parents and children

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A Letter to Parents

  jesus walking with child

What follows are excerpts from a letter written by a Lutheran pastor to the parents of his confirmation students ~

This summer I read a new book by a Missouri Synod author.  Linda Bartlett has written a most helpful volume called The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity. This book discusses the origins of the modern notions of “sex education,” the consequences of those notions being taught in the public schools since the 1960s, and a plea to Christian parents and churches not to repeat the secular “sex ed” model among children and teenagers in the local congregation.

On the basis of what I have learned, I make the following request. I encourage you to opt [your child] out of sex education.

I make this request of you knowing that some may be concerned that their child will “stand out” from their peers by not attending the sex ed class. I understand. Permit me to suggest you look at things this way.

On the day your child is confirmed, I will ask this question: “Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?” (Lutheran Service Book 273) Being hassled for not attending the sex ed class may be seen in terms of the “suffer all” wording from the Rite of Confirmation. Long before we suffer death for being Christians in these United States of America, there will be all kinds of smaller “sufferings” that we may endure for the sake of our faith and convictions. Not attending the sex ed class may be one of them. But we take heart in the words of St. Paul:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-5)

Photo source: http://www.daydreamsaboutgod.wordpress.com
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church:
Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett (Amazon.com)

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The Order of Purity

My book cover

There is hope. There is always hope.

Many parents, grandparents, pastors and teachers mourn the sexualization of children. They ask: Why? How did this come to be? In what ways have we failed Jesus’ little ones? Were we deceived? If so, by whom? Did we put our trust in something other than God’s Word?

These questions and others are being discussed this fall in various locations across the Midwest. Together with pastors who have read and affirm my book, The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity, I am engaging Christians who grieve the loss of childhood innocence and want to do something about it. Most hopeful is the vocal and discerningly wise response of a younger generation of parents and pastors. Soon, I hope to make public some of those responses.

For now, however, let me encourage all moms and dads who want to guard the physical and spiritual health of sons and daughters; who want to guard a son’s right to childhood, right to boyhood, and right to godly manhood; who want to guard a daughter’s right to a childhood, right to girlhood, and right to maidenhood. Be not ashamed to instruct your child in purity for it is the Word of God. Sex education, in or out of the Church, builds on a secular humanist foundation; therefore, it will always lean the wrong way. Instruction in purity is rooted in Christ Himself; therefore, it will serve well in this life and into the next. Sex education too easily shapes a sexual identity. Instruction in purity reminds the baptized of their holy identity.

Sex education helps children focus more on the “yeses” of sex and less on the “shalt nots.” Sex education dangles the carrot of glorious marital sex before children beginning at a young age, but then instructs young people to delay marriage until graduating from college, securing a good job and paying off some debt. Instruction in purity understands that we no longer live in the Garden of Eden. For this reason, it neither arouses love before its time nor does it place obstacles in the way of youthful marriage and the faithful growing of family.

True to God’s Word, there is an order for instruction in purity. When a Christian mother by the name of Laeta asked how she could raise her daughter to purity, the Church father Jerome answered: First teach the rules of life from Proverbs, the patience and virtue of Job, the epistles, and the prophets. Only then, and at a more mature age, is there wisdom in directing a young woman to read about marriage and the spiritual bride in Song of Songs. *

There is hope. There is always hope in God’s design and order for life.

*With appreciation to Christopher W. Mitchell,
Concordia Commentary The Song of Songs, p. 278

The Failure of Sex Education in the Church:
Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett (Amazon.com)

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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