A recent article in The Wall Street Journal brought home just how our attitudes about sexual relationships have become dangerously trivial and mechanical. It showed how we have lost the sense of decency, morality, and shame. The article reported on new apps that allow those who engage in casual relationships to tell each other what … Read more
The Christian church must confront the Sexual Revolution squarely and in its full force. An earlier article in Crisis described how the churches have been cowed by diffidence and fear. If the Western church is to survive in a meaningful way, now is the time to summon its courage and grasp the nettle it has … Read more
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. ∼ Henry David Thoreau, Walden A few months ago, a young woman at Stanford … Read more
In a hyper-sexual society, once-traditional morals have eroded even in our Catholic institutions—and especially on many Catholic college campuses. Research shows that the pervasive “hook up” culture on the typical American campus is found even at many Catholic colleges, a fact that will not surprise most Crisis readers. Given the documented consequences of the Sexual … Read more
With students off-campus for the summer, the “campus rape crisis” enjoyed a similar hiatus. At the time of this writing the hiatus continues but the underlying crisis remains. The crisis is not in the competing true/false allegations of the parties involved, nor in the inability to define rape, but in the underlying hopelessness of lives … Read more
If you’re in need of some comic relief this week, check out this piece from The Atlantic on “the sexually conservative Millennial.” In it, writer Emma Green sets out to show that Millennials (the generation of Americans presently between 18 and 35) are in fact far less libertine than is widely supposed. They are, in … Read more
When was the last time anyone heard a sermon that condemned the evils of fornication, or adultery, or cohabitation, or divorce, or bearing children outside wedlock (let alone homosexuality)? Controlling these sins is a core Christian value. At one time a preacher could be expected to devote extended attention to these sins. And he could … Read more
Undeterred by data debunking the notion that college campuses have become what Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has called “havens for rape and sexual assault,” the Obama administration is now investigating 90 colleges and universities for possible alleged sexual violence. Suggesting that “women are at a greater risk of sexual assault as soon as they step … Read more
Forgive me, Lord, if I use your words for an admonitory parable. You said to the Pharisees, “What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and learning that one of them has wandered into the wilderness, will not leave the ninety nine and go after the lost sheep? And when he has found it, will … Read more
According to Vice President Joe Biden twenty percent of college women will be sexually assaulted over the course of their college life. Walk onto any college campus, and one out of every five women you see either has been or likely will be the victim of rape during her college years. Can you believe it? … Read more
RACHEL LU: When Adults Encourage Self-Destructive Behavior in the Young Sex has consequences. I realize that admitting this probably marks me as some sort of misogynist, but somehow I can’t help myself. For one thing, I have it on good authority that even in 2013, sex still has something to do with babies. Even before … Read more
In recent days, the Canadian Christian television show, 100 Huntley Street, has been uncharacteristically aggressive in its denunciation of the anticulture about us. The topic is teenagers and smut—sometimes it is good to return to direct and morally charged words. Their guest has been Josh McDowell, who has spent his whole adult life bringing Christ … Read more
Yet again, the Atlantic (September 2012) delivers another needlessly explicit essay in its ongoing fascination with hookup culture. While past articles explore the demeaning aspects of aggressive sexuality freed from social and religious stricture, Hanna Rosin, author of “Boys on the Side,” mocks the nostalgia of her colleagues’ longing “for an earlier time, when fathers … Read more