I was watching an interview on Fox News about a week ago. It was about the Birth Control mandate and the Georgetown Law student who suggested that to pay for birth control was causing great harm. One of the panelists (a conservative pundit) said, “You know, there is another way to prevent birth if you cannot afford birth control. It is called abstinence.†A smirk then appeared on the anchor’s face. She then quipped, “Yeah, that’s realistic.†The panelist and anchor, both supposed conservatives, chuckled together like teenage girls talking about their first kiss.
Why do I mention that they were all conservatives? Well, because if anyone is going to take the call to abstinence seriously, it should be those who rally around so-called family values. It should be these women who tout their Christianity.
There is no doubt that we have made abstinence a very hard path to walk. We tell youth at the age when their hormones are raging the wildest that to consider marriage is ludicrous. The world at the same time targets these children with shows and advertisements that would have been considered nearly pornographic just a decade or two ago. Both sexes dress rather provocatively on a daily basis and think that to dress up is to dress more provocatively. True pornography is available to all at no cost and with no risk on demand. We encourage people to pursue careers first and then later to consider marriage. We never seem to consider that mixing men and women is every setting without any boundaries is naïve at the best. Yes, society is ordered against abstinence. This I will admit.
Maybe for those that are without Christ, it almost is unrealistic to expect abstinence in our world. But even with those we must appeal to natural law and reason.
But among those who are in Christ, abstinence is realistic. Not because society is ordered any more favorably for them, but because they are dead to sin and alive to Christ, free to walk in newness of life. And it becomes more and more realistic the more the words of Jesus about marriage and sexuality are preached. Even more realistic as Christian parents, pastors and congregation order church and home according to his Word. Most realistic if we are through Christ freed from the cultural assumptions we have passively accepted.
In the world, no one really expects single people to be abstinent. But dear Christian, God does expect this of you. And he expects it of you because he wants you to experience his gifts of sexuality and marriage in purity. His law is good. While the world and even the church at times will treat you differently than adulterers and those practicing homosexuality if you are sexually active before marriage, God does not. To not be abstinent is to sin. To do so without repentance is spiritually toxic. If you choose this, you place yourself outside of the body of Christ and should not be found at his Table. I say this to 16 year old single people and 30,40, and 70 years old single people as well.
Abstinence is realistic. Not because of you. Not because of our society. But because of Jesus. He has died that your past sexually activity outside of marriage can be forgiven. And he has risen in order that you can walk in purity even in a world set against it. While the world chuckles, you can just subtly smile knowing that you have the good thing from your Father.
