“If you’re dating someone, what kind of man is he? Does he demonstrate that he’s the kind of man who would die for you? What is his posture toward the world? Does he serve, or is he waiting to be served? Does he believe that he’s owed something, that he’s been shortchanged, that he’s gotten the short end of the stick, that life owes him something? Or is he out to see what he can give? Does he see himself as being here to make the world a better place?

“These are the big questions that you need to ask yourself.

“Take him to a family reunion. Do some sort of service project with him. See how he interacts with people he doesn’t like.

“Does he have liquid agape running through his veins?

“A friend of mine was engaged to a man, and some of her friends were not excited about them getting married. As the wedding day approached, one of her friends decided to say something to her. He said, ‘When a woman is loved well, she opens up like a flower.’

“She broke off the engagement soon afterward. In one brilliant sentence, her friend taught her what agape is and what it isn’t.

“What does he expect of you? Does he expect you to sleep with him when he hasn’t committed to you forever? Does he want all of you without his having to give all of him?

“Can you tell him anything? Is he safe? Can he be trusted?

“Can you open up to him, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, knowing that he will protect, not exploit, that vulnerability?

“Are you opening like a flower?” (>>)

“Human sexuality includes more than hormones, organs, and orgasms; it runs through the psychic and spiritual ranges of our lives. We experience our sexuality on the spiritual level as a yearning for another person. We want to reach out and stretch ourselves into the depths of another. We want to bring the other person into the orbit of our deepest selves. We want to probe into the mystery of the other. It is a mystery that tantalizes us and makes us want it to becomes the secret we share together.” (>>)

“The first thing that must be said about shame is that it is a good thing. Shame is a painful feeling that we are not the persons we ought to be: to be ashamed is to have a sense of our fractured lives, a longing to be whole. To rid ourselves of shame is to lunge into make-believe: for to be without shame is to live in the illusion that we are all what we ought to be. I think this must be said, for in our time we are hell-bent on purging ourselves of shame.

…

“But shame itself can be distorted. It can give false signals that make us feel pain when we should feel none. So, after the Fall, shame came into our lives to make us feel the truth of our condition; but in our fallen confusion shame itself is often misplaced.” (>>)

“Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions […] found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually die from malnutrition.” (>>)

“Rape culture is…” (>>)

“…and seek nothing from her.” (>>)

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.” (>>)

“I want to be loved by someone, even if it’s a false love. I want someone to make me feel good, to believe in me. And that night I wanted this woman. I wanted her physically and emotionally. I wanted her to help me deny who I really was. I wanted her to take away the sadness. I wanted her to be my savior…

“[But] I don’t know if I will get emotionally entangled with [her] only to be shoved down into the dirt, more bruised than I was before…

“So […] I invite companionship and seek community, need community–But all I really have is God. People are too much like… people; they’re too much like me. I need someone who loves in ways I never could. I need God.

“But, like Jesus, I wrestle with God. ‘Take this cup from me. There must be another way.’ And then I learn that there isn’t another way. I learn that God is unreasonable. In fact, he always has been. Forgiveness is unreasonable. Jesus dying on a cross is unreasonable…” (>>)

“We’ve gone too far, we’ve done too much. We have to quit it.”
“Just one more kiss, just one more touch. Please, ten more minutes.” (>>) [MP3]

” ‘Rapture’ may raise some Christian eyebrows with its equation of physical lust to spiritual fulfillment, but it’s a perfect picture of just how low these characters have sunk to bring meaning to their lives.” (>>)

“…if we are working out our salvation through being redeemed and redeeming, then our response to cultural abuses is not to abstain but to redeem. That not only pushes us to maturity by teaching us how to eat, drink, and have sex to the glory of God (though it won’t come easy), but it is also a witness to the world that God redeems. The pervert throws away the pornography (abuse) and learns to love sex with his wife (redemption). The glutton refuses to order a 5 piece fried chicken and fries meal (abuse) and learns to order a salad with light dressing instead (redemption). The alcohol abuser stops drinking until drunk (abuse) and learns to stop after a beer or two (redemption). ” (>>)

HERSHEY, Pa., March 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Hershey Foods Corporation (NYSE: HSY) today announced the launching of a new ad campaign targeted at the growing number of Christian youths abstaining from sexual activity until marriage. The campaign, entitled “Chocolate: It’s not sex, but it’ll do”, will include television spots, radio ads and a special website: www.AlmostAsGoodAsSex.com. Judy Hogarth in Hershey’s Public Relations Department said that although HFC is the number one manufacturer of chocolate-related items in America, it is eagerly seeking new markets for its products.

The corporation is hoping it can capitalize on the growing success of choose to wait programs among young evangelicals. “It is our sincere hope that we can help these courageous young men and women in their struggle for purity by alleviating the frustration caused by not getting any,” Hogarth commented. To avoid any misleading messages, the ubiquitous Kiss has been renamed the Hug. One youth pastor, who asked to remain anonymous, was skeptical about the campaign’s effectiveness, but remarked, “What the hell? We’ve tried everything else, why not chocolate?”

“Even permissive Christians seem scared to drink a substantial amount of it. ‘It’s okay, every now and then, to have a glass of wine at dinner.’ I’m sorry. I find that sentiment lacking. It lacks a certain boldness. There is always a risk in pleasure. In sex, a man may be lacking in selflessness from time to time, yet he should not abstain for that reason. In business, one may give way to greed every now and again (or perhaps often), yet that is hardly reason to abstain from running a store. Boldness is heavily correlated with certainty, and that is precisely why the Church I know is so modest, so unoffensive, so… conservative.” (>>)