Elisabeth Elliot: Courtship has been lost. Why does it matter? Courtship may well be lost and gone forever. But if so, we must recognize what we have lost and acknowledge the great price we shall pay in personal happiness, child welfare and civic peace.

Lisa Barry: Is courtship really gone? Has the ideal of purity gone by the wayside? Our society likes to think it has freed itself from Puritan bondage. But just take a look at a fashion magazine to tell the story. There, every ad is boasting of sexual expression and freedom.

Each advice column is, on the one hand, applauding such freedom, and then warning of the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. And with so many of those diseases without a cure, it seems that society has found its own bondage.

Today Elisabeth Elliot explores the idea that maybe it's time for courtship to make a return to the modern world. Find out more as we begin this Thursday edition of Gateway To Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love" (Jer. 31:3). That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:7). This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, continuing my talk today about "Growing in Christ."

Yesterday I read part of a very interesting article on the subject of the "Myth of the Teenager." I understood that article because teenage was a myth to me. We were not permitted to be teenagers. It was a very serious distinction in Jesus' life between childhood and adulthood. You remember that the watershed was His age twelve. The Jews have always understood that a boy must be accepting adult responsibility, and they have a special ceremony called a bar mitzvah, in which that is explained.

The "Myth of the Teenager"--it really is tragic. I love the hymn, "Lord, in the fullness of my might I would for Thee be strong; while runneth o'er each dear delight, to Thee should soar my song." This is the second verse, and this was a special favorite of my husband Jim Elliot and his buddy, Pete Fleming. Both of whom were among the five missionaries that were killed by Auca Indians.

I can still hear Pete repeating these words, "I would not give the world my heart and then profess Thy love. I would not feel my strength depart and then Thy service prove. O not for Thee my weak desires, my poorer, baser part; O not for Thee my fading fires, the ashes of my heart. O choose me in Thy golden time; in my dear joys have part. For Thee, the glory of my prime, the fullness of my heart." Let's not leave only the dregs for God. Let's give all of our hearts to Him at once.

Well, the next article that I want to read a part of is entitled, "Courtship's End." It was in the Chicago Tribune, written by a man by the name of Keith Hansen in August of 1998. He's talking about marriage being the business of adults--people who are serious about life, people who aspire to assume responsibility for the future.

"In previous generations, people chose to marry, but they were not compelled also to choose what marriage meant. Is it a sacrament, a covenant or a contract based on calculation of mutual advantage? Is it properly founded on eros, friendship or economic advantage?

"Is marriage a vehicle for personal fulfillment and private happiness, a vocation of mutual service or a task to love the one whom it has been given to love? Are marital vows still binding promises that both are duty-bound to keep, or rather quaint expressions of current hopes and predictions that, should they be mistaken, can easily be nullified?"

I'm sure we're all very aware of the astounding divorce rate that just escalates continually.

"The view of life as 'play' has often characterized the young, but today this is not seen as a stage to be outgrown as soon as possible. For their narcissistic absorption in themselves and in immediate pleasures and present experiences, our 'twenty-somethings' are not condemned, but are even envied by many of their elders. Parents and children wear the same 'cool' clothes, speak the same lingo, listen to the same music.

"Youth, not adulthood, is the cultural ideal. How many so-called 'grown-ups' today agree with C. S. Lewis, 'I envy youth its stomach, not its heart'?

"Our approach to important moral issues in terms of the rights of individuals (for example, abortion as belonging to a woman's rights over her own body or pro-creation as governed by a right to reproduce) flies in the face of the necessary social character of sexuality and marriage. The courtship and marriage of people who see themselves as self-sufficient, rights-bearing individuals will differ decisively from the courtship and marriage of people who understand themselves as, say, unavoidably incomplete and dependent children of the Lord, who have been enjoined to be fruitful and multiply.

"Courtship has been lost. Why does it matter? Courtship may well be lost and gone forever. But if so, we must recognize what we have lost and acknowledge the great price we shall pay in personal happiness, child welfare and civic peace. This shouldn't come as any surprise, for the new arrangements that constitute the cultural void created by the demise of courtship rest on serious and destructive errors regarding the human condition, about the meaning of human sexuality, about the nature of marriage, about what constitutes a fully human life.

"Sexual desire in humans, as in animals, points to an end that is finally at odds with a self-serving individual. Sexuality means 'perishability' and serves replacement. The salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die tell the universal story. Sex is bound up with death, to which it holds a partial answer in pro-creation. For a human being to treat sex as a desire like hunger, not to mention as a sport, is then to live in deception. Marriage and pro-creation are at the heart of a serious and flourishing human life--if not for everyone, at least for the vast majority.

"For most of us, life becomes truly serious when we become responsible for the lives of others, for whose being in the world we have said, 'We do.' It's fatherhood and motherhood that teach most of us what it took to bring us into our own adulthood. It's the desire to give not only life, but a good way of life, to our children that opens us to a serious concern for the true, the good, and even the holy."

Remember this is from a secular newspaper!

"Courtship used to provide the rituals of growing up, for making clear the meaning of one's own human sexual nature, and for entering into the ceremonial world of ritual and sanctification. It pointed the way to the answers to life's biggest questions: Where are you going? Who is going with you? How? In what manner are you both going to go?

"The practices of today's men and women do not accomplish these purposes. They and their marriages, when they get around to them, are weaker as a result. Is the situation hopeless? One would like to be able to offer more encouraging news than the great popularity of the recent Jane Austen movies-- which reflect dissatisfaction with the unromantic and a-marital present. And they wish on the part of many 'twenty-and thirty-somethings' that they, too, might find their Elizabeth Bennett or Mr. Darcy.

"The return of successful matchmaking, professional matchmaking services, is a further bit of good news--so, too, the revival of explicit courtship practices among certain religious groups. Young men are told by young women that they need their father's permission to come courting."

I say, 'Hear, hear!'

Marriage alone is clearly the name of the game.

"One can even take a bit of comfort from those who shun the altar because they recognize that marriage is too serious, demanding an audacious adventure for their immature, irresponsible and cowardly selves. Parents of pubescent children could contribute to a truly humanizing sex education by elevating their erotic imagination through exposure to an older and more edifying literature. Parents of college-bound young people, especially those with strong religious and family values, could direct their children to those religiously affiliated colleges that attract like-minded people.

"'Men,' as Rosseau put it, 'will always do what is pleasing to women, but only'--and listen to this--'if women suitably control and channel their own considerable sexual power.' Is there perhaps some young feminist out there who would like to make her name great and who will seize the golden opportunity for advancing the truest interest of women (and men and children) by raising again the radical banner, 'Not until you marry me'? And while I'm dreaming, why not also 'Not without my parents' blessing'?"

I, too, applaud the recent move toward old-fashioned courtship. My father told my four brothers, "Don't ever tell a woman you love her until you are prepared to say immediately thereafter, 'Will you marry me?'" Until that point, at which the woman can say yes or no, that man "who went a-courting" has no rights over her whatsoever.

I want to say to the men, "Keep your hands off. Keep your clothes on. Stay out of bed." Of course, the same goes for the women. But as my old headmistress of the boarding school that I went to in Florida used to say to us girls over and over again, "The girl holds the key to every situation. Just say, 'No.' Make the man say, 'May I talk to your father?'"

Lisa Barry: How refreshing to hear a talk like that. I, for one, would be thrilled to see a return to purity and courtship. Elisabeth Elliot has heard story after story of love won and love lost. In fact, she's compiled many of them into a great book entitled Quest for Love. If you know anyone who is thinking about dating or getting married, why not pick up a copy for him or her? It just might change their life or yours.

For more information on Quest for Love, get in touch with us here, our toll-free number is 1-800-759-2425. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE, 68501. Have you found us on-line yet? You'll find everything there is to know about Gateway To Joy on our Web site. That address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy is a listener-supported production of Back to the Bible.

Let me remind you again about the changes coming for Gateway To Joy in September. Elisabeth Elliot will conclude her broadcasting on August 31st, and a new program with Nancy Leigh DeMoss will begin. Nancy has become a real friend of this ministry and I know that by the end of this summer you'll feel the same way about her. She'll be on this program a number of times in the next several weeks and we will continue to keep you up-to-date on the changes ahead. Thank you so much for your prayers and support.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about the high cost of individualism, so I hope you'll be along then for the next Gateway To Joy.