True Love Waits

True Love Waits (TLW) is an international Christian group that promotes sexual abstinence outside of marriage for teenagers and college students. TLW was created in April, 1993 by the Southern Baptists,[1] and is sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources. It is based on conservative Christian views of human sexuality that require one to be faithful to one's husband or wife.

This article is about a Christian group. For other uses, see True Love Waits (disambiguation).

Pledge

The True Love Waits pledge states: "Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship." In addition, they promote sexual purity, which encompasses not only abstaining from intercourse before marriage, but also abstaining from sexual thoughts, sexual touching, pornography, and actions that are known to lead to sexual arousal."

By the late 1990s, Christian music groups were promoting the program, and events similar to youth rallies were held at Christian music concerts,[2] providing an opportunity for adolescents to sign pledge cards.

Impact

In the first year of the campaign, over 102,000 young people signed the pledge, which was also taken up by other church groups including the Roman Catholic Church and Assemblies of God. The campaign spread across the US, making the use of occasions such as Valentine's Day to gain attention.[3]

By 2004, groups supporting abstinence numbered in the hundreds. During the preceding decade, approximately 2.5 million American youth took the pledge of abstinence.[4]

Criticism

The efficacy of the program has been questioned not only by studies, but also by contemporary Christian music artists who previously supported the cause.

A 2003 study showing that 3 out of 5 college students who had taken the pledge had broken it, and of the 40% who identified themselves as abstaining from intercourse, 55% acknowledged having participated in oral sex.[5] In the 2011 book Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns, Christine Gardner criticizes True Love Waits[6] for "using sex to sell abstinence" by promising more satisfying sexual activity within marriage for those who abstain from premarital sex; she argues that this rhetoric reinforces selfish desires for gratification, sets people up for divorce and dissatisfaction with marriage, and simply adapts "secular forms for religious ends".[7]

The Jonas Brothers made an abstinence pledge through True Love Waits as teens.[8] The band and pledge are satirized in the 2009 South Park episode The Ring.[9] In 2013, Morgan Lee, a journalist of The Christian Post, conducted an interview with Joe Jonas and wrote:[8]

In an exceptionally raw and frank interview, Jonas also mentioned that although he had made a good-faith, preteen, commitment with Christian abstinence organization True Love Waits to keep his virginity until marriage and donned a "purity ring" as an 11-year-old, he was overwhelmed when this became the focus of media attention when the band started to blow up.[8]

See also

References
  1. Guilty Pleasures: Religion and Sex Among American University Students, Huffington Post, July 20, 2010
  2. Price, Deborah Evans (5 July 1997). "Crosse walks many miles to support new reunion set". Billboard. 109 (27): 9–12. ISSN 0006-2510.
  3. True Love Waits achieves Valentine's Day presence, The Washington Times, February 15, 1997
  4. "How effective are abstinence pledges?". BBC News. 29 June 2004. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
  5. Boles, Janet K. and Diane Long Hoeveler (2004). Historical Dictionary of Feminism. Scarecrow Press. p. 322. ISBN 9780810849464.
  6. Hennie Weiss (March 27, 2012). "Review - Making Chastity Sexy". Metapsychology Online Reviews. 16 (13). Retrieved March 21, 2013.
  7. Sarah Pulliam Bailey (November 18, 2011). "The Rhetoric of Chastity: Making Abstinence Sexy". Christianity Today. Retrieved March 21, 2013.
  8. Lee, Morgan (December 2, 2013). "Joe Jonas Talks About Relationship With God, Frustration With Purity Rings in Raw, Revealing Interview". Retrieved January 16, 2015.
  9. Oshmyansky, Rosalyn (April 28, 2015). "Nick Jonas Reveals One Regret About Losing His Virginity". Entertainment Tonight. Retrieved February 3, 2017.

Further reading
  • Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence by Sara Moslener, Oxford University Press, 2015.
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