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.

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.  

The Pro-Porn and the Pro-Sex Workers are Inaccurately Depicting Standard Christian Views about Sex to be “Anti-Sex” (re: “OnlyFans” Headlines)

The Pro-Porn and the Pro-Sex Workers are Inaccurately Depicting Standard Christian Views about Sex to be “Anti-Sex” (re: “OnlyFans” Headlines)

In light of the fact that “OnlyFans” is no longer allowing its members to post pornography on it site (which may have something to do with MasterCard credit card company refusing to accept payments on any site that may involve human/sex trafficking), some porn supporters, “sex workers,” or free speech advocates, are, unfortunately, inaccurately depicting any and all Christian sexual ethics as being “anti sex.”

Believing that sex is a sin outside the confines of marriage is a pretty typical Christian position going back decades to hundreds of years; believing that sexual behavior should have some kind of limits is not inherently “anti sex,” and as an adult celibate, I very much resent the portrayal of sexual abstinence outside of marriage as being “anti sex” or “sexual repression.”

As a celibate myself – and my preference would still be to wait until I marry to have sex, and I am now middle-aged – I am not opposed to sex.

However, I do believe that pornography and prostitution devalues the act of sex itself, and yes, both objectifies women, and women are already objectified in non-porn culture as it is.

Half of U.S. Christians Say Sex is Sometimes, Always OK in Dating Relationships (2020)

Half of U.S. Christians Say Sex is Sometimes, Always OK in Dating Relationships by A. Kumar (2020)

I am not surprised. This is actually similar to another survey I saw a few years ago, and I may have covered it here on this blog (I don’t remember).

It’s disappointing, frustrating and bewildering how so many Christians are not only living in sexual sin – and sex prior to marriage is in fact sin – but that they think it’s just fine. 

The Bible does speak against fornication, and even if it is not or was not mentioned specifically (as some like to argue), it was still the societal expectation – it didn’t need to be stated specifically in the Bible, since it was already understood in the culture the Bible came from, that God was not okay with people having sex outside of marriage.

There are not, that I can recall, any Bible verses specifically condemning infanticide, child molesting, or bank robbing, but that does not mean that the Bible is okay with any of those behaviors.

I think a case can be made against those behaviors – and against fornication – by pointing to other biblical principles.

In light of the fact that Christians (Link): don’t even make a pretense at living by sexual ethics as taught in the Bible, or in defending them these days, I really do not need to see another Christian woman on another blog or on social media saying how harmful “purity culture” teachings were to women (depending on the context of their arguments. Are some facets of Christian purity culture sexist against women? Yes – but that does not negate that fornication remains a sin).

The pendulum regarding sexual behavior and attitudes held by Christians has now swung too far in the other direction – to pure hedonism and “don’t judge me, I’ll have sex with whomever and whenever I want to.”

And folks like me who actually “walked the walk” and did not have sex outside of marriage are shamed for it, or insulted for it, by Christians and conservative groups (see more about that under “Related Posts” at the bottom of this page).

(Link): Half of U.S. Christians Say Sex is Sometimes, Always OK in Dating Relationships (2020)

Excerpts:

by A. Kumar
September 2020

Half of Christians say sex between consenting adults who are in a committed dating relationship is sometimes or always acceptable, and over half — with the exception of evangelical Protestants — say casual sex is OK, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

Some 62% of Catholics, 56% of Protestants in the historically black tradition, 54% of mainline Protestants, and 36% of evangelical Protestants say casual sex between consenting adults is sometimes or always acceptable, according to the survey.

Among those who are religiously unaffiliated, as many as 84% say

TikTok’s ‘Nurse Holly’ Facing Ridicule for Encouraging Abstinence Until Marriage

TikTok’s ‘Nurse Holly’ Facing Ridicule for Encouraging Abstinence Until Marriage

As I said about this headline on Twitter yesterday:

In today’s “anti slut shaming” and “pro sex positive, virginity is a social construct” (no, it’s not) society, every sexual behavior choice is supported EXCEPT FOR abstinence, which is mocked by both liberals AND many conservatives

The nurses who criticized “Nurse Holly” for her abstinence, as a group, (Link): are hypocrites. Why do I say that? Because some of them mock women virgins for being virgins when they come in for health screenings.

I can just imagine me, a 40-something virgin, going in to see one of these “sex positive, no slut shaming” nurses as part of a medical visit and them possibly finding out during questioning I’m still a virgin, and I’m sure they’d either roll their eyes or act incredulous or mock me for it – I had an experience like that in my late twenties when I had to see a doctor.

(Link): TikTok’s ‘Nurse Holly’ Facing Ridicule for Encouraging Abstinence Until Marriage– via FaithWire

(Link): TikTok’s ‘Nurse Holly’ Facing Ridicule for Encouraging Abstinence Until Marriage – via CBN News

January 18, 2020
by T. Goins-Phillips

“Nurse Holly” has amassed quite the following on TikTok. She uses her incredibly popular account to talk — and joke — about her career in the medical field. But now she’s facing scorn because she encouraged her 1.7 million followers to wait until they’re married to have sex.

In the video, which has since been deleted, Holly promoted the message, “The best way to prevent STDs is waiting for sex until marriage. Just the truth.”

Holly’s argument is airtight — if you don’t have sex until you’re married to your partner, the likelihood of contracting an STI is greatly decreased. But that (Link): didn’t stop other nurses from dragging her on Twitter.

Don’t Let ‘Incel’ Misogynists Like the Toronto Killer Tell You They’re Special – I Was A Virgin Until I Was 27 By Noah Berlatsky

Don’t Let ‘Incel’ Misogynists Like the Toronto Killer Tell You They’re Special – I Was A Virgin Until I Was 27 By Noah Berlatsky

American society stopped “slut shaming” people for having sex outside of marriage many years ago, contrary to what the anti-sexual purity “Ex-vangelicals,” liberal Christians, Christian feminists, and other groups argue on blogs and twitter.

The trend has been the opposite in years past: adults who are celibate and single are often ridiculed or thought of as weird losers if they’re not in a romantic relationship and not having sex.

Our culture went from “Slut Shaming” years ago to “Celibate and Virgin Shaming.” (I have examples all over this blog, look for them).

Here’s an essay by a guy who didn’t lose his virginity until his late twenties. It’s another anecdotal piece of the pie demonstrating how our sex saturated culture shames people who are not having sex.

(Link): Don’t Let ‘Incel’ Misogynists Like the Toronto Killer Tell You They’re Special – I Was A Virgin Until I Was 27 

Excerpts

by Noah Berlatsky
April 2018

The man who murdered ten people in Toronto with a van, like the 2014 Isla Vista killer, considered himself an “incel,” or involuntary celibate.

Incels are men who blame the world, and especially women, for the fact that they are virgins, or aren’t having sex as often as they want.

They see women as manipulators who choose powerful but shallow men, and unfairly ignore and even torment good guys like themselves.

Resentment becomes an excuse for misogyny, and sometimes, for violence.

In the aftermath of the Toronto massacre, some people were quick to use the killer’s celibacy as an insult.

Women Being Slut Shamed, Virgin Shamed, or Celibate Shamed at The Doctor’s Office

Women Being Slut Shamed, Virgin Shamed, or Celibate Shamed at The Doctor’s Office

So, I saw a headline go through my Twitter feed a few weeks ago about a woman who says while on a trip to the doctor’s office to get a check up, she was “slut shamed” by a nurse practitioner at that appointment. (The link to that is towards the bottom of this post.)

I don’t doubt her experience, but I chipped in under that Tweet or another related to mention that as a chaste woman – I’m over 45 and still a virgin myself – I had the same exact thing happen to me, but in the reverse, when I was in my mid or late 20s and had to see a doctor to get blood tests done (over a non-sexual related medical issue).

The doctor I saw at my appointment sort of “Virgin-Shamed” me at that time.

We’re all the time hearing about “Slut Shaming” in our culture, but there is far more Celibacy- and Virgin- Shaming taking place than Slut Shaming.

However, I don’t very often see feminists discussing Virgin-Shaming nearly as much.

As a matter of fact, some feminists who are always complaining about “slut shaming” participate in Celibate-Shaming, or Virgin-Shaming (and sadly, other conservatives also participate in virgin shaming or celibate shaming as well, though many conservatives CLAIM to respect sexual abstinence – but they really do not).

The lady doctor I saw when I was in my mid to late 20s said in addition to running the tests I was in to see her for that day (and I don’t recall now what they were, only that the tests were not related to anything of a sexual nature), she also wanted to run sexually transmitted disease tests on my blood samples to make sure I did not have any sexually transmitted diseases.

I laughed and told her that would be a waste of her time and the lab’s time, as I was still a virgin.

The Misguided Backlash Against ‘Purity Culture’ by G. Shane Morris

The Misguided Backlash Against ‘Purity Culture’ by G. Shane Morris

I agree with most of this editorial by Morris, but I have one slight area of disagreement, which I will discuss below the link and excerpts.

All in all, this is an excellent editorial, so you will want to click the link below to go to Patheos, where it’s hosted, to read it in its entirety, but please remember to come back to this blog post to read some of my comments much farther below.

(Link): The Misguided Backlash Against ‘Purity Culture’

by G. Shane Morris
December 2018

[Author Morris discusses an anti-Purity Culture, anti- I Kissed Dating Goodbye editorial by Abigail Rine Favale, and refutes some of her arguments.]

…But one thing I’ve noticed is how many of those complaints come from people who admit they never took Harris’ advice in the first place. Favale is one of them.

She confesses: “I opted for more conventional forms of kissing and bade farewell to my virginity instead.” Nevertheless, she claims, “the ideas in Harris’ book influenced me—if not my habits, certainly my sense of self.”

It’s not clear what she means by this, except perhaps that she felt guilty about having premarital sex. No one needs Joshua Harris to experience the prick of conscience, though. Which is why one detects in recriminations against “purity culture” by those who openly engaged in impurity more than a hint of sour grapes.

The Unfortunate Anti-Virginity Fall-Out from Christian Misogynist Lori Alexander’s Wacky “Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos” Post – The Problem is Not Supporting Virginity, It’s Complementarianism

The Unfortunate Anti-Virginity Fall-Out from Christian Misogynist Lori Alexander’s  Wacky “Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos” Post – The Problem is Not Supporting Virginity, It’s Complementarianism

Updated:

Lori Alexander has posted this (unhelpful) clarification of her post (about “Debt Free Virgins with Tattoos”) on an ultra-conservative political forum:

(Link): Godly Men Prefer Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos – by Lori Alexander, on Free Republic

Her new aspect is to add the word “Godly” prior to the word “Men,” as if that makes it less obnoxious or wrong, but it does not.

I used to lurk at the Free Republic site, back in my more conservative days, but I’m not surprised to see most of the posters under Alexander’s post on that site actually agreeing with it.

Of course they do.

I’m still a conservative, but I’m no longer off the reservation about it, as the Freepers are on some things, like on this topic.

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The Unfortunate Anti- Virginity Fall Out Due to Lori Alexander’s “Debt Free Virgin” Post

If you’d like more background to this post, and an explanation for who Lori Alexander is, please see my previous post about it here:

(Link): Reflections On Lori Alexander’s Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos

If you are new to my blog, a recap:

I am over 45 years of age and still a virgin.

I was reserving sexual activity for marriage. I’ve never had sexual intercourse. I was expecting to be married but never found Mr. Right.

I do have a libido.

Contrary to what Christians ASSUME about older virgins, Celibacy, being sexually abstinent for as long as I’ve been, is not “a gift” where God granted it to me and supernaturally removed my libido and makes it easy-breezy to cope with.

For many years, I was dedicated to remaining a virgin until marriage, due to Christian ethics, (these days I’m semi-agnostic), but also due to other reasons as well, which I shall not get into here but have explained in older posts on the blog.

In the last ten or so years, I’ve seen a disturbing trend where secular, liberal feminist views about sex have trickled into liberal Christian corners, where there is much railing against “slut shaming” and there is strong opposition to judging any woman for her sexual behavior or choices.

This trend became so common that these same views, disturbingly, began appearing on liberal Christian blogs and sites, whose progressive, feminist, Christian authors began writing editorials saying virginity is of no import, God only cares about your heart and spiritual purity, and God does not care so much anyone’s sexual behavior, (Link): intact hymen, or sexual past.

This anti- sexual purity thinking (which includes the down-playing, condemning, or mocking of physical virginity and adult celibacy) has even crept into mainstream moderate- to- conservative churches and Christian writing and thinking, unfortunately.

Let’s Rethink Sex by C. Emba

I agreed with much of this editorial by Emba (posted much farther below) and don’t have a problem with it.

I’m a right winger. Imagine my surprise a while back when I was visiting a right wing political blog on which one of the blog owners criticized this editorial by Emba.

From what I can recall, the conservative author found Emba’s cry for the public to take sex more seriously and not sleep around so much, to be unrealistic or too stuffy, too… whatever.

I was appalled that a conservative author on a conservative site (the same author has claimed in previous blog posts on other topics to be a Christian) would be attacking a well-reasoned editorial pointing out that perhaps the avalanche of sexual harassment stories we’ve all been seeing in the media in the realms of Hollywood, sports, politics and more, can be due to people having an “anything goes” mentality towards sex. I agree with her.

Before seeing this editorial a few weeks ago, I was thinking of writing one similar to it myself (and still may).

I would fully expect the majority of liberals out there – especially the feminists – to mock the notion of being chaste or more deliberate about when, if, where, and with whom to have sex, but a conservative? (Liberal feminists (Link): have already done so before, as a matter of fact.)

Maybe I should not be surprised.

I’ve been posting stories to this blog off and on for around the last seven years, and I’ve seen several instances of conservative Christians who have a “meh, who cares, it’s just fornication, go ahead and do it, sex is no biggie” attitude that one would expect to see from some Non-Christians or from liberal feminists.

But the conservatives and Christians go along with this sort of thinking as well.

A Response to the Editorial “America Needs a New Sexual Revolution” by Melissa Mackenzie

A Response to the Editorial “America Needs a New Sexual Revolution” by Melissa Mackenzie

I guess Ms. Mackenzie drank from the Gender Complementarian Kool-Aid, or something like it.

The complementarian world is a world in which one is taught there are only two options concerning women (I know this because (Link): I used to be one myself for many years):

-either be and live as a traditional values person who believes all women are, or should be, passive, dainty, and delicate and should marry young and have children,
or,
-be and live as a bra-burning, man-hating, liberal feminist.

I present a third option, which is hated by some liberals (when I bring it to their attention), and it’s an option that is never even considered by other conservatives, which is as follows:
I am a right wing woman who rejects sexism, and finds fault in both the left and right wing on some women’s issues, but who also sees some merit to some arguments on either side, depending on the topic.

In this blog post, I am commenting upon this editorial on The American Spectator:

 (Link): America Needs a New Sexual Revolution by Melissa Mackenzie

A foundation of the opening of this editorial rests upon a presupposition that, and to paraphrase my understanding of the author’s perspective:

“Everything that is wrong today in regards to culture, sex, marriage, dating, and women, is liberal, secular, FEMINISM, and feminism is EVIL! One can directly trace the downfall of American sexual morality to the feminism of the 1960s!!”

Such thinking is a common trope in about every right wing publication I’ve ever read on these subjects.

To that point, about feminism supposedly being to blame for all of society’s marital or sexual problems, I would ask you to read this off-site post, which is by a Christian (not by a left wing, secular feminist):

(Link): Perhaps Feminism Is Not The Enemy

What I will do here is provide excerpts by MacKenzie then, under her comments, offer my thoughts.

MacKenzie writes (source again):

There’s a coarsening of relationships between men and women, parents and children, and people with each other.

// end MacKenzie quotes ///

I don’t think secular, left wing feminism was the start of the “coarsening of relationships between men and women” but is a response to it.

One can read the Old Testament of the Bible, which dates back several thousand years, to see men raping their own sisters, owning harems of women (in some cases, women having no choice but to be in a harem, or to be a concubine), and men committing adultery. There was no 1960s, American- style feminism around in Biblical days.

The False Teachings Regarding Celibacy from City Church of San Francisco

The False Teachings Regarding Celibacy from City Church of San Francisco

Here we go again. I’ve seen this issue come up before with other Christians, other churches, who hold all sorts of falsehoods about celibacy.  I will be offering comments and criticisms of the views presented in this letter from a San Francisco Church – a link, with excerpts from the page, is below.

The Bible teaches that abstaining from sexual behavior is for all single persons, regardless if they are hetero, bi-sexual, or homosexual, or of some other orientation.

Furthermore, the Bible does (Link): not teach that God “gifts” people with celibacy or that only some, only a few, will be celibate, or that (Link): life long celibacy is an heroic feat possible for only a minority.

Review a bit of my life story: I am over the age of 45, a hetero-sexual woman who long desired marriage, marriage did not happen for me (and it may never), yet I am a virgin, but God did not remove my sexual desire. I still have a desire for marriage, and also a libido.

If I can remain celibate this long, and I have in fact done so, there is no reason for this San Francisco church to imply it is cruel, impossible, or unrealistic for LGBT persons to remain celibate over a life time.

While being celibate over a lifetime is not always easy, it is in fact possible.

Remaining celibate for a long time comes down to self-control and choice, not some magical rare gifting where-in God only zaps a few people with celibacy and removes a sexual drive. The Bible says all believers in Christ (Link): have self-control but churches such as this one operates under the assumption that this is not so.

(Link): A Letter from the Elder Board of San Francisco

Excerpts:

A Letter From The Elder Board

…..WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS NOW?

1. God is bringing LGBT Christians through the doors of City Church.
As you read this perhaps you, your friend, or family member are one of them. They desire to follow Jesus, and are eager to live faithfully to the gospel and desire spiritual growth. Some have been living celibate lives and want to know if we can talk out loud about this.
Others report they have become Christians at City Church. Some report that while they were raised in the church, they left it, but have returned and experienced great renewal.
And many hope for a life long partnership one day that will fulfill their basic human need of belonging, companionship, and intimacy.
Others are already married or partnered and know this is a safe place for them to grow in their relationship.

2. Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long “celibacy”, by which we meant that for the rest of your life you would not engage your sexual orientation in any way, was causing obvious harm and has not led to human flourishing.
(It’s unfortunate that we used the word “celibacy” to describe a demand placed on others, as in Scripture it is, according to both Jesus and Paul, a special gift or calling by God, not an option for everyone). In fact, over the years, the stories of harm caused by this pastoral practice began to accumulate.
Our pastoral conversations and social science research indicate skyrocketing rates of depression, suicide, and addiction among those who identify as LGBT. The generally unintended consequence has been to leave many people feeling deeply damaged, distorted, unlovable, unacceptable, and perverted. Imagine feeling this from your family or religious community:
“If you stay, you must accept celibacy with no hope that you too might one day enjoy the fullness of intellectual, spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical companionship. If you pursue a lifelong partnership, you are rejected.” This is simply not working and people are being hurt. We must listen and respond.

3. We feel a growing sense that this counsel is not necessarily the way of the gospel.
While members of the LGBT community have always been welcome at City Church, we prevented people from joining our church if they were unwilling or unable to practice lifelong celibacy. ….

..SUMMARY: WHAT HAS ACTUALLY CHANGED HERE?

…On the other hand, we want to be clear what this now means. We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining. For all members, regardless of sexual orientation, we will continue to expect chastity in singleness until marriage.

/// end excerpts from City Church web page

If your church position is that any and all sexual behavior is fine and peachy, so long as the person is married, AND you’re arguing you are now hunky dory with homosexuality, that would mean, I take it, that you are saying  you are fine with LGBT marriage, and are saying LGBT persons may have same-sex relations so long as they are married to their same-sex partner?

And what if marriage never happens?

I’ll tell you what happens and what should happen:

The person has to remain celibate, if they claim to be a Christian who wants to respect God, God’s morals, and what the Bible has to say about it.

Look, guys at San Fran church, I would dearly love to marry, but no “Mr. Right” is materializing on my front door step.

I may never marry.

If I were still completely a Christian (I am quasi agnostic currently), I’d have to sexually abstain. And I am HETERO. You should expect no less from LGBT persons.

In my time blogging or Tweeting about being a hetero celibate, I have heard from other other HETERO celibates, some in their 40s, 50s, and older, all of them to date have been Christians, I believe.

These heterosexuals are still abstaining – many of them wanted to marry, but they never met the right person, so they remain single.

Please stop acting as though life long, or decades-long, celibacy is so very difficult that it’s this impossible standard nobody can achieve, so you drop it as a biblical sexual ethic.

Just because something is difficult does not mean it stops being right or possible.

Just because it seems that everyone else is doing something (i.e., sex outside of marriage) does not mean you should just say, “Aw, screw it, nobody is living this celibacy stuff out any more, let’s just drop this expectation!”

Where does the Bible say to base morality on popularity or on how many people are doing or not doing something?

If everyone began robbing banks tomorrow, would your church start saying,

“We no longer demand our members to be honest, and work for a living to pay their bills, but it’s okay if they rob banks.”

If you wouldn’t slack off on other biblical mores such as stealing and robbing, why would you do so in the area of sexuality? Why is sexuality an exception here?

Due to liberal political correctness, is that it? That’s not a solid reason, either.

I have to laugh at all the liberal Christian and ex-Christian accounts, blogs, and groups I follow on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere, who keep arguing that Christians have turned virginity (or celibacy) into idols – oh no they don’t. This post serves as another example of that.

Christians are ditching and dumping celibacy and virginity teachings faster than you can blink and eye.

There is no so-called Christian “idolizing of virginity” going on, as liberal and ex Christians proclaim – spare me.

Christians should be among the forefront of society defending sexual abstinence, but here they are, acquiescing to culture. Or they (Link): don’t want people to be angry with them, nor do they be perceived as “mean”

They are fine with fudging on biblical ethics in the process.

I have to say, every time I see these types of web pages – such as the one published by this San Francisco church – all I can think is that they are robbing some Christian celibates of a motivation to continue sexually abstaining, since they continue to chip away at a basis or rationale for anyone to remain a virgin or celibate.

Churches like this one are sapping hetero celibates of the the strength to keep going and holding on. Churches such as “City Church” are supporting LGBT persons at the expense of hetero celibate adults – enough of that! They should knock that off.

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By the way (and I’ve already tweeted them a link to this blog post)…

the (Link): San Fran City Church Twitter account

@CityChurchSF

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Related Posts:

(Link):   Typical Erroneous Teaching About Adult Celibacy Rears Its Head Again: To Paraphrase Speaker at Ethics and Public Policy Center: Lifelong Celibacy is “heroic ethical standard that is not expected of heteros, so it should not be expected of homosexuals” (ie, it’s supposedly an impossible feat for any human being to achieve)

(Link):   False Christian Teaching: “Only A Few Are Called to Singleness and Celibacy” or (also false): “God’s gifting of singleness is rare” – More Accurate: God calls only a few to marriage -and- God gifts only the rare the exceptions the few with the gift of Marriage

(Link):  Self Control – everyone has it, is capable of it, but most choose not to use it

(Link): Ending Priestly Celibacy Would Not Stop Abuse by E. Condon – Celibates Are Not Pedophiles

(Link): The Gift of Singleness – A Mistranslation and a Poorly Used Cliche’

(Link): Douglas Wilson and Christian Response FAIL to Sexual Sin – No Body Can Resist Sex – supposedly – Re Celibacy

(Link): Singleness Is Not a Gift

(Link): There is No Such Thing as a Gift of Singleness or Gift of Celibacy or A Calling To Either One

(Link):  The Myth of the Gift – Re Christian Teachings on Gift of Singleness and Gift of Celibacy

(Link): Pastors avoid ‘controversy’ to keep tithes up, author says – Confirms What I’ve Been Saying All Along, Re: Churches: Contrary to Progressive Christians, Churches / Christians Do Not Support or Idolize Sexual Purity, Virginity, or Celibacy – they attack these concepts when not ignoring them

(Link): Theology of Convenience, Expediency, and Borne of Culture – Christian Preachers and Writers Diminishing Seriousness of Sexual Sin

(Link):  Some Researchers Argue that Shame Should Be Used to Treat Sexual Compulsions

(Link):  Christian Preacher Admits He Won’t Preach About Sexuality For Fear It May Offend Sexual Sinners

(Link): No, Christians Do NOT Support or Idolize Virginity and Celibacy, they attack both)

(Link): No Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity – Christians Attack and Criticize Virginity Sexual Purity Celibacy / Virginity Sexual Purity Not An Idol

(Link):  Some Researchers Argue that Shame Should Be Used to Treat Sexual Compulsions

(Link): Christians Selling Out Hetero Celibacy By Defending Homosexual Behavior – Re: Jars of Clay Controversy

(Link): Editorialist at WaPo Argues That Single Christian Adults Can Have Sex So Long As They are Chaste About It – Also Speculates that Jesus Was “Probably” Celibate

(Link): Sometimes Shame Guilt and Hurt Feelings Over Sexual Sins Is a Good Thing – but – Emergents, Liberals Who Are Into Virgin and Celibate Shaming

(Link): Sometimes the Bible is Clear – Regarding Rachel Held Evan’s Post

(Link): Sex, Love & Celibacy by Christian Author Dan Navin

(Link): Nobody Bats An Eye at Condemnation of Hetero Sexual Sin – Observations from Duck Dynasty Controversy

(Link): Southern Baptists open to reaching out to LGBT – but still don’t give a flying leap about HETERO CELIBATE UNMARRIED ADULTS

(Link): Church Touts Homosexuality as a Gift, Not a Sin

(Link): The New Homophiles: A Closer Look (article) Re: Christian Homosexual Celibates and Christian Homosexual Virgins

(Link): Christian Double Standards on Celibacy – Hetero Singles Must Abstain from Sex but Not Homosexual Singles

(Link): The Activist Who Says Being Gay Is Not A Sin – double standards for homo singles vs hetero singles

(Link): Christians Who Attack Virginity Celibacy and Sexual Purity – and specifically Russell D. Moore and James M. Kushiner

(Link): Why So Much Fornication – Because Christians Have No Expectation of Sexual Purity

(Link): Why Do Christians Ask if Homosexuals Can Change Their Orientation – Why Not Explain that Celibacy is an Option?

(Link): Being Against Gay Marriage Doesn’t Make You a Homophobe (editorial by a homosexual man)

(Link): Ever Notice That Christians Don’t Care About or Value Singleness, Unless Jesus Christ’s Singleness and Celibacy is Doubted or Called Into Question by Scholars?