Evangelical sex

I read it, I admit.  I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris was a big deal when I was in high school.  A girl I'd dated via the telephone for a few weeks dumped me.  Weeks later she was toting the culprit copy of the book around school, compliments of her dateless friends in the youth group.  Not to be out-Christianed, I eventually picked the book up too.  And while I never bought wholeheartedly into what Harris said, the book did affirm an emerging awareness that was developing in me as a young Christian: premarital sex is chief among all sins.  Conversely, martial sex is the chief among all delights.

As I wrestled through adolescence in the midst of a Southern Baptist youth group, I struggled with loneliness, relationships and physical desires like most other kids.  I had crushes, fell into infatuations, made out with girls and struggled with guilt. From early on I remember praying, "God, I know heaven is going to be great and all, but please let me have sex before I die."  It turns out that my experience was not unique, as teens growing up in Evangelical churches are having a particularly hard time with sex.  In a great post, Dr. Anthony Bradley here discusses recent findings that Evangelical teens are more likely to engage in premarital sex than Mormon, Jewish or mainline Protestant teens.

After high school I graduated on to a highly Evangelical college ministry.  There it was clear that singleness and dating were simply harsh sufferings Christians must endure before arriving at the promised land of Christian marriage.  Everyone was terrified that they had the "gift" of singleness.  Strict gender roles were established to explain the differences between men and women.  Crudely, men wanted sex and respect, women wanted someone to help them with the dishes.  Men's discipleship groups obsessed over lust and masturbation, while women were exhorted weekly to guard their hearts.  We were told things like, "If you can't imagine yourself marrying a person, then don't take her out on a date." Relationships were scrutinized for evidence of God's blessings by both staff members and fellow students.  Those deemed to be falling short were challenged.

It was a perfect combination of oppressed urges and glamorized sex.  Because of the ideolization of sex, the pattern drawn by Reitan in the Bradley post wreaked havoc.  Pornography preyed like a rampant plague.  Dating couples who "crossed lines" were flooded with confused guilt.  Yoked together in shame, my girlfriend at the time and I were in constant conflict.  She stayed because I was a man who could afford her to be a "godly wife;" I stayed because I was scared to be alone.  More than that, we hoped beyond hope that God would redeem our indiscretions if we would stay together - terrified He would damn us to eternal singleness if we parted.

Thankfully, after college, I had some time to grow and mature, to rethink relationships outside of the bubble in which I had operated.  I moved to a new city, broke up with my girlfriend and acted on years of pent-up sexual frustration by dating broadly outside of evangelical circles.  Still possessed of incredible sexual willpower, I didn't necessarily sow my proverbial wild oats.  I still struggled with my desires, but after a few months of mistakes followed by deep shame, I settled down.  Stepping away from rigid boundaries, boundaries once broken that had very little recourse, I stepped into a new way of seeing relationships.  I began to establish values of how I wanted to treat women and myself - with kindness, respect and dignity.  I didn't need each new relationship with a woman to be "the one."  It was only then that I began to know for what I was actually looking.

I am now a year into my marriage, and [spoiler alert for evangelical singles] sex is not what it was made out to be.  Wait before you jump from the building, single evangelical man.  I believed for so long that sex was the answer to everything that was missing inside of me.  If I could just hold out until marriage, all my troubles would disappear.  My lusts would be satisfied, my loneliness would go away.  I was successful in holding out, I guess, depending on the grey area definitions, to my virginity by the skin of my teeth.  But marital sex didn't fix anything.

Don't get me wrong, sex is great.  Though the promised fireworks have never gone off, sometimes everything works out just right and it is wonderful.  But sex is hard, especially if you don't have the advantage of all those repressed emotions gearing you up for it.  Sex in marriage takes work, trying to deal with your relating styles and hopes and expectations.  The marriage bed is a place where you are naked, not simply physically but also emotionally.  You can't really hide anything.  As is true in the rest of life, the hard work is extremely rewarding but requires continual diligence.  I don't feel any more complete, and I still at times am really lonely. It hasn't made lust go away, and it certainly hasn't made me okay.

If I was honest, I would tell you that for years I often saw marriage as a means to an end.  It was the key to the door of eternal sexual satisfaction.  It isn't.  In fact, that door doesn't even exist.  Anyone who says differently is selling something - most likely pornography or Christian morality.

I am no more okay today than I was 12 months ago.  No sex or marriage or drug or mission trip will do that.  But I can take solace, Christian, in that this is not my home.  And I am confident, on this side of Christian marriage and morally permissible sex, that sex is not worth delaying heaven.