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Well… The title says it all. in a world where having sex is something you can do “for fun” and with anyone you like ( if you’re lucky;) – why does the church teach that we should live by the law of chastity?
Go ahead and give me your thoughts and comments:)
This is a mixed bag topic. But if I was to break it down I would say this. The church preaches chastity because it can and will dictate terms to the membership.
They way it goes about this, by teaching that human sexuality is evil, is not correct in my view, and is very unhealthy. It also points to a specific set of people, mainly western society that has hyper sexualized the human body through media. There are places in the world where a half naked body has no effect on the eye of the beholder.
Bear wrote:Well…The title says it all…in a world where having sex is something you can do “for fun” and with anyone you like ( if you’re lucky;) –
why does the church teach that we should live by the law of chastity?…Go ahead and give me your thoughts and comments The main reason I see for the idea that sex is serious business and not just fun and games because it is supposedly only intended by God to be strictly for procreation or at least only acceptable in marriage is mostly because some scriptures (Alma 39:3-5, Genesis 38:8-10) and Church leaders said so (appeal to authority). I think some of these ideas are basically outdated traditions left over from Puritan/Victorian times when they were actually the norm (in America at least). However, because the Church is led by men that are typically old and old-school that also venerate previous Church leaders as prophets and apostles that were supposed to speak directly for God this makes it harder for them to just accept and adapt to changes like the widespread availability of convenient and effective birth-control nowadays so instead the tendency is to resist changes like this as much as possible and to want to maintain the status quo or even try to go back to the way they remember when they were younger. We see it not just with chastity but in other cases as well (racism, women in the workplace, etc.) that it is fairly typical for the Church to lag at least 15-30 years behind the mainstream culture before eventually adopting or at least tolerating what they tried so hard to resist for so long and in some cases maybe they will never accept the world’s standards such as what we see with the WoW that wasn’t strictly enforced as a temple worthiness requirement until during prohibition.
Many of StayLDS topics are about things that are somewhat unique and recent inventions of the LDS church (WoW, temple worship, etc.). Chastity is somewhat different because I feel that it has been around in the Judeo-Christian sphere for as far back as we have records. In genesis it talks of “cleaving unto your spouse” and Eve is told that her desire will be unto her husband. So tradition is part of it.
I think another part of it is that marriage and family has been the dominant building block of society for a long time and remains so today. Promiscuity has the capacity to cause long lasting collateral damage to these building blocks.
Finally I believe that there is a personal cost to infidelity. The BOM talks about the tender hearts of the wives being broken by the actions of their husbands. I believe that there is much potential for misunderstandings and hurt feelings with non-commital sexual relations. Perhaps the worst manifestation of this would be feelings of being used – worthless and undervalued.
There is potential to mitigate many of these pitfalls. As has been mentioned, a single person who uses protection may mitigate some of the potential problems. In another example, it seems that two people that live together prior to marriage as a form of trial marriage do not have the same statistical drawbacks as people that are serially living with different partners.
I would like to see some changes in the emphasis and the way that Chastity is sometimes taught, but I’m fairly certain that Chastity as a concept isn’t going anywhere.
Quote:by teaching that human sexuality is evil
The LDS Church doesn’t teach that. In fact, the official teaching is the exact opposite. I know members present it improperly, and I know there are forms of human sexuality (like homosexuality) that are not accepted in the Church, but “human sexuality is evil” is not an accurate portrayal of the LDS Church’s view.
I don’t have time to write a fuller comment right now, but the very short version is that I approve of the concept and principle of a Law of Chastity wholeheartedly – even as I do not approve of many of the hedges that have been built up around the law.
Thanks a lot for the comments so far!! Roy, I really like your line of thinking and would love to hear more from you:)I am thinking from a pretty tbm /faithful perspective. Why does the law of chastity make sense to us?I guess emotionally I like the law but intellectually I have a hard time explaining it to other people/ to my self. The reason for this whole thread is that I want to be able to explain to others about my faith and why I live the way I do. (Wow, tithing etc) but I just can’t explain chastity in my own head. As I stated earlier, it’s much more a feeling to me. It makes sense emotionally…
If I go at it from a non lds perspective it’s very easy to come up with explanations but that’s not really where I am coming from:)Thanks a lot for the comments though. Looking forward to your reply ray:)
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:by teaching that human sexuality is evil
The LDS Church doesn’t teach that. In fact, the official teaching is the exact opposite. I know members present it improperly, and I know there are forms of human sexuality (like homosexuality) that are not accepted in the Church, but “human sexuality is evil” is not an accurate portrayal of the LDS Church’s view.
I think we teach very clearly that sexual beings cannot exist in the presence of God.
Mosiah 16
3 For they are carnal and devilish, and the devil has power over them; yea, even that old serpent that did beguile our first parents, which was the cause of their fall; which was the cause of all mankind becoming carnal, sensual, devilish, knowing evil from good, subjecting themselves to the devil.
4 Thus all mankind were lost; and behold, they would have been endlessly lost were it not that God redeemed his people from their lost and fallen state.
5 But remember that he that persists in his own carnal nature, and goes on in the ways of sin and rebellion against God, remaineth in his fallen state and the devil hath all power over him. Therefore he is as though there was no redemption made, being an enemy to God; and also is the devil an enemy to God.
Last year I had several members of the high priest group relaying that they didn’t even teach their kids about the birds and the bees as that was something that should only be discovered after a temple marriage, and that they themselves knew nothing at the time of their own marriages.
They clearly held sex at arms length. It was a mechanical process of necessity.
What an unfortunate, and damaging fruit that is. But just imagine the fallout if a youth leader gave a lesson about what sexual frustration is and why the youth are crazy.
I agree that there needs to be clear boundaries taught and emphasized, but there should also be room for understanding the sexual nature, not locking it in a box and hoping it dies.
Reflexzero, Obviously, you have had experiences and lessons in church that make you perceive the Church’s teachings in this way, so I’m not discounting that that is your view… that’s your view, and you are entitled to it.
But just to offer a balance, I can tell you that I have never heard the Church teach that sex is evil. In fact, I have heard the exact opposite, and been taught as such in church classes. I also do not interpret the passage that you quoted has having anything to do with sex inside of marriage. So, it may be clear for you, and I would say that for me, it is clear that the Church teaches that sex between a married man/woman partner is glorious and associated with the divinely appointed law of multiplying and replenishing the earth. I believe, in fact, that that is part of why the Church pushes the Law of Chastity; that it is messin’ with God-given powers to have sex outside of God-sanctioned (temple or civil) marriage.
Bear wrote:in a world where having sex is something you can do “for fun” and with anyone you like ( if you’re lucky;) – why does the church teach that we should live by the law of chastity?
Well, first off all, it’s not like we are in some new, enlightened age that has changed this. I assume that sex was just as fun for cavemen as for us today. Otherwise, we might not be here.There is a bit of a logic error that frequents discussions about ‘chastity’; that the Church teaches abstinence, and the world teaches the opposite.
The fact is that we have all kinds of worldly laws around sex. If you are 21 and you try to have sex with a 14-year-old, regardless of the ‘consent’ of the youngster, you probably should get a lawyer. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Church. Prostitution is generally illegal, because of the impossibility of controlling collateral damage. For example, you get have sex for money, legally, in Clark County, NV… and just a few miles away, you can find underage girls operating illegally in the sex trade, subject only to their pimp. The sex drive is so strong in humans, that sex, or sexual dominance, at least, leads to rape, incest, child molestation, sexual slavery, kidnapping… all kinds of things that we shudder to even think about. And so, completely outside the spiritual realm, our secular laws constrain sexual activity.
Regardless of what is legal/illegal, we also have social morality, even outside the Church, about what is good behavior. Uncontrolled sex drive has led to plenty of kids who don’t know who their dads are, and I think most people think of that as a societal problem, not a societal benefit. Unchecked sex drive not-uncommonly, leads to infidelity in marriage, and subsequent failed marriages, again, often with children living in the battle trenches. Even in our modern era, where sex between single partners isn’t viewed as wrong, I would venture to guess that most people would agree that cheating on your spouse is morally wrong.
What I’m getting at is that sex is a very powerful force in mankind. It’s wonderful when it binds two people that are in love. It’s terrible when used for dominance, or without regard to others. The LDS Church didn’t invent that… it’s been an issue since the dawn of time (six THOUSAND years ago
. The Church simply draws its lines around sexual behavior as being the marriage boundary… I think it’s perfectly proper for the Church to do so. I have no problem with people having consensual sensual sex when they are single, if that’s what they choose, but I can find no fault in any religion teaching that sex is an aspect of marriage.Well, I have to say that living the law of chastity for me is hard, as, of course, it is for everybody. I am single and am a recovering sex addict, although I’m still actually a virgin. Through all my successes and failures in my recovery and through prayer and scripture study, I have come to believe that managing my addiction is the way to go, not complete abstinence. Although the church teaches complete abstinence, it does acknowledge doing the best you can through line upon line, precept upon precept. In the celestial kingdom, I’m sure what kind of procreation is involved in creating spirit children, but I’m sure it’s probably better than even sex is. Ultimately, I understand the church isn’t against all sex, just unrighteous sex. The problem is that too many members of the church, along with many people that aren’t members of the church, have way too many sexual hangups. And also that in the old days, sex wasn’t talked about all that much. Unfortunately, I believe too much gets said of what not to do to avoid sexual sin that not enough is said of what to do to have healthy sexual feelings so you also can avoid sexual sins. Yes, I totally agree with you, the church emphasizes sex within legal and lawful marriage as approved. But please understand that is only a very small portion of the law of chastity in practice, that being strict and respectful fidelity to spouse after marriage. I mentioned earlier that the law of chastity is a mixed bag, because it branches off into many different areas. Modesty, dating, abuse, worthiness, leadership, interviews, media, adoption, marriage, standards, temple, and so on.
So in very general terms what I was trying to say is that that we tend to focus on building up the spiritual man and leave the carnal man to die in the ditch, when they are inseparably connected. We tend to try and suppress or destroy the natural man as an enemy to God, rather than try to understand it.
If we teach that we will be resurrected one day, with a body that we are going to have to live with for eternity, we should try to accept it a bit better I think.
It is disturbing to me when we blame sexual urges on the devil, when it is likely hormones and neurology at work.
But when someone asks for opinions, they will be many and varied. I look forward to reading more.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:The main reason I see for the idea that sex is serious business and not just fun and games because it is supposedly only intended by God to be strictly for procreation or at least only acceptable in marriage is mostly because some scriptures (Alma 39:3-5, Genesis 38:8-10) and Church leaders said so (appeal to authority). I think some of these ideas are basically outdated traditions left over from Puritan/Victorian times wen they were actually the norm (in America at least).
I guess I don’t think God “intended” or invented sex for X,Y or Z purpose. I think it’s more like God taking the given, the reality of sex and working out from that.
But commandments are always being filtered through our perceptions and thinking. So, I dunno…. I definitely don’t want to “go back” to any other time or place.
Contraception isn’t foolproof. The possibility of bringing an eternal being into the world should give people pause, and I don’t think the freedom and pleasure of the 99 is worth the distress of the 1.
Reflexzero wrote:Yes, I totally agree with you, the church emphasizes sex within legal and lawful marriage as approved. But please understand that is only a very small portion of the law of chastity in practice, that being strict and respectful fidelity to spouse after marriage.
I mentioned earlier that the law of chastity is a mixed bag, because it branches off into many different areas. Modesty, dating, abuse, worthiness, leadership, interviews, media, adoption, marriage, standards, temple, and so on.
So in very general terms what I was trying to say is that that we tend to focus on building up the spiritual man and leave the carnal man to die in the ditch, when they are inseparably connected. We tend to try and suppress or destroy the natural man as an enemy to God, rather than try to understand it.
If we teach that we will be resurrected one day, with a body that we are going to have to live with for eternity, we should try to accept it a bit better I think.
It is disturbing to me when we blame sexual urges on the devil, when it is likely hormones and neurology at work.
But when someone asks for opinions, they will be many and varied. I look forward to reading more.
Well said. Great point about “focus on building up the spiritual man and leave the carnal man to die in the ditch” and I completely agree that the Church should do a much better job of accepting people who don’t meet the ideal, and providing something of value to them.Interesting dialog. I will say that I tend not (at least not anymore) to see the gospel and church as a set of thou-shalt-nots. Probably because I’ve been a disaffected member for so long, I tend to see the good things that I want to strive for, and I ignore everything else. So for me, in my parlance, I see the Law of Chastity as meaning explicitly 100% fidelity to spouse, which I view as wonderful, important, and rewarding. In my mind, I look at everything else as outside the bucket. So, having sex outside of marriage is simply falling short of that ideal, and I give it small weight, as it doesn’t affect me or my situation. In other words, I view the Law of Chastity as a positive… not a set of negatives.
+ 1 On Own Now – Clearly the use of sex with or without procreation is a societal issue. Reflexzero wrote:Last year I had several members of the high priest group relaying that they didn’t even teach their kids about the birds and the bees as that was something that should only be discovered after a temple marriage, and that they themselves knew nothing at the time of their own marriages.
They clearly held sex at arms length. It was a mechanical process of necessity.
I can see how that may be a problem for many and how our culture is still very uncomfortable with discussions about sex. OTOH the official stuff I have been hearing from the top lately has been better. I have read a book I believe to be titled “between man and wife” that is very affirming of sexual relations in marriage. I know that the gospel essentials manual recommends using correct anatomical terms for body parts. For my part, I have tried to emphasize for my children what wonderous and amazing bodies that they have. Since my kids are 7 and 5 this mainly focuses on the interplay between their muscles and bones – but I hope to be setting the stage for more healthy discussions of human sexuality.
Reflexzero wrote:So in very general terms what I was trying to say is that that we tend to focus on building up the spiritual man and leave the carnal man to die in the ditch, when they are inseparably connected. We tend to try and suppress or destroy the natural man as an enemy to God, rather than try to understand it.
The BOM much more closely resembles traditional Christianity than the Mormon Theology that ultimately developed. This can be a good or a bad thing – depending on your perspective and the point you are trying to make. If I were to teach a lesson about positive sexuality – I might not get many good quotes from the BOM.
Reflexzero wrote:It is disturbing to me when we blame sexual urges on the devil, when it is likely hormones and neurology at work.
I am thankful to “Shades of Grey” (and I’m not talking about the StayLDS poster) for introducing elements of sexuality to DW. This has opened topics of conversation between husband and wife that have had a net gain to our intimacy. Yet, I am nervous about what kind or reception I might get if I suggested to some Mormon friends that “Shades” had a positive impact on our marital relationship. What does it mean to seek sexual satisfaction in marriage in a Mormon context?
I don’t think JS was just baking cookies with all the women he was involved with, so from my viewpoint the church from the start acknowledged relationships between the sexes. I think the church does a poor job now with proper sexual issues and the whole issue of masturbation is messed up, but we have discussed that issue at length.
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