8 Seconds: My Bible Teacher’s Case For Abstinence
Senior Bible class was a bunch of bull!
In my senior year at my Christian school, the “secular world” loomed large. After graduation, there would be no more chapels, no more Bible classes, and no more youth group.
The “real world” held opportunities to stand for Christ at every tempting turn, unlike our school’s culture of piety and righteous decisions. In order to bunker down in the trenches against the worldly world full of temptation, our senior Bible class tackled the Culture Wars.
Culture War topics included abortion, homosexuality, and other ideas and actions that supposedly waged war against God’s Word. My school used the imagery of “war” and “battle” constantly. Read this antagonistic description of our school’s Bible teachers from my 1998 yearbook:
After making it through twelve years of Christian school, I sauntered into senior Bible class with spiritual swagger. “Crucifixion Week” in Bible class the year before toughened me up.
A simple class about the Culture Wars? No problem! I could do that with one hand tied behind my back.
Our tent-making teacher was also a pastor at a local Baptist church and consequently the Bible “classes” sounded like sermons.
He preached (I mean, teached) about the “declining moral society” of America, railing against “evils” like divorce, premarital sex, homosexuality, drugs, abortion, smoking, Halloween, Santa, and pornography (not necessarily in that order).
Though he threw in an occasional Bible verse, his lectures mostly followed a stream-of-consciousness, “what’s up with this evil world today?” type rant. With a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor, he approached all of the culture war topics with free-floating condemnation.
Now, Evangelicals already love to talk about sex, and my Christian high school was no exception. In every class, the topic of sex eventually came up.
Well, maybe not math. But all the other classes found a way to stick it in.
Senior Bible class — a class devoted to fighting the culture wars — proved fertile ground for indoctrinating teens in the rules of purity culture.
The teacher laid out all the greatest hits: Don’t think about sex; don’t have sex; don’t think about having sex.
Personally, I followed all the sex rules as best as I could. Though holding on with hope and a prayer, my virginity still remained present and accounted for.
Still, I came prepared. When I stood in front of the pearly gates, I planned on sliding into heaven on a technicality:
Our teacher presented us with endless reasons to not have sex.
Want to hear one of his slam-dunk arguments for why Christians should not have sex before marriage?
It’s “not worth it” to “waste” your virginity before marriage because an orgasm only lasts eight seconds.
Seriously.
He said that to us several times. I remember this distinctly because of how awkward it was to hear this while the teacher’s son, also a senior, sat in the front row. How the kid did not die of embarrassment is beyond me.
Not to sex shame, but I believe eight seconds for an orgasm is even selling the guys short. But especially the gals! At eight seconds, we’re just getting started. I personally want to stay on the bull for longer than eight seconds.
It’s no wonder Evangelicals end up with such messed-up views of sex. Looking back, I now know that he was either lying or having bad sex. Sad in both cases, but I suppose it explains why he was so crotchety.
And me? I fought the good fight for a couple of months after graduation, but once the secular cat was out of the bag, I figured might as well give myself over to the dark side…
Read more about my own battles with purity culture in the article below, and subscribe to get stories when they come out. Thanks for reading!
