One of the interesting threads of discussion in Dalrock’s post From celibate boyfriend to celibate husband (true love doesn’t wait). has been the very issue that the post has covered:
The drive to teach abstinence in the church is really a drive for the delay of marriage.
Now wait a minute, how could that be? Isn’t teaching abstinence a good thing? Well it is. But it really is leading to something else, as evidenced by the number of (even Christian) women fornicating and the lack of rebuke from the average Christian pulpit.
As fads in Churchianity go, things get introduced and their memory comes and goes. There was a group called True Love Waits, which was created by the Southern Baptists in 1993 and has spread from there. Naturally, with all things Churchian, it was filled with lots of style and symbolism, but not much substance. Things such as purity rings, and purity balls, which end in pledges to abstinence. As this Huffington Post article describes them:
For those unfamiliar with the ritual, a purity ball is a religious ceremony in which fathers and daughters dress up in ball gown attire, spend a night of dinner and dancing together, and end the evening with a vow to abstain from sex until marriage.
While being a worldly article and standing against the Biblical idea of chastity, a linked article goes on to point out the strangeness of this concept:
It’s hard to know where to start with this: the notion of sex as “impurity,” the fact that it’s all daughters and no sons, the idea of dressing a preteen girl in something that looks awfully like a wedding dress.
Be sure to visit the linked site, as there are several pictures of participants of these purity balls (with limited copyright or I would have put one to this post). Creepy when you look at them, huh? Then as part of the ceremony, we get the pledge the daughters take:
“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.”
So we get a ceremony that looks like marriage, and for the daughters, which ends with a pledge before God
Given the lust for the marriage ceremony that women have, this fits the bill. Then the pledge saves themselves for God alone. . .or rather each daughter’s Personal Jesus, and ends up with their own marriage purity ring. Such a commitment definitely fits the idea that most Christian women have that they are married to Jesus, and needs to have her perfect Personal Jesus as her husband.
That said, I searched “True Love Waits” and found the reading pretty interesting. It was sparse given that this particular Churchian fad has had such an amount of time to go away. One has to admit that they did a perfect job with the sloganeering. But quite inaccurate given the message that has been sent. After all:
I suppose that, among other things the title: ‘The Godly Young Man or Woman Does Not Have Sexual Relations Outside of Marriage’ was just not catchy enough.
Genesis 29:20 came up consistently in the search: “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.” In reading the entire story, we can typically see that the application of this Scripture is out of context. They are taking a single isolated Scripture verse and then fashioning a whole doctrine after it, which is inconsistent with the rest of Scripture.
It’s amazing how many different references to Genesis 29:20 I find. Basically put, whoever came up with that doctrine shopped, deciding to conform Scripture to their wishes instead of conforming themselves to Scripture. In other words, they are taking an exceptional case out of Scripture and turning it into the norm.
Granted, the majority of the writers that came up in the search got this verse right. The most interesting writer out in left field is this one. You can recognize the feminist tropes spread all throughout:
* “Jacob turned his head, took one fateful look, and it was without a doubt love at first sight.”
* “We get the idea that he was so fascinated by Rachel’s beauty, and so enchanted by her charm, that he failed to recognize her shortcomings or even to consider the will of God in his relationship with her.”
* [Jacob reminded the shepherds that grazing time was lost], “probably a ploy to get rid of them so he could talk to Rachel alone.”
* “Could he [Jacob] have been showing off just a little?”
* “But from the beginning we are a little dubious about the match. We know that a relationship based primarily on physical attraction rests on a shaky foundation.”
* “But when a man is enamored of a woman, he does not want to hear those things. He is going to have her, and nothing else matters.”
* “One great test of true love, therefore, is the ability to wait. Infatuation is usually in a hurry because it is self-centered. It says, “I feel good when I am with you, so I want to hurry up and get you to the altar before I lose you and lose these good feelings.” Love says, “Your happiness is what I want most of all, and I am willing to wait, if need be, to be sure this is what is best for you.”
* “Jacob could have accepted his marriage to Leah as the will of God for his life and learned to love her alone.”
There is much more that could be gleaned out of the piece, but the author clearly makes Jacob into the villain for not desiring Leah alone in the first place. This is because of the clear Churchian teaching that men are not to consider attraction when considering their wives. So it seems that, given Genesis 29:20 is used so much in connection with this phrase that:
The “True Love Waits” mantra is for men, not for women.
This can be easily seen in how the term is meant. “True love” in the sense it is meant, is really feeling and not action. In other words, instead of marriage being the proper place to experience romance and sex, we have romance becoming the proper place to experience marriage and sex.
So in the decision of marriage, men are supposed to wait until the women are ready for marriage – after all, true love waits, right? It really only comes down to the preferences of the woman’s personal Jesus.
True love waits until the man who meets her 643 point checklist comes along. After all, the perfect man God has just for that woman is out there.
Meanwhile, men are to sacrifice throughout all of this and wait until she is ready. After all, according to the Book of Oprah, her heart is to lead the marriage. So the message to men who are waiting:
True love waits until she’s established in her career.
True love waits until she’s had a ride on The Carousel, and rack up her n-count in a series of long-term relationships.
True love waits until she’s had the chance to travel.
True love waits until she’s had time to serve the Lord long-term.
True love waits until she’s had a “marriage” and a couple of children.
Then the women notice their prospects have dried up and cry to folks like Andrew Walker, Jon Lakin, and Albert Mohler, who then respond with growls and shouts to man up and marry those sluts, instead of seeing the situation for what it is.
These individuals have noticed the long period of waiting, and correctly call for early marriage, but miss the reason behind it, along with the sex doing the delaying. This is common, and to be expected.
If True Love Waits, then the third word indicates that the wait has to end sometime. These people are correctly seeing that the wait is too long. Until they can look in the mirror, and truly hear the message that “You are that man.”, they can talk all they want. But it still won’t make it happen, especially at the hands of these people. This makes such a pronouncement as this hot air, and consequently worthless. The proof in the pudding (so to speak) will be if these three men (and the others of the SBC) can repent of the wickedness they’ve perpetuated.
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