There is a new study released yesterday that suggests that most all people have sex before they are married. Is this really new news? No, but it does suggest that abstinence programs have not had their desired effect.
So, I’ve commented a couple times on Titusonenine over this report. A lot of people want to suggest that the report is meaningless because it matters not what the “world” does, but what Christians are called to do and what we are to call society to do. Yes, but the study report does suggest that our methods have failed. Several people want to once again bring in the evil of homosexuality, which must always be brought into any discussion of sex and The Episcopal Church, it seems. After all, the satanically inspired homosexuals are the reason for the present problems within the Church (and really society all together – particular in their attempts to destroy heterosexual marriage!). Right!?
I don’t think it is so much a forcing to focus on the homosexual issue, but it is easier to focus on “them” than to deal with “our” own failings. These kinds of statistics simply point out our hypocrisy and selective adherence to Scriptural norms. We all fail, and I think that should generate within us a sense of humility. It doesn’t seem to have that effect, however. Who wants to be humble when it feels so much better when we can extol our own vision of who we imagine ourselves to be and condemn everyone else who we like to think does not live up to our own self-selected, but failed, standards.
We should have very high standards, but realize and acknowledge our own failings first. This will save us the embarrassment of trying to explain our hypocrisy to a jaundiced and unbelieving world.
We could pass laws in the U.S. that mirror those up for consideration in Nigeria, which the good Archbishop publicly advocates for, but even if we pass such laws the ability to negate heterosexual sexual adventures and the bringing about of the salvation of marriage will not be advanced.
The Pharisees had lots and lots of laws they tried to obey and tried to force all of the Hebrews to obey to prove their devotion to God, and it didn’t work for them or for the people. It will not work for us, either.
Jesus made clear a change must first happen within the heart of the individual – only in that change will an honest change occur in the behavior of our citizens – homosexual and heterosexual. We focus far too much time on legalisms and less time on aiding the change of human hearts.
These statistics make clear that laws and even social pressure have not worked in this instance. Regardless of what we hope(d) will (would) happen, we are shown that our approaches to encouraging and realizing marital fidelity and sexual abstinence have simply not worked. So now what? Our attempts at scapegoating will not help.

Anthropologist Foresees a Christian Renaissance
“Ideologies Are Virtually Deceased,” Says René Girard

In the book, the French professor states that “religion conquers philosophy and surpasses it. Philosophies in fact are almost dead. Ideologies are virtually deceased; political theories are almost altogether spent. Confidence in the fact that science can replace religion has already been surmounted. There is in the world a new need for religion.”
In regard to moral relativism, defended by Vattimo, René Girard writes: “I cannot be a relativist” because “I think the relativism of our time is the product of the failure of modern anthropology, of the attempt to resolve problems linked to the diversity of human cultures.
“Anthropology has failed because it has not succeeded in explaining the different human cultures as a unitary phenomenon, and that is why we are bogged down in relativism.
“In my opinion, Christianity proposes a solution to these problems precisely because it demonstrates that the obstacles, the limits that individuals put on one another serve to avoid a certain type of conflicts.”
The French academic continues: “If it was really understood that Jesus is the universal victim who came precisely to surmount these conflicts, the problem would be solved.”
According to the anthropologist, “Christianity is a revelation of love” but also “a revelation of truth” because “in Christianity, truth and love coincide and are one and the same.”
The “concept of love,” which in Christianity is “the rehabilitation of the unjustly accused victim, is truth itself; it is the anthropological truth and the Christian truth,” explains Girard.

I think this is an interesting example of how consideration of the great and divisive issues of our day and their resolution will occur over time. Regrettably, we are at the point where we expect solutions and results and action NOW, not even tomorrow, but NOW. We can see this dynamic at play in the Anglican Communion right now, if we want to consider Christianity as the example, as Girard in fact does.
Solutions to truly significant human problems will not be realized in the immediate, in the urgent. In time flaws and weaknesses will be made plain and strengths will be clear.
As a Christian, I see our human endeavor outside of the immediate. My American 21st Century self wants to be subsumed by the tyranny of the urgent, but I need to see the human endeavor as something that has been, is, and will come – an eternal perspective of life ever after. The resolutions of the significant issues of our time will be resolved beyond my lifetime, but working for solutions and Truth is an everyday affair.
If I honestly want to know Truth, I have to be willing to admit in humility that everything I’ve believed up to this point could be wrong. If I don’t, then what I am really after is something that supports my already determined opinions, or at least in the general direction my thinking is going. Over arching Truth comes over time. Our Lord said that there is more truth to be made plain.
If we all can step back for a moment and consider that we could very well be wrong, all of us would be so much further ahead as we try to live with one another, respect one another in our differences, and we might truly have an idea of diversity without relinquishing the quest for Truth and the worth of our own systems and positions – if, in fact, time proves that these systems and positions bear up. The Anglican expression of Christianity has such a tradition, but this tradition is under a great strain right now. I don’t know whether we will survive intact, frankly due to people who want solutions and resolutions NOW. The demand for NOW comes from both the left and the right.
The homosexual issue that seems to be the flash-point of so much angst and consternation among American society and Christians worldwide today will be resolved not right NOW, but over time. Change is hard and too many resist it (of course, not all change is good and change for change sake is rarely all that great!).
I don’t know, Modernism is passing by and Post-Modernism seems to have the day. The “next big thing” is in play somewhere. As for me and my house (if I had one), I will look to the beginning of Wisdom and Truth as my source. I believe that to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of Sarah, Ruth, and Mary. (That does mean that I think others do not understand many aspects of the Truth, or in fact that others very often example that Truth more clearly and faithfully than those who claim the name).

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Some things just don’t need comment. Here is an article on a Religious Right website describing the new theory of why some males are homosexual – soy is “feminizing,” so says Jim Rutz on WorldNetDaily.
An excerpt:

“Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.”

The funny thing is, I remember a report coming out of one of the Religious Right anti-gay groups (Focus-on-the-Family, perhaps???) a few years ago. They were reporting that “research” demonstrated that gay men have above-average penis size, and that the result was embarrassment and fear over the “deformity.” This pushed them to avoid women and heterosexual relationships and to be with “like” people. Okay, well, I suppose their “research” and the conclusions drawn could be debated. Now, we see the new most current “research” showing small penile size and homosexuality result from the same source – soy products. Who is right, hum? I suspect neither.
Read all about it here.
I suggest all of us now boycott all soy products until God changes the formula so that it stops making heterosexual guys gay!
Via: Dappled Things