The Other Failure of “True Love Waits”
You’ve probably seen people criticize church-led abstinence programs by saying that they are ineffective, or that they create feelings of guilt in young people. While I do have a very serious problem with the “True Love Waits” campaign, it’s not entirely for the same reasons. (First of all, plenty of people I know from church decided to wait until their wedding night to have sex. Secondly, it is possible to teach this sort of thing without guilt-mongering, even though that does happen. And it shouldn’t.)
My criticism is of a different nature. It’s that phrase: “True love waits.” It showed up on signs and posters in the hallways of our churches, and it had “1 Cor 13:4-8” printed next to it in small letters, which we assumed was a Bible passage instructing us not to have sex.
It all made sense until we decided to look up the verse for ourselves:
What was going on, here? That didn’t have anything to do with sex. In fact, it didn’t even say “true love waits!”
Some of our teachers were confused when we pointed this out. (Shame on you, if your entire teaching relies on a single verse that you didn’t bother to read.) It was like they hadn’t expected us to be curious, but, rather, to nod our heads and accept their teachings without question. Some of them even thought these discussions were disrespectful!
A few of them told us that “true love waits” was an optional translation of the phrase “love is patient.” That was fine with us – we were smart enough to understand that translations can be tricky business – but couldn’t they see how this unraveled the whole lesson? Was there, in fact, any part of the Bible that explicitly told us when we were allowed to have sex? (As teenagers, that sort of thing was on our mind, quite a lot.)
But that was just the tip of the iceberg. What about the other things they taught us? Did every lesson of theirs come from an obscure, optional translation of a Bible verse that was taken out of context? And were we supposed to build our view of God by cherry picking Bible passages that suited our desires and applying them however we wanted?
These were the questions we had after the True Love Waits campaign was over. Our teachers were not able to answer them, which, quite frankly, made it hard for us to trust them. Not to mention, we were more confused than ever about sex. As if that wasn’t complicated enough.
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I agree, Adam. The main problem I have with church abstinence programs is the idea of waiting–it isn’t big enough. All programs/curricula do this. Waiting for marriage is not enough. What if I never get married? What if when I do get married sex is unfulfilling or even abusive? The telos–wait for marriage–is too short-sighted. We ought to wait for sex, but that waiting happens in the larger context of our exceedingly more desperate waiting for Christ’s return. I believe part of the reason these programs are ineffective is because they isolate sex from the rest of the body and the rest of life. They treat sex as the whole when really it’s one part.
This is the problem, I think, with True Love Waits’ use of the 1 Cor. passage. If we understood sex as a part of, or one facet of something bigger–capital-L Love–then we would necessarily apply our ideas about sex to that famous passage. (But we would still need supplementary evidence to support the mandate for waiting for marriage—something we won’t find in a single verse/passage anywhere. (But how am I going to put that on a T-shirt??))
Anyway, all that to say, I agree: context is as serious a problem as guilt-mongering.
Taking passages out of context, or trying to make them more specific than they are is, sadly, very common.I remember a youth conference when I was a teen that used the passage from Habbakuk 1.5 “Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days– You would not believe if you were told.” (Hab 1:5 NAU) They tried to make it about something really cool God would do among the nations dealing with salvation…when the verse is about destruction of nations who are against God. Oops!
I do have a question, though. Renea, you mentioned in your comment that there are no verses or passages that indicate sex only belongs in marriage (i.e., waiting for marriage). What do you do with 1 Corinthians 7?
First, verses 1-2, which says while it is good for people to abstain (good for a man to not touch a woman) it is better to marry to avoid sexual immorality (the Greek includes fornication here.)
Also, verses 7-9. Again, it is good to remain unmarried, but if you do not have self control and you “burn” with sexual desire it is better to marry.
Sorry, let me clarify, no passage gives an explicit mandate to “wait for marriage.”
1 Cor 7 is a good place to go to affirm that the Bible advocates sex within non-polygamous marriage and advocates against extra-marital sex.
It’s my understanding that verses 1-2 refer to persons already married wondering if it’s more spiritual to abstain. But verses 8-9 (which Paul admits is merely his preference and not a command from the Lord) are certainly closer to the mark, and yet still not a call to “wait.” Now, if I saw an abstinence campaign that said: “Those who can stay cool stay single. The uncool get married. 1. Cor. 7:8-9” then okay. (Actually not okay, and likely to be even less effective, but somewhat less contextually offensive.)
Again, I think any extramarital sex is not okay, including sex before marriage. I think the Bible affirms this. I don’t think there’s a nifty verse that spells it out.
Renea you make a good point about the idea just not being big enough. Another issue I see with programs like this is that they frequently teach that sex is a sin. Sex is not a sin, it is just sinful to have it outside of marriage. When people are conditioned to believe that an act is sinful and then all of a sudden it is not (the day before marriage = sin, the day of marriage = not sin), then the transition is difficult and the mind has to be re-trained. I think the presentation is faulty and causes problems later for people who mistakenly see sex itself as the sin based on the program and its teachings.
the comment above was me, I forgot to sign it. – scott shiffer