I was reading last night: an introduction by Chuck Colson to “Smart Sex” by Jennifer Morse. Which is a goodish book: she understands that families make society, and argues (from an economic and libertarian perspective) that traditional sexual mores are good for kids, and society, for society requires self disciplined and mature citizens.

But I started thinking “Proxy Measures”. It is easy to count who is married: marriages are registered, they are public ceremonies. But the qualities required to make a marriage work, such as fidelity, charity, and sufficient self-reflection to forgive and love the broken parts of your spouse, as they love yours, need to be there first. And this requires that you are grown up. For a Christian there are some more restrictions, such as being of the faith.

I thought it was like houses: it’s not owning the house which predicts a functional life, it is having the self-discipline to save a deposit and to budget for the mortgage. Our society is set up in such a way that marriage is fungible and we are told to build our lives on the quicksand of feelings, not on covenant and deep trust, supported by society and the church.

They think it’s a shortage of marriage. They claim that if guys would just marry all these women, we wouldn’t have problems like divorce, bastardy, welfare mamas, rampant porn, and premarital sex. All these problems are laid at men’s feet: We wouldn’t have divorce if men would be nice to their wives and give them what they want. We wouldn’t have bastardy and welfare queens and premarital sex if men would just keep their dicks in their pants. Porn would be eradicated if bad men wouldn’t use it. They gloss over the real causes, like women initiating the vast majority of divorces, women making poor sex partner choices. And one has to point out that the reason most men use porn is because they’re not attractive enough to attract even a homely or plain woman; even after trying. These men are a decade behind because no one ever taught them about intersexual attraction or even told them they needed to learn about it or work on it.

At this late date, you’re not going to get a systemic solution, because even its advocates don’t want to do what it will take, and that’s complete nationwide overhaul of family law. Abolition of no fault divorce. In the event of divorce, children go to the father. If the divorce is the woman’s fault, she takes no assets other than her personal belongings. Of course, none of this will happen. So conservatives and tradcons and Christian activists like Stanton are left with agitating for systemic solutions which cannot possibly be instituted. So they agitate, and make it look like they’re doing something about the problem without actually doing something about the problem.

Deti, who was commenting at Dalrock’s place, was talking about the church. About things that should not occur, and should not need to be named. Because the church should be regulating its own.

Christ calls whom he will to the Kirk or invisible church, but the Church visible is not a compulsory organization. One does not need to belong — and in many societies belonging to the church leads to stigma gossip and shame, even persecution and death. If you say you are of Christ, you should keep the rules of Christ.

And this is where we are all challenged. For at times we want to follow our desires, our greed, our passions.

But to covet is idolatry, and impurity should not be among us.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

(Ephesians 5:1-14 ESV)

I am male. I’m fully aware that many women are attractive, and that it is our consciences (and the fact that most men who like women don’t want to make them cry) that means that I don’t troll among the LBD that are in the night clubs patronized by the academics, office workers and nurses in my town. In manosphere terms, I’m a lousy alpha, because I don’t bother playing. I want a wife, not a harem.

However, on this, and many other issues, the Law of Love stops us. The expansion of this, shown in the epistles and in the Mosaic law, act like rails on a bridge: they give us safety guidelines while giving us freedom on how to act. As a loving parent has few rules (For you must keep rules consistently) with his children, so God gave us a few rules, and stated them plainly.

For our own good.

We have seen what happens when we take the rails away. We now have a generation that were neglected from infancy (when their mother placed them in child care to return to her career), abused — if not by the now divorced mother’s boyfriends, by the school system that micro regulated behaviour and medicated those what could not comply — and we have now a fragile generation of young people who faint (without even the Victorian excuse of a corset stopping their breathing) at the sight of any rules or barriers while trying to micromanage society so all hazards are removed.

The delusions of this time are as great as the evil. And we are not to be part of this. When we, as a Church do become part of this, we lose our witness, and then are left wondering where the young have gone, forgetting that we are now lying, and the young require truth to mature. particularly when it is bitter.