The Silver Ring Thing
Promoting Abstinence and Chastity to Christian Teenagers
A look at the promotion of abstinence from sex before marriage and the most well-known Christian movement doing this, The Silver Ring Thing.
A new movement toward abstinence has been sweeping across America and England for the past 10 years. Christian teachings and morals have always promoted abstaining from sex before marriage but now there are organisations that work on actively persuading teenagers to abstain and remain chaste.
US Government Backing
The assertion within American politics is that politics and religion should not combine and administrations should not be seen to promote one religion over another. Despite that the Bush administration heavily backs the abstinence movement, the majority of organisations being Christian and promoting not only abstinence but also the Christian faith. The British Broadcasting Corporation News reported that in 2003 the Bush administration gave $120 million to abstinence groups. $700,000 of this was to a group called The Silver Ring Thing.
The Silver Ring Thing
The Silver Ring Thing is a Christian abstinence group which was created by Denny and Amy Pattyn in 1996 and originally based in Arizona before moving to Pittsburgh in 2000. It is the most well known and widest spread of all the Christian abstinence groups.
The group's main teaching is to avoid sex before marriage and they use very youth oriented methods to get this across to their teen audiences. The Silver Ring Thing travels to different towns and cities where they hold seminars and shows including talks, lessons, sketches, and music. They even have their own rap “Oh no, don't give it away...”. Teenagers watch the show then take an abstinence pledge and pay their $12 or £20 to receive an abstinence pack including a Bible, an Abstinence Bible and a silver ring. Within the silver ring is a verse from Thessalonians 4:3 – 4 which translates as “"God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honour."
The Silver Ring Thing also asserts that giving out free condoms and teaching safe sex is wrong as it encourages teenagers to have sex before marriage.
Criticisms of The Silver Ring Thing
There have been widespread criticisms of this particular organisation on several counts. One of these is their strong belief against teaching safe sex. Another is that many believe that Denny Pattyn uses the message of abstinence merely as a platform to encourage young people to become very devoutly Christian and cares more about this than about abstinence itself. There have also been numerous reports about the dubious history and credibility of some of the group's senior members. Columbia University did a study in which they found that teenagers who were part of the movement but fell off the wagon, so to speak, were a third more likely not to use contraception. A similar study by the British Medical Journal found that the partners of boys in the abstinence programme were more likely to get pregnant than those with partners not in the movement.
Promise Rings
Despite concerns about different movements or use of government money there can be no argument against reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
Whether a follower of The Silver Ring Thing or a member of no movement at all, anyone can make the conscious decision to remain chaste until marriage. For those who want an outward symbol of their pledge or belief there are a number of Christian jewellery shops on the Internet where promise rings, purity rings and chastity rings can be purchased.
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