Here's an excellent follow-up to my post on the "Students of Virginity" piece in the NY Times (http://fullpermissionliving.blogspot.com/2008/03/pl-on-all-ideas-about-sex-drugs-and.html), excellent because it is was written by a priest who finds there to be no evidence or divine dictate in the teachings of Jesus for abstinence before marriage. YAY!! A sane voice in the wilderness of sexual repression and oppression.
Here's Reverend Astrid Storm in her own words:
"Sunday's piece in the New York Times Magazine, 'Students of Virginity,' was interesting to me both professionally and personally -- professionally, because I'm a Christian priest who sometimes deals with such issues in my parishioners' lives, and personally, because I used to be a student of virginity myself. At Yale, both at the Divinity School and on the wider campus, I was surrounded by unmarried sexually active (or at least openly so) people my age who were put together and, contrary to what I'd been taught, were handling their complex sex lives just fine (with eyesight intact). At the same time, my studies there confirmed that the Biblical arguments for premarital abstinence are fairly flimsy. Jesus said nothing about premarital sex, period.
"In my six years of being a priest, I've encountered a few people who felt premarital abstinence was right for them, and I've encouraged them in that. But more often than not, I've found that it's something people choose not to practice. Since it's not a divine mandate as far as I can tell, I've encouraged those people in their decision, as well. And as for me, I'm no longer a student of virginity, but I'm still a student of Christianity. Maybe even a better one than I was before."
See Reverend Storm's piece at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-astrid-storm/students-of-christianity_b_94509.html
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