Randal Rauser's Blog, page 177

Does abstinence belong in sex education?

This morning I read the following tweet from Justin Schieber:

“Comprehensive sex education usually includes some promotion of abstinence. The abstinence portion should be replaced with anti-natalism.”

This prompted me to tweet a short question: “What’s wrong with abstinence?”

Justin tweeted back, “Nothing. There’s also nothing wrong with sex.”

Unfortunately, this response made no sense, except (perhaps) as a piece of rhetoric intended to deflect a serious question. In his response Justin concedes that there is nothing wrong with abstinence. By then immediately adding “There’s also nothing wrong with sex” he seems to imply tacitly that there is something wrong with abstinence. So which is it?

I pressed on by asking: “Since there’s nothing wrong with abstinence, why do you want to eliminate it from comprehensive sex ed?”

Justin replied: “I just think teaching it is far too often a method of imposing sex-negative ideas/shame.”

But of course, that is beside the point, as I noted in my response: “Since there’s nothing wrong with abstinence, why not replace bad abstinence ed with better abstinence ed?”

I am certainly not up on sexual abstinence curricula, but in the familiarity I do have, the reason for abstaining from sexual relations is not because sex is inherently a negative, shameful act. Rather, it is because sex is (1) extremely powerful and (2) extremely valuable.

Let’s begin with (1) power. Society restricts access to alcohol to adults: depending on the jurisdiction you’re in, the drinking age may be 18, 19, or 21. If you are not of age, you are taught and encouraged to abstain from the consumption of alcohol. This is very wise instruction: every year the excessive consumption of alcohol exacts a devastating toll on young people from death by alcohol poisoning and drunk driving to physical altercations and other reckless behavior.

Sometimes abstinence from alcohol is taught in a shame-based way. “That alcohol is the devil’s urine!” But of course, it would be absurd to decry teaching alcohol abstinence to young people because of such abuses. Instead, the answer is to teach that alcohol is something good and pleasurable, but it is also proper to restrict its consumption to adults because it is powerful.

That’s the way I see abstinence from sex being taught. It is a recognition that sex, like alcohol, is powerful. If engaged in improperly it can wreak enormous damage. That isn’t to devalue sex. Rather, it is to appreciate the great power it has, and to grant it the proper respect.

Second, sex is also extremely valuable, and the point of something valuable is that you restrict its usage. For example, you only take out your prize Italian convertible on sunny days and you never drive it in the winter.

Similarly, sex is the kind of thing that people recognize to be valuable. It isn’t something you engage in with just anybody. People will disagree over what degree of restrictions are rightly imposed given the value of sex, but the point is that abstinence education is predicated on a general recognition of this principle. Who values sex more? The person who believes it is a beautiful act which should only properly be shared with a loving covenant partner, or the person who thinks it is fine as a perfunctory exchange with a perfect stranger in a bathroom stall?

To sum up, unless you think that sex is not particularly powerful or valuable, you should recognize in principle the value of abstinence as a component of sex education. And that means if you see abstinence education being done poorly, the answer is not to remove abstinence education. Rather, the proper response is to offer your own proposals as to how abstinence education can be done better.

My interview on atheism with Dr. Michael Brown

Dr. Michael Brown, host of the Line of Fire Radio Show at www.lineoffireradio.com/

I’ve done forty or fifty radio interviews over the years, but I found this exchange with Dr. Michael Brown on his program “The Line of Fire” to be one of the most enjoyable. Dr. Brown is a conservative evangelical and I’m a progressive evangelical. But his deportment in intellectual exchange is generous and courteous. And I’d prefer talking to a courteous conservative over a pestiferous progressive any day.

In this conversation, recorded on July 8, 2015, we discussed atheism in popular culture in conversation with my book Is the Atheist My Neighbor? Our exchange occupies the first half of the broadcast, but the whole show is worth a listen.

Is the Atheist My Neighbor? is now available in Kindle

Need I say more? You can purchase the Kindle edition for a mere $9.99 at Amazon here.

It’s also available in Kindle at Amazon in (… big intake of breath …) the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, India, Japan, Italy, and Mexico. 

But not, apparently, Tuvalu, Liechtenstein or Seychelles.

The death of the Christian bookstore

When I was growing up we regularly visited our local Christian bookstore,  “Scriptural Supplies” (could you get a less commercially savvy name than that?!). I have a lot of good memories visiting the store and purchasing modest toys and “Christian candy” when I was young and books and music when I grew older. (While I preferred Van Halen and Journey, my mom would never pay for that music, but she would buy Stryper and Petra.)

As I entered university, my book selection shifted to titles that I purchased in the university bookstore. And without my mom’s subsidies, my music selection shifted firmly into the secular market. By the mid-nineties I had left the Christian bookstore behind.

Even worse, I began to look at the Christian bookstore with a growing sense of cynicism as I came to see the wide range of “Christian” products (“Would anybody like a ‘Testamint’ for fresh and holy breath?”; “Check out my new WWJD? bracelet!”) as a cynical attempt to exploit a gullible market segment with kitsch and bric-a-brac (and kitschy bric-a-brac).

I was appalled when I walked into one Christian bookstore and saw that their discount shelf was marked with a gaudy buzzing neon sign that declared “Publishers Wailing Wall”. But my cynicism hit a new depth when the “Blessings” chain of Christian bookstores in Canada announced that they would now be open on Sundays so that they could better serve the ministry needs of their Christian patrons. So now Blessings could wait on standby in case any churches ran out of communion cups mid-service. How selfless!

This cynicism didn’t stop me from doing a book launch at the Edmonton Blessings for my book Finding God in the Shack. While the experience of sitting like a moron in a chair beside a stack of books even as customers avoided eye-contact was deeply traumatizing (you can read my full account here), I was nonetheless thankful to Blessings for the opportunity.

Interestingly, the day I did my launch was the manager’s last day at the store: after many years working in a Christian bookstore he was now entering retirement. Throughout that long day we had some good chats (yes, I’m so old that I describe short conversations with people as “chats”) and he recalled that the one thing he would miss most was the people. He recalled occasions when, for example, a grieving widow would come into the store looking for something for her husband’s wake. And in the process, the manager would be able to share with her and pray for her. He clearly viewed the store as a ministry to the community as much as a commercial space to sell praise CDs and Precious Moments knick knacks.

But the writing was on the wall. While a few Christians stopped going to Christian bookstores for the same cynical reasons that motivated me, others were drawn by better deals at Walmart, Costco (both of whom wisely began targeting this demographic) and of course, Amazon.com. Eventually the counsel of a pastoral manager could no longer justify a 30% markup.

The other day when I drove by Blessings I observed that it had gone out of business. When I went online to find out when it had closed, I discovered that it had shuttered its doors back in January, almost six months ago.

No surprise, I won’t miss Blessings. And fortunately the Kingdom of God will advance whether the Christian bookstore survives or not. But there is a tinge of nostalgia for the familiar space of Scriptural Supplies with the parental subsidies for Christian music. And there is more than a tinge of respect and admiration for folks like that manager at Blessings who used a commercial space as a place of personal ministry and community outreach.

Christians and Atheists: The Matt Fradd Interview

Catholic apologist Matt Fradd recently interviewed me on Is the Atheist My Neighbor? You can read the interview, titled “Why Christians Should Rethink Their Attitudes Towards Atheists,” at his website.

Unfortunately the print interview loses Matt’s cool Australian accent (Matt’s an Aussie living in the US). So you should also check out his videos while you’re at the website.

And since this blog post is so short, let me add that I backpacked Australia (Melbourne to Cairns) in 1992. I even “weathered” Tropical Cyclone Fran while staying on the coast just north of Brisbane. Good times!

The 59 Second Apologist is on YouTube

I have had a YouTube channel for several years now but for all that time it sat largely dormant. However, in the last week I have decided to get proactive about using YouTube, beginning with my video for The Parable of the Good Atheist.

Now I am putting videos online for all my 59 Second Apologist episodes beginning with the most recent video explaining what apologetics is (see below). In the future I will be adding some YouTube exclusives as well, so stay tuned.

Should you ever shun anybody?

The 1527 Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession included the practice of the ban (or shunning), according to which the sinful offender should be warned twice before they are finally cast off and shunned from the community. Shunning was an extreme practice that set parent against child and child against parent as it expected community members to cut all contact with the offending member.

Shunning harkens back to the New Testament practice of turning offending members over to Satan. One finds the formula appearing in 1 Corinthians 5:4-5 where Paul addresses a man in a sexual relationship with his father’s wife:

“4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”

One also finds the practice of turning over to Satan being described in 1 Timothy 1:18-20 where Paul advises this extreme action against a couple offending members from the community:

“18 Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. 20 Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.”

It isn’t clear what Paul meant exactly by “turning over to Satan”. Was it merely an exclusion from communal gatherings? Or did it also include such extreme actions as parents refusing to have a relationship with children who they deem to be engaged in some particularly sinful behavior?

While the numbers of Anabaptists may be small, many Christians practice an informal ban on deviant members which goes well beyond exclusion from community fellowship to a complete cutting off of relationship. Consider, for example, how many Christian parents have placed their gay children under a de facto form of shunning after learning of their sexual identity. I just learned the other day of yet another instance of this practice when I discovered that two parents I knew from my childhood now refuse even to acknowledge the existence of the son they brought into the world because he’s gay.

As I said, I don’t know what turning over to Satan meant exactly. But I am convinced that it cannot mean the unconscionable rejection of a child. I know this because whatever turning over to Satan is, it is justified by its fruit — a tough love that increases the likelihood that the wayward individual will be redeemed. And I find no fruit in the casting off of a beloved family member or friend. On the contrary, where sin increases, grace increases all the more (Romans 5:20). And there is no grace in shunning those you love.

Keith Parsons on Atheism, Theism, and Irenicism

I suspect my readers all know what “atheism” and “theism” are. But what is “irenicism”? In short, it is the condition of peacemaking, the attribute of seeing the best in one’s ideological opponents and seeing concord where possible. We need irenicism now more than ever as our world continues to lurch into polarized oppositions with the oft bitter hostilities between atheism and Christian theism being one example.

Today atheist philosopher and author Keith Parsons commented on my book Is the Atheist My Neighbor? in response to Jeff Lowder’s article “Randal Rauser’s Latest Book (with a Contribution from Yours Truly)“. His comment eloquently embodied the spirit of irenicism that I think is crucial to overcome the deep hostilities and polarized oppositions that characterize our age. Consequently, I’ve decided to reproduce it in full here:

“Thanks much for this book; the message is greatly appreciated. Allow me to make the complementary point: Two of my closest personal friends are Christian pastors (UCC and United Methodist). I do not regard their convictions as in any sense irrational, irresponsible, or epistemically suspect in any way. They are as self-critical and reflective as any atheist I have known, and far more so than most. Their attitude is wholly undogmatic and they listen willingly to any person of reason and good will. Indeed, I regard each of them as a paragon of intellectual and moral integrity.

“Bertrand Russell once said that the existence of God is an issue on which reasonable people can be expected to disagree. I take this point as obvious, yet many people on “both” sides disagree. We feel passionately about our religious (or non-religious) convictions, and this passion makes tolerance more difficult. Every now and then, however, I think we should all step back and look as dispassionately as possible at our actual epistemic circumstances with respect to the question of God’s existence. When we do, we see that theism and naturalism are both global commitments–comprehensive interpretations of reality. Worldviews, in other words. Further, as John Hick argues in An Interpretation of Religion, The world can be reasonably interpreted in either naturalistic or religious terms. That is, we can view the real and the physical as coextensive or posit a transcendent aspect. Neither sort of interpretation can be convicted of irresponsibility or irrationality.

“Of course, each of us has to come down where it seems most reasonable to do so. Further, we can offer arguments for our views, but these arguments should be presented with due modesty, not as battering rams, but as rational persuasion, designed not to intimidate but to appeal to the mind and spirit.”

12. The 59-Second Apologist: What is apologetics?

In this episode of the 59 Second Apologist we get back to basics with a simple question: just what is apologetics?

All the world is not a courtroom: The problematic metaphor of religious conservatives

Today I happened across a 2012 review of Rachel Held Evans’ book A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Trillia Newbell. You can find the article at John Piper’s website. Near the beginning of her review Newbell observes:

“As I read the book, it became increasingly clear to me of one theme: God’s word was on trial. It was the court of Rachel Held Evans. She was the prosecution, judge, and jury. The verdict was out. And with authority and confidence, she would have the final word on womanhood.”

You know the old saying that when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail? By the same token, when you’re a religious conservative, everything looks like a trial. Want to raise a provocative question? Tell an ambiguous story? Offer a dissenting perspective? Fair enough, but from the religious conservative’s perspective what you’re really doing is putting something on trial (namely, the set of beliefs held by that conservative).

In other words, as I read Newbell’s review, it became increasingly clear to me of one theme: Evans’ review was on trial. It was the court of Trillia Newbell. She was the prosecution, judge, and jury. The verdict was out. And with authority and confidence, she would have the final word on womanhood.

The problem is that all the world isn’t a trial. You should be able to raise a provocative question, tell an ambiguous story, or offer a dissenting perspective without having the conservative religious judge, prosecutor, and jury calling a trial. Rhetoric like that of Newbell’s review is poison for thoughtful, critical enquiry.

When Pope John XXIII called the Vatican II Council, he observed that the Catholic Church needed to open a window and let in some fresh air. To switch metaphors, I’d suggest Newbell call off the trial and send the prosecutors and defendants over to the coffee shop for some conversation.