Category Archives: Theology & Anthropology

I Want to Talk Like God Is Real & Is Here

I was speaking with a Mexican friend the other day. I told him he had a beautiful family, and he said, almost automatically, “Gracias a Dios.” Thanks to God. I don’t know why it struck me that time in particular, since it’s a very natural and unremarkable expression in Spanish. But it did strike me. It made be think how devoid of God-language English has become.

This is especially true of the benighted Frozen Chosen, of whom I am, at least marginally, one. But even if we come from a tradition that uses expressions that actually make it seem like the Lord Jesus might actually exist in a way that affects their lives, these phrases often feel very artificial. Pentecostals and every sort of gnostically-inclined Protestant sound clunky and overly pious when they insist on appending “Lord willing” as a qualifier at the end of any definite statement of plans in the near future based on this passage in James 4. It is used almost exclusively among people who will recognize it as a sign of to-be-admired piety, but seldom at work or in the company of the father-in-law. The more sacramental Anglicans might be comfortable with more Christian phrases, many from Scripture, that invoke God’s blessings in an everyday sort of way. Sadly that is only an accident of phrasing; there is nothing everyday about the Anglican and his liturgical language. There was once, but that is a relic of the past.

Also please understand that I’m not talking about buzzwords and catchphrases that the latest megachurch or youth movement or earnest book  has introduced. I’m talking about really universal phrases.

So ingrained, for good or ill, is “Thanks to God” in Portuguese that “I’m an atheist, thanks be to God” is a natural-sounding joke. And not quite on the same level as “Thank God I’m an atheist”, relief being the only emotion the English “thank God” is able to convey.

I don’t mean to call out any particular Christian traditions. For many years I and nearly all the Christians I’ve shared the table with (not just at my current church) haven’t even made pentecostal- or Anglican-level attempts at shaping our everyday automatic English this way. I’m not calling out, but I am resolving to add certain phrases to my vocabulary, and suggesting that you consider doing the same.

Of course, there are problems with Christ-saturated language. Or even just religiously saturated language. Portuguese and Spanish are my comparison gauges. Portuguese features a word that is used very commonly, oxalá, and Spanish has the same word, ojalá; it comes from the Muslim occupation of Iberia, and means literally “if Allah wills it”. Oxalá is used as a part of everyday speech, with almost none of its users knowing the word’s origins. It replaces “hopefully” and “keep your fingers crossed”.

There is an sense in which the use of certain Christian phrases can be like oxalá, that is, said reflexively and without any real thought or awareness of its meaning. It can even be done superstitiously. But that’s no reason not to do it yourself. Many people talk of the “churched” population of the South, of the ubiquity of churches here and the religiosity of Southerners as if it were an evil to be condemned as leading to inevitable hypocrisy. While the ubiquity of some form of Christianity in the South has its own problems, it is surely better to be Christ-haunted that to have no glimpse of Christ at all. Christian culture is good, and so is Christian language, even if it gets abused from time to time (or often). Some might be superstitious, some might take the Lord’s name in vain, but there are only two ways that will change. Either everyone forgets the name of the Lord, or all the righteous call upon him. It’s because I prefer the second option that I’m going to make an attempt to use certain phrases, which I’ll here list, in my everyday speech.

1. God be with you/Be with God. You can say it coming and going. You can use it to salute Christians and to bless unbelievers. And as these depart, you can say Go with God. The word “goodbye”, by the way, is an alteration of “God be with you”. Portuguese, like Spanish and French, says goodbye by saying “to God”.

2. God willing. I want to avoid using it after any mention of plans or the future, as in “I’m going shopping tomorrow…God willing.” I grew up around people who felt guilty making any declarative statement about the future (I won’t say I wasn’t one) without using that phrase. But that can end up being a piety-stick that risks being as boastful as the men mentioned in James 4 were. I do, however, want to use it as an invocation, as an acknowledgment that although breathing and going to the supermarket are gifts of God, this other thing would be a special gift from my father. “God willing our baby will be born healthy.” “God willing my parents get here safely.” Or even, if you wish, “I’m going shopping tomorrow…God willing.”

3. Thanks to God/Thank God. This is the most awkward one to use in English, but the one I am most anxious to introduce into my vocabulary, since I’m an ungrateful sort of fellow. In Portuguese it sounds very natural to say “Our baby was born healthy, graças a Deus.” Or “My parents got here safely, graças a Deus.” Using “thanks to God” in those sentences sounds stilted, but using “thank God” only sounds relieved. Relief is all that is left of that phrase in English.

4. God bless you. This is one in which English has a leg up on the Latin languages, which merely wish a sneezer “health!” But I, as have most English-speakers, have been trained to say simply “bless you”. Since I intend to invoke the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will say “God bless you”. This is the one I’ve had the most success making a part of my speech patterns, because it’s the one that takes the least courage. If the mood is lighthearted I will say to a sneezer, “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.”

I’m going to go for it. I’m going to use the phrases. Lord willing. And I’m going to try not to sound like an ass. I’m going to try to sound like I am a son of God, and that God is with me. Ask me in a while how that went.

Passive-Aggressive Hipster Language Is Upon Us All

Ah, sweet irenicism. Why would anyone want to pick a side when we can all just live in peace together?

Because peace comes through resolution and reconciliation. Passive-aggressive behavior only increases division and bitterness. I believe that Americans have lost, after the Baby Boomer break with our fathers, the ability to have resolution and reconciliation through frankness, conflict, and forgiveness.

Instead, ours is a society of passive one-upmanship in which the game is to get the other person to misstep and show that he is the one being mean and unkind. Once someone has been exposed in that way he must back down, humiliated. Because of this, conflict almost never happens. We usually see where our position will become untenable within the culture of tolerance, evaluate where our enemies stand on the same scale, then decide to back out if it seems that we might be shown to be unkind. The paramount goal of our verbal manouverings is to be the one who takes offense.

The best way to gain standing in a society like this is to constantly be bringing “tolerance” into focus, to make it appear as if there is hatred and anger and unforgiveness all around you while you stand in the storm as a rock of moderation.

This is so ingrained in us that, even if we are not always actively playing the game I described above, it shapes how we speak.

Am I talking about the business world? or academia?

No, mes amis. I’m talking about regular old life in society. I’m talking about community. I’m talking about the Church.

Take this sign, for example, versions of which have been flying around Pinterest for weeks (yes, I dig Pinterest, here’s my profile). And if you’re someone who has posted this or even used this in her wedding, don’t be offended. I see the cuteness of it. But maybe consider the assumptions behind such a sign.

Look how sweet this sign is. It’s all about unity. It’s about two families becoming one!

You didn’t come to this wedding with some sort of cruel agenda to be divisive by sitting with your friend’s family, did you? Didn’t think so. So pick a seat. Any seat. ANY SEAT!

Forget the built-in traditions of a wedding which have the families divided before the giving of rings, then generally mixed afterwards. You know, making two families one. You might have a better idea for the liturgy of marriage, or simply one you prefer for yourself. There’s no reason your wedding has to be just like grandma’s. But consider what a sign like this says.

Its very phrasing is manipulative. It’s an example of how the way we speak has become passive-aggressive; we’re always phrasing things divisively, paralyzing those who disagree but wish not to offend.

Christians should be all about positive phrasing. Unfortunately we’ve lost the ability to phrase things positively because saying “yes” or “it is so” is too strong. Saying “no” or “maybe” leaves us wiggle room.

This sign could have said, “Today, two families become one. Sit anywhere!” Instead, it phrases negatively. These are the effects:

  • It proclaims that the people having this wedding are better than other people who don’t do this at theirs.
  • It suggests that those who seat families separately are not as loving as they should be.
  • It offends every little old lady who comes to the wedding, making her ask herself questions such as “Do they think I’m some kind of asshole?” and making her feel guilty about wanting to sit with her brother and his family, or maybe near that charming young man her granddaughter married.

Am I making mountain of molehill? Only a bit. It is only that I tire of how we have begun to use language.

Let us be open. Let us be generous. Let us be expansive and liberal and considerate whenever possible. And (here’s my negativity, my prohibition) let’s avoid prohibition. It’s ought not to be “You can’t pick a side”. It ought to be “sit anywhere”.

Let’s be rid of the hipster language that assails us and speak plainly and openly. As in, “This is my party. Please, sit anywhere. Eat anything. Drink anything. Speak to anyone you wish.” And let the Captains of Unity stop being aggrieved and resentful, and get back to their good work.

No Such Thing As Too Much Assurance

From the magnificent John Barach.

You cannot give your children too much assurance of your love, and you do not need to — in fact, you must not — teach them to question their assurance in order to get them to toe the line and live the way they should.

And so it is with the church.

Presumption is deadly and pastors should preach the covenantal warnings of Scripture. But no one has ever perished because he had too much assurance, because he trusted too much that God loved him, that Jesus died for him, that the Spirit was working to glorify him.

Ordinary Time Is Awesome Time: Your Joy No Man Taketh From You

El Greco, “The Pentecost”

Please find here the text of Peter’s post-Pentecost sermon, a.k.a. The Sermon. One of the best things about The Sermon is that it is a response to mockers; to those who in another age would be known as player haters.

The mockers say “These men are full of new wine.” Peter doesn’t try to justify himself to the haters, as is the compulsion of so much of the modern church. It would be easy to read the passage that way if your only way of thinking of the pulpit was as a place to “meet people where they are”. He doesn’t hasten to explain, “No, no, no, don’t worry guys, this isn’t what it looks like,” then spend time making excuses and explaining away, nor to say that God longs to be accepted by them as they are.

Peter pricks them in the heart. He hurts them. He tells them that Jesus has been exalted as king and will put all his enemies under his feet. He accuses the listeners of being traitorous regicides.

He tells an amazing drunken story of resurrection, repentance, baptism, and salvation.

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There are a lot of separatist “fundamentalists” in my neck of the woods. These Christians separate themselves from the world, refuse to drink alcohol or expose their arms, and leave tracts instead of money in tip jars.

Who are these people? What do they matter to you and me?

They don’t matter at all.

They haven’t filled themselves with excuses and a longing to be liked by men, but neither have they been awesome. No one accuses them of being full of new wine. No one is amazed, or in doubt, or says to another, what meaneth this?

Pentecost Sunday is past. We are now in Ordinary Time. You have been given the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom is come in you. The Kingdom makes demands, it pricks in the heart. Live a life that demands the question, what meaneth this?

And if I may suggest it, perhaps you’d like to do that with the emphasis that I’ve chosen for my own good-spell telling: unapologetic feasting. Listen, these are not drunken as you suppose; they are filled with joy, and the Holy Ghost.

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We are a special people.

Yes, special like the short bus.

Special like Batman.

If you are single-mindedly obsessed with saving the world, you will look ridiculous. If you act as if God is your joy and comfort, as if all your needs will be met by him, you will look ridiculous.

Live the sort of profligately joyful life that the world could only call foolhardy. As if the resources of all of Creation were yours. Because they are; your Father has promised them to you. Suffer and rejoice. Feast in your poverty. Give alms; care for widows; you will always have enough. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

This summer the Swait family is throwing a party, our second “Swait Summer Soiree”. Last year’s was a blast. We bought all the beer and provided all the food and hosted over a hundred people in our back yard. We made a huge deal out of it. Friends came from all over. We invited everyone we knew, and so many people came. There were children running all over, kicking beach balls into the street and making Kimberly fret about her newly planted blueberry bushes. There were young married couples sharing beers with divorcees on the stoop. There were rugby players and artists playing poker and smoking cigars under the dogwood trees. I tell everyone this, so you’ve probably heard me say it, but I went to sleep around two and left a dozen people hanging out around a table in our yard, keeping the party vigil. It might have been the most awesome party ever.

It was a wonderful refresher and source of joy for us.

The reason we decided to host that party last year was because I was not getting enough work, and not getting payed enough. We couldn’t pay our bills. We were struggling and weary to the point of exhaustion. We were dry and lost and grieved.

So we threw a party. Seriously. It was crazy.

And now that we’re not in crisis, and haven’t been for months, we’ll throw another party.

Let the mockers say that you are full of new wine. The truth is that you are full of the Holy Spirit. You know that you are held in the palm of God’s hand; that is why you behave the way you do. That is why you are full of joy.

This year we’ve hit Ordinary time. Easter and Pentecost are over. Where is my Risen Lord? How can I live without you here, Lord Jesus?

I have a Comforter.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.

Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me?

Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

If The Labor Doesn’t End In Joy

“If the labor doesn’t end in joy
surpassing its conclusion
it is nothing. Better if nothing

had happened at all. That’s
the desperate essential gamble
– dare joy from under its rock.”

(from Wendell Berry, “The Garden”)

For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.

That which you sow is not made alive, except it die: And that which you sow, you sow not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may by chance be wheat, or of some other grain.

Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, since you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

The French & N.C.’s Marriage Amendment

Last week when the wife was hanging out with a friend, the topic of French people came up. The friend was frustrated because she had been treated rudely and condescendingly by a French person. So this sophisticated and cultured woman vented a bit, making the comment that every French person she’d ever met has been rude.

There might have been a bit of exaggeration on her part, due to the offense she’d taken. I’ve certainly known some nice-ish French people. But most of the Frenchies I’ve known have been sort of rude.

Of course, what’s taking place is simply cultural crossed wires. These rude French people aren’t actually being rude to us on purpose, are they?

Well, yes and no. Mostly yes, but it’s nothing personal.

Contemplez-vous cette femme ridicule, cavalier.

To the French, conformity to the normes courantes are a requirement for respectability. Americans are individualistic to a vicious fault; this leads to a self-regard that is relatively unaffected by the opinions of others. “Self-esteem” is a real thing to Americans, but is meaningless to a Frenchman, to whom estime is the admiration you develop for people you have a relationship with. The French have no self-esteem, but they have their honneur, which is defined by others. The estime that others hold you in is what defines your self-regard as a Frenchman. Whereas Americans have historically been aggressively individualistic, the French are as thoroughly a face-saving honor culture as the Japanese.

That is what leads to the bullying and rudeness. Being witty and clever is rewarded in French culture, as is philosophy and academic research. But only when it falls into accepted norms. This is why the French Academy spends so much time making pronouncements regarding the French language, and fighting change to a point that looks ridiculous to us. It is why their philosophers and fashionistas are so famed for their brutality toward les étrangers. It is because that which we have all agreed upon is what is right.

Therefore an intellectual mob mentality. When French people were rude to you (assuming a real conversation, not a request for directions to the metro) you noticed that it was done in a very laissez faire sort of way, which only offended you more. But it was done casually because it was done instinctively, not personally.

Europeans all agree that you should have few children; it’s not rude of a French person to talk about how you have too many kids because it is you who is outside the norm. Europeans agree that religion and religiosity are barriers to enlightenment; it’s not rude of a French person to tell you that you’re stupid and superstitious because it is you who is outside the norm. The French agree that there’s a radical separation between one’s work and one’s “private life”; it’s not rude of a French person to tell you that you’re overreacting to that politician’s scandal because it is you who is outside the norm.

French society allows for a range of what is intellectually and behaviorally acceptably, of course. It is, after all, a human society. But you’ll know it when you bump up against the boundaries of what is acceptable. The French learn early on that they’ll get bashed by those who are older and more established if they step outside the norm, so they become masters of navigating that river. But they will (almost) never put the boat up and go exploring in the woods.

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Well, that was a nice little article, wasn’t it? What does it have to do with the controversial recent amendment to North Carolina marriage law?

It has to do not so much with the referendum and amendment as it does with some of the reactions I’ve seen.

On Facebook you could tell the moment the results were cemented. That’s because there were hordes of people ready with one-liners, photos, cartoons, and memes galore. They all exploded out early in the evening. These were not attacks on the theological, anthropological, or political ideas in play. They were all “look how stupid those people are”.

This is one of the least rude ones out there.

A republic is representational, but is structured to protect the rights and political power of minorities as well as majorities. It is easy to see how the political life and structure of these United States has changed over the years as it became less of a republic and more of a democracy, in which the straight majority decides all. American intellectual life, of course, has always been ahead of and informing the political trajectory.

The glory of American intellectual life was its individualism. Sadly, the natural entropic course of that is atomization to the point of becoming the demos masses. We have decayed intellectually to the point that our thinking is utterly defined by the polarized group we belong to. Anyone outside that norm is to be ridiculed instead of engaged.

We are becoming like the French. If you say something contrary to what the Academy says, you are only to be mocked. Public dialogue and political discourse has never been so easy!

If anyone disagrees with you and your group, they must be stupid. You don’t need to talk to them or even respect them. Just start calling people names and bashing away.

Eastertide Dancing

Our church’s annual Eastertide dance took place a couple of weekends back. What fun to celebrate Christ’s resurrection that through dance! And it’s even better when we’re talking about the deacons paying for the kegs, a fun-loving caller and band, little kids dressed up to the nines and excited out of their minds, food overflowing from the table-tops, and friends everywhere.

Your church should do this. You’d love it.

Click on a photo for flippable gallery function.

Introduction To Several Former Male Virgins

UPDATE: You can click on this link to follow the guest posts as they are written this week.

This week The Giant is featuring several guest posts on a topic near and dear to me: sweet virginity.

Okay, well, maybe not sweet virginity. The posts are on male virginity until marriage.

There is an ocean of articles, stories, and opinions on American sexual behavior we could explore together. These works are largely untrustworthy, given the nature of the subject, the biases of sociologists, and the straight freakiness one would never be far from (Alfred Kinsey preferred to masturbate by inserting a toothbrush into his urethra; this was the least of his perversions, yet he was trusted as the defining word on American sexual behavior). Still, many trends and tendencies are obvious even to those of us who only use toothbrushes for toothbrushing.

Many many most Americans have sex before they marry (I’ve seen numbers as high as 95%), and most of them not with the person they end up marrying. I’m not going to link to any reports. As I said, I am very skeptical of such reports, but they’re very easy to find online, and even if they’re not factually accurate, they tell an accurate story.

So most people have sex before they marry, which we are told is natural and healthy. We hear of the existence of strange people who fall outside the pale of normal behavior, and we raise our eyebrows but affirm their right to healthy alternativity; strange creatures such as asexuals and nonsexuals who prefer not to have or never have had sex but are distinct from virgins. Strange, perhaps, not normal, but since they claim to lack the appetites the rest of us have, how can we expect them to need to satisfy them?

The true perversion is evident in people who claim to have sexual appetites, but wait an unhealthy amount of time, until they’re all grown up and married.

In a fun little twist on top of that little idea is a touch of misogyny. We say it’s unhealthy to suppress overmuch our sexual drive, and we include women in that statement. After all we, unlike those stupid Victorians, know that women have robust sexual appetites. Yet if we hear a woman claim that she was virgin until she married, we might feel a touch of condescension and pity, but we’ll believe her. We don’t believe men when they make the same claim.

I was a virgin when I married at twenty-two. When people hear this they are absolutely blown away. Seriously. They are blown away; they look as if they cannot believe it. Some have outright claimed to not believe me. The only way I can think to explain it is that I am a handsome healthy male free of any crippling social handicaps. Many people firmly believe that the only way a male would make it into early adulthood without having had sex would be if it had been against his will.

This is the dominant view of sexual development in the young American male: a single-minded obsession with mating grows with each passing post-pubescent moment until the subject is in agony, an agony which is only relieved when the male find a female to mate with. Countless stupid movies testify to this.

This has always offended me. It makes men seem like animals. Sadly, the longer we portray men as animals, the more they actually behave as if they were.

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I don’t claim that I was absolutely “pure” before I married. I got involved in some situations that in a different cultural context would have placed me in serious trouble, regardless of whether I was “technically” a virgin or not. And I don’t get hung up on being a virgin. What I do get hung up on is the disbelief and condescension that accompanies claims by Christian males to be virgin. And this is because I was far from unique. My wife and I met at a Christian student union in college. I knew lots of guys who were virgins, I knew guys who weren’t virgins but were celibate, and I knew guys who were almost certainly not virgining, if you’ll allow the term.

The point is, I grew up in a milieu in which it was not crazy that a male might be a virgin by choice. And I didn’t grow up Prairie Muffin or King James-only fundamentalist. Nor did I grow up at 1st Mainstream Baptist or Megachurch 3000.

When I thought of doing this series of guest posts I thought I’d ask a few guys who met these criteria to contribute:

  • Christian
  • married
  • cool guy (to be free of the dismissive “he couldn’t get laid if he tried” charge)
  • had been a virgin until marriage (obviously)
  • good writer
  • different perspective from the other guest bloggers

Believe it or not, I don’t go around asking my friends and acquaintances whether they were virgins when they married. Now if a friend of mine spent time, say, as an actor and a drug fiend (I don’t know which is worse), I assume he wasn’t. So take that into account. But I just asked a half-dozen guys I knew who I thought were good writers, and only one responded back that he wasn’t “qualified”.

There’s nothing scientific about that. I’m just illustrating that there are entire communities out there where being a young male virgin is pretty normal. These are not freaky little cult communities, just Christian cultures full of people who study civil engineering or play football or listen to Neutral Milk Hotel or love history or watch too much TV. I’m not surprised to know lots of men who were virgins until they married.

Some of my Christian friends grew up in the church and couldn’t wait to get out from under. They hated the notion that as youngsters they couldn’t have sex, or that the price they’d have to pay was so high. But the truth is, at the time those young men hated Christ. They didn’t want anything to do with Jesus and his Church, but they were too scared to up and leave, so they were full of resentment. When I was in high school I knew plenty of guys like that. What was normal for me, however, was hanging with a bunch of virgins who expected to be virgins until they married, and while it might have been a struggle, it only made them look forward to marriage, not resent their situation.

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Today I had a conversation with wifey that is tangentially connected to all this.

Me: “We’re pals.”

Wifey: “Don’t call me ‘pal’. We’re not pals. We’re…”

Me: “Lovers?” *suggestive eyebrow waggle*

Wifey: “No! ‘Lovers’ isn’t enough! We’re husband and wife.”

That is correct. You will notice, if you choose to read the guest posts throughout this week, that intimacy is a big part of what is being discussed. It’s not just popular Christian “mean girls” played by Mandy Moore who believe that premarital sex can make intimacy in a marriage more difficult. It’s also dudes with beards and plaid shirts.

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I hope that no one will be offended for the wrong reasons during this series. That is to say, I don’t mind if you’re offended, but don’t be offended because you or someone you love isn’t a virgin. Love covers a multitude of sins. I don’t care if you’re not a virgin; I do care if you’re faithful to Christ. And I’m not going to write a million myriads of posts to preserve everyone’s feelings. We’re talking about this thing right here. Pose your what-ifs, but don’t get pissed about it.

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Below are the questions I asked of these guys, and I hope you’ll find their responses interesting. Expect one or two a day for the rest of the week.

You were a virgin until you married. How old were you at that time?

If a [Christian] man is not a virgin when he marries, how big a deal is that?

I’ve noticed that people have a hard time believing a young man could stay a virgin by choice. That is, that sex is impossible to resist for any length of time. I’m sure that it was difficult, but how difficult was it, really? What kind of struggle was it?

You must be some kind of wuss. So must other “wait ’til we’re married” guys. What do you say to that?

What good did staying a virgin until marriage do you?

If you haven’t already answered this question, how would you say it impacted your marriage? your sex life?

There it is. Hopefully this will be theologically, sociologically, and phenomenologically interesting. And yes, I know the preceding sentence sounded douchey. Enjoy the posts. If you want to send in feedback without using the comment form, email me here.