The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog recently ran an article by guest writer Sara Major entitled “Should faith leaders be talking to their congregations about sex?” The occasion for the article was a study by the Guttmacher Institute — the think tank that began as the research arm of Planned Parenthood — on the relationship between women who attend church and contraceptive use. In the author’s words, “This study once again highlights the disconnect between traditional religious teachings and beliefs and an individual’s actual behavior.”
Major and the Guttmacher Institute suggest that religious leaders should wake up and smell the coffee and start addressing the “real” issues related to sex, marriage, abortion, and family planning.
While I agree with Major that issues of intimacy should be openly and frankly discussed within the church setting, her assertions that church leaders are disconnected from the sexual realities of our day and that traditional religious teachings are somehow outdated are plain wrong. Given the state of marriage, family, and abortion in our country, the opposite is true.
While I do not know which church services Major currently attends, I can speak to my own experience. As a Catholic, I often hear brave priests and laity discuss the issues of marriage, contraception, sexuality, and abortion from the pulpit. I grew up with a pope who dedicated five years of his pontificate to a profound explanation of marriage, family, and sexuality, a teaching now commonly (and quite popularly) known as the “Theology of the Body.” He articulated what everyone knows deep in his or her heart, which is that sex is a powerful and bonding thing, meant for one person within the confines of a lifelong marital commitment.
Perhaps more importantly, however much Major (and the Guttmacher Institute) would like to portray the biblical understanding of sexuality as outdated and stodgy, social-science research shows quite the contrary. The national divorce rate in the United States is over 40 percent, according to the National Survey for Family Growth, but couples who wait to have sex until marriage — and remain faithful — have a divorce rate of only 20 percent. Couples who have more sexual partners prior to or outside of marriage have a much higher rate of divorce. Those who have as many as five partners have only a 30 percent chance that their marriage will not end in divorce.
So while Guttmacher and Major might advocate the idea that religious leaders are out of touch with sexual reality, many Americans would disagree. Who isn’t looking for the recipe to a happy, fulfilled marriage? Perhaps the starting point for that is not Guttmacher or Planned Parenthood but with the Creator of it all.
— Jeanne Monahan, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, holds a Master’s degree in the theology of marriage and family from the Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.