October 6, 2008

When Is Sex Sin?
By Pastor George Van Alstine

In our traditional approach (or non-approach) to sex-education, sexual sin is defined by a series of no-nos. They range from big no-nos, like molestation of minors or rape, to little no-nos, like lust or masturbation. Some of these are based on clear Biblical teachings, and others have grown out of generations of human experience. But the problem is that there is no underlying theme that ties them all together. The only basic rule young people are given is “Sex is only for marriage.”

I believe that the four principles I’ve been discussing form the framework for a self-consistent Biblical view of sexual morality that can be explained to young people and internalized by them in preparation for the hormone-wars they will have to deal with during adolescence. Let me explain how sexual sin can be identified and confronted by using these principles.

(1)  A person is created  in the Image of God. If a young person truly believes this, he or she cannot enter into “casual” sex or have a series of “one-nighters.” Whatever they do to themselves, they are doing to the image of God imprinted in them, and it is always a sin to cheapen or disrespect the image of God.

(2)  A person’s Mind is the primary processor and definer of the way life is lived. Young people should be taught to think for themselves and make good decisions based on this thought. If they allow the more “earthy” part of themselves to eclipse the healthy decisions their mind would make, they are sinning, whether the lower impulse comes from drug abuse, peer pressure or rushing hormones.

(3)  A person’s Body is an essential part of who the person is and the arena in which life is lived. Young people should be taught that God has created them as a miraculous interweaving of body and soul, of the temporary and the eternal. This means that their body is part of who they are. How they treat their body is how they treat their soul. It’s a sin to treat the body like dirt, because it means you see yourself as dirt, and that’s an insult to the Creator.

(4)  A person’s Spirit is the creative and dynamic expression of the person by which life is given its ultimate significance. This is the principle the Bible’s spotlight shines on most brightly. Our human spirits are twisted by our tendency to sin. The gospel message is that God sent Jesus to revive our spirits by implanting God’s Holy Spirit in us, to renew and empower us. Refusing to accept this gift of God’s grace is the ultimate sin, and it makes our lives fertile ground for all sorts of sexual sin. In fact, the Bible seems to be teaching us that unless we open ourselves to God’s Spirit by being born again, we will not have the desire or the power to resist sexual sins relating to the first three principles.

There’s another important aspect of sexual sin we should be aware of. Sexual sin usually involves two persons, so an individual is sinning not only against her or himself, but also against the other person. In all the areas covered by the four principles above, we are hurting another person: marring the Image of God in the person, confusing and overruling his/her Mind, vandalizing her/his Body, which is an integral part of the person, and darkening the Spirit by which the person can experience God’s highest good.

I’m suggesting that sex education should not so much focus on sex, but on who a person is in relation to God and his purpose. Young people need to know the biological facts too, but if they are taught who they are and how God wants to relate to them, they will be given the best possible defense against the devastation sexual sins can bring to a person’s life, faith and relationships.

Someone talked to me about this series of articles and pointed out that I’ve focused on young people emerging through adolescence. What about the tensions adults experience? What about life after a spouse dies? What about infidelity? What about mid-life identity crises? Adults are sexual beings as well, and there is not much done to acknowledge this or to give help to those who are muddling through.

A fascinating subject, but at some point I’ve got to stop writing about sex. Let me just say two things. First, I believe these four principles can be just as helpful in addressing the sexual issues of adults as of adolescents. Second, my office door is always open to anyone who’d like to discuss whatever they’re going through. I’m practically unshockable! And here’s a value of having co-pastors who are female and male—you may be more comfortable going to Pastor Connie. She’s also very open and very resourceful.

September 29, 2008

    Whole-Person Sexuality
by Pastor George Van Alstine

I’ve suggested four Biblical principles that can help us develop a positive, healthy sex education approach for our young people. Last week, I wrote about the first:

(1)  A person is created in the Image of God as male or female. In this article I hope to flesh out the meaning of the other three principles.

(2)  A person’s Mind is the primary processor and definer of the way life is lived. Our children should be taught from earliest years to think. They shouldn’t just be taught to obey. Sheer obedience won’t help them through the turbulent growing up years. In order to think, they need to have good information.

We should help them to value their minds and to enhance their ability to think things through, so that they can make the best decisions. They need to learn that their mind is a gift of God equipped to control their body and guide its members through difficult choices.

As this relates to sex, we need to teach our children that they should always be sure their mind is in charge. If the mind abdicates this responsibility, choices will be made based on hormonal urges, and we well know the many bad results this can lead to: teenage pregnancy, the emotional pain of rejection, loss of educational opportunities, and possibly a no-exit life of poverty.

This mind-in-control attitude should be built into our children’s earliest education, so that it will be part of their view of themselves long before their teen struggles with sexuality.

(3)  A person’s Body is an essential part of who a person is. Yes, the mind should be in charge, but that doesn’t mean the body is unimportant or irrelevant. The body is just as much part of the person as the mind is. The Bible has a holistic view of a human person. Body, mind and spirit are intertwined and cannot be easily separated.

This means we should teach our children to value and respect their bodies, to take care of them through good diet, exercise, healthcare and helpful habits. Children intuitively love their bodies. But when they start going through adolescent changes, they often dislike their changing bodies and don’t treat them well. Drug abuse, reckless driving and a junk-food diet are among the ways they show this. Another important evidence is seen in sexual acting out, through which young people look for reassurance that their bodies are attractive. We need to teach our children that they should love themselves, including their bodies, and that as part of that self-love they should not subject their bodies to premature, meaningless, loveless sexual encounters.

(4)  A person’s Spirit is the creative and dynamic expression of the person by which life is given its ultimate meaning. There has been a great deal of theological debate about whether a human person is a dichotomy (Body, Mind/Spirit) or a trichotomy (Body, Mind and Spirit). To me, the Bible seems to be teaching that a person is a monochotomy—one, an  interweaving of body, mind and spirit. It is said of Adam that God shaped dust from the ground and breathed into it his own spirit, and “man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). This “living soul” was a composite of spiritual and material elements.

It’s the spiritual part I’m focusing on, the part that came from God’s breath, that element of humanity that distinguishes us from animals. This “divine” part of a human person has a great impact on our sexuality.

We need to teach our children that the God-breathed part of them, their spirit, is connected with eternity. Recognizing this will help keep them from reducing themselves to sexual objects or playthings during adolescence. If we teach them that their spirit is connected, by its origin, with God’s spirit, we will help them to realize that there’s something holy at risk when they engage in superficial sexual encounters.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?”  (1 Corinthians 19)

In my final article on this subject I will write about sexual sins as they relate to these four principles.

September 22, 2008

    Being Sexual in the Image of God
Pastor George Van Alstine

This is the third in my series of essays about how we, as Christians, can develop a positive Biblical approach to sex education. In the first, “Locker Room Sex Education,” I reminded readers about what happens when we don’t educate our children about sexuality, but let them discover these things on their own. In the second, I came up with four principles of “Biblical Sex Education,” which will be further discussed below.

In the second article, I wrote that “the sexual behavior of adolescents” was not directly discussed in the New Testament. I knew that would raise some eyebrows, and it did. Some readers pointed out that there are a number of  warnings against fornication that can be applied to young people. I think some of these texts may be applied in a secondary way to adolescents, but their main reference is to something more dangerous and sinister. The word used is porné, from which we get the word pornography. It is the word used to describe prostitutes and prostitution. It is often used of marital infidelity. So porné refers to illicit, often criminal sexual behavior by adults, not to “discovery sex” by adolescents. This is why I don’t believe it is helpful to use these as prooftexts in teaching youth about sexuality.

Here is the first of the four principles I mentioned in the last article:

(1) A person is created in the Image of God as male or female. Theologians have argued for centuries about what the author of Genesis meant by “the image of God.” Suggested answers include a number of ways in which we, as human beings, differ from the animals: intelligence, moral sensitivity, creativity, esthetics, etc. But if you read the text, there’s only one specific thing that’s mentioned as part of the image of God:
“So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

Surprisingly, the thing mentioned about humans, in which God’s image can be seen, is something we have in common with the animals: our sexual nature as male and female.

How does our maleness or our femaleness reflect what God is like? How do we rise above the animals in a part of our nature that can be quite beastly? This is an intriguing question, and one that should be continually asked by each of us.

What an opportunity this perspective gives to parents, teachers, and pastors in their work with emerging adolescents! It can be exciting to discuss with a teenaged girl or boy how their new feelings and sense of self can be ways of knowing God better. From this point of view, their growing sexuality can be seen as an enabling spiritual process, rather than as a fleshly enemy of the spirit. Christian parents, teachers and pastors can be catalysts for this understanding of sex, if they have already come to appreciate it in their own lives.

I guess it’s obvious that I’ll need at least a fourth article to discuss the other principles I’ve suggested:

(2)  A person’s Mind is the primary processor and definer of the way life is lived.

(3)  A person’s Body is an essential part of who the person is and the arena in which life is lived.

(4)  A person’s Spirit is the creative and dynamic expression of the person by which life is given its ultimate significance.

September 15, 2008

Together
Pastor Connie Larson DeVaughn

The first weekend of September fifty one ABCers gathered at Camp Colby Ranch in the nearby Angeles Forest mountains for Church Camp. Our theme, “Together,” was lived out in fun activities, deepening spiritual exercises, sharing our life and faith journeys and just plain “being” together. While we acknowledged the challenges of coming from diverse backgrounds, we also increased our awareness and appreciation of God’s plan in bringing us together as His Body.

We tried to unpack this multi-layered truth: “We are connected to each other with the same bond that connects us to God.”  Intentionally choosing to connect to each other means opening ourselves up to the sufferings and burdens of the other. But it also brings immeasurable richness and joy into our lives that will never exist without the sacrifice. And surrounding, under-girding, supporting, sustaining, infusing all our efforts, is the mystery and power of God’s love.

Sixteen-year-old Benjamin Zobrist came back from Church Camp and wrote down some reflections on his own spiritual journey, which he allowed us to share in The Messenger:

Living Love
by Ben Zobrist

Over the past year I have been learning so much about who God is. I am constantly surprised at the simplicity of all my epiphanies, realizations, and revelations. My greatest realization was truly understanding the statement that God is Love. I capitalize Love because it is God’s first name, as Pastor Connie put it at Church Camp this year. My most recent revelation is that we need to live a life of Love.

I have come up with a list of tangible ways to show Love to people. A few of my examples are: practicing hospitality, listening, and service to others. A list like this can go on and on because there are so many simple ways to show Love.  But this list helps me to understand that Love is making a choice. I can choose to listen to a friend’s problems or not. I can choose to invite the awkward kids to hang out or only hang with my friends. I can choose to acknowledge the homeless or avoid eye contact. When I realized that Love is choosing, it helped me to know when I succeeded in acting like Jesus as well as when I failed.

This concept of Love being a choice is what led to my revelation of living Love. I considered Jesus’ life. It was perfect. He made every right choice. This is our goal, to live a life of Love like Jesus did. I believe that we need to make Loving a part of our very existence, breathing it in from God and exhaling it out to others. This can seem overwhelming, but we just have to take it step by step and choice by choice.

I came to this realization on my own, but I believe that it was God who gave me the thought. A few days after I came up with this idea God confirmed it to me through this verse at Church Camp. Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Everything I just wrote is summed up in that verse, and much more eloquently I must admit. We are connected to each other with the same bond that connects us to God.

September 8, 2008

Biblical Sex Education
by Pastor George Van Alstine

Last week I wrote about my own sex education, which came more from the gym locker room than from parental or church guidance. Maybe some of you had a more ideal start in your understanding of sex and sexuality. Those whose parents made a stab at it, even if the effort was awkward or inadequate, should feel very special, for this was a proof of their love for you.

But parents, like mine, who never even made the attempt should not be judged too harshly. They had no model in their own upbringing, as their parents were probably even more closed to discussing such things. And they probably had no help from their church, which chose to pretend these issues didn’t exist. When occasionally a young girl from the church fellowship became pregnant, there would be a flurry of blame, probably a quickie marriage, then all would return to normal, without any reflection by the family or the believing community on what this event meant.

Actually, there wasn’t much help found in the Bible either. If you were looking for simple prooftexts, you wouldn’t find much. One of the Ten Commandments prohibited adultery, but premarital sex was not addressed. There were occasional relevant references in the Levitical Law, but these often were discussed in terms of ritual impurity which are hard to apply to our culture.

It’s also hard to find Biblical models or examples. I have a 1963 Christian book entitled Family Living in the Bible. It gives several examples of “Chastity in Young Womanhood” and “Nobility in Young Manhood.” All the stories are from the Old Testament, and almost all are from the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph). The circumstances in which these families lived were so different from ours that it’s virtually impossible to make direct correlations about sexual behavior.

No models or examples from the New Testament are mentioned. This is probably because the New Testament is such a “breathless” cluster of writings, written by eyewitnesses to an amazing series of events that, to them, seemed to be the beginning of ”end times.” On the agenda of items that needed to be addressed, the sexual behavior of adolescents just didn’t rise high enough to be discussed.

So, I think we should start over. Let’s not look for Bible models or prooftexts. Let’s look for deeply imbedded Biblical principles about who we humans are and what is our destiny. When we’ve come up with these, let’s find creative ways to teach them to our children from their earliest years.

Here is my initial attempt to put together a list of such principles. There are four I’d like to discuss:

(1)   A person’s creation in the image of God as male or female.

(2)   A person’s Mind as the primary processor and definer of the way life is lived.

(3)   A person’s Body as an essential part of who the person is and the arena in which life is lived.

(4)   A person’s Spirit as the creative and dynamic expression of the person by which life is given its ultimate significance.

I feel I’d like to invest another Messenger article discussing these four principles and how they can impact the emergence of a person through adolescence and its sexual discoveries. Please hang with me.