Close Up: Churches address touchy topic of sex education

Oct. 28, 2004

When Erika Mayer, 16, felt regret over how far she had gone with a former boyfriend, she found reassurance in her grandparents and her church.

It is an unlikely scenario for many teens. But Mayer, who lives with her grandparents and long has been close to them, had attended sex education seminars at her church. What she learned at the seminars guided her through her complicated feelings and made her realize she had lots of support. Now she is committed to abstinence until marriage.

"Usually at church when we talk about it, it’s usually in youth group or Sunday school and it stays in the room," Mayer says. She attends First United Methodist Church in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Ariz., where her grandmother is associate pastor. "At church, you’re able to talk to people ... and know those people are behind you for whatever decision you make."

The United Methodist Church is among a growing number of denominations that have taken up the touchy topic of sex education.

Disturbed by teen pregnancy rates, the myths teens share at school and reluctance among parents to set them straight, churches increasingly are addressing the subject. They want to arm teens with solid information and strong values as the young people navigate through the tough choices of adolescence.

Churches emphasize abstinence as the only infallible birth control method, while sex education efforts also acknowledge the place of contraceptives, with the logic that information is the best defense against poor choices.

"It’s more and more really necessary to wake up and say, ‘OK, this is the society you are living in. You need to deal with it,’" says Dottie Lou Colby of Catalina, Ariz., a United Methodist who has been a sex education instructor for at least seven years.

Many programs teach abstinence as the only truly biblical and healthy way to address teen sex, and such programs encourage teens to pledge they will remain virgins until they wed. This approach has flourished, buoyed by federal and state funding. President Bush promised to double that funding for the coming fiscal year to $273 million in his State of the Union address in January.

Gillian Lisenby, 18, a member of First United Methodist Church in Dothan, Ala., says a sex education seminar she attended at church when she was younger was one thing that led her to pledge she would remain a virgin until marriage.

"God told us in the Bible (sex) was for a man and woman in marriage," she says. "You obviously look around and you see other pregnant teenagers or you hear about it, and you want to raise your children with someone who loves you."

The United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline calls on congregations to offer "full, positive, age-appropriate and factual sex education" that discourages promiscuity. Church leaders say teens need to know it’s OK to direct questions about sex to them.

"The kids are learning all about sexuality on the streets and in the schools, and most of it isn’t healthy," says Lynn Hamilton, Erika’s grandmother. She has organized sex education seminars for her congregations for more than 21 years. "I believe teaching it in church and letting kids know it’s OK to talk about sex in church is a good, healthy way of teaching sex."

Some 900,000 American teens from the ages of 15 to 19 get pregnant every year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The United Methodist Publishing House has responded with curricula for children and teens that stress that sex is meant for after marriage. The materials also introduce the subject of contraceptives and note that contraceptives cannot protect against all sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, the curricula address sex in popular culture, and they discuss spirituality and making decisions in line with United Methodist beliefs, says Harriett Olson, senior vice president of publishing.

Some congregations put a bigger emphasis on abstinence, but all should address the subject, says MaryJane Pierce Norton, who works in marriage and family ministries for the United Methodist Board of Discipleship.

"Just because it’s a hard topic doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be working with it," she says.

Candid discussions

A weekend-long sex education seminar in February at Glendale’s First United Methodist Church drew some 35 youths from across the community. Their parents joined them, too, for candid discussions on sex, dating, love, peer pressure, drugs and alcohol and — perhaps most importantly — communication among families and friends.

Colby, an instructor at the seminar, organized imaginary parties to get teens thinking in advance about how their dates might turn out in an alcohol-laden environment. And she invited teens and their parents to share even their most private questions with each other.

Too often parents worry about their children but don’t know how to approach them with questions about their friends and activities, she says. Meanwhile, teens have questions, too, but don’t know where to go for answers. These seminars give guidance steeped in the teachings of the church. Some families are just aching to open up, she says.

"Sometimes they’re crying and hugging each other," Colby says.

Role for churches

Lloyd Lewis, a United Methodist and assistant dean at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., teaches a course on religion and sexuality. He believes churches should continue with sex education.

"Our sexuality is a part of who God created us to be, and our sexuality and our spirituality are intrinsically intertwined with each other," he says. "There is concern about what schools teach about human sexuality, and there is a responsibility of the communities of faith to ask the question, ‘What do we believe as persons of faith about sexuality?’"

For Erika, talking about sex at church isn’t weird at all. The seminars are informative and help her and her friends open up, she says. They also offer a chance for teens to show they can face these important decisions responsibly. Now Erika is with a new boyfriend, and this time, she is taking things slower.

"I kind of screwed up last year and know how bad it hurt me and how bad it hurt my family, and to go down that road again would not be a smart idea," she says. "I had my grandparents there to go through it with me, so I wasn’t doing it all on my own."

*Green is a freelance journalist based in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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