Maybe it’s time to dig out that “WWJD?” bracelet.
Joe Carter wrote recently of a new study on American
attitudes toward adultery. Among the groups studied were evangelicals, and the
results were…unsettling.
According to the study, just 31 percent of evangelicals thought watching
pornography constituted “cheating on your partner.” A mere seventy-seven percent
thought a one-night stand was “cheating.” And only 82 percent of self-identified
evangelicals said regular sexual relations with another partner is
“cheating.”
While these percentages are not higher than the national average, they’re
still alarming. As Carter writes, “that almost one in five evangelicals don’t
consider it cheating when a person is having regular relations with someone
other than one’s spouse” is a sign that at least some of our churches have
failed.
The word “cheating” is also ambiguous. The word Moses and Jesus used:
“adultery.” Jesus famously said that lustful looking at someone else was already
adultery.
Our standards for holiness should be the same as Christ’s. After all, we
bear His name.
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