Tag: kissing

Brothers and sisters, not husbands and wives Part I

Silva

Religious people should act differently than non-religious people.  Among the reasons people engage in the religious cultus is the effect is has on living.  Seems logical, right?  Active participation in a set of practices motivated by unique beliefs should mark people A as different than people B.  Clearly, Christians should be marked by a specific set of behaviors and those behaviors should set them apart from others.

Alas, one look at a barna.org survey or article in any major newspaper will reveal that in the area of relationships (marriage preeminently) there is little to no difference between professing Christians and non-Christians.  The challenges in accurately defining “Christian,” notwithstanding, we who make claims to follow Christ don’t demonstrate our faith skillfully in relationships.  Here are excerpts from data from such a survey found at ReligiousTolerance.org

Religion % have been divorced
Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

More specifically:

Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate)

% who have been divorced
Non-denominational ** 34%
Baptists 29%
Mainline Protestants 25%
Mormons 24%
Catholics 21%
Lutherans 21%

And what about region?

Area % are or have been divorced
South 27%
Midwest 27%
West 26%
Northeast 19%

So much for the “Bible Belt” having any effect….Divorce, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, hostility, coldness, late-marriage divorces, etc. mark Christian Marriage.  This is pathetic, sad and hypocritical.

Why is it that way?  What are the reasons for these startling statistics?

Of course, the diagnosis is complicated.  But, as a student of young professing-Christians adults I tend to believe part of the problem is a poorly-managed pre-married relational life. By this I mean the period of time we spent dating, pre-engaged and then engaged.

This K-I-S-S-I-N-G or PDA blog thread has been aimed at this issue.  And this particular post strikes close to the heart of the relational problems.  The character of our pre-married relational life is most often marred by the fact that we don’t view each other as brothers and sisters but rather trial-husbands and trial-wives.

As a result, this relational time is marked by “dating divorces.”  How do you know if you have had a “dating divorce” or if what you’re watching in your close friend is a dating divorce?  By how it has or will end.    In other words, you can gauge the biblical character of a relationship by how it ends.  If a “break-up” is like a quasi-divorce in many ways, then the man and the woman treated each other like spouses during the relationship rather than like siblings.

A quasi-divorce would include things like great anger at each other, follow on depression, arguing over material things, indulgent addictive behavior, rushed follow-on relationships, no communication, or splintering among friend groups along “party” lines.

Many (most) Christian dating relationships-in-progress look like marriages with minor modifications:

  • Unrestrained physical touch save (usually) only sexual intercourse
  • Vigorous exclusion of other people and relationships
  • Baring of all secrets, thoughts, and desires
  • Intense dependence
  • Presence of jealousy
  • Practice of marriage roles: heads and helpers

Many operate on the “test drive the car before you buy” theory.  On Chicago public educator who, with her fiance, waited until their wedding day to kiss (gasp!), replied, “You can’t take the car out of the parking lot until you pay for it.”  Nice.

If many of our marriage problems find their roots in our pre-married relational life, then we should be more concerned about doing that part of our life right.  Right.  What makes a relationship between a non-married man and non-married woman “right?”  Let’s consider three things: authority, audience and approach.

Authority.  The appropriate constellation of questions to ask regards the regulation of such relationships: what standards are they using?

  • What is the relational playbook being used?
  • What is informing the conduct of such relationships?
  • Where are the rules written down for them?

We don’t do anything without rules, folks.  Whether they’re explicit or not we follow some set of rules.  It could be what you grew up seeing in your parents.  Maybe you’ve had “satisfying” relationships in the past and you’re just trying to do current ones that way.  Some search through the myriad of self-help relational books you can find at any Christian bookstore.  Oprah, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen…the list of celebrity “experts” is limitless.  Peers also provide rules – whatever my group is doing, I do.

We do all of this – Christians, now – because in some sense we believe the Bible doesn’t provide any relevant guide (save “No Sex”) for us.  Or worse, we won’t follow what the Bible does say.

Since this is part I of this particular topic, why don’t you take a minute and write down what you think the Bible says regarding non-married, heterosexual relationships.  What instructions does the Bible give to you?  How do you understand verses like 2 Timothy 3:16-17 relative to relationships?

Protecting (and running from) the Past

Silva

Seems like ancient history (almost) since I first blogged on K-I-S-S-I-N-G.  Well, a couple of recent conversations with friends have provoked me yet again (aren’t you glad).  In that first post, I gave as some reasons to stray from PDA (premarital displays of affection) the following:

If you have any sexual history, it will become alive again; you will be battling old temptations and practices

Your significant other’s sexual history may become alive again

Each time you meet, you would be fighting not to be consumed with each other physically; it will dominate your thoughts

Let’s talk through these.  Maybe an analogy could help with this.  The other night, we ate dinner meal at our church.  As usual, I surveyed the tables for dessert and there they were: red velvet cookies with cream cheese frosting.  I was transfixed on that large plate of cookies.  (Actually, I was thinking about how I could sneakily put other food back so I could make more room for those little fat pills.)  I didn’t notice until several minutes later that there were actually two other (wonderful) desserts.  I didn’t notice because I LOVE red velvet cake, cookies, brownies, etcetera with cream cheese icing.  I’ve had it and I love it.  I’ve had it and I notice it when it is around.  I’ve had it and I look forward to having it again.

OK.  It’s obvious right?  But it is as true as it is obvious. What is at work in this situation as a representation of PDA is the human tendency towards memory-based attachments (read: worship and slavery).  We were made to worship – there are no cultures in the world of any kind of development that lack worship structures.  That’s not a product of evolution or expediency; it’s a result of how we are created.  Yet, in our current condition, our tendency is rather than to worship the one true God, we divert our affections and attention to other things; especially those things we’ve enjoyed before.  We give those things power over us.  They become our masters by our own choosing and we, their slaves.

Our bodies are preeminently involved in this.  Feed the body (in any way) and the body becomes the + side of a magnet and the feed the – and what do you have?  Attraction that borders on inescapability.  (We see this in any number of addictions to food, fun, sex, drugs, etc.  This is why the body experiences “withdrawal.”) It is inescapable outside of a controlling and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ.  There is explicit slavery involved when the lusts / passions are excited.  The lusts of the flesh – about which we are all too familiar – have no competing conscience.  What is there to stop my hunger, thirst and pursuit of these things but situational limitations (fear of getting “found out” or of being scorned, etc.)?  Reading Romans 6:12, we see, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to obey its passions.” This is the experience of a non-Christian.

As Christians, these passions / lusts / excitations are NOT inescapable.  We saw that in the verse I cited above.  Far from being an explicit, deterministic slavery it becomes an implicit slavery.  There is a war on, now, and each day we wage it on one side or the other.  Wave a red velvet cookie in front of my nose and watch me and you’ll see who’s winning the war. In speaking of physical hunger, the implications of tasting once are obvious.  Tasting again is as inevitable as it is planned, “I WILL ask T.C. to make those cup cakes again!  Oh Man!”  We were made to eat and so this is normal.  This is the means that God uses to incline us to eat.  (Maybe more healthy than red velvet, though.)

Physical hunger is symbolic to other types.  Ask anyone one of us who are married about other types of hunger and you’ll eventually hear “It is so enjoyable, I look forward to it again.”  That’s perfectly normal.  We’re made that way.  We see that in physical hunger as in any other type.  So, having kissed, you’ll want to kiss again.  Having held hands, and you’ll look for reasons to grasp hands.  Having had sex and the hunger for it will resurface with a vengeance.

The last reason cited above, the “preoccupation of purity” is a significant issue.  If you are in a serious relationship with another, there is so much to know.  Intimacy presupposes revelation – one goes as the other goes. Growing intimacy presupposes growing revelation; it is required.  The inverse is also true: problems come in relationships because of ignorance.

If physical touch is a part of the relationship, then, because we are human and built for physical relations with the opposite sex, that becomes a dominating part of the relationship.  Growing physical intimacy leads to diminished revelational intimacy; less knowledge.  Why?  The risks become too high.  The more someone finds out about another, the greater chance they will like the other less.  That will lead to less physical intimacy and that’s risky (if that is a key component of the relationship).  On the other hand, the more someone finds out about another, and the more they like what they find, the less likely it is they’ll keep from more physical intimacy and that’s risky.  Holiness is out the window, then.

Consider an example: two young people are physically touching each other as a part of their relationship.  At some point, they have a conflict.  Now there is a fear that because of the conflict, physical touching will end.  Physical touching is really good so that becomes a major motive for resolving the conflict.  Is resolving conflict for the sake of unimpeded physical touch a good thing?  Whatever happened to resolving conflict for the glory of Christ?  Or, for the good of the unity of the church?  Or for the witness of sound church-family relations to the watching world?

Seems to me that if you excite the past you’ll likely wreck the present.

Wait to Smooch – #1

Silva

I thought that I’d handle my 11 reasons why not to kiss before marriage in reverse order just to give the appearance of creativity…actually, I think this is one of the strongest reasons so I will start here.

11. You will likely be committing spiritual adultery – loving someone more than Christ; if you loved Christ, you’d treat people like sisters and brothers and not spouses

Keep in mind what I’m trying to do here.  Twice now by good friends I’ve been warned against “binding the conscience” with this viewpoint.  Well taken.  I wholeheartedly believe in Christian liberty and have NO desire to cross a line into either license or legalism (I am very thankful for the challenge!).  So, I understand “bind the conscience” (principle taken from passages like Romans 14) forcing people to live by restrictions that are not stipulated in the Bible.  As if to develop some kind of unbiblical, restrictive code that people must live by.  If my dear Christian family mean something other than that, then that’s fine – that’s where I am, however.

If I can demonstrate that PDA (pre-marital displays of affection captured by K-I-S-S-I-N-G) is regulated in the Bible, then I am not engaging in conscience-binding.  If I succeed then I am simply teaching what the Bible says regarding PDA (even though PDA isn’t a biblical phrase).  I hope to demonstrate that PDA is not a matter of conscience but a regulated activity created for and practiced within the confines of marriage alone.

Why this viewpoint?  To safeguard us from the culture-creep?  Maybe.  Because of my own history.  Possibly.  Because of the wreckage that I’ve seen PDA do in marriages?  Could be.  Mainly, because I believe male-female relations are so complex and significant that these things are spoken of by God.  The stakes are very high.

How high is the subject of my first reason. James 4:1-5 is where I draw this from.

1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?

There were fights and quarrels in the church according to this passage because there were heart-wars breaking out and spilling onto each other.  What was the subject of those wars?  Desires.  These desires (pleasures, NASB; passions, ESV) can be good or bad.  Bad desires are clearly bad.  Good desires (security, companionship, svelt-ness (!)) become sinful when they are inordinately wanted.  A look at the verbs indicate great strength: lust, envy, asking with wrong motives; these are strong.

There is a process to all of this.  Desires don’t just break out into full scale battle.

Fact 1.  We are married to Christ (v.5) and He is jealous for us

Fact 2.  We have built in human desires.

Fact 3.  At times, we crave apprehending these things more than we want Him or wait for Him to provide.

Fact 4.  We forsake Him and commit adultery against Him (v.4), become His enemy and become friends with the world; we leave our marriage bed with Him and hop into the sack with what we’re seeking

Fact 5.  We pursue these now-sinful, adulterous passions in and through each other mostly (v.2) and other things, secondarily

Fact 6.  Our jealous Husband, Jesus Christ pursues us and frustrates our pursuit of our own pleasures in and through each other (v.4) and other things

Fact 7.  Rather than accept His rebuke, we are frustrated / angry and quarrels and fights break out (v.1)  among us – “If you would just give me what I’m asking for….”

This is the logic of sin.  It starts with the fact that we are married to Christ and being married to Him means seeking from Him our desires (Psalm 37:4; relevant context in that Psalm – check it out).  It is our marriage to Christ that is at stake in our lives.  Sin does many things and means many things but it FIRST is adultery against our Husband.

James states this process slightly differently in 1:13-15.

14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

Here we read of our own desires (same word as 4:1) that lure and entice us and lead to sin.  The overall picture is that we have desires / passions / pleasures that are constantly at work within us.  They bait and entice us and if we follow, we sin.  In chapter 4, James tells us that if we don’t manage those we will commit adultery against Him which will lead to violence against each other.

The marriage metaphor is striking given our discussion, no?  It is a legitimate question, “can you kiss and tell Christ?”  Can you walk hand-in-hand with two lovers?  I ask the people who come to me for help and who have committed PDA, “why did you do it?”  “What were you seeking that couldn’t be found in Christ?”  The answers always lead to a desire (sometimes legitimate) that they couldn’t wait to get in marriage or didn’t even try to seek from Christ (see Psalm 34:8).

PDA does not exist in isolation – it is fruit of desires (not just sexual desires but also inordinately sought legitimate desires: closeness, companionship, excitement, loneliness, isolation…).  I maintain that PDA is fruit of desires that God has given us that we would quench, a) in Him while single, and b) in our spouse when married.  Can one give reasons for PDA that maintain fidelity to Christ?  Why should PDA be done?

There you have it.  Reason #1 to Wait to Smooch.