PAFOTPOTC (Parents Against Fornication On The Part Of Their Children)
(May 1, 2005)

I have a modest proposal for Christian parents trying to keep their children from sexual immorality.

It's not getting them to sign a "True Love Waits" pledge card. I think those are a waste of time. Nearly two and a half million teens have signed the TLW pledge since the inception of the program in 1993. The pledge reads, “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."

The content of this oath is very good. The problem is that oaths themselves are dangerous, as Jesus indicated when he told us to shun them (Matthew 5:33-37). Our perverse nature tempts us break promises simply because we made them. St. Paul noted a similar thing about the law: "Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died" (Romans 7:9). As a commandment provokes its own transgression, so a promise tempts its own disavowal.

And young people sure are breaking those chastity vows. A recent study from Columbia and Yale Universities surveyed 12,000 teenagers aged 12 to 18 and questioned them six years later. Of the young people who had pledged abstinence, 88 percent reported having sexual intercourse before marriage.

An 88 percent failure rate is unacceptable. Forget promises. What we need here is action. In Matthew 21:28-31, Jesus tells the story of two brothers, one of whom promised to work in his father's field but didn't, while the other one who didn't promise nevertheless went out and did the work. Obviously the second son is the obedient one. It is that obedience we are trying to elicit, not mere words of promise.

Can we guarantee our children's obedient chastity? No. But I think I know how to make it more likely. In a recent Sports Illustrated article where the author cast about for solutions to the steroid problem in baseball, he hit upon a successful model for reducing bad behavior in another area: drunk driving. He wrote,

A couple decades ago, when drunken-driving deaths in America were mounting at a terrifying rate but little public outcry was heard, a group of mothers organized and began pressuring legislatures, law-enforcement bodies, corporations and the mass media.

In the 25 years since Mothers Against Drunk Driving drew a line and went to war, alcohol-related traffic deaths have dropped by more than 40%, and since 1990 teen drunken-driving accidents have diminished by nearly 60%. The mothers did it by stigmatizing the behavior.

There it is! Stigmatize the behavior! If you want to reduce the frequency of a behavior, go to war against it. Load the sin down with consequences and fear and the threat of alienation. If it's drunk driving, stick the drunks in jail a long time. If it's steroids, kick he abusers out of baseball, rescind their awards, erase their records and keep them out of the Hall of Fame.

And if it's fornication, make the consequences as devastating as you can, and tell your children in advance what they will be. You won't pay his college bill if he is cohabiting with a girlfriend. (That will get his attention!) You will not allow her sin partner into your house. (She'll have to choose between her lover and you.) You won't pay for a church wedding or reception. (If by their sexual behavior they hold God in contempt, they have no business getting married in a church anyway - they should go to a judge.) And if a baby results, you're too old to raise a grandchild while your son or daughter gets his or her life together. They'll have to make do or put the baby up for adoption.

Is this cruel? Absolutely not. What is cruel is all the disease and divorce and abuse and fatherlessness and murder (abortion) that has resulted from our decades of unwillingness to stigmatize sexual misbehavior. Bad preachers have been urging us to affirm our offspring with unconditional love even when they become playboys and sluts - and we are shocked when these coddled youth continue to indulge their sin. Don't facilitate it. The great Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization didn't save thousands of lives by hugging drunks. They took a hard stand. Do likewise. Take a stand so strong with your children that, even if they don't fear God, at least they'll be scared to death of you. It is for their good.