Putting the cart before the horse!

One of yesterday's news items concerned the case of Emma Hickman and her legal battle with the Ministry of Defence - a battle which she has finally won.  The background was that her fiancé, who was a serving soldier in the 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, died in a Taliban bomb attack, in March of this year.  A tragic incident - exacerbated, three months later, by the birth of a daughter to Ms Hickman.

She claimed, not unsurprisingly, that her fiancé was the father of her child, but the MoD refused to release a sample of Private Wade's DNA to allow his paternity to be beyond doubt, and to enable him to be named on the baby's Birth Certificate.  At last, officials have released a sample, and Private Wade's paternity has been confirmed.  This does have the added benefit of making the child (at least) eligible for compensation - although the young mother has vehemently denied that her case had anything to do with money and, oddly enough, I am inclined to believe her!

However, it does raise the whole issue of the falling moral standards that are so prevalent in our contemporary society.  If this couple had not "put the cart before the horse", and had been married to one another before bedding each other, the situation would not have arisen!  

Many of us, in Scotland and the UK, are deeply concerned about the current attempts by some politicians in both Holyrood and Westminster to redefine marriage.  However, could it be that the concept has already been so devalued that such a move is almost a "natural" progression?

What we need is a return to the "old-fashioned" values of chastity before marriage, and fidelity within it; of children being reared by a father and a mother (except, of course, in such tragic situations as that of Private Wade and Ms Hickman); of proper, and appropriate, discipline being exercised in the home.

Such "reactionary" ideas may not gain much support from the general population, but they could go a long way towards healing a society that is not so much fractured, as broken into little pieces!  This is where the true Church of God, the Body of Christ, has an important part to play.  "... if My people who are called by My Name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (II Chron.7:14), is a word from Almighty God that has not been revoked.  However, it is "His people" who are to be involved.  Let those of us who claim to be among that number take His word seriously, and call upon His name.

The STD bombshell!

I recall the excitement when STD was introduced to the U.K. I mean, of course, Subscriber Trunk Dialling - the means by which one no longer had to go through the operator at the local telephone exchange in order to be connected to a particular number.

However, those letters eventually came to signify something much less exciting. Another memory is of being in Glasgow, and seeing a large bill-board at the site now occupied by a major shopping centre. There were two notices on it. The first one provided the contact details for a clinic for those who thought that they might have contracted one of the sexually transmitted diseases - venereal diseases as they had been previously known - and encouraging them to do so. The other notice, in a classic example of unfortunate juxtaposition, showed a buxom Glasgow housewife, complete with coat and hat, a big smile on her face, and a well-filled shopping basket in her hand. The accompanying caption read: "I got it at the Co-op"!!! I have to admit that I was very wary about entering a Co-operative store for some time afterwards!!

One of today's UK news items concerned the statistics from the Health Protection Agency, which recorded almost half a million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases in 2009, mostly among the young - data that confirms this country’s unassailable position as Europe’s trailblazer in sexual irresponsibility.

What so many of those who contract these diseases do not seem to realise is that, while treatment is apparently much easier and quicker today, there are long-term consequences. On this morning's Today programme on BBC Radio 4, the point was made that they can cause infertility. It was also affirmed that some of the diseases - gonorrhea was specified - have developed a growing resistance to the treatment provided. And it should never be forgotten that STDs can cause other physical problems - and may even be transmitted to an unborn child!

But why should there be such a high incidence of STDs in the U.K.? Or, to put it another way, why is there so much sexual activity among young people in particular? The benefit system has, almost certainly, a part to play. Too many young girls seem to think that having a baby is the beginning of a career in which the state (i.e. the tax-payer!) will provide everything that is required. The attitude to alcohol must also, surely, bear some of the blame. The apparent desire of the previous Labour government to have sex education given to children who were barely out of nursery school - the mechanics, without any refernce to the morality - may have made even those children who might have held back from active sexual intercourse more curious about it. The loss of the stigma that unmarried parenthood used to have. The list could probably go on, and on!

So, is there an answer? Of course there is - but who, in authority, is going to listen? We could start by actually prosecuting those who have sexual intercourse before they are 16 years of age - and maybe even raise that to 18 years of age. It's a law to which a 'blind eye' has been turned for too long! We could insist that fathers - whose identity may be verified by the use of DNA samples - be responsible, financially as well as any other way, for their offspring. We could then cut back on welfare support such as a flat, a brand-new buggie, cot, clothing, etc., etc.

Yet even all of that would only cut down the incidence of STDs - and of abortion! The ultimate answer is even more radically reactive. I don't want to get too personal, but when the AIDS epidemic was recognised, many people went to clinics just to check their condition. Neither my wife nor I bothered to do so. There was a simple reason for that. Each of us had remained chaste until we were married to one another; and we had remained faithful to each other since then. Therefore, there was no way in which either of us could have contracted any type of STD!

It's the Christian way! Paul writes to the young church in Corinth, a city that was, in those days, infamous for its sexual immorality: "Don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, 'The two are united into one.' But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body." (I Cor.6:15-20)

Abstinence before marriage, and faithfulness within it, really is the only answer. How sad that it is rejected by so many!

Whatever happened to just saying 'No'?!

Of course, the heading is a bit one-sided - but I didn't want it to be too long. The other half of the equation, as it were, is: "and to not asking in the first place?!"

The reference, not surprisingly, is to sex, and is in the light of news today that a survey of teenage girls in (I suspect, only) England and Wales, shows that one in eight has been pregnant by the time they have reached 18 years of age, with 3% claiming to have been pregnant at least three times.

The figures may relate, directly, only to England and Wales, but it is an apparent statistical fact that the U.K. as a whole has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in western Europe - even if they seem to have fallen to their lowest level for two decades.

The inevitable response from some is "... to maintain investment in young people's contraceptive and sexual health services." (Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group); and to "... continue doing what we know works to improve teenage pregnancy: improving access to sexual health services, good quality sex and relationships education in all schools, and supporting parents to talk to theor children." ('sexual health' charity, Brook).

Sadly, after many decades of following these policies, we still have the situation reported above. To give credit to some of the young girls involved, almost half of them went to full term with their pregnancies - but more than a third had abortions: little human lives snuffed out because a girl couldn't (or wouldn't!) say 'No' to a boy who was, in most cases, merely wanting to satisfy his own hormone-induced urges.

It all comes back to two old-fashioned ideas: purity and respect. Some girls don't seem to realise that they can only lose their virginity once; some boys have no respect for the girl whom they are dating, and see her simply as an object to be (ab)used. The end result is not only the statistics released by this Dept. of Ed. study, but also an ever-increasing incidence of sexually-transmitted diseases that have a longer-term effect on the recipients than most young people seem to realise; many girls who have abortions being less able to conceive in later adulthood; and, of coure, even in the cases of the girls who do have their children, another generation of youngsters with no wholesome male role model in their lives.

There is a lot to be said for the old-fashioned maxim of "Chastity before marriage; fidelity within it". Paul puts it like this: "Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body." (I Cor 6:18-19; NLT).

I have a cutting at home that contains some frightening statistics. I can't recall the exact figures, but the article shows how many sexual partners the average 'liberated' person really has. Not just the girl I was with last night - but every boy with whom she had previously had sex; and every girl with whom they had previously had sex; and so on, and so on! And it's not just the physical act that is involved. It's that passing on of chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and I don't know what else, that spreads such infections like wildfire.

The Bible may be old-fashioned to many, today. But its healthy attitude to sex (which was, after all, invented by God!) - that it be between one man and one woman, within the bond of a committed relationship - would, if followed, see a marked reduction in some of those horrifying statistics that we seem to now take for granted.