The Fundamental Re-Contextualization of Love 1

I am discontent with the manner in which love, sex, and relationship talks have been presented to teenagers for quite some time. I want to attempt to correct some flaws, mistakes, and abuses with my teaching on this subject. And, I want to offer hope, redemption, and a better way.

On the one hand, students have the typical response to anything "borderline" within the Christian understanding: Run as far away from it as possible! So, you have groups like "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" who have a hybrid "wait until you're older/group date/arranged marriage" model. While I have occasionally seen this model work, I have also seen it cause 1) sexual issues within marriage or relationships and 2) unresolved sexual and relationship anxiety within teenagers (and we all know that there is enough of that without sex getting involved.) This model, much like prohibition, has ironically caused many students to violently rebel against it. The students experience some joys within the sphere of relationships by "rebelling" (because relationships are not inherently wrong), and they do not immediately feel guilty or condemned. On the contrary, they feel liberated. Unfortunately, this is where the story normally takes a turn for the worse. Because there is no framework for healthy sexual expression or relationship management, the students venture into the wilderness without guidance or help (and often the opposite reactions of condemnation and guilt trips result.) With no presentation of expressing love other than history, media, and culture, the students will often learn to "make love" just like in the movies. In short, by forcing students to abstain from something that is good but can become twisted, this model quickly becomes an unneeded enslavement that normally results in an unguided, undisciplined, and unsupported exodus.

On the other hand, students are daily inundated by a sex-saturated culture that seems to portray that the only true way to express love to someone is sex (thus the term, make love.) Movies, music, and television shows continually show the grim reality that culture has no healthy manner to express love to anyone other than sex. Homosexuality is glorified mostly because there is no healthy, non-taboo way to functionally show love to someone of the same gender. And, if culture's primary expression of love is sex, the obvious reality is that love is shown to the same gender. Therefore, culture's highest expression of same-gender love is homosexuality. My question is merely: why are we surprised? There are few healthy alternatives to culture's predominated theory on love and sex. The saddest expressions and problems with culture's alternative to love and sex is the fact that often 1) people become objects that serve a physical purpose, 2) no presentation of healthy sexuality is offered, and 3) the "liberation" is often a gateway to a new, but tragically different, enslavement. Quite simply, culture offers freedom to explore relationships. In short, culture's model offers liberation but no guidance or boundaries.

As you can see, both models leave students in some sort of new land with no guidance, no boundaries, and no support system. Both models are obviously too far on the extremes to either do any functional good. Both models ultimately lead students to a land of slavery instead of being set free. Both models do more harm than good.

As we progress in talking about a new model, think through the implications, the expressions, and the manifestations of any new model set forth. In the end, we need to not be shaped by culture or a reaction to culture. In the end, we must be shaped by the Spirit that dwells in us and Scripture.