I was evangelical Protestant for over 40 years.
Celibacy is strongly encouraged, since the Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is a sin.
In the past decade, several evangelical denominations and organizations have come up with variations of “Love Waits” jewelry and pledges. These are generally meant for teens; I’ve never actually heard of something like this for 20s or older, although I’m sure there would be no problem with it.
The idea is that the person wears the ring (or whatever) and pledges to remain a virgin until they are married.
Yes, evangelicals are not supposed to take “vows” because Jesus told us not to. But it’s OK to make pledges and promises.
It’s probably a hair-splitting semantics issue. I’ve heard evangelicals many times refer to wedding vows. I think that this is one of the many examples of evangelicals retaining the idea of the “sacrament” while steadfastly insisting tha it is not a sacrament. Other examples of this sort of thing are baptism, communion, ordination, anointing of the sick, and in some Protestant churches, although not most evangelical churches, confirmation. Evangelicals retain a “form” of these sacraments while denying that they are sacraments, or indeed, denying that sacraments exist.
The problem with many evangelical pledes of celibacy is that the statistics seem to prove that many break those pledges. The pledges may help a teenager to wait until they are older, which is good, but I’ve read stats that as many as 80% or more end up having sex outside of marriage.
I personally think that evangelicals underestimate the tremendous, awful, destructive POWER of sin. They believe that all sins are forgiven, past, present, and future–it’s like a “ticket to sin” since there is no eternal or temporal punishment and therefore no accountability for sins–they’re just forgiven and separated from us as far as the east is from the west.
Evangelicals do not practice confession of sins. They teach that confession is for the CHRISTIAN, to help them draw closer to God. But if we don’t confess our sins, they are still forgiven.
I can say that in the 47 years that I was evangelical Christian, there were very few times that I actually confessed any sins to God and begged for His forgiveness. I believed that I was saved no matter what. In fact, I heard one teacher say that we should strive to not think about our sins ever, and to forget about them, since it showed a lack of faith in Jesus’s finished work on the cross.
One of the legacies of this teaching in my own life is that I have a TERRIBLE time recognizing sin in my life. I sin with impunity. Catholics have a real sense of even the smallest sins. I would literally have to do something major for me to recognize it as a sin. I pray constantly that the Lord will convict me of my own sins, and that He will have mercy on me for not recognizing sin in my life. I try, but 47 years of training to ignore sin has made me very cavalier towards sin.
Evangelicals do not distinguish between mortal and venial sins. Therefore if someone has sex outside of marriage, this sin is no worse than if someone takes a pencil home from the office. This, IMO, is another “ticket to sin” because your mind tells you that your sin isn’t that serious, that God automatically forgives you for all sin.
Finally, evangelicals believe that those who are truly Christians will not practice sin, and that anyone who does practice sin isn’t a Christian (not saved). The distinction is made between isolated sin and "practice of sin. This, again, is another “ticket” to sin, because if you just have sex once (or twice), you’re definitely a Christian. It’s only the people who live together and have sex all the time who probably really aren’t Christians, although since God forgives all the sin of a true Christian, they probably really are Christians.
There is a lot of what I would call flippancy and mushy theology about sin in the evangelical world. Yes, sin is bad, but Jesus is bigger than all our sins. HE will help us, if we stay close to Him.
There’s no real “plan” for getting rid of sin in our lives, other than quoting Scripture when we are tempted (that’s a good Biblical teaching, and as you know, evangelicals pride themselves on memorized Scripture). But bascially, it’s all up to Jesus to make us holy. We just sit back and relax and let Him take over our lives and somehow “make us” sin-free. We don’t have to do anything; in fact, if we try to do anything, we will interfere with the power of Jesus and add a “work” to His finished work. Now THAT’S a sin–human good works!
Are you confused yet? I was!
My point is that a vow of celibacy would be rather useless among evangelical Protestants. The teaching on sin is so wishy-washy that it really doesn’t matter that much if you have sex outside of marriage.
). his point is, if some one is gifted for celibacy, revel in it because it is truly a gift of God. i think one of the reasons protestants don’t stress this as an amazing gift is because of how sexual our society is and that sex is so amazing, why would anyone not want to have it (not a good reason IMO). another is because the RCC requires it as a discipline of it’s ordained ministers. this is one of the splits i have with the RCC. i know it’s not a doctrine but a discipline so there are no cries of heresy here (i don’t cry that about anything with the RCC, i just differ in opinion on some things), but it is not a discipline in the scriptures but a gift. i believe one of the causes of the priest abuse scandal (there are many, most of which fall on the individual priests and not the church as a whole) is a desire to serve God in full-time ministry and not having an avenue to do that and fulfill the God-ordained desire for some of these men to marry. there are some men and women out there gifted for celibacy but many are not. Paul himself is basically saying it’s not a command to remain unmarried but a gift from God and those gifted for it have been given a great honor. Paul is one of the very, very few New Testament examples of some one gifted for not getting married.