The genius of the Singles for Christ program is that the young people are brought up within a social network of shared expectations. Most of the Singles for Christ were probably Kids for Christ or Youth for Christ. They probably have married parents who are Couples for Christ or widowed grandmothers who are Handmaidens for Christ. When they were teenagers, probably very few went home to empty houses, turned on a TV porn channel, and had unsupervised afternoons after school.
This abstinence program is more than a classroom experience. This is a full way of life that provides young people with an appealing future as part of a married couple.
The lessons are embedded in a community of supportive adults, who expect certain behavior and model that behavior. The adults prepare the young to participate in the adult life of the community, on the community’s terms.
Read it all here.
5 comments:
Dr. morse,
This article makes so many good points on so many levels that I really don't know how to start commenting. I suppose that I will limit myself to a personal story to flesh out what you're saying.
As an instructor in Philosophy at the college level, I can now name a problem that I noticed when I was a teenager, while working with youths before seminary, and during my seminary experience - The problem of ethical reasoning.
I, like all Southern Baptist-raised kids my age, went through the True Love Waits program as an early adolescent. This is a post unto itself (in fact it is posted somewhere on my blog), but the long and short of it is that 60 kids signed the pledge of abstinence cards, two didn't (myself and a close friend). I remember talking to a fellow teen about his girlfriend at the time, perhaps one week later. He was venting, in a friendly manner, how 'hot' his girlfriend was, and how they had found some meet-up spot to be alone that weekend. I asked, innocently enough, if he remembered his pledge. His answer typified the biblical idea about why any Law falls short: "Well, we won't bang, but I can do everything else."
That's it in a nutshell. He had been taught an absolute rule, and like all of us he was a natural born Pharisee, but honorable, so he fully intended to keep the letter of his committment.
In philosophy circles the problem is that Christ and Paul collectively moved us towards what has been called Nichomachaean Ethics, first put forth by Aristotle. It's a matter of starting with a 'telos', or a vision of what is perfect and good, and then reasoning how to best pursue that. In turn, they moved us out of legal ethics, which roughly correspond to Immanuel Kant's 'Deontological ethics', where you behave according to the duties you perceive yourself to have, precisely because they are your duties.
The problem with deontological ethics in the Christian life is that it's so easily construed as a "bare minimum" checklist.
What I take your article as saying is that those who are actually succeeding at this quest for purity are reasoning by Telos: There is a goal of perfect marriage, as described in both our Scriptures, and by Tradition in the marriage service. This is then reasoned back into a total life ethic based on this goal. Chastity and purity, not "virginity technically speaking" are the driving virtues. Purity stops being a fence that you can climb on but not cross, and becomes a goal of moving as far away from that fence as possible.
Also, as someone who is now pursuing chastity as an as-yet-unmarried adult, I must commend the part where you talk about the "social group". Chastity is not something that something that we can realistically accomplish simply by living in total defiance of the world around us. Such a Herculean effort requires a social network. To think otherwise is simply unrealistic. It's like saying that you can become a great football player in an area where everyone refuses to play football. No, you need a team.
We simply cannot continue to think that promoting heroic individualism is the proper way to address our moral dilemmas, especially where unformed youths and young adults are the primary groups in question. Nor are we going to sell brave people on the idea that the primary reason not to have sex is a mix of AIDS and pregnancy.
Now forming that subculture... how to begin. Here I have no answers.
and yes, the reason secular abstinence education does not work is precisely because it only appeals to physical protection, which most youths eventually discern (often rightly) that they can circumvent. Without understanding abstinence as a smaller part of a larger, coherent belief system, it has little to commend it.
If I could add to your comment about the "telos" of the ethical life: as I understand it, one of the goals of the Vatican II Council was exactly to help the Church make this shift. We need to stop seeing the moral life as a list of rules and more as a life of following Jesus. Obeying the rules is only a first step. As an economist, I would call it a side constraint. The prohibition on adultery, for instance, is the bare minimum that a person needs for a happy marriage. Obedience to that rule keeps you on the playing field so you have a chance at doing well. But to really succeed, you have to have a much more generous view of your responsibility to follow Christ and to love your spouse.
My favorite Catholic theologian who develops this style of ethical reasoning os Germaine Greisez in his work, Following the Lord Jesus.
in my own faith tradition (Eastern Orthodoxy) we claim that the idea of salvation is precisely the same as "theosis" - to become like Christ, and be conformed to his image. It makes for an excellent First Principle when attempting to talk about virtues.
The problem with Vatican II has always been on of intent vs reception. It meant to say "the rules are a bare minimum, so focus on Christ", it has too often been received as "the rules are less strict these days." sigh
and yes, the reason secular abstinence education does not work is precisely because it only appeals to physical protection, which most youths eventually discern (often rightly) that they can circumvent. Without understanding abstinence as a smaller part of a larger, coherent belief system, it has little to commend it.
That is true.
Conformity is an example of a virtue that can be promoted, and if everyone around them is practicing this lifestyle, then they will practice that lifestyle to conform.
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