Every human institution and society has its own list of sins and
virtues that contradict the law of God. With the rise of the Millennial
generation in evangelical churches, a vice is creeping up into the
realms of acceptance, indifference, or at least resignation: fornication
(i.e. extramarital sex or unchaste living).
A few decades ago, this was one of the main issues that evangelicals
hammered in their social witness. The skeptical news cycle and
entertainment industry mocked this often; they saw pleas for chastity as
a laughable result of pietistic sexual repression and no small bit of
hypocrisy. Theological leaders and other influential voices chided their
fellow believers for obsessing over a select set of sexual taboos.
Now, however, the exhortations have eased off. Commentary from Tim Keller
at the latest Q Conference in New York is quite telling. "We're not
doing well on the sex side," he confessed. Talking about his church,
Keller said, "We're just like the rest of the city. If I preach like
that [on sexual ethics], everybody gets real quiet."
Similarly, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy discovered 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals between the
ages of 18 and 29 had engaged in sex. Using a more stringent definition of "evangelical," the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) recently reported
that 44 percent of millennial evangelicals had sex outside marriage. Of
course, just because Christians oppose sexual immorality does not mean
they never struggle with it. Nevertheless, in this sort of moral
environment, harping on moral sex lives is analogous to starting an
abolitionist church in the antebellum South. Thanks to the public
liturgy of Hollywood and our own human inclinations, fornication has
been normalized and poses a massive obstacle to effective pastoral
ministry. Continue at Barton Gingerich
No comments:
Post a Comment