Chapter 11

Celibacy

            “Celibacy?  What does celibacy have to do with adolescence?  I’m not a priest or a nun, and I don’t know any adolescents who are priests or nuns—I don’t even think adolescents can be priests or nuns.  Besides, many of the adolescents I know certainly aren’t celibate—they’re sleeping around like you wouldn’t believe.”

            These may mirror your thoughts as you looked at the title of this chapter.  Yet when you go back to the definition of adolescence as discussed in Part 2, you remember that adolescence is the time of life between puberty and adulthood.  What is the average age of puberty?  In women it is about twelve and a half, and in men it is about fourteen.  One of the marks of adulthood is being able to marry, and what is the lowest age at which people can marry?  That is eighteen in the United States. 

            “I know that.  What does that have to do with celibacy?” 

Celibacy

            Once again we have to look at the dictionary to see what terms mean.  Celibacy comes to us from the Latin word caelibatus, which is from caelebs, meaning “a single life.”  The dictionary defines celibacy as “an unmarried state; single life,” and it defines a celibate as “a person who is unmarried.”  Adolescents in the USA are considered to be children and not allowed to marry until they are eighteen without their parents’ consent.  Therefore, they are unmarried and, by definition, celibate.  Although we usually link celibacy with taking a religious vow not to marry, it applies to all single people—including adolescents.  If you are not married, you are living a life of celibacy.

            There is nothing wrong with being celibate.  In fact, the Bible says celibacy is good.

• Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.  (1 Corinthians 7:1)
• Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried.  (1 Corinthians 7:8)
• The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”  (Matthew 19:10)

Therefore, it is not wrong to be unmarried; it is good.  The Bible does not say that everyone should live in the unmarried state, but it is good when someone does.

            You may think that living a life of celibacy has something to do with not having sex, and today the word is many times used in that sense, but that was not the original meaning.  When our culture invented adolescence, people seemed to assume that if they passed laws against people getting married, they would not have sex either.  Although they had some flaws, the Kinsey studies of sexual behavior in men and women in the United Stares during the 1940s and 1950s came as a rude awakening.  Kinsey and his fellow researchers found that celibacy did not necessarily lead to chastity.

Chastity

            Chastity comes to us from the Latin word castitas which is from castus which means chaste or pure.  The dictionary defines chastity as “abstinence from all unlawful sexual activity..., purity.”  Therefore, people may be married (not celibate) and yet living a life of chastity (purity)—abstaining from sex with anyone except their spouses.  When teaching, I used to say to classes of single college students that I knew they were living lives of celibacy, but I was not sure whether or not they were living lives of chastity—and I was not celibate, but I was living a life of chastity.

            As noted above, there is nothing wrong with being celibate.  In fact, the Bible says celibacy is good.  However, we must not quote just one verse, but look at the context, in this case, at the verses following each one quoted above.

• When Paul said, “It is good for a man not to marry,” he went on to say, “But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:2)
• When Paul said, “It is good for them to stay unmarried,” he went on to say, “But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:9)
• When the disciples said, “It is better not to marry,” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.”  (Matthew 19:11)

            Although the Bible says that celibacy is good, it certainly does not say that everyone needs to remain unmarried.  In fact, all of the passages above about celibacy being good are followed by passages saying that most people will not be able to live celibate lives without sin.  Marriage is good too.

            Paul wrote to Timothy that in later times there would be cultures that forbid marriage (1 Timothy 4:3), but he went on to caution Timothy not to do so.  He told Timothy not to put any woman under 60 years of age on the list of widows to be cared for by the church because their sensual desires would cause them to want to marry—so he urged those under 60 to remarry (1 Timothy 5:3-16).

            If we are to be chaste, to live lives of purity, we must raise this question.  What does it mean to be pure?  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).  What does it mean to be pure in heart?  In these postmodern times everyone, including Christians, seems to have a different answer to this question.  Some people (nearly 1/3 of evangelical Christians) believe that single people can do anything, including having sex outside marriage, and still be pure.  They quote the first part of Titus 1:15, “To the pure, all things are pure.”  Other people believe that even having sexual thoughts is wrong.  They quote the last part of Matthew 5:28, “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

            We will find this lack of agreement as we consider adolescent sexuality.  Since adolescence did not exist when the Bible was written, the Bible has little to say about young unmarried people.  In those days teenagers who had passed puberty and were not married had chosen to remain unmarried—or their parents had made that choice for them.  If they and their parents wanted marriage, it was just an accepted part of life.  Whenever the Bible says little about an issue, people today take many different positions on that issue.  Let us begin with the sexual situation in which there is not action at all, only thought, lusting after someone.

Fantasy

            You probably noticed that your thoughts about sex changed when you went through puberty.  Before puberty, you thought about sex, but it was basically a matter of curiosity.  Why did people keep some parts of their bodies covered all the time?  Why did most adults seem so reluctant to talk about where babies came from other than saying from inside “mommy’s tummy?”  You wondered about things, but it was no big deal, and the thoughts did not keep coming.

            However, since puberty you think about sex much more.  Sometimes it seems like you just cannot stop thinking about it.  This is not at all surprising when you think about what happened at puberty.  Those same “raging hormones” that brought about the physical changes in your body brought about changes in your thinking and motivation.  Before those hormones were in your body, you did not have the sexual desires and sexual thoughts that you now have.  Now you have that sexual drive, but your culture will not allow you to marry and express those desires with your spouse.

            Think about it this way.  If someone will not let you breathe (chokes you), within minutes, your thoughts will be centered on getting air.  If you have no water, within hours, your thoughts will be centered on getting water.  If you have no food, within days, your thoughts will be centered on getting food.  In fact, during World War II the US government did an experiment to find out what would happen to people on starvation diets.  The young men who volunteered were fed 1200 calorie per day diets similar to people in concentration camps.  Within weeks they had lost a quarter of their normal weight, and their thoughts and conversations were centered on food.  Their walls were covered with pictures of cakes, pies, grilled steaks, and so forth.  They read cookbooks in their spare time.  In short, food dominated their thoughts.

            When those hormones started flowing at puberty, you had a drive you did not have before.  Since your culture will not let you marry and express that drive, your thinking about sex increases.  If drives for air, water, and food are never satisfied, individuals will die in a matter of weeks.  If sexual drives are never satisfied, humanity will die in a generation.  God made your sexual drives very powerful so that humanity would survive.  You may say that it is not fair that your culture will not let you marry and satisfy this drive—and it is not fair.  We live in a fallen world where life is not fair.

            In addition, external temptations to sexual fantasy have increased greatly since adolescence was invented.  Centuries ago to see graphic representations of sexual things, one had to look at paintings or carvings on the walls of caves, on the walls of buildings, or on canvas.  If one wanted to read sexual material it was in limited supply as hand written material.  If one wanted to listen to sexually oriented material, one had to listen in person to someone talking.  During the last century we have come through the time when all of these were freely available at the newsstand and at the theater to the time when it comes into our home literally through the air.

            Today pornography is available via satellite to people anywhere in the world.  They can listen on their radios, watch it on television, and access it on the Internet.  TCKs do hear it on radios and see it on television, but the newest and most common way is through the Internet.  Although one can literally receive it through the air if wireless is available, the most common way is though a telephone line via a modem.  TCKs are not alone in accessing this.  Christianity Today did a survey of pastors and found that 37% of the pastors filling it out reported a current struggle with Internet pornography.

            This pornography is such a problem because it is accessible, anonymous, and affordable.  It is accessible because anyone with a computer and a connection to the Internet can get it at the click of a mouse.  People think that it is anonymous because no one knows that they have accessed it—of course, their Internet service provider, the porn site they visited, and others between (as well as God) know.  It is affordable because many sites offer “free” porn to get people interested and then offer them some “better” stuff for a price.

            Not only is such pornography accessible, anonymous, and affordable, but it is also addicting.  People find that they soon are unable to control their urge to look at it and listen to it, even if it means the loss of reputation, family, job, and friends.  One of the most common ways for people to become addicted is to “check it out to see if it is as bad as everyone says.”  No need to check it out—it is.  In addition to it being addicting, here are some other problems with viewing it.

• Expectations.  Real people do not look like or act like the ones in pornography.  Those you see have often have makeup covering their imperfections and act or pose like the director or photographer has told them to.
• Disappointment.  Since real people are different, you are likely to be disappointed in them.  People have told me about their disappointment in sex with their spouses because their expectations were not met. 
• Brevity.  Those who look at pornography find that, like in any other addiction, they need more and more to get the same “satisfaction.”  They look for more explicit pictures, then violence, etc.
• Permanence.  While satisfaction is brief, the memories are permanent.  The pictures or videos you display on the walls of your mind as an adolescent will be there after you marry.  When you want to become excited by your spouse, those images intrude.

            The Bible says nothing about the Internet, and little about unmarried teenagers viewing pornography—because neither was available at the time the Bible was written.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).  Of course, this was written to married people (single people cannot commit adultery), but most people maintain that if this lust is adultery for a married person, it is immorality (fornication) for an unmarried person.  In fact, the Greek word for “immorality” is porneia, from which we get our word “pornography.”

What can adolescent TCKs do?

            Study what the Bible has to say about sexuality.  At the end of each day of creation God saw that it was good.  After he created humans male and female, he saw that it was VERY good.  Before sin came into the world the husband and wife were both naked and felt no shame.  Sex is good, part of a holy life.  Sin corrupts it.

            When the Bible talks about being holy, it is usually in the context of sexuality.  The major passage about sex in the Old Testament is Leviticus 18-20.  Twice in this passage about sexual behavior, God tells his people to be holy because he is holy (Leviticus 19:2 and 20:7-8).  The major passage about sex in the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 5-7.  When talking about sexual sin, Paul emphasizes that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Read other passages about being sexually pure and being holy, and you will be surprised about how often they occur together

            Think about good things.  The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (4:8) to think about good things, pure and lovely things.  You can control your thoughts, directing them toward such good things.  Remember that God made sex good.  Jesus made it very clear (Mark 7:14-23) that things from the outside do not enter the heart, but if a person’s heart is sinful, bad things can come out of it, such as evil thoughts, sexual immorality, adultery, and lewdness.

            Living in different countries means that TCKs face a variety of problems that are not found in their passport countries.  There may be more illicit sexually oriented material on television or on billboards.  Prostitution may be legal and prevalent—in fact, in some countries a father is expected to take his son to a prostitute when the son reaches puberty or a particular age.  Be aware of these things and discuss them with your parents and pastors.

            Internet pornography involves dealing with a problem related to your computer; you can do several things to clean up your computer use.

• Most Internet service providers have some kind of filtering software that will block access to pornographic sites, so use that.
• If you already have a filter but use a password to bypass the blocked sites, have someone else put in a new password so you cannot access some sites unless that friend is there.
• Since everyone surfing the Internet or searching for something specific on it is likely to at some time access an inappropriate site, decide in advance that you will click on the “back” icon as soon as you realize what it is, without looking at it in detail.
• Keep your computer in a “public” place in the house so that others are around whenever you are using the computer.
• Have someone hold you accountable by coming in at random times to look at the history of sites you have visited on the Internet.

·         Have someone hold you accountable by stopping by at random times to look at the “cookies” that have been placed in your computer to see that there are none from pornographic sites.

·         Ask your parents (or someone else) to receive a history of the web sites you visit each month.  You can have this done free at www.xxxchurch.com.

·         Avoid discussing your Internet problem with an opposite-gender friend because doing so often increases the intimacy of that friendship, leading to temptation.

·         Admit to yourself and to God that you are powerless to control this behavior on your own.

·         Admit to at least one other person of the same gender that you are powerless to control your Internet activity on your own.

·         Have an accountability group or partner that you meet with regularly (weekly, if possible) to report how you are doing and hold you accountable.

·         Make a ruthlessly honest moral inventory of your life; it is likely to include more than just Internet immorality.

·         Ask God to forgive what you have done and help you stop doing it again.

·         Record in a journal every time you think of accessing pornography on the Internet, and your response to it.  Look for patterns leading to accessing pornography and resisting the temptation to do so.

·         Write a “good-bye” letter to your addiction, that “problematic companion” who was always there but whom you never want to see again.

·         Engage in the following every day, and record them in your journal.

      --Begin each day with prayer for resistance to Internet temptation.

      --Call and report to a recovering buddy.

      --Read some recovery literature or devotionals.

            --End each day with prayers of thanksgiving for resistance (and of confession, if necessary).