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Byron Weathersbee, interim chaplain at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, conducted a study which investigated whether or not students at the University remained celibate before marriage. Baylor, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, prides itself as being "the largest Baptist university in the world."
The study found that 62% of the males and 65% of the females had premarital sex. "To a large degree, we’re missing it," Weathersbee admitted. Even worse, the study found that only 27% of the young people entered marriage "chaste," which means they refrained from not only intercourse but oral sex as well. Who knew that a Baptist University could be such a hotbed of unhinged sexual activity!
The inability of moral pontificators to live up to the values that they pontificate about isn't at all surprising. This new study proves what gay people have known all along, that fundamentalists are great at preaching about values, but completely clueless when it comes to actually living them.
Not surprisingly, they don't fare any better after they get married, either. A recent Barna Research Group study found that born again Christians have the highest divorce rate in America. "While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time," admitted George Barna, founder of the group. And legalistic fundamentalists claim to be for the "sanctity of marriage"? Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
17 Comments:
I've often wondered if fundamentalists divorce more because they are in "mixed" marriages; i.e. one of the spouses is a fundamentalist and the other isn't. I imagine some of them get married, then one of them becomes a fundie, and either the non-fundie loses his/her mind and has to walk out or the fundie him/herself leaves because the other spouse refuses to convert.
posted by Anonymous, at
3/30/2006 6:56 AM
Baylor has fraternities and sororities...it's not that conservative of a school as compared to a place like Bob Jones University.
posted by Anonymous, at
3/30/2006 9:29 AM
To add some flippancy to all this, women who marry in a white wedding dress are supposed to be virgins when they walk down the aisle in keeping with christian traditions. We all know that very few are virgins who marry. What is ironic is that every denomination sanctions these weddings in spite of it. Another win for hypocrisy.
I still cant wrap my head around this one. Didnt Jesus expressly forbid divorce (let no man put assunder)? Whereas he said NOTHING about homosexuality. My local baptist church has a sign out front for a 'divorce support group' but i'm sure they'd burn gays at the stake if they could get away with it. Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
3/30/2006 2:03 PM
Wrap your mind around this: fundamentalists don't actually care what Jesus said, they just use the Bible for their own selfish needs. It's really quite simple. LOL you sound like my bf, he's always like "well didn't the Bible say this, or didn't Jesus do that?" And I have to say "uh yes honey, but you see, that's logic, and the fundies are crazy."
Well anyway, I wonder how many people become born again AFTER their divorce. Born agains I know got that way because they royally messed up their lives, and being "born again" is a convenient way to forget their past and invent a new identity for themselves.
posted by Ryan Grant Long, at
3/30/2006 4:14 PM
Nope.
Being born again, many have found, is a way to let loose of the pain, the past, and become a new person in Christ. And they wouldn't go back to being who they were even if you paid them.
posted by Anonymous, at
3/30/2006 4:54 PM
Most of the "born again" people that I have known have been really effed up. Alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, or just mentally unstable. It seems to me that they are completely unable to forgive themselves for their mistakes, so they seek a "higher power" to forgive them. But the ones I have known never really seem to feel "forgiven" anyway, and rather than seek professional help, they hide in their religion, stuff their problems and continue to behave in strange ways. Psychologically, if you don't deal with your issues, they tend to pop out in a bizarre fashion. Hence the hypocrisy of hiding behind a religion and pretending to be "holier than thou", while continuing with whatever unwanted behavior (or other, new behaviors) which caused them to seek religion as a cure in the first place.
I'm not surprised that these kinds of people divorce more than others. Relationships are difficult enough without that kind of emotional baggage.
posted by Anonymous, at
3/31/2006 2:51 PM
Here in rural East Tennessee, when you happen to strike up a conversation with someone you just met, it's not long before they ask, "Are you a born again Christian?" My response is, "Well no, I'm a love your neighbor Christian." This usually leaves them perplexed and they change the subject to something else. One old geezer, though, thought about it for a moment and then asked, "What do you mean by that?" Apparently the concept that a Christian should "love thy neighbor as thyself" is a completely foreign concept to them.
posted by Bill Ware, at
4/01/2006 6:21 AM
The bottom line is that God knows who the real Christians are and who are not and He will judge without partiality. Real Christians are not perfect people by the way (I speak from personal experience). In regard to Jesus never having mentioned homosexuality, the simple answer is that a Jewish Rabbi who repeatedly affirmed the authority of the Torah (Old Testament Law) would have had no need to as there was absolutely no controversy among the religious authorities regarding the practice. The scriptures explicitly stated that homosexuality was sin in the sight of God. When asked about the legitimacy of divorce for any reason (about which there was difference of opinion among the religionsts, namely between the rabbinical schools of Shammai & Hillel), Jesus replied that divorce was unacceptable to God except where adultery had been committed. However, God's forgiveness is always available for those who (through faith in Christ who died for our sins) come to Him with a genuinely repentant heart. Do you know Him? He came not to call 'the righteous' but sinners to repentance. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!
posted by Carl - a saved sinner., at
4/01/2006 6:25 AM
Carl,
Christ cured people of many things during His ministry. He caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, but He never cured anyone of being gay.
This agrees with the American Psychiatric Association's assessment that homosexuality is not a "disease" and therefore need not be "cured."
In fact, this post has an example where Christ treated gays and straights alike. What part of "love thy nieghbor" do you not understand?
posted by Bill Ware, at
4/01/2006 6:54 AM
Carl, you have got to be kidding. So now fundamentalists can directly disobey the words of Jesus on divorce, but everything's OK because God is forgiving. Funny how God becomes so lenient when it comes to the sins of your crowd. I am totally disgusted.
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