‘Before we point the finger at Russell Brand, the church needs to get its own house in order and educate young people about consent’

As Christians it might be tempting to respond to the allegations against Russell Brand with a smug “I told you so.” To point him out to our teenagers as an example of where promiscuity leads, warning them about the dangers of hedonism and urging them to stick to traditional “Christian” sexual ethics instead.

I believe that would be a mistake. We only need to look to recent scandals within Christianity concerning high profile leaaders that had a sexual element to see that we’re not doing any better ourselves; the rates of sexual abuse and violence against women aren’t any lower within the Church than outside of it. Simply telling teenagers to abstain isn’t enough.

Abusive and unhealthy relationships happen at similar rates in every culture and every religion, regardless of their views on sexual ethics. Those unhealthy relationships start young: 25% of girls aged 13-17 report that they have experienced violence in their romantic relationships. Safelives (a domestic abuse charity) found that half of all young people did not feel that the sex and relationships education they had received in school had equipped them with a proper understanding of toxic and healthy relationships. As Christians we have the answer, and it’s not abstinence, it’s Jesus. It’s time we stepped up and filled that gap in our children’s education, because make no mistake, if we don’t educate our children about romantic relationships, the porn industry will: 22% of boys aged 13-17 say they have looked to porn for sex education.

Jesus’ focus in teaching about relationships was never specifically on sex, it was always on love. If we understand what love looks like and crucially what it does not look like then we will be better equipped to relate to one another in healthy ways, whether our relationships are sexual or non-sexual, romantic or platonic. This is the lesson we need to teach our young people, how to treat our partners as Jesus would, rather than in ways that reflect our sinful tendencies to try to exert power and control over each other. Notions such as respect and consent flow from this.