Just stop it! Now there’s a maxim for the day. Everywhere women are seen offering their bodies for hire, presenting them on billboards, on the internet, and walking down the street. And then the men; ah yes, the men. Modern man lives for his lusts and glories in his right to use women for his own perverse satisfaction. Sodomy is rampant. I don’t even mention other worse perversions.
At the root of all these abhorrent sexual mores and practices lies a profound confusion about purity. Men and women, boys and girls today exhibit upside down thinking about sexual virtue. Confront a girl who is wearing provocative dress and she will defend her right to dress so as to express her individuality with all the zeal of a true disciple. Call aside a young man and challenge his approach to “playing the field” in dating and you will hear a political speech full of passion and verve in reply. That which ought to produce shame in our culture has managed to be transformed into a virtue. How far we have fallen!
We have fallen far, but the church has countered the perversity of sexual cultures before. The paganism faced by the early church in the Roman world and that of the Germanic tribes encountered by the missionary bishops of the Middle Ages both embraced this same upside down conception of purity and sexual vice. The church transformed those cultures. Within just a couple of generations, those cultures began to treat women with respect and honor. Men began to see themselves as heroes called to defend and provide for the weak. Perversity fell into shame and disrepute. Sexual sin, though not obliterated, was severely curtailed.
Can the church win the day again? Can we once again be a culture that values purity and shows genuine shame in the face of lust all inappropriate sexual acts and desires? We believe that the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” Families today who act to instill in their sons and daughters a genuine Christian attitude toward sex and sexuality will find themselves standing as the advanced guard for a whole new culture of sexual purity.
As with all arenas of conflict in the culture wars, the church must have a plan for victory, not merely a defensive strategy. We must inculcate a subculture of purity and press for it as a better option than the lawless, desire-bound alternative. Young women need once again to value their virginity as their greatest gift, a gift they hope to one day give their husbands. Young men need to recover the chivalry of earlier days, seizing once again upon the glory of protecting girls and women and fighting the dragons of unconquered lust. We can have that again! The resources offered below and many others found in our bookstore can help to advance the forces of virtue and win the day for sexual purity.