Sex Ed at Church

Comprehensive sex ed, with or without God

Every year, middle school kids across the US participate in a program of private sex education classes that cover the topic frankly, comprehensively, and graphically. It’s liberal in general and LGBTQ-friendly in particular. Each class is led by one man and one woman, and an honor code of confidentiality helps the young people feel safe opening up on this touchy topic. The program puts special emphasis on values, not to enforce any particular moral code but to help the participants explore and develop their own values. The classes don’t just convey information. They foster a culture of respect and openness, allowing the students to ask the personal questions they have and to the learn from each other. This curriculum, called Our Whole Lives, is used in the UU and UCC churches, and it’s a good example of what I mean when I say that religion is better thought of as a social institution than as a belief. Those of us at UU or UCC churches might believe that kids should have good sex ed classes, but what counts is that people before us have put this program together for us to use. It’s the institution that makes it happen. In this case, the institution is the sort of sex ed program that you can’t find just anywhere. 

Fostering community

The Our Whole Lives program is a fine example of intentionally fostering a mini-community. The participants promise each other confidentiality, and the adult leaders create a safe space where young people can discuss sensitive topics about sex, romance, love and other adolescent minefields. When my daughter started this program years ago, it was the first year she didn’t complain about going to church school on Sunday morning. The program created a group that she wanted to be part of. We atheists are individualistic by reflex, but some experiences develop only in the context of an intentional community.

Volunteerism

One feature of a religious community is that it elicits volunteer work from members. Lots of nonprofit organizations, such as Girl Scouts, also rely on volunteer efforts. The Our Whole Lives class is taught by two adult volunteers, one male and one female. These instructors see young people respond positively to the program, and that experience hooks them and gets them to keep volunteering. While I’ve never led OWL, teaching Sunday school and mentoring young people has given me some of the same fulfillment. Some of the value that a church structure brings to a community is simply the infrastructure to recruit, prepare, and coordinate volunteers. 

Multigenerational community

Richard Haynes is a leader in the atheist community and a former Christian minister. He sees two sorts of atheist groups in the States: older atheists with money but no time, and younger atheists with time but no money. As he points out, churches bring the generations together like few other institutions do. OWL is a classic case of elders passing down secrets to the youth, and a band of young initiates growing closer together by sharing emotionally powerful experiences. In ancient initiations, elders taught secrets to the youth. In OWL, elders create a safe space for the youth to share their own secrets with each other. Reflecting the intergenerational nature of church, Unitarians are sometimes called “atheists with kids.” That description certainly holds for my family. 

On our own

The closest thing I have to a holy book is The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. In verse, Wallace explores what it means to be human now that we have found out that the gods don’t exist. In “Sunday Morning,” he describes us as “unsponsored, free.” And that describes the freedom we Unitarians have in figuring out how to run our congregations. No deity is sponsoring us. We’re not responsible to any external party for how we initiate our children into adulthood. No human generation before us has ever had to navigate a sexual landscape like today’s, with more options, fewer prohibitions, and effective birth control. Our Whole Lives lays it all out there to help young people find their way. 

Bigger than yourself

Jonathan Haidt examines morality from an evolutionary perspective. He says that people are mostly selfish, but we’re also a little “groupish.” Being part of a group comes naturally to us, just like looking out for “number one” comes naturally. It’s common for people to say that they gain fulfillment by devoting themselves to something that’s bigger than themselves. Ultimately, perhaps this tendency arises from the primeval instinct to feel as though one is part of a family, clan, or tribe. 

OWL participants create a mini-community, which is bigger than they are individually. I can see the results myself. This year I’m mentoring a 9th grader, and I can see how close-knit the 9th graders are. I worked with these same students two years ago, and they are much better connected now.

Atheists in OWL

Of the kids I’ve seen go through OWL, I mostly don’t know which ones are atheists and which are believers. Maybe lots of them don’t know themselves. That’s my congregation for you. Is OWL a “religious” program? People who define religion as a belief would say that it’s religious for the believer kids but not for the atheists. I pay more attention to behavior than to beliefs, so I’d say it’s religious for all of them, believers and atheists alike.

Institutions Get Work Done

Lots of people believe that adolescents should get frank information about sex and help sorting their way through romance, emotions, love, and the rest. On some level, I’ve always agreed with that idea, but that belief by itself doesn’t go very far. What worked for me is being connected to a congregation. OWL is a social institution, one that coordinates activity around a modern sex ed program. It’s institutions that makes things happen. A secular organization could readily duplicate what OWL accomplishes, but only by creating a duplicate institution. 

OWL and your kids

If you’re a parent curious about OWL for your kids, you can look up a Unitarian congregation near you. Unitarians have no creed or doctrine, so each congregation has its own style. Some have a pagan flavor, some are basically humanist (like mine), and in others a sort of deistic God is popular. Some congregations call themselves fellowships rather than churches to announce their distance from your typical church. I prefer the term church because I don’t like to be divisive, but that’s just me.

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Rites of Passage: the OWL program is intense enough to qualify as a "rite of passage."