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Hookup Culture, Biblical Patriarchy, and Campus Ministry

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The guilt or innocence of the Duke Lacrosse team is yet to be judged by the cable news talk shows..sorry, I mean by a North Carolina jury. But the June 15 issue of Rolling Stone gives us a picture of sexual politics on campus that can hardly be described as anything short of violence against women, with or without rape charges.

The article by Janet Reitman examines relationships between men and women on campus at Duke, especially within the fraternity and sorority scene, and concludes that the scene looks much as it was described by Tom Wolfe in I Am Charlotte Simmons. True to the novel, Duke, and other colleges and universities like it, see male and female interaction in the context of a “hookup” culture in which men and women exchange sexual favors on the basis of casual friendships. Oral sex is “nearly ubiquitous, regarded as sort of a form of elaborate kissing that doesn’t really mean very much.”

This hookup culture means there is very little “dating” at Duke:

“I’ve never been asked out on a date in my entire life, not once,” says one stunning brunette. Nor has a guy ever bought her a drink. “I think that if anybody ever did that, I would ask him if he were on drugs,” she says. Rather, there’s the casual one-night stand, usually bolstered by heavy drinking and followed the next morning by, well, nothing, usually. “You’ll hook up with a guy, and you know that nothing will come out of it,” says Anna. The best thing you can hope for, she says, “is that you’ll get to hook up with him again.” Some girls they know have managed to score a regular hookup, meaning consistent sex, but others play the field bouncing from one guy to the next.”

The article contrasts the feminist ideology of the sorority women on campus with their actual practices, including dressing in Playboy bunny costumes while drinking massive amounts of grain alcohol and performing sexually for frat boys at parties. The author talks to a young woman named Naomi who says that college women now can have sex with whomever they want, whenever they want. “It’s our decision if we’re going to allow ourselves to be subjected to negative treatment,” she says. Naomi says she’s not sure how things were “a little longer ago” (by which she means the pre-Clinton America) but she is sure there was less “sexual equality” before.

One has to wonder how many of the men and women pictured in this piece have come to this place from Christian families? How many grew up in Christian churches? Why can’t these former Sunday school attenders recognize a pseudo-church, complete with “brothers” and “sisters” and rituals and discipline, when they see it? And why can’t they sense the ugliness and vapidity of the whole scene?

Part of it is, of course, the typical pattern of human depravity. The prodigal son, or daughter, goes to the far country and winds up drunk in a pig pen, or a fraternity house. But this level of societal change seems to indicate something else is afoot. Could it be that our churches and families have been so embarrassed about a biblical pattern of patriarchy that we allow pagan notions of “equality” to win the day, even to the point of an “equality” whereby women act like lost men to curry the favor of lost men? One also must wonder where are the fathers and brothers (and by this I mean real “brothers,” not fraternity men) of these women who have become sexual playthings for predators?

The Lacrosse team at Duke may well be innocent of rape charges. But the campus culture across this country is, it is increasingly clear, fueled by a deep-seated and violent misogyny. We don’t need Rolling Stone to tell us this. Our question is not so much about what’s going on on campus as what is going on in the homes and churches that send men and women to the campuses, and why Christian parents and churches blindly turn their eyes away.

The Scripture does not commend the sons of Israel for their violence against the people of Shechem after the Canaanite prince’s defiling and humiliation of Dinah. But one does wonder where now is the natural instinct behind the Israelite brothers’ question: “Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?” (Gen 34:31).

Campus ministries are vitally important, perhaps never more important than now. Collegiate Christian groups are able to see the ever-changing terrain of campus life, and to reach students with the gospel in ways that are difficult or impossible for others. The problem for many campus ministries, however, is that they are by design parachurch, cut off by necessity or by choice from the context of local churches. Thankfully, there are campus ministries willing to buck the campus culture, and to do so by engaging fathers and pastors. But there aren’t enough of them out there.

In a context like the one described by Rolling Stone, we need campus ministries that can preach the gospel and build one on one relationships with students who are experiencing a foretaste of hell, and thinking it is paradise. But we also need some campus ministers who are willing to call Christian fathers and Christian pastors back home to call them to the fraternity house steps, to pick up a prodigal son or daughter and go home.

Only when we see how lost we are, we can find our way again. Only when we bury what’s dead can we experience life again. Only when we lose our religion can we be amazed by grace again.

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About Russell Moore

Russell Moore is Editor in Chief of Christianity Today and is the author of the forthcoming book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (Penguin Random House).

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