Skwim
Veteran Member
"There have always been forces that have pulled marriages apart. But it is the forces that push people together that are growing increasingly rare.
Social reinforcement of marriage from sources such as the workplace, the law, entertainment and the education system is fading rapidly or has collapsed completely. The church, by which I mean institutionalized Christianity in the United States, is increasingly alone in its formal privileging of marriage and family. But Christians are hardly exempt from wider mating market dynamics.
Sex has become cheap — that is, not hard to get — because it’s much less risky and consequential in the era of birth control. Perceived barriers to marriage, meanwhile, are getting higher — prompting greater marital delay and fewer marriages overall. Add to that Christians’ elevated standards for marriage and you have a recipe for wholesale retreat.
Long-standing Christian sexual ethics also are making less and less sense to the unchurched — a key market for evangelicals. That’s giving church leadership fits over just how “orthodox” they can be or should be on matters of sex and sexuality. “Meeting people where they’re at” becomes challenging. Congregations are coming face to face with questions of just how central sexual ethics are to their religious life and message. The new Nashville Statement on marriage and sexuality — and emotional reactions to it — newly demonstrates just how live and poignant the tension is.
Levels of uncertainty — that is, neither agreeing nor disagreeing — about various sexual practices and attitudes are elevated among Christians. When we asked more than 15,000 Americans about sexual ethics, many who attended religious services at least once a week were on the fence. How many?
• 23 percent are unsure about the wisdom of cohabiting before marriage.
• 14 percent are unsure about marriage being outdated.
• 21 percent don’t know what they think about no-strings-attached sex.
• 25 percent don’t know if viewing pornography is OK or not.
• 10 percent are unsure about whether extramarital sex might ever be permissible.
• 17 percent don’t know if consensual polyamorous unions are OK.
One can interpret those on the fence as movable — open to being convinced. But if trends in sexual norms hold, most who once asserted neutrality eventually drift toward the more permissive position.
Cheap sex, it seems, has a way of deadening religious impulses. It’s able to poke holes in the “sacred canopy” over the erotic instinct, to borrow the late Peter Berger’s term. Perhaps the increasing lack of religious affiliation among young adults is partly a consequence of widening trends in nonmarital sexual behavior among young Americans, in the wake of the expansion of pornography and other tech-enhanced sexual behaviors.
Cohabitation has prompted plenty of soul searching over the purpose, definition and hallmarks of marriage. But we haven’t reflected enough on how cohabitation erodes religious belief.
We overestimate how effectively scientific arguments secularize people. It’s not science that’s secularizing Americans — it’s sex.
source and more
.
Social reinforcement of marriage from sources such as the workplace, the law, entertainment and the education system is fading rapidly or has collapsed completely. The church, by which I mean institutionalized Christianity in the United States, is increasingly alone in its formal privileging of marriage and family. But Christians are hardly exempt from wider mating market dynamics.
Sex has become cheap — that is, not hard to get — because it’s much less risky and consequential in the era of birth control. Perceived barriers to marriage, meanwhile, are getting higher — prompting greater marital delay and fewer marriages overall. Add to that Christians’ elevated standards for marriage and you have a recipe for wholesale retreat.
Long-standing Christian sexual ethics also are making less and less sense to the unchurched — a key market for evangelicals. That’s giving church leadership fits over just how “orthodox” they can be or should be on matters of sex and sexuality. “Meeting people where they’re at” becomes challenging. Congregations are coming face to face with questions of just how central sexual ethics are to their religious life and message. The new Nashville Statement on marriage and sexuality — and emotional reactions to it — newly demonstrates just how live and poignant the tension is.
Levels of uncertainty — that is, neither agreeing nor disagreeing — about various sexual practices and attitudes are elevated among Christians. When we asked more than 15,000 Americans about sexual ethics, many who attended religious services at least once a week were on the fence. How many?
• 23 percent are unsure about the wisdom of cohabiting before marriage.
• 14 percent are unsure about marriage being outdated.
• 21 percent don’t know what they think about no-strings-attached sex.
• 25 percent don’t know if viewing pornography is OK or not.
• 10 percent are unsure about whether extramarital sex might ever be permissible.
• 17 percent don’t know if consensual polyamorous unions are OK.
One can interpret those on the fence as movable — open to being convinced. But if trends in sexual norms hold, most who once asserted neutrality eventually drift toward the more permissive position.
Cheap sex, it seems, has a way of deadening religious impulses. It’s able to poke holes in the “sacred canopy” over the erotic instinct, to borrow the late Peter Berger’s term. Perhaps the increasing lack of religious affiliation among young adults is partly a consequence of widening trends in nonmarital sexual behavior among young Americans, in the wake of the expansion of pornography and other tech-enhanced sexual behaviors.
Cohabitation has prompted plenty of soul searching over the purpose, definition and hallmarks of marriage. But we haven’t reflected enough on how cohabitation erodes religious belief.
We overestimate how effectively scientific arguments secularize people. It’s not science that’s secularizing Americans — it’s sex.
source and more
.
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