The Lead

The Guardian reports that young people believe churches are out of touch with issues of sexuality from interviews with Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Sikhs as well as those of mixed faith.:

Sex and religion are subjects traditionally avoided at dinner parties, especially in the same sentence. But the supposedly conflicting pulls of sexuality and religion have fascinated writers from the Book of Genesis onwards.

So it is perhaps surprising that there has been little in the way of academic research on the subject until now, says Dr Andrew Yip, lead author of a new report, Religion, Youth and Sexuality, a multi-faith exploration, by sociologists from Nottingham and Nottingham Trent universities.

Aware of what Yip calls "the increasingly sexualised culture in British society today", the researchers set out to look at the challenges faced by young adults of religious faith. "We wanted to explore how they understand their sexuality and their faith, and the significant factors that inform such understandings," Yip says. "Also the strategies they have developed to manage their sexual, religious, youth and gender identities."

What they found was that, although most of the young people felt their religion was a positive force in their lives, there was a strong feeling that religious leaders are out of touch with issues of sexuality.

Nearly 700 people were interviewed, aged between 18 and 25. More than 72% were students, from further and higher education, and they came from six different traditions: Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism as well as those of mixed faith. "There were, for instance, a few Christians that we interviewed who are now exploring Buddhism," Yip says before confirming that, yes, Buddhists are more liberal on issues of homosexuality and sexual diversity. "Broadly speaking, our Muslim and Christian respondents tended to hold more conservative views."

Do you think this holds true for young people and religious groups in the US?

Comments (4)

I appreciate the engagement around this topic (which has seen plenty of activity on various clergy blogs recently).

I believe that many Christians -- and especially young Episcopalians that I know -- are surprised to hear that they're considered "out of touch" about sexuality. This seems to come from the fact that while we generally do not affirm some sexual ethics -- for example, that sex exists only for procreation -- we have trouble articulating a positive sexual ethic.

Recently I wrote in my own blog about sexuality and inclusion in the church, and between the post and the ensuing conversation, we wound up having a conversation between professional ministers, my family members, and friends from other faith traditions.

Which is to say, I think that there is a hunger to have the fullness of human experience engaged by the church. I suspect one of the greatest gifts of the conversation around human sexuality over the past thirty years is the renewal of our ability to articulate that sexuality is a gift from God, and I believe the church should be saying this -- often, when I find young people who have been wounded by the church, the wound has to do with acceptance and their sexuality.

-- Ben Varnum, Diocese of Chicago

Posted by Benedictjules | March 22, 2011 10:32 AM

Coming from a young person, can I just say YES? I don't know that I'd say the church is "out of touch" with sexuality, but rather that, as Ben says, we aren't articulating a positive sexual ethic very well. I have always known what the Episcopal Church didn't teach: sex was not sinful in and of itself, sex was not only for procreation, GLBT folks were not shunned from church. But as to what the Church did teach? Mostly silence. That, and the awkward sense that sex just wasn't something you talked about in a religious context. I felt I had to make my decisions very much alone.

What is sex for? How do we live out our sexuality responsibly, lovingly? How are our spiritual and sexual lives connected? If we ignore these questions, especially when the "Sex=Sin" meme is still hanging heavy in the cultural air, it will just breed more shame & confusion. And ultimately, the decision by young people that the Church is irrelevant when it comes to sexual matters.

The ELCA's recent social statement, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, is one church's attempt to get at these questions. I think it does a good job of looking at the issue without reducing its complexity-- though I doubt that it's made its way into the teaching of the church as a whole. Most Lutherans seem to have just read the page on homosexuality.

Posted by Margaret Ellsworth | March 22, 2011 12:23 PM

I, on the other hand feel like we have been obsessed by sex for the past twenty years! On one hand we have been creating and training around avoidance of sexual misconduct to protect people from predators; and on the other hand we have built a vibrant affirmation of the right of glbt folk to enter into committed relationships that include sexual intimacy.

I think we celebrate sexual intimacy as part of the gift of creation and relation (always within a committed life long relationship of course!)but to be honest, I am not sure we need to be responsible for more than that.

Love God, love one another responsibly, respectfully and appropriately and that is enough. I personally would enjoy some years free of any discussion of sex in order to focus on other issues which are rocking our world.

Posted by Michael Russell | March 22, 2011 1:32 PM

Even accounting for the significant sampling bias (72% were students?) I suspect that a lot of the issue is really that very many young people are out of touch with religious leaders, which is to say that they probably really don't have any much interaction with them, especially not as fellow adults, and so largely think of them as frowning parental figures whose main concern is nagging about all the fornicating.

Posted by C. Wingate | March 22, 2011 5:08 PM

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