Sean Lowe, star of ABC’s The Bachelor, is making headlines this morning. The Dallas native has taken a vocal stance as a “born-again virgin”—he had sex while in college, but has now chosen to remain celibate until he is married.
His decision has drawn enormous criticism. For instance, former Bachelorette Jillian Harris asks, “How can you really know if you have met the person if you don’t have sex with them?” She continues: “What happens if he doesn’t meet the right person—he just won’t have sex until he does? This is crazy, as it’s a huge part of a healthy relationship.”
Clearly, our culture sides with Harris. According to a recent study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 80 percent of unmarried “born-again” young adults (ages 18-29) say that they have been sexually active, only slightly less than the general population of unmarried adults.
To quote Dr. Phil, how’s our unbiblical approach to sex working for us?
The U.S. leads the industrialized world in teenage pregnancy—one in three girls in America becomes pregnant before the age of 20, 81 percent out of wedlock. More than 40 percent of all births in our country take place outside of marriage. Pornography makes more money in America than Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, Google, and Netflix—combined. America ranks first in the world in divorce rate. In 1960, 72 percent of American adults were married; in 2011, the number had fallen to 51 percent.
I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis‘s observation in Mere Christianity: “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That’s why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
“That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended—civilizations are built up—excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and run a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.”
Is your “engine” running on God’s word and Spirit today?
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