Purity and Peer Pressure

This a great discussion:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/04/choose_your_ide.html (thanks to Instapundit, who finds all things good).

I am a long way off from having to deal with kids in college, but that doesn't mean I don't think about it even though doing so is pretty much a waste of time at this point. I would love for my boys to remain "pure" until marriage, but not because of peer pressure, or a desire to please me, or anything else except their own desire to follow what God puts in their hearts. That doesn't mean that I'm going to refrain from telling them what I think, nor does it mean I won't tell them where to look to find out what God has to say on the subject. But the ends don't justify the means all the time - and frequently the means we use to get our children to "obey God" drives them further from us and from Him (hi Mom!). The same thing goes for peer pressure. I would much rather have my boys believe wholeheartedly that physical intimacy belongs only in marriage, and then see them fall short of meeting that goal and feel true repentance about it. That would be infinitely better then for them to "follow the rules" without a true understanding of why it's important and without the desire to put Christ first in their lives.