The Moral of The Story

I've participated in many camps, conferences, and events where teens are attending several talks and or sermons over the course of a few days. There was one pastor, I will call him Pastor K that stood out to me as especially ill-informed and harmful in his preaching. There are many reasons I felt this way, but in this post I want to discuss how he talked about pregnancy outside of marriage because I think the way he spoke of it doesn't align with biblical values, but is common messaging in the evangelical community.

If you haven't experienced evangelical preaching, just like other forms of teaching there are often stories told with the goal of imparting particular morals or bits of wisdom. During a week of preaching to high school students each day, this paster told three stories, each having to do with a woman getting pregnant while unmarried, each with similar conclusions. I am going to retell the major points of one of these stories as it was told by Pastor K before discussing my perspective.

The story he told was of a young woman, I believe maybe 19 or 20. This woman had grown up in this pastor's church and he was friends with the family. She was dating a man and had become pregnant - despite messages she had been taught about waiting until marriage for sexual activity. He discussed the hardships this woman has been through. She was unable to continue her college education, she dealt with financial distress. He then said that the father of the child physically and emotionally abused her and the child, and she has been fighting through the legal system to gain full custody and be able to protect herself and this child. While there has been some success, it is an ongoing difficult, expensive, and emotionally devastating journey. Pastor K went on to say how having sex outside of marriage and therefore not following God's will for her life led to these outcomes. That her sin had led to her and her child being trapped in this abusive situation, which would impact her and her child for the rest of their lives. According to Pastor K this young woman's mistake of having sex outside of marriage had ruined her life and her future.

Let me be clear. According to Pastor K, the moral of the story (and the other two similar stories he told) is that Women should not have sex outside of marriage, because it will ruin your future, and potentially lead to abuse and financial distress.

It is not uncommon for stories like this one to be told as part of encouraging young people to abstain from sex. As a teen I'm not sure I would have thought twice about the way this was presented. As an adult, hearing this taught to young people, my heart broke and anger swelled up inside of me.

The moral of the story is that these are the consequences of the woman's "sin" of having sex?????? That's the big point here?????? That's what we want young people to take away from this?????

Set aside discussions about sex outside of marriage for a moment - there is a clear and obvious "sin" taking place in this story. And it was not committed by the woman.

This man fathered a child and physically and emotionally abuses the mother and her child.

At no point in his telling or discussion of this story did Pastor K even mention that this man did anything wrong - not even his role in the pre-marital sex. Moreover, he actively blamed this abuse on the actions of the woman being abused.