Day: June 12, 2014

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Unhooked and Set Free (Part 1)

two women walking on beachMaura is a young and spirited woman who invited me into her life.   She seems to welcome the experience of age and expresses the need for a “mother” figure.  Maura is intelligent.  More mature than most her age.  She has a tangible dream and works hard in college.  Maura displays all the normal feelings and emotions that come with being female.  But, there is more.  Wisdom speaks to Maura through her conscience.  The answers to my questions consistently reveal that Maura delights in all things of God… but, she is “hooked” to her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend’s words of love cause Maura to feel special so, when he has demands, she tries to please.    The warmth of his embrace encourages her loyalty, but his lack of commitment makes her vulnerable.  She clings to the relationships with hope that it will change.

Maura and I have talked at length about who and Whose she is.  Her eyes glisten when I explain that because of what Jesus Christ has done she is a daughter of God.  If too much time passes between our visits, I text with an invitation to walk or meet for lunch.  Rarely does Maura refuse.  She’s happy to bring me up to date, explaining her work and studies.  When the conversation turns to relationships, Maura smiles when she talks about her dad.  “I’m happy when I’m with him.  I feel safe at home.”  But, when I inquire about her boyfriend, Maura’s smile always fades.

One day, Maura seemed less confident.  More sad.  She uttered not one positive or hopeful word about her boyfriend.  “So,” I asked, “why do you stay with him?”  Her shoulders drooped.  She stared past me with no particular focus.  She sighed, then almost seemed to shutter.  “He isn’t good for me,” she confessed.  “But, it’s so very strange.  After we’ve been– you know–together, the harder it is to think about breaking up.”

The honesty of our friendship compelled me to take a deep breath… then look into her eyes.  “Maura, you’ve fallen into a bad habit… and now you’re hooked.”  Tears that flowed were evidence of the tug-of-war for Maura’s heart but also for her mind and soul.

Maura is “hooked” not because she is uneducated, but because she is wrongly educated.  Maura is “hooked” not because she missed out on “Sexuality 101″ but because she was encouraged at a young age to “be comfortable with her sexuality.”  The well-worn saying goes, “Our parents were too quiet about sex.  We need to inform our kids.”  All the information in the world, however, does not necessarily help children and teens.   The “feeling” part of the brain is in fine working order at a young age, but the judgment part of the brain (pre-frontal cortex) is not fully developed until the late teens or early twenties.

Maura is “hooked” not because she doesn’t have a protective dad, but because in his fear he believes that he’s helping his “sexual” daughter by putting her on the Pill and shooting her up with Gardasil.  But does he know why his daughter’s young body isn’t ready for sex?  Does he know what affect years of chemicals and hormones will have on his daughter?  Does he know that he is needed to set boundaries because his daughter lacks good judgment when oxytocin floods her brain?

Maura is “hooked” by a culture that daily sexualizes children.  Maura is convinced that sexy clothes and sensually intimate behavior are normal and expected.  But if she is so normal, why is she so unhappy?  Why does her heart ache?  Why does her soul seem troubled?  Maura is in conflict with herself because she lacks vital information beginning with the simple fact that male and female are different.

Maura is “hooked” by the claws of militant feminists who deny gender differences.  They have worked long and hard to minimize, manage and misrepresent everything that is girlish and womanly.   No one informed Maura that her female brain predisposes her to yearn for love, understanding, connection, and communication.  No one informed Maura that her chemistry promotes attachment and trust of her boyfriend.  No one told Maura that her female wiring causes her to take risks by overlooking her boyfriend’s shortcomings.  Maura’s unique physiological vulnerability to intimate behavior was never explained because that would be a “gender stereotype.”

Maura knows her relationship isn’t what it should be.  As a Christian, she knows it isn’t what God desires for her.  But, even if she wasn’t a Christian, she would sense that something was wrong.  What is wrong is that educators in “sexuality” have wrongly identified  Maura as a “sexual being”.  But she is so much more than a body overwhelmed by feelings, urges and desires.  She is a head that can think, a heart that can love and a soul that will endure beyond this lifetime.

As Maura’s friend and mentor, I have promised not to fail her by repeating foolishness.  There is one truth for Maura… and all the rest of us.  It is the truth of our design.  Divine design.  This design by God is evidenced by our anatomy, pure biology and credible scientific study.  It is evidenced by the consequences of our choices and behaviors.

The bottom line for me is that Maura matters.  So, we are discussing a new life — unhooked and set free.  Set free to be more of what God created her to be.

Recommended reading:
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
Unprotected
This was first posted by Ezerwoman

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Sex Education in the Church

My book coverOn May 29, 2014, Todd Wilken helped his listeners learn more about the new book entitled The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity.  The book is available on Amazon.

Please listen to the interview (following a brief commercial) by clicking Sex Education in the Church

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Too Long at the Animal Circus

creepy circus clowns“Sexuality” appears to be the one “right” above all others. It dictates how things are done in the marketplace, classroom, court of law, and military. It even threatens to re-define marriage.

How did this come to be? I think it’s because we stayed too long at the animal circus.

At the animal circus, children are wrongly identified. They are not seen as their Heavenly Father sees them, but as people of a different faith want to see them. “Children,” said Alfred Kinsey, “are sexual from birth.” Kinsey didn’t mean that children are either a boy or a girl. He meant that children can enjoy and benefit from early sexual activity.

Something smelled foul in the circus tent but those who wanted to hear that even children are defined by their “sexuality” — indeed, their sexual desires and inclinations, were ecstatic. Others, including many Christians, were troubled but decided to accept the data of this “social scientist” and examine human sexuality in light of his “new information”. Kinsey made a mockery of science. Nevertheless, he and other humanists such as John Money, Mary Calderone and Lester Kirkendall set in place a social movement that changed the way we see our children and each other. Children were sexualized and imagined as little more than animal-like beings captive to urges and desires.

The “progressive” folk among us already knew they were “animal-like.” Charles Darwin said so and many believed him. All who resisted the God who creates life and, therefore, has authority over that life determined that now they had “license” to do as they pleased. Piggy-backing (how animal-like!) on the theory of Darwin, Kinsey plunged into “scientific” study with the goal of breaking down all sexual inhibitions. Kinsey’s “scientific” study has been exposed as fraudulent and criminal. (See resources below.) Yet the distorted truth of a psychologically twisted and sexually deviant Kinsey seems to have more influence on our present culture than God’s Word. Kinsey and other secular humanists lured parents, pastors and teachers away from guarding purity, modesty, and the innocence of children. The animal circus of sex education went on the road.

“Get your tickets here!” cried Kinsey. “Come one, come all!” cried Mary Calderone of SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.). Four generations have been trained to believe that “sexuality is our entire selves, influences us in every way, and encompasses everything” but left clueless about what it means to be male or female. Sex education has equipped boys and girls to be sexual, not relational; all about me, rarely about others; less inhibited, but more at risk; and far more hopeless than hopeful.

We’ve been too long at the animal circus. What is the evidence?

  • Parents assume that their children will be sexually active.
  • Too many young women are held captive by the political correctness of feminism and denied the biological facts that explain why a female body is more vulnerable than a male body physically and psychologically. (Visit Miriam Grossman, M.D. or read her book, Unprotected.)
  • The brains of young men and women have been “re-wired” and addicted to sex. (Read Hooked by Joe McIlhaney, M.D., or You’re Teaching My Child What? by Miriam Grossman, M.D.)
  • An increased number of husbands and wives who have partnered intimately with others prior to their marriage are discontent and in search of having their “needs” better satisfied.
  • Pregnancy resource centers hearing from adolescent girls who consider themselves “normal” because they dress “hot” and have casual sex but can’t understand why they are “not happy” or “content”.
  • Girls demanding the “right” to “shower together” during church retreats and experiment on Christian campuses with bi-sexual and lesbian lifestyles. (These examples from personal testimonies.)

The Church stands guilty. Fearful and not wanting to be irrelevant, Christians filed God’s Word on sexual purity under “Unrealistic.” Willingly or unwilling, they adapted the ways of circus trainers to keep pace with the world. Too many Christians assumed that as long as Jesus was part of sex education, their children would be all right. But they are not all right. Children pay the price every time we try to wrap Jesus around the foolishness of the world.

Nowhere in Scripture does God identify male and female as “sexual beings”.  He does not call male and female to be “sexual” but to be “holy” (1 Peter 1:14-16).  God created male and female to be so much more than our urges, desires and perceived “needs”. We are, by His design, persons of great significance with bodies, minds and souls. We are male or female and, no matter if we are young or old, single or married, we can live in relationship to our brothers, sisters and neighbors. We can work and play side by side without any hint of sexual intimations.

Is there hope? Yes… away from the animal circus.

Away from the animal circus, we are better able to see children as God sees them. Each child is God’s own (Isaiah 64:8) and called by name (43:1) to be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work (2 Timothy 2:21).

Followers of Christ Jesus need to abandon the animal circus. The structure is unsound and the tent began to collapse long ago.

Resources:
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett (Amazon)
Stolen Honor, Stolen Innocence by Judith Reisman, Ph.D.
(Original title Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences)
The Children of Table 34 (google for Youtube video)
The Kinsey Syndrome (DVD)

This post was first written 3-23-2011 and posted by Ezerwoman