Prematrial sex?

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Esdra

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Hi folks!

In another thread we shortly discussed about prematrial sex.

As you know, I am living in a Catholic dominated country in Europe.
And what I realised is that a very small minority still “pracitces” prematerial sex.
(Remember, at least on the paper, there are over 80% Catholics were I live!)

Now, as mentioned above, PRmerger wrote “that thanks god in the US most youngsters still don’t have sex before her marriage.”

I mean, actually, for me having sex before marriage would also be the most normal thing in the world, if I wouldn’t have come to the Baptist I am attending righ now and learned there that it is God’s will to not have prematrial sex.

I have talked to collegues of mine on that topic then and they said, “That’s an interesting ethic, but actually, they couldn’t live without sex before marriage”. - or so.

Here in CAF then I got to know that this would actually also be doctrine of the CC. ('Though I have never heard that before. But, actually, this could also be because I was extremely poorly catechised and also didn’t have “devout” Catholics as friends/collegues.)

I then also talked to my mum and dad, and they said that they didn’t have prematrial sex. But mum said, she would never do that again, if she was young again. (Dad, however, would, he had said.) [Both are not really practicing Catholics anymore…]

So, actually this thread is more for the younger generation here in CAF.
But of course the older ones are also invited to share their wisdom. 😉

in Christ,
 
 
Even before I really became a practicing Catholic I was always the type who wanted to wait until I was in a long-term relationship before having sex. I started RCIA when I was 16 and obviously learnt that God’s will is for us to wait for marriage. I knew this was the teaching but I still had this battle about whether or not I wanted to wait or not. I didn’t in the end - I wasn’t even in a relationship. But then I started thinking about it properly and realised that I didn’t want that path and wanted to follow the will of God. So now I’m going to wait until I am married because I know that is what is right.
 
Theology of the Body by John Paul II is a wonderful resource for understanding the Catholic Church’s teachings about sex. Another great book is Good News about Sex and Marriage by Christopher West. West’s book is in a Q&A format and the answers are based on the teachings of JPII’s Theology of the Body. West’s book is also a quicker read.

In response to the Catholics you live around: Unfortunately, just because someone declares himself to be Catholic, does not mean that he is devoutly following the teachings of the Church. This phenomenon, however, goes far beyond the Church. People are perfectly capable and often willing to declare one thing and live another. West points out that, “it’s important…that we not confuse the mind of the Church with the minds of the people in the Church.” The Church is clear about it’s teachings on premarital sex. Whether people choose to follow those teachings is an entirely different issue.

In response to the statement that most young people don’t have sex: I wish that I could agree with this statement and hate to be the barer of bad news, but most young people do have sex. However, most does not mean all. My husband and I were together on-and-off for 9 years before getting married and during very formative years (13-22), but we waited until we were married. Waiting is very challenging (which explains the “off” time), and it is also foreign to most people of our generation (we are 24 now). The only reason that we waited is because I knew at a young age (age 11) that sex was meant for marriage.

I cannot express enough to parents how important it is to talk to their children at a young age (even younger than 11 now). If you think that they are not being exposed, at say age 10, you are probably wrong. We live in such a sexualized society that they are exposed daily. In many ways, it’s the media that is teaching young generations about sex. Youth are just doing what they are taught on TV. Parents need to be the voice that challenges society’s view on sex.

“Love is not arbitrary. Love isn’t whatever makes a person “feel good.” Love means following Christ and keeping his commandments (see Jn 15:10). That is what the Church’s teachings are all about. And it’s a joy to live, not a burden.” (West)
 
PerfectTiming said:
Even before I really became a practicing Catholic I was always the type who wanted to wait until I was in a long-term relationship before having sex. I started RCIA when I was 16 and obviously learnt that God’s will is for us to wait for marriage. I knew this was the teaching but I still had this battle about whether or not I wanted to wait or not. I didn’t in the end - I wasn’t even in a relationship. But then I started thinking about it properly and realised that I didn’t want that path and wanted to follow the will of God. So now I’m going to wait until I am married because I know that is what is right.
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Actually, it was similar with me. Before I became a Christian (I mean, I was a Catholic on a paper and thus not a real Christian before summer 2009 when I entrusted Jesus my life and became a Baptist), I also wanted to wait until I was married to have sex the first time.
But I guess this was also because I so far never had a girl-friend. Now I know for sure that I want to wait and I really hope to find a girlfriend that that would understand that.
I guess it can get really hard if she doesn’t want to wait, but I can’t really imagine this scenery…

I often was looked strange upon that I never had a girlfriend and thus no sex so far by my fellow students or pupils. But I guess it was the grace of God that I never had a girlfriend so far and so He preserved me from making a mistake (which’d be premarital sex).

I do know also devout Catholics (most of them in the Charismatic Movement) that also don’t want to have sex before married, but, as I said in my OP, they are really the minority here.
 
anevans said:
Theology of the Body by John Paul II is a wonderful resource for understanding the Catholic Church’s teachings about sex. Another great book is Good News about Sex and Marriage by Christopher West. West’s book is in a Q&A format and the answers are based on the teachings of JPII’s Theology of the Body. West’s book is also a quicker read.

In response to the Catholics you live around: Unfortunately, just because someone declares himself to be Catholic, does not mean that he is devoutly following the teachings of the Church. This phenomenon, however, goes far beyond the Church. People are perfectly capable and often willing to declare one thing and live another. West points out that, “it’s important…that we not confuse the mind of the Church with the minds of the people in the Church.” The Church is clear about it’s teachings on premarital sex. Whether people choose to follow those teachings is an entirely different issue.

In response to the statement that most young people don’t have sex: I wish that I could agree with this statement and hate to be the barer of bad news, but most young people do have sex. However, most does not mean all. My husband and I were together on-and-off for 9 years before getting married and during very formative years (13-22), but we waited until we were married. Waiting is very challenging (which explains the “off” time), and it is also foreign to most people of our generation (we are 24 now). The only reason that we waited is because I knew at a young age (age 11) that sex was meant for marriage.

I cannot express enough to parents how important it is to talk to their children at a young age (even younger than 11 now). If you think that they are not being exposed, at say age 10, you are probably wrong. We live in such a sexualized society that they are exposed daily. In many ways, it’s the media that is teaching young generations about sex. Youth are just doing what they are taught on TV. Parents need to be the voice that challenges society’s view on sex.

“Love is not arbitrary. Love isn’t whatever makes a person “feel good.” Love means following Christ and keeping his commandments (see Jn 15:10). That is what the Church’s teachings are all about. And it’s a joy to live, not a burden.” (West)
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I know that there are many Catholics out there who call themselves such but aren’t. Most “Catholics” I know are not even Christian.
You see, I have discussed that topic quite often here in CAF. I simply can’t understand why there are so many “non-devout” Catholics out there…
If I am a Christian, I am Christian, I try to live a Christian life. - And Catholics are also Christians. But that’s really hard to see here. I can understand the opinion of the Evangelicals that Catholics are needed to be evangelized.
I always find it thrilling to hear people talking on interviews on TV about Christmas and what is celebrated there or what is celebrated on Easter. - The two most important christian feasts!
They are Christians, but they are not on the same time…

I know now that it’s god will. Thanks to that Baptist community I am in know.
But thank you for the book recommendations. - I will have a look in them when I have time.

I also think it is important for parents to really start teaching them about sex and that premarital sex is forbidden by god.
Unfortunately, nobody does that. I never heard about that before, and my sister neither. She is in a relationship. And guess what: She had sex without being married.
She is not interested in religion and god at all. Nevertheless she is a “Catholic”.
Actually, if you are in a relationship and don’t have sex and somebody gets to know that, you are looked strange upon - even as a bigot.

But I think it is reassuring to get to know that the vast majority of the US-citizens have the same “problems” concerning premarital sex.
I have thought after reading prmergers comment that Europe is not a Christian country anymore…
 
Scoobyshme said:
Esdra, you may be enlightened by listening to the following audio files (MP3’s):

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/Conquering_Lust_by_Father_Kenneth_Dean.mp3

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/20040222-Sins-of-Lust-the-Consequences-of-These-Sins-Against-Purity.mp3

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/20040307-Maintaining-Purity-by-Virtue-or-by-Force.mp3

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/20040201-Women-and-Children-First-Holy-Purity.mp3

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/20040321-Modesty-the-Virtue-That-Guards-Purity.mp3

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/20040502-Modesty-of-the-Eyes.mp3

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/20060806-Occasions-of-Sin-and-Company-Keeping.mp3

God bless! 🙂
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Thank you scoobshymne. I will have a look at it later. 🙂
 
Esdra, I will share my own experience of evangelical christianity experienced by someone with a fairly lukewarm catholic upbringing. It certainly is bewildering to be introduced to many evangelical-type protestant communities (i.e. most baptists). All of the sudden you are surrounded by people who sing loud enough to hear them, pray out loud, read their bibles daily and pray for one another. After a while, you learn to see why. These communities are almost ALL recent converts brimming with enthusiasm. There are few 3rd, 4th and 5th generation members because there really isn’t a complete culture established.

Catholicism is a fully developed culture that engages the entire person and family. The GOOD side of that is that it helps develop staying power after the initial enthusiasm wears off (and it DOES). When the initial high for a baptist wears off, he often stops attending church often, changes to a different denomination or tells himself that praying at home is all he needs. That tends to result in a concentrated bunch of fired up believers that DO go to church, which makes a big impression on new converts and recruits, but is it REALLY all that impressive in the long run?

Catholicism, on the other hand, (IMO) takes Jesus’ words to heart when he tells his disciples that the weeds will grow up along with the wheat. The culture of catholicism tends to keep people attached long after the fire has gone out inside (sometimes GENERATIONS past). But that really isn’t such a bad thing. Those pew sitters are often VERY fertile ground for evangelization due to the catholic enculturation they’ve received, which is why so many evangelical churches are filled with converts who grew up catholic and why so many of their OWN children end up rejecting christianity altogether. Makes you wonder which on is REALLY doing the better evangelization job?.

The evangelical group I was in in college was 60% catholic converts in a region that was only 25% catholic by population. How come they were so lousy at evangelizing kids that GREW UP in protestant homes? Food for thought, anyways.
 
Esdra said:
I know that there are many Catholics out there who call themselves such but aren’t. Most “Catholics” I know are not even Christian.
You see, I have discussed that topic quite often here in CAF. I simply can’t understand why there are so many “non-devout” Catholics out there…
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I think you have a rather naive view of non-Catholic Christian groups as somehow living out all the ideals of Christianity whereas it is the Catholics who manage to be Christians in name only or not practicing what you preach.

Perhaps with age you will realize that you can run into those who pay lip service to Christian beliefs and living in **all **denominations. I was not always a Catholic. I grew up in the American branch of the Anglican Communion (Episcopal church) and then in college attended the Baptist church.

I can tell you that many in baptist church I attended were sleeping around with each other in a way that was shocking. People actually used bible study as the place to hook up. In my EC the preachers’ kids were the worst ones-- drinking, smoking, sleeping around.

This isn’t a **Catholic **problem, although residing in a culturally Catholic country it may seem that way. This is an *original sin *problem. People often attend church for reasons other than a pure desire to worship God. That is a universal condition. Now, many of these people I knew in the EC and Baptist church did go on to be faithful Christians as they matured in age and wisdom.

Me included, I became a Catholic!
 
This is painting things with a pretty enormous brush, Manual. I know a lot of folks who were Catholics for years who found it banal, bland, boring, uninspiring, and empty. They left to Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and other churches and have been on fire for decades with no signs of the fire burning out. Catholicism is, to be intellectually honest, not the only church that will take someone and get them dedicated, in a routine of enthusiasm toward Christ, and envigorated.
manualman said:
Esdra, I will share my own experience of evangelical christianity experienced by someone with a fairly lukewarm catholic upbringing. It certainly is bewildering to be introduced to many evangelical-type protestant communities (i.e. most baptists). All of the sudden you are surrounded by people who sing loud enough to hear them, pray out loud, read their bibles daily and pray for one another. After a while, you learn to see why. These communities are almost ALL recent converts brimming with enthusiasm. There are few 3rd, 4th and 5th generation members because there really isn’t a complete culture established.

Catholicism is a fully developed culture that engages the entire person and family. The GOOD side of that is that it helps develop staying power after the initial enthusiasm wears off (and it DOES). When the initial high for a baptist wears off, he often stops attending church often, changes to a different denomination or tells himself that praying at home is all he needs. That tends to result in a concentrated bunch of fired up believers that DO go to church, which makes a big impression on new converts and recruits, but is it REALLY all that impressive in the long run?

Catholicism, on the other hand, (IMO) takes Jesus’ words to heart when he tells his disciples that the weeds will grow up along with the wheat. The culture of catholicism tends to keep people attached long after the fire has gone out inside (sometimes GENERATIONS past). But that really isn’t such a bad thing. Those pew sitters are often VERY fertile ground for evangelization due to the catholic enculturation they’ve received, which is why so many evangelical churches are filled with converts who grew up catholic and why so many of their OWN children end up rejecting christianity altogether. Makes you wonder which on is REALLY doing the better evangelization job?.

The evangelical group I was in in college was 60% catholic converts in a region that was only 25% catholic by population. How come they were so lousy at evangelizing kids that GREW UP in protestant homes? Food for thought, anyways.
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gurneyhalleck1 said:
Catholicism is, to be intellectually honest, not the only church that will take someone and get them dedicated, in a routine of enthusiasm toward Christ, and envigorated.
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Speak for yourself. It did exactly that for me. In fact, I found Catholicism to be the only one that did **require **dedication and conviction and an all-in attitude.
 
Esdra said:
I was a Catholic on a paper and thus not a real Christian
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By definition, if you’re Catholic, you’re Christian.

Catholics were the original (and, for a thousand years, the only) Christians.

That said, there are plenty of Catholic and non-Catholic Christians that don’t live their lives as such. I can’t help that.
 
I had decided at the age of 16 to wait until marriage to have sex. I come from a Baptist background (my family’s Baptist) but I was heavily influenced by Catholicism. I went to Catholic school. Ultimately I don’t have premarital sex because I want more than casual sex. It would just be a temporary satisfaction that goes away all too fast. I do have my weak moments but then I remember why I’m waiting.
 
This is a link to a fact sheet on the sexual activity of high schoolers in the US.
kff.org/youthhivstds/upload/U-S-Teen-Sexual-Activity-Fact-Sheet.pdf

Overall, less than half of high schoolers are sexually active. However, about a third of 9th graders are sexually active, and almost (but not quite) two-thirds of 12th graders are sexually active. There’s also information about the rate of contraception use.

Over the past 10 years, the average age at which kids lose their virginity has gone down slightly. For guys, the median age of first intercourse is 16.9 years old, and for girls, it’s 17.4. I’m going to go ahead and assume that most of these high schoolers aren’t married. The use of contraception has also gone up slightly. That along with the slight decrease of sexual activity has added up to encouraging progress in the decrease of teen pregnancy and transmission of STD’s, although we still need to see a lot more of this kind of progress.

I don’t have any information on hand about sexual activity among college-age people, but I’m guessing that the 62% mark for 12th graders increases pretty dramatically as we progress to ages in the neighborhood of 21 and 22. I also don’t have any info right now on the percentage of people who are virgins when they get married, but we have enough info that we can say most American kids don’t make it out of high school before losing their virginity. And this is just sexual intercourse we’re talking about here- this doesn’t even take manual/oral kinds of things into account.

My own experience, I grew up the child of devout Christians who were missionaries for awhile. I attended a large public high school, then I went to an excellent Christian college. I’ve been out for awhile now, still not married, and I’m still a virgin. As the years go by, people get more and more shocked when it happens to come up. (It doesn’t come up all the time…three or four times a year is all). The landscape’s really changed over the years, though.

As I was going through high school, my friends ranged from athletes to party animals to stoners to other Christians to band geeks to really smart people to fairly average people. Some people were more of the “don’t kiss and tell” variety and didn’t really like it when other people talked about it all the time, while others gave me the impression that they had more talk than they had game. And then, of course, there were some people who were freaks and never could have done enough talking to keep up with what they were doing. A few people were waiting for marriage because they were Christians, but more often, if people were waiting it was just “for the right person” or the right time. I wasn’t super public about how I was waiting for marriage, in that people wouldn’t know one way or the other if they didn’t know me personally. But for anyone who did know me personally, they knew what was up and they knew it would be extremely out of character for me to mess around with anyone. It was entertaining when the first kind of person (didn’t know me personally) would talk about this with the second kind of person (the one who did). Something like this:

Person 1: “So Cooter…is he/has he?”
Person 2: “Pffftttt…dude, please.”
Me: “Seriously, what does that even mean?”
Person 2: “No offense man, it’s not a bad thing. But it is kind of funny.”

I went to a Christian college, so I can’t speak from experience about the average state school. I got reasonably familiar with a number of Christian colleges that I visited before deciding on the one I went to, and it became clear that there was a range of people in any given school and a range between schools. The one I went to, people were the Protestant equivalent of “well catechized” and if they weren’t, they got that way pretty quickly just by hanging out and talking to people. There were a few people that had a bit of a checkered past (or ongoing present situation) with sexual activity, drinking, drugs, etc. I got to know a few of them. It wasn’t a great number of people, though- I never took a poll or survey, but I’m confident in saying less than 20% of the people I went to school with had ever been sexually active. I’d probably go with less than 10% on the sexual intercourse question. This is not how it is at every Christian college, of course- some of the people at other places I visited kind of had a “military school” situation going on where their parents sent them there to try and straighten them out some. I remember talking to one guy who said he hadn’t ever heard about waiting for marriage until his first semester of school there. I remember saying “Seriously? Where have you been? What kind of parents do you have? Wait, forget it- even if they never told you that, how do you not know about this?”

I managed to make it through college without getting married, and now the landscape’s changed again. Dating as an adult is very different from dating as a kid. If I want to find single women my age who don’t have any kind of sexual history, I can…if I look up children of the missionaries my parents got to know over the years. There’s a couple of young ladies that I got to know through church over the years, but there’s far more who (if still single) have some kind of history. I’ve only had one girlfriend, and since we broke up, she got pregnant and moved in with a guy before leaving once it got abusive.

In the general dating pool, I don’t ever expect eligible women my age to be virgins. Even if they’re not divorcees (something else I never had to deal with in high school or college), I expect them to have some kind of sexual history. With the exception of MK’s and PK’s (most of whom I’ve already met if I’m ever going to meet them), I would be just as surprised by the virginity of a same-age single woman as she would be of mine.

So that’s what it’s been like for me. Maybe not the youngest generation, but close enough, I hope.
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
This is painting things with a pretty enormous brush, Manual. I know a lot of folks who were Catholics for years who found it banal, bland, boring, uninspiring, and empty. They left to Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and other churches and have been on fire for decades with no signs of the fire burning out. Catholicism is, to be intellectually honest, not the only church that will take someone and get them dedicated, in a routine of enthusiasm toward Christ, and envigorated.
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Oh yes, I AM generalizing which does leave a large trail of exceptions in its wake. I’m speaking of trend level of detail here. I’m also speaking on two levels. My observation on the burnout rate of converts in the evangelical world applies to the personal level on the scale of years/decades, but even MORE dramatically true on the level of generations. As I mentioned above, a shocking percentage of the kids of evangelicals grow up and reject christianity altogether. I rarely (generalization!) an avowed atheist who grew up catholic.

But I certainly agree that the downside of catholicism’s “stickyness” is the dilution of the fire-eating parishioners with masses of the luke warm. But I’m working on it! 😉

Oh dear, I’ve hijacked this rather badly. Anybody further interested PM me. Sorry!:o
 
I am speaking for myself, 1ke. No need to address me that way. And if you read the post, I said that Catholicism is not the only religion that has done these things for everyone. Maybe it worked wonders in your life, wonderful. Thanks be to God. But there are people who left the Catholic Church and found great passion, exuberance, prayer life, and rich devotion in other denominations. That’s what I said. I wasn’t talking about you and I wasn’t saying that Catholicism cannot and does not sanctify and change lives.

I said: Catholicism is, to be intellectually honest, not the only church that will take someone and get them dedicated, in a routine of enthusiasm toward Christ, and envigorated.Notice “not the only” means that Catholicism DOES change the lives of many but it’s not the ONLY one that does for everyone. I fail to see why you can’t grasp that?

So please read the post and listen to what I’m saying next time. God bless.
1ke said:
Speak for yourself. It did exactly that for me. In fact, I found Catholicism to be the only one that did **require **dedication and conviction and an all-in attitude.
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I went to school with MANY Catholics who went to Mass on Sunday then were sleeping around, smoking marijuana, bullying, getting drunk, and many of them flat out told me they don’t buy into Christianity but saw Catholicism as more of a tradition in the family, a cultural thing. I’ve known Catholics who dropped out of faith altogether and went terribly atheist or at best agnostic. I know several who ignored the faith on many fronts and left because they disagreed with it and could care less.

My point? Catholicism, Protestantism, all religions and denominations have a burnout factor, poor catechesis, stubbornness, hypocrisy, you name it. I will not go on record as saying that Catholicism does better than the others in retention or zeal or sincerity because I cannot prove it. You and I only have anecdotals to make our points. There are good and bad in all, fickle folks in all. When I went to RCIA in 1991, shoot, half the people in that group never came to Church again. The other half I see frequently. I know one guy I went to school with who became Catholic because his wife demanded it and he rolls his eyes and has a “yeah, right” attitude about it. He’s not running down to the Tridentine Latin Mass carrying a rosary and a Chesterton book. He’s doing it for looks and to appease his wife. So this kind of person exists in all groups.
manualman said:
Oh yes, I AM generalizing which does leave a large trail of exceptions in its wake. I’m speaking of trend level of detail here. I’m also speaking on two levels. My observation on the burnout rate of converts in the evangelical world applies to the personal level on the scale of years/decades, but even MORE dramatically true on the level of generations. As I mentioned above, a shocking percentage of the kids of evangelicals grow up and reject christianity altogether. I rarely (generalization!) an avowed atheist who grew up catholic.

But I certainly agree that the downside of catholicism’s “stickyness” is the dilution of the fire-eating parishioners with masses of the luke warm. But I’m working on it! 😉

Oh dear, I’ve hijacked this rather badly. Anybody further interested PM me. Sorry!:o
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manualman said:
Esdra, I will share my own experience of evangelical christianity experienced by someone with a fairly lukewarm catholic upbringing. It certainly is bewildering to be introduced to many evangelical-type protestant communities (i.e. most baptists). All of the sudden you are surrounded by people who sing loud enough to hear them, pray out loud, read their bibles daily and pray for one another. After a while, you learn to see why. These communities are almost ALL recent converts brimming with enthusiasm. There are few 3rd, 4th and 5th generation members because there really isn’t a complete culture established.

Catholicism is a fully developed culture that engages the entire person and family. The GOOD side of that is that it helps develop staying power after the initial enthusiasm wears off (and it DOES). When the initial high for a baptist wears off, he often stops attending church often, changes to a different denomination or tells himself that praying at home is all he needs. That tends to result in a concentrated bunch of fired up believers that DO go to church, which makes a big impression on new converts and recruits, but is it REALLY all that impressive in the long run?

Catholicism, on the other hand, (IMO) takes Jesus’ words to heart when he tells his disciples that the weeds will grow up along with the wheat. The culture of catholicism tends to keep people attached long after the fire has gone out inside (sometimes GENERATIONS past). But that really isn’t such a bad thing. Those pew sitters are often VERY fertile ground for evangelization due to the catholic enculturation they’ve received, which is why so many evangelical churches are filled with converts who grew up catholic and why so many of their OWN children end up rejecting christianity altogether. Makes you wonder which on is REALLY doing the better evangelization job?.

The evangelical group I was in in college was 60% catholic converts in a region that was only 25% catholic by population. How come they were so lousy at evangelizing kids that GREW UP in protestant homes? Food for thought, anyways.
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While I agree with gurneyhalleck that you’re painting with a broad brush, I think you make some excellent points.

There are a lot more multi-generational evangelical families than you are allowing for, to be sure. My folks have been evangelicals for at least four generations now (though one could perhaps question whether I am one, so perhaps the line is breaking–I’d like to think not, which may partly explain why I don’t become Catholic!). My wife’s folks can trace an evangelical heritage back even longer. Admittedly, we both come from unusually committed families many of whose members have been clergy or missionaries of some sort (her grandfather was a seminary president, and my grandparents ran a Bible School and did other kinds of full-time ministry). We’re not typical, but we’re certainly far from unique.

Still, statistically I think you have a point. There is definitely somewhat of a “revolving door.” And my own (and my wife’s) tenuous attachment to evangelicalism these days (I consider myself an evangelical, but by many people’s standards I’m too liberal or too Catholic or both to be one) is far from atypical for second- or third- or fourth-generation members of deeply evangelical families. (Look at Frank Schaeffer for a far more high-profile, and far more extreme, example.) It’s somewhat of a truism in the evangelical world that the children of leading evangelical families often go “astray” in some way. Of course, comparison with Catholicism is somewhat unfair here, inasmuch as Catholic clergy don’t have children at all (at least if they keep their vows!). Perhaps a better analogy is with more traditional forms of Protestantism–in Lutheranism and Calvinism there have been dynasties of theologians and church musicians who kept the flame burning for generations.

Of course, you’re talking about people in general, not just folks from families who have been involved in leadership or full-time ministry in some way.

At any rate, I agree wholeheartedly with your point about the merits of Catholicism in terms of fostering a religious culture that sticks with people. I don’t think evangelicalism is incapable of doing this, but I agree that it does it much less broadly and less effectively.

Edwin
 
I wonder what the difference is between “Prematrial” and premarital sex? 😃 I love the thread spelling 😛
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
I wonder what the difference is between “Prematrial” and premarital sex? 😃 I love the thread spelling 😛
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Hey gurney,

as you may know, or no:My mother tongue is not English and therefore I had difficulties with the spelling of premarital. 😉
I then looked it up in the dictionary, but as one can see, wrote it wrong anyway. 😉

In “prematrial” you can see the word mother (lat. mater.) 😉 😛 - So “before becoming a mother?”

Man, I am so silly right know! 😃
 
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