Slight hijack concerning Judah / Tamar incident:
It was before The Mosaic Law Covenant. So, it could not be condemned by that Law or by Christian morality clauses after the fact.
However, even that view may be contradicted by the Joseph / Potiphar’s Wife incident, where Joseph refused her amorous advances because he saw adultery as a sin against God. This happened before the Judah / Tamar thing.
So, until Law was covenanted, maybe sexual morality was self regulated? WAG
Is there any Christian church that condones pre-marital sex?
Many of the more conservative Christians I know consider pre-marital sex (and indeed post-marital sex) to constitute a ‘one-flesh union’ - so the participants are (in some sense) married as soon as they do it - the wedding service and all the paperwork being formality.
I’d assume that the Metropolitan Community Churches do – they’re a Christian denomination that is well-known for its outreach to the gay & lesbian community. That’s not to say they’re in favor of promiscuity, however.
Their website, as far as I can tell, doesn’t address this issue directly, but the general tone seems to be supportive of loving, committed gay & lesbian couples.
andros, I see nothing in your cites about fornication. You cite a verse as saying that Paul thinks of fornication as sexual immorality, but the verse only has Paul railing against S.I. without saying that it’s fornication.
It’s like those fundies who claim that Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality, and prove it by quoting verses about Sodom’s immorality. See? Clearly by “immorality” they mean homosexuality, right?
As for “becoming one flesh,” that seems like circular logic to me too. One can interpret it as:
1.) getting married,
2.) having a child (literally becoming one flesh)
or
3.) having sex.
Why value 3 over 2?
The “one flesh” thing doesn’t necessarily exclude pre-marital nookie, at least for guys. It could just mean that once you are married, that’s it. You are now bonded for life.
Ben #3 has been the understood meaning of the term for essentially forever, AFAICT.
Dio, you’d have to then say there was something about the marriage vows that changed the nature of the physical act.
Christians are so inconsistent. They are almost all “doing it” and yet their religion says it is a sin, Catholics claim that it is a MORTAL SIN that brings damnation.
That great woman-hater Paul tells the brethren that they are not to be in the company of fornicators (1 Cor. 5:9). Blatantly, he exclaims that they shall not inherit the kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9).
James, speaking in Jerusalem, regarding the Gentile converts, says that they should be told to abstain from illicit sexual unions (Acts 15:20). The deluded Christians set themselves apart from their pagan neighbors by their beliefs and their moral behavior. Over and over again, the prohibition is repeated: “…the body is not for fornication, it is for the Lord,…” (1 Cor. 6:13); “…flee fornication…” (1 Cor. 6:18); “…nevertheless, to avoid fornication…” (1 Cor. 7:2); fornication is called one of the “works of the flesh” cutting one off from God’s kingdom (Gal 5:19); “Make no mistake about this: no fornicator, no unclean or lustful person–in effect an idolater–has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with worthless arguments. These are sins that bring God’s wrath down on the disobedient; therefore have nothing to do with them.” (Eph. 5:5-7); repeating much that was stated in Ephesians, the Colossians are also called to mortify themselves against fornication (Col. 3:5); it is the “will of God that you abstain from fornication…” (1 Thes. 4:3). Paul even claims culpability about the acts of others in 2 Corinthians 12:21: “I fear that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over the many who sinned earlier and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and sensuality they practiced.”
Talk about a religion of guilt!
Look at all these citations of fornication as a sin: Mat. 5:32; 1 Cor. 7:2; 2 Chr. 21:11; Isa. 23:17; Ezek. 16:29; Mat. 5:32; 19:9; John 8:41; Acts 15:20; 29; 21:25; Rom. 1:29; 1 Cor. 5:1; 6:13,18; 7:2; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5; 1 Thes. 4:3; Jude 7; Rev. 2:21; 9:21; 14:8; 17:2,4; 18:3; 19:2; Ezek. 16:15; Mat. 15:19; Mark 7:22; 1 Cor 5:11; Heb. 12:16; 1 Cor. 5:9,10; 6:9.
And yet Christians and Catholics want it both ways. Let us embrace honesty and not delude ourselves about being lovers of the flesh! To your own self be true! Don’t go to church on Sunday and then roll in the hay with a friend on Monday. Be consistent! Your body speaks the truth even if your tongue is a lair!
Remember, too, that fornication, to use “their” word and adultery are ultimately the same thing. We are saying by our lifestyle that we do NOT have to be married to have sex. If such is the case before a ceremony and a piece of paper, then why should it be any different afterwards? It makes no sense. Be free! Break the shackles of superstition.
Susie
Liberation, Susie, is what Christianity is all about.
You are right, we are all lovers of the flesh, perverted and corrupted beings, we do not measure up at all to gods standard. That is one of the main points of christianity, all have sinned. But Christianity is not about guilt. Christianity is about realising that there is a higher standerd to which you should be living, realising you are not living in that standard, confessing, repenting and, putting down your fleshly desires, trying with the grace and power of Christ living in you, to live the higher standerd. The idea is that with Christ we can break free form the shackles (here meaning earthly desires) that bind us, ending the stuggle of our egos between right and wrong.
going back to marriage, i have always seen sex as the point where to became one, and where a marriage on paper became real. During sex the twp become one in a spiritual and emotional sence as well as a physical one. So basically, for me the reason sex outside or marriage is wrong is because those bonds are made then broken which hurts us, and i think scars us permenantly, which is y god says we shouldnt do it
Kreg
Plus in nearly all religions it is considered a sin to engage in risky behavior for short-term pleasure.
An unwanted pregnancy, a STD, or a non-committed physical bonding can all happen when you engage in sex with someone you’re not married to. O’course these things can happen in marriage too, though marriage is there to raise children, prevent promiscuity, and provide a legal and social committment to two people.
So there. Keep it in your pants, or download some porn. Fornication isn’t a sin just because “God said so.” 
-k
I haven’t read the whole thread as I’m on break and time is limited so if someone’s already shared this, my apologies. There’s a scripture that says “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband.” I don’t have the chapter and verse at the moment but can look it up if you want. Does that help any?
P.S. There’s also another verse I thought of that says "if a man cannot keep his virgin, and she passeth the flower of her age (mentruation perhaps is meant here), they sin not, let them marry.
It says it’s good for a man not to touch a woman but if he can’t control himself, let him marry. I can look up the scriptures as to where they are later if you want.
What happened, susie? Did some Christian that you had the hots for refuse to sleep with you? 
I believe sex outside of marriage is a sin.
I have been married once.
i also had sex with 4 men outside of marriage.
None of those 4 or slightly more times was it fulfilling in ay way shape or form.
I cannot imagine being turned on unless i am in Love Forever.
I’ve been celibate for 9 years and its really quite easy.
IMHO, its not worth it, any guy who claims to love you but doesn’t want to marry you is just using you, as far as I’m concerned and I will nto degrade myself that way.
Don’t look them up hon, I’m a fundie myself and its not maiking sense in the context of this thread.
First, its okay then for a woman to touch a man? eh?
Hmm, well they made sense to me as pertaining to the context of this thread because I believe it’s talking about “it’s good for a man not to touch a woman in a sexual way.” The verses after that seem to confirm that’s what it’s talking about. At least to me, anyway. For anyone who wants to know, all the verses I talked about are in 1 Corinthians 7.
Notice also that thru out the passage, Paul states explicitly that he is giving his own opinion, and “has no command from the Lord” (v. 6, 12, 17, 25).
Regards,
Shodan
Hmm, are you saying that you think it’s saying it’s okay to have sex outside of marriage? That’s not the way I take it. Isn’t verse 6 speaking of permission and not commandment in regards to getting married because the next verse says “For I would that all men were even as I myself. (unmarried, celibate) But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
Verse 12 is talking about a man having an unbelieving wife that is content to stay with him. He’s not to put her away. That’s what I get anyway.
Not sure about verse 17, it may pertain to the verses following it.
Verse 25 appears to be about virgins and Paul is giving his judgment in the following verses about it.
Could you clarify whether or not you think Christianity teaches that sex is for marriage only? And if not, how do you explain the other verses and also 1 Cor. 6:18-19 where it tells us to flee fornication.
Traditional Christian teaching is that sex before marriage is wrong. I mentioned what Paul said in the Corinthians passage in order to qualify all the stuff that went before my post in the thread - about how it was better not to marry than to marry, and whether or not a widow should remarry.
The Greek word translated as “fornication” is a general one meaning, roughly, “sexual sin”. My opinion is that Paul would have understood all kinds of sexual sins to be included under “pornoia”, the Greek term, and I am almost certain that he would have taken it for granted that sex before marriage was sinful.
Paul and Jesus seem to have taken traditional Jewish teachings about sex almost for granted. Jesus is even harder to figure out on sex than Paul is, since He at some points makes the rules about sex stricter than ever (no divorce except for adultery, gazing on a woman “to lust after her” is morally equivalent to adultery) and at the same time relaxing the standards (the teaching on divorce “is not given to everyone”, the almost off-hand forgiveness of the woman taken in adultery).
Jesus simply did not have much to say on the subject of sex. Apparently He did not attach the importance to the topic that He did to, for instance, money.
Regards,
Shodan
Check out Dt. 21:10-3 and NU. 31:18. Looks like you can have sex without marriage to me, if the conditions are right.