tube videos.

I find this very bizarre, as I would if most Christians were to start saying on social media, sermons, or in books tomorrow that nobody can possibly expect any adult to… say… refrain from over-eating, stealing from stores, killing human babies for fun, or from committing adultery – so they stop advocating for moderation in eating, not stealing, not murdering babies, and refraining from extra-marital affairs.

I don’t see most Christians letting theft, gluttony, infanticide, and adultery “off the hook,” or justifying such sins (well, not usually), but they are happy to do so in regards to single adults having sex outside of marriage, and sexual sins generally speaking
(I mean, how many more of these idiots are going to -contra the Bible- keep allowing preachers guilty of child molesting or adultery back into the pulpit to preach, as they often do?)

There are different reasons I’ve been fed up and disappointed by Christianity and Christians in the last several years, and one of those reasons is this tendency for Christians to dismiss the notion or practice of “virginity- until- marriage,” and to even bash and insult it, as being “unrealistic” or “too judge-y” or whatever.

Today’s Christians cannot even be bothered to live out some of the most basic Christian ethics, defend them, or encourage them.

The following essay, taking other Christians to task for being dismissive of sexual purity, is a breath of fresh air.

(Link): The SBC and Whether God’s Word ‘Whispers’ About Sexual Sin by K. Williams

Excerpts:

By Kelly Williams, Op-Ed Contributor | March 27, 2022

My family has been Southern Baptist all my life.

…I have great respect for J.D. Greear; however, I can’t agree with him or President Ed Litton’s approach to sexual sin and how God sees it.

In 2019 Pastor Greear said, “The Bible appears more to whisper on sexual sin compared to its shouts about materialism and religious pride.”

The problem here is the Bible holds a different view.

It was sexual sin in Genesis 6 that triggered God to raise up Noah to build an ark before He destroyed the earth with a flood.

It was sexual sin that caused God to command Lot and his family to leave and not look back at Sodom and Gorromah.

‘I’m Allergic to Sex’: College Student Reveals ‘Rare,’ ‘Excruciating’ Condition

‘I’m Allergic to Sex’: College Student Reveals ‘Rare,’ ‘Excruciating’ Condition

This is yet another thing that Christian Gender Complementarians fail to grapple with: they are all the time maintaining flawed or false gender stereotypes, where they assume all men want sex all the time, women do not supposedly want sex, AND, they have this false, unbiblical, highly sexist “obligation sex” message, where they tell married women that their husbands are “owed” sex (which is the same attitude one can sometimes find in some segments of secular culture).

I do have a few other posts on my blog from years past of women who are unable to have sexual intercourse at any time, or long term, or very infrequently, due to having some kind of physical disease or physical deformity (I have linked to those previous posts under the “Related Posts” section at the bottom of this post).

And what would the average complementarian (usually male, but I can see the “sell outs to their own female sex” female complementarians also doing this) advise such women to do – have sex any way, in spite of crippling pain? Probably.

Gender Complementarianism is not only codependency for women, it’s also maintained by male narcissists.

If a guy is married to a woman with one of these types of medical conditions that renders sexual intercourse medically impossible, or next to impossible, Christians (and specifically gender complementarians) need to stress that chastity and self control is for married people too, NOT just for young, single adults, because the husbands in these marriages will have to practice some self-restraint and not expect to have sexual intercourse (or the other sex acts, depending on what the health issue is) with these women.

When I was growing up, Christians – in their sermons, magazine articles and books – used to falsely promise and claim to the young, single reader that if one just refrained from having sex, that God would eventually bless or reward that individual with a great Christian spouse, and that married sex would be frequent and AMAZING. Well, those promises don’t always come true. Christians need to stop making false promises.

But secular types, and some anti-Purity Culture progressive Christians, also need to stop pressuring people who don’t want to have casual sex (or any sex at all), and they need to stop depicting sex as always being consequence-free, both physically and emotionally.

(Link): ‘I’m Allergic to Sex’: College Student Reveals ‘Rare,’ ‘Excruciating’ Condition

Feb 16, 2022
by Ben Cost

It’s only pain, no pleasure.

A Colorado college student embodied the expression “love hurts” after revealing that she suffers from a rare semen allergy that causes her to experience “excruciating” pain whenever she engaged in sexual activity.

“Essentially, I’m allergic to sex,” Longmont’s Chloe Lowery, 18, told Kennedy News of her unfortunate affliction, which began when she first started sex-perimenting.

The English major and aspiring professor specifically suffers from human seminal plasma hypersensitivity, in which contact with the proteins in sperm causes her to experience extreme reactions, including redness and a “burning” sensation.

Atheist Video About Being a Virgin or Sexually Abstinent – My Critique of the Atheist’s Critique

Atheist Video About Being a Virgin of Sexually Abstinent – My Critique of the Atheist’s Critique

When I am on You Tube, I seldom seek out videos about marriage, sex, dating, or singleness.

When I do visit You Tube, I normally seek out subject matter such as movie reviews and cute animal videos, but this video by “Paulogia” was bumped to the top of my ‘suggested videos to watch’ list by You Tube, so I decided to take a look.

I actually do not enjoy reading or watching content by people who are critical of ‘virginity- until- marriage,’  or who pick apart and criticize Christian teachings about sex. I find these types of things tedious, insulting, and annoying, depending on their take.

In this video, the atheist, Paul of “Paulogia” on You Tube, has a woman co-host in the video with him (I suppose she is an atheist too), Liz, where they are critiquing the video of some guy, Joe Kirby (who is a Christian), who is advocating for sexual abstinence until marriage (which is not a bad thing to advocate for, despite Liz’s seemingly sounding disdain for this).

I’ve never heard of Joe Kirby before. His You Tube page is (Link): here, “Off the Kirb Ministries”. I’ve never watched any of his videos before. All I’ve seen are the clips of the one Kirby video in the Paulogia video.

Okay, yes, as I watched more of the video, Paul says that Liz is an ex-Christian who gives sex advice on her You Tube channel (more about this below).

Off to the side, you can see a screen capture I made from part of the video where a cartoon Liz, with a cartoon Paul, are watching Kirby’s (who doesn’t appear as a cartoon) video.  Watching cartoon talking heads discuss sexual mores was strange

Here is the video in question to which I refer:

(Link, You Tube, 13.30 long video): If You’re Still a Virgin – You MUST See This! feat. Liz LaPoint) (Off the Kirb response)

This video will also be placed within this post at or near the bottom of this post

As I’ve said before on this blog, in earlier blog posts going back years, while conservative Christians and secular social conservatives have, on occasion, erred in regards to their beliefs and teachings about sex, dating, and marriage (I’ve done many critiques about their views, see the section below under “Related Posts on this Blog” for a few samples) your Non-Christians (including atheists, progressive feminists, and so on), are also in error on different points.

Sometimes obnoxiously so.

What’s Wrong With PreMarital Sex, Cohabitation and Watching Porn? Apologist Sean McDowell Answers – Critique: Some Christians Marketing Sexual Abstinence as “Purity in Jesus”

What’s Wrong With PreMarital Sex, Cohabitation and Watching Porn? Apologist Sean McDowell Answers – Critique: Some Christians Marketing Sexual Abstinence as “Purity in Jesus”

I have a lot of commentary to make below this long article, because one of the topics I discuss below is one aspect that bugs me when reading how Christians have been addressing the topic of sexual abstinence and fornication for the past decade or so:

(Link): What’s Wrong With PreMarital Sex, Cohabitation and Watching Porn? Apologist Sean McDowell Answers

By Nicole Alcindor, December 20, 2021

While many Christians are taught that premarital sex and cohabitation aren’t advisable for many reasons, a growing number of single believers are following secular society’s model instead of the biblical model. 

In the most recent episode of “Challenging Conversations” on the edifi podcast network, host Jason Jimenez, who’s also a pastor and founder of Stand Strong Ministries, was joined by apologist Sean McDowell to discuss why some 60% of professing Christians believe cohabitation and sex outside of marriage are OK.

Jimenez said he and McDowell, who hosts classes on premarital sex and marriage at Summit Ministries, wanted to speak truth in love, as Ephesians 4:15 says, and began the discussion by reading what the Biblical Counseling Coalition says about sex outside of marriage:

[P]remarital cohabitation has become common in the Church because many Christians have made today’s secular values their own. Our society cherishes ‘trying before buying,’ convenience at any cost, sex without rules, companionship without commitment, and relationship without responsibility — everything premarital cohabitation provides. Instead of questioning such values — if not downright opposing them — countless Christians have adopted them. It’s no wonder so many of them are living together before tying the knot.

Speaking about the saturation of unbiblical ideas about sex, pornography and relationships that Gen Zers and youth are exposed to, McDowell noted that, unlike the 1980s and ’90s when exposure was limited to select movies, MTV and a few other sources, today, youth have easy access to porn and are inundated with unhealthy messages.  

Pope Francis Says ‘Sins of the Flesh’ Aren’t that ‘Serious’ – Joins His Baptist and Protestant Counterparts in Downplaying Sexual Sin

Pope Francis Says ‘Sins of the Flesh’ Aren’t that ‘Serious’ – Joins His Baptist and Protestant Counterparts in Downplaying Sexual Sin

This Roman Catholic Pope now joins the many Baptists, Protestants, evangelicals, and social conservatives who have given up on upholding celibacy and sexual abstinence until marriage in the last several years.

(Link): Pope Francis Says ‘Sins of the Flesh’ Aren’t that ‘Serious’

By Hannah Frishberg
December 8, 2021

Lust is not the worst of the seven deadly sins, according to Pope Francis.

There are worse indiscretions than sex outside of marriage, the leader of the Catholic Church told reporters on the papal plane while en route from Greece to Italy on Monday, Reuters reported.

“Sins of the flesh are not the most serious,” the 84-year-old religious leader said regarding sex outside of marriage. Top transgressions instead include pride and hatred, according to Reuters.