Faith-Based Sex Education Takes Hold

WAYLAND, Mass., May 12 (RNS)--The seventh graders weave in and out of the polished wooden pews, chasing each other, paper planes flying about. The teachers raise their voices. A sense of order and propriety is quickly restored to the sanctuary of this 200-year-old steepled New England church, and the guessing game goes on:

"Am I an ovary?" shouts out one student.

"Am I a sperm?" blurts another, followed by peals of laughter.

The game is part of the Unitarian Universalist sexuality education curriculum, designed to help teenagers learn to use such words without embarrassment or shame, as well as to teach them to understand the source of male and female reproduction and sexual pleasure.

These students may be part of a liberal religious tradition, but they aren't the only ones who are being taught--in church or synagogue--how to say no, what it means to say yes, how to use a condom--or when they do.

Faith-based sex education is taking off across the nation, with the principle that sexuality is God-given, an integral part of being human, at its core. Rather than offering a litany of dos and don'ts, religious leaders are increasingly interested in helping adolescents see their physicality in spiritual terms.

The phenomenon has spread across the United States. From Richmond, Va., to Phoenix, and across more and more of the liberal-mainstream religious spectrum. From Conservative and Reform Jews to Methodists and Baptists, teens are getting their lessons about the birds and the bees from religious leaders.

"Having a rabbi talk about sex blows kids away," said Rabbi Jonathan Stein, of Congregation Beth Israel in San Diego, Calif. "You can put sexuality into perspective for them if you teach through Jewish eyes, with Jewish texts and values, or those of any tradition. It helps them integrate their own sexuality in terms of how they fit into the world and how they interact with others."

If young people understand their sexuality as something divine rather than something dirty, the thinking goes, then they are less likely to abuse or exploit it.

"We believe a person's sexuality is part of their whole person, so the question we ask is, how do you use that gift, do you use it in a devastating way or do you use it wisely?" explained the Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, founder of the interfaith Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice's Black Church Initiative, which is working to bring sexuality education into African-American denominations.

"We teach that we must be responsible stewards of all of our God-given gifts," Veazey said. "This takes sexuality out of the 'do and don't school,' which doesn't work, and makes it a spritual principle."

Like Veazey, many religious educators also believe that bringing sexuality and spirituality together for young, hormonally charged people who are beginning to explore their urges not only will bring them closer to God but will raise their self-esteem.

"Teenagers are amazed when I talk to them about how in Judaism sexuality has the potential for holiness," said Rabbi Peter Knobel, of Beth Emet: The Free Synagogue, in Evanston, Ill., and past president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. "Sexual appetites are a vehicle not only for sin but for holiness, but we've emphasized the sinful aspects of sex. We need to talk to people about these matters before they become sexually active.

"We need education that emphasizes the religious aspect of sexuality, but in a way that goes beyond ethics and morality, to who we are as beings, created in the image of God."

With the Unitarians Universalists and the United Church of Christ leading the way, religious leaders are recognizing there is a deep need to reclaim and redefine the religious approach to sexuality, and that, for both children and adults, there is no better place to do so than in church or synagogue.

"These are places of confidence, of trust--places people feel close to the values that inform their lives," said Sarah Gibb, outreach coordinator for Our Whole Lives, a sexuality education curriculum developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association that covers the entire human life span and is used both in secular and faith-based settings.

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