{"id":47012,"date":"2015-02-21T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-21T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=47012"},"modified":"2015-02-28T09:02:30","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T16:02:30","slug":"virgin-regret-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/21\/virgin-regret-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Regretting remaining a virgin until marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, a controversial\u00a0blog post was doing the rounds on Facebook. It was written by a lady named Samantha Pugsley and was entitled “I Waited Until My Wedding Night To Lose My Virginity And I Wish I Hadn\u2019t”<\/a><\/em>. Samantha\u00a0was raised in a Christian household and\u00a0remained a virgin until marriage, but now regrets her\u00a0decision and has since left the Christian Faith:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

To respond or not?<\/h2>\n

I was greatly troubled reading Samantha’s\u00a0post. Her experience sounds\u00a0horrific and her story\u00a0truly tragic. I read through many of the reader comments at the bottom of the post and was dismayed to find that most\u00a0of the exchanges between\u00a0Christians and other readers were less-than-civil. For several days I debated internally as to whether or not I should write a reply. While I wanted to address\u00a0various points raised in the article, I knew that it would be very easy for such a response to be seen as judgmental, condescending and “holier than thou”.<\/p>\n

In the end, I decided that I should\u00a0write a response. However, before you continue read my\u00a0response, I would first invite you to\u00a0read Samantha’s article<\/a>\u00a0in its entirety; it’s a sobering read.<\/p>\n

My reply to her post\u00a0is in no way\u00a0a personal attack on Samantha. She is a child\u00a0of God, made in His image and likeness and she is of countless worth. I did not have the same upbringing as this lady\u00a0and I do not claim to have walked in her shoes. However, I have some thoughts I would like to share concerning her story.<\/p>\n

Catechetical Warning<\/h2>\n

The main reason why I decided to write a response to Samantha’s post is that\u00a0I think the issues raised in her article\u00a0are\u00a0too important to leave unaddressed. Not only that, I feel that this young lady’s story\u00a0should serve as a warning to all Christian leaders and teachers. What we teach others about sex (or fail to\u00a0teach) has significant consequences. Theology is important and when someone’s formation is either poor or incomplete, the results\u00a0can be simply dire.<\/p>\n

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness<\/span> – James 3:1<\/span><\/p>\n

During his pontificate, Pope St. John Paul II gave a series of teachings which later became known\u00a0as the\u00a0“Theology of the Body”<\/em><\/a>. It is my contention that, if Samantha had received formation in this rich theological understanding of sex and marriage, her\u00a0story could have turned\u00a0out very differently.\u00a0I say this because\u00a0I think she\u00a0was badly taught and was given\u00a0a theology which could\u00a0be described, at best, as “anaemic”. I believe that this\u00a0woefully inadequate formation set her up for the heartache which she later experienced.\u00a0In this series, I\u00a0hope to show the practical difference that good Catholic theology could have made to her life.<\/p>\n

Part 1 | Part 2<\/a> | Part 3<\/a> | Part 4<\/a> | Part 5<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, a controversial\u00a0blog post was doing the rounds on Facebook. It was written by a lady named Samantha Pugsley and was entitled “I Waited Until My Wedding Night To Lose My Virginity And I Wish I Hadn\u2019t”. Samantha\u00a0was raised in a Christian household and\u00a0remained a virgin until marriage, but now regrets her\u00a0decision and has since left the Christian Faith:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,17],"tags":[1026,276,410,2969,1845,348,3122,2889,3132],"class_list":["post-47012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-faith","tag-abstinence","tag-catholic","tag-chastity","tag-featured","tag-john-paul-ii","tag-protestant","tag-samantha-pugsley","tag-virginity","tag-virginregretseries"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/WeddingBAnner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47012"}],"version-history":[{"count":61,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55772,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47012\/revisions\/55772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}