Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

Here is the problem with my wait-till-you’re-married argument. It only holds meaning for a person who has been married and recognizes the need for things that strengthen and sustain a marriage. I supposed it would be like a sailor giving me a long lecture about how necessary it is for me to get my sea legs before taking a long voyage. I’ve never been on a boat for a long period of time and it would all too easy for me to dismiss his advice betting that it won’t be as important as he says it is. Or like a master artist telling a student that they need to get better at the fundamentals before moving on. The student can say that the master is overstating the need, and go on to make art. It might be decent art, and sadly, the student may never know how lacking it is because it’s such a subjective field. In the same way, a person can have a decent marriage, never knowing the excellence and purity that abstaining from premarital sex could have brought. I suppose most moral im...

My oldest son has gotten old enough to begin to grasp at least the concept of this aspect of life. We’ve had a few basic talks about the subject, but since he hasn’t hit puberty yet I know there is still a lot he just can’t comprehend, so we haven’t gone in depth at all. One of the interesting things about sexuality is how utterly wrecked our society is when it comes to examining the subject in a holistic manner. It has become such a politicalized subject as our culture tries strenuously to divorce sex from anything spiritual, symbolic, or even deeply emotional. As we try to stress the freedom to exercise our desires and shun the old Victorian facades of propriety, our kids are left in a pretty difficult position. They are told that it is unhealthy to restrain their sexual impulses, and shown in every storytelling medium available that sex is simply what couples do. The glaring flaw our culture’s implicit commandment to “Do as thou wilt.” Is that teens just aren’t wired to ...