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Sexual Education Programs in Protestant Youth Groups, 1960-1980

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Sexual Education Programs in Protestant Youth Groups, 1960-1980 “TAMING THE SEXUAL TEMPEST”: SEXUAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN PROTESTANT YOUTH GROUPS, 1960-1980 By Jaime Lynn McLean A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY History 2011 ABSTRACT “TAMING THE SEXUAL TEMPEST”: SEXUAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN PROTESTANT YOUTH GROUPS, 1960-1980 By Jaime Lynn McLean My dissertation makes a contribution to four fields of historical scholarship: the history of youth ministry, baby boom generation, the social and cultural history of the 1960s and 1970s, and the history of the sexual revolution. Set in the context of the 1960s and 1970s, I examine the formal and informal sexual education literature and programming designed and used by two Protestant youth groups during this period: Liberal Religious Youth, a youth run denominational group supported by the Unitarian Universalist Association and Youth For Christ an evangelical para-church organization for high school students. Protestant religious groups, evangelicals in particular, were at the center of debates over comprehensive sexual education in American high schools in the 1960s. However what often gets lost in the discussion of liberal support for and evangelical objections to sex education in schools are the alternative and/or supplemental programs designed and utilized by those working within the youth ministry. The content and the tone of these programs changed significantly between 1960 and 1980, coinciding with changes in youth culture happening among three cohorts of baby boomers. However, the strategies the groups used to reach teenagers were remarkably similar. The history of sexual education in YFC and LRY during the 1960s and 1970s indicates both conservative and liberal religious adults moved away from impersonal and overt efforts to control and monitor teen sexuality to a strategy which allowed them to manage teen sexuality by teaching teens to monitor themselves. I argue that the changing sexual culture in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s prompted Youth for Christ and Liberal Religious Youth to employ similar strategies to deliver very different messages about gender, love, relationships, and sexuality. Both groups employed three separate strategies over the course of these two decades each targeted at a specific wave of the baby boomer generation. I divide these strategies/cohorts into three rough periods. The first period encompasses 1960-1966. The second period runs from 1967-1972. The third period is from 1973 to 1980. I have divided the baby boomers into these cohorts because of the nature of the high school experience. Typically, scholarship focusing on youth culture privileges college students. In my study, I focus on high school students who have a much shorter and more contained youth experience. For C-A-R-T-E-R, mama‟s little star iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS After many long years, I can safely say that this dissertation would not have been completed without the intellectual, financial and emotional support of my colleagues, friends, and family. I would like to thank the archivists, research librarians and staff at the Andover Harvard Theological Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Billy Graham Center Archives in Wheaton, Illinois, who swiftly located the records and I needed and found me a quiet space, a free photocopier, and digital photo tips so that I could make the best use of my time at each facility. Of course, these research trips would not have been possible without the financial support of my department. The Department of History provided me with summer research money on two occasions as well as travel funds to present my work at national conferences. During my time at MSU, I have had the opportunity to work with many talented and inspiring historians, who helped shape my understanding of the field and what it means to be a professional historian and teacher. My early intellectual development was shaped by the seminars I participated in during my first years at MSU with David Bailey, Darlene Clark Hine, Daina Berry Mark Kornbluh, Richard Thomas, Robert Bonner, and Dagmar Herzog. Mark Kornbluh, Dagmar Herzog, Pero Dagbovie, Amy Derogatis, and Kirstin Fermaglich have each served on my committee in one capacity or another over the years. Conversations with members of my evolving committee have helped me stretch myself intellectually and provided me with invaluable feedback and many questions and that will push my work to new heights in the years to come. Finally, I have to extend a special thank you to my major advisor, Lisa Fine, whose v patience and persistence helped me make some hard decisions that, in the end, resulted in a better document and helped me become a better thinker. I am not the first, nor will I be the last to extend deep gratitude to my friends in Room 8 Morrill Hall. Heath Bowen, Joe Genetin-Pilawa, Carlos Aleman, Micalee Sullivan, Sonia Robles and Ben Sawyer provided the most valuable support of all – laughter. My daily interactions with these fine people kept me sane and sufficiently distracted enough to think that this whole grad school thing might actually turn out to be fun. Having to finish this process while living many miles away from them has been harder than I thought. Christine Sobczak has been one of my most devoted supporters for 15 years. She has been my best friend and cheerleader since our undergraduate days at The University of Windsor. Since our late night paper writing and cram sessions in undergraduate, she has witnessed my intellectual and personal growth and never wavered from her belief that I would reach this goal. For that, and all of the personal and professional support she has given me thought the years, I will be forever grateful. My mother has been a constant source of support throughout my life. She has supported every decision I have made and has looked forward to and celebrated each of my successes as if they were her own. She has never doubted that this day would come – that she would see the end of this project. Her encouragement and steadfast belief that I would see this project to completion helped carry me though the difficult patches. At the end of every conversation my mother reminded me, “You can do it!” I did not always believe her, but she was right. My deepest gratitude is reserved for my husband, Dan. He has photocopied, hauled books, listened to ideas, read drafts, and held my hand though every minute of this process. Most importantly, he has made me laugh every single day. His humor and comic relief have vi raised me up and helped put life and “the dissertation” into perspective. His commitment to me, our family, and our future has taught me all I need to know about the meaning of partnership, devotion, and love. Finally, I want to thank my son Carter James, who came into our lives quite unexpectedly and rather dramatically in 2008. The joy he brought into our life has been the fuel that brought me to the end of this project. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1: CONSULTING THE EXPERTS, 1960-1966 33 CHAPTER 1 LEADERS AND LOVELIES: CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN VISIONS OF GENDER ROLES AND SEXUAL RESPONSIBILITY, 1960-1966 34 CHAPTER 2 AVOIDING “VAGUE PLATITUDES”: SEX EDUCATION FOR LIBERAL RELIGIOUS YOUTH 1960-1966 72 PART 2: OPENING A DIALOGUE 102 CHAPTER 3 “SEX AND THE SINGLE TEEN”: YOUTH FOR CHRIST 1967-1972 104 CHAPTER 4 TALKIN „BOUT YOUR SEXUALITY: LIBERAL RELIGIOUS YOUTH 1967-1972 131 PART 3: QUESTIONS ANSWERED, 1974-1980 158 CHAPTER 5 WHEN DON‟T IS NOT ENOUGH: SEX ADVICE FOR TEENS IN YOUTH FOR CHRIST 1973-1980 161 CHAPTER 6 JOE TACO AND SUZY CREAM CHEESE GET LIBERATED: LRY, LIBERATION POLTICS, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY 1973-1980 185 CONCLUSION 215 BIBLIOGRAPHY 222 viii INTRODUCTION 1971, Billy Graham published a book entitled The Jesus Generation. His audience was a generation of young people that seemed, by all media accounts, to be moving further and further away from religion towards a secular standard of living. Graham was concerned about the state of youth culture. He felt that young people were confused and in need of guidance. He wanted to urge young people to steer clear of Satan‟s grip, which he warned, was often difficult to see. He was concerned about many aspects of young people‟s lives, but especially about the lack of sexual morality he perceived among young people. He declared that young people needed help, “taming the sexual tempest.” The statement reflects his concern with the sexual culture in America, but it also recognition of the natural sexual development of young men and women in their teen years. Graham, like other evangelical ministers serving youth, committed themselves 1 to helping young people navigate this tumultuous stage. My dissertation examines the formal and informal sexual education efforts within two Protestant youth groups, Youth for Christ and Liberal Religious Youth, between 1960 and 1980. In the pages that follow, I explore how religiously based youth organizations handled the topic of sex with three distinct groups of baby boomers during America‟s second sexual revolution. I am interested in both the content of the advice as well as the methods of delivery adult advisors and group leaders used when discussing sexual matters with teenagers. What follows is primarily an exploration of adult responses to the simultaneous changes in American sexual culture and youth culture during this period. Young people figure prominently in the story, but I am most 1 Billy Graham, The Jesus Generation. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971). 1 concerned with the strategies adults used to manage the massive, unpredictable, diverse generation of baby boomers as they came of age in the 1960s and 1970s.
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