Sex. Jesus. Popular opinion holds that to experience joy in one precludes finding joy in the other. The message of the AU Christian community challenges this idea.

Campus chaplain and director of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship Mike Godzwa guides Christian students with informal discussions, courses held in Kay Chapel, and seminars.

“When it comes to the topic of sex, there is a misunderstanding that a lot of people think that Christians think that sex is bad,” Godzwa said. “Sex is God’s idea!” he said energetically. “It is a pious act of love between a man and a woman.”

He emphasized that God created all things that are good and perfect, and that sex is one of those things. The two purposes of sex are to create an intimate bond between a man and a woman and procreation, he said. However, the act was created with parameters that need to be kept.

“Genesis talks about man and woman becoming one flesh,” Godzwa said. “That bond is meant to be in marriage.”

Godzwa said that when a sexually active couple separates, the bond is broken and sex loses its lasting effect. He compares the situation to two pieces of wood that are glued together.

“The idea is that God has created sex as the glue between a man and a woman,” he said. “If that glue is applied carelessly and the wood separates, the glue loses its effect until one day the glue has no effect at all.”

A person who uses sex as a pastime or recreation instead of the union that God intended can have emotional problems, Godzwa said.

“If it’s just a search for pleasure and the union is gone, it becomes perverted,” said Godzwa.

Moral or Immoral?

Sex outside of a committed relationship is a bad decision, agreed AU senior Candace Brown, but as long as a couple is committed, sex is not necessarily immoral. Brown’s role models have all waited until marriage, but she thinks that students should be mature and approach sex safely.

“I don't really think it's a matter of right or wrong,” said Brown, who identifies herself as Catholic. “Different people have different sets of values that reflect their life, experiences, et cetera.”

Another AU student, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that there is no biblical basis for abstinence before marriage. He also said that it is better to find one’s sexual compatibility with another before making a vow before God.

“I’ve to this day never found a Christian that can show me a biblical passage that clearly says ‘Sex before marriage is wrong,’” he said. “The Bible talks about adultery, often times interpreted by the Christian community as meaning more than just that.”

Christians as Sexual Beings

The AU Christian community actively promotes abstinence until marriage, yet campus chaplains realize that there is a lot of opposition to the Christian idea. Some AU students said that they feel that Christians have prude, dull attitudes toward sex.

“I totally disagree,” Godzwa said. “I would say that Christians are as sexual as any other person.”

Humans are different from the rest of creation because they have the ability to act on their own wills, instead of merely instincts, Godzwa said.

“Christians, by holding off, are not devaluing sex but increasing its value by saying, ‘It is a wonderful union, but I am not going to cheapen it by making it only for pleasure,’” he continued.

Sophomore Rachel Gumienny agreed, saying that she will follow God’s desires and not her own—which means waiting to have sex until marriage.

“Just because I am a Christian doesn't make me abnormal in the way that I am physically constructed,” she said. “It is normal to want sex.”

Senior Brian Lyman, a student leader in Chi Alpha, said he understands how others could perceive Christians’ views as naive about the true meaning of sex because they limit themselves to marriage-only sex.

“From the non-Christian perspective, our view is crazy!” he said. “All the things that the world considers to be excellent methods of sexual self-discovery, namely to engage in sex when it feels right and you want to, are simply not possible within Christianity.”

In the Minority

Godzwa admitted even Christians struggle with sexual issues because of the social pressure to be engaged in sexual activities. Therefore, Christian leaders deal with sexual issues on a regular basis.

“I think it's always a struggle because the media always puts out the idea that ‘everyone's doing it," when in reality, that's just not true,” said sophomore Rachelle Wilson, also a student leader in Chi Alpha.

But many students do not consider abstinence as an option, or regard abstinence as an unfavorable choice. This leaves students who are abstinent sometimes feeling intimidated to defend their views.

“I feel like a minority as someone who plans to save sex for marriage, but I know that "everyone" isn't doing it, so it doesn't bother me,” said Wilson. “I'm fine with who I am.”

Christians at AU say the sexual behavior of their peers is unhealthy. Wilson agrees.

“I think the promiscuity of AU students is disgusting,” she said. “How can you justify having sex with someone whose first name you can't even remember the next day?”

Lyman said that AU students would find much more joy in sex if they simply waited. Having sex before marriage is like playing with a new toy without reading the instructions and then breaking that toy, he said.

“It breaks my heart when people are broken over the emptiness that misused sexuality leaves in their lives,” he said.

The Guilt Factor

Christians also bear a lot more guilt about sexual activity than do non-Christians.

“I think that very few people deal with as much guilt concerning sex as Christians do,” Lyman said.

The guilt stems from natural God-given human desires, he explained.

“It's not like Christians don't want it,” he said. “And yet so many don't understand why we're asked to wait, and so we feel guilty about wanting what we're not supposed to have.”

Intercourse? Oral Sex? Kissing? Where to “Draw the Line”

Another struggle of many students, especially those who want to remain abstinent, is knowing where to draw the line before intercourse and when to stop being intimate.

“Some acts are sexual in a relationship besides intercourse,” Godzwa said. “Some people draw the line at holding hands, others do at kissing. There are some gray areas.”

The dispute over whether Bill Clinton had “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky exemplifies this difference of opinion, Godzwa said. Christian teachings have a solution to this disparity.

“There are certain ways where God has created our body to be aroused for the act,” Godzwa said. “If you go through those processes to become aroused and then stop before having intercourse, there will be frustration from built-up sexual tension, which leads to the greater possibility of engaging in the act of intercourse.”

AU senior Meg Apgar, who will marry in December, decided that her first kiss with her husband would be on her wedding day. She said that her past struggles with purity have contributed to her decision and that she is pleased with her choice.

“I admit, it is difficult to wait as the day comes closer, but I won't break my word to God for any amount of pleasure,” she said. “Whenever I am tempted, I am reminded of how perfect our wedding night will be, not because we are experts on sex, but because it will be the perfect time.”

While not every Christian decides not to kiss, as Apgar and her fiancée did, most Christians gain their moral grounding on the issue of “when to stop” from the Bible.

“The Bible says to flee from sexual immorality, not to tiptoe to the line and peek over to the other side to see what you're missing,” Wilson said.

Lyman agrees. Without biblical guidance, Christians will not view purity correctly, he said.

“The moment you start to think of purity in terms of, ‘How far can I go?’ You've already lost,” he said.

The Good News

However, the issue of sex within Christian parameters does not have to be all struggle and guilt, Lyman pointed out. When a man and woman are joined in the flesh through sex, it is the same as the joining of the flesh with Christ, said Lyman. For that reason, sex should be viewed as a gift from God.

“Sex is the image of our salvation! How cool is that?” he said.

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