Young Sydney woman, Jessica Langrell, a trailblazer for youth purity movement.
By Anthony Barich
JESSICA Langrell is a confident, happy student who loves to go surfing. She is also the new face of a youth initiative that is standing up for things that are fast slipping from public consciousness as things of importance – life-giving love and sexual integrity.
Yet Jessica has experienced the struggles with that thing all teens struggle with – the glamorous lifestyle of the clubbing scene, binge drinking and “the hook-up scene”.
Well, she used to. She resisted these self-destructive patterns through pushing herself beyond her comfort zone to mix with youth who shared similar values and views like RISE (restoring integrity and sexual ethics), the youth group that announced its arrival at the inaugural National Marriage Day breakfast at Parliament House on August 13.
“In taking these steps I have found myself living the life every teenager should – even though this lifestyle calls us to a daily fight against the flesh, and a firm attitude to deny temptation and pressure from the media – I was able to honestly choose the good and beautiful by living a life of service and giving rather then consuming and taking,” she said.
“Singleness is no safeguard against immorality – in every heart, purity requires constant watchfulness, a daily fight against the flesh, and a firm attitude against wrong doings.”
She learned the hard way that culture influences conduct, and, giving her testimony before 500 people at Parliament House, she said “struggling against the flesh” is a daily struggle, but it’s easier if you surround yourself with the right influences.
“Young people want to be – and want to appear to be – normal. So it is hardly surprising that many of us are swayed by whatever happens to be regarded as the norm,” said the 19-year-old University of Notre Dame student.
“But that’s just not a good enough excuse to get caught up in the pressures of adolescence. Everyone – every teenager – has to choose to embody one sort of conduct over another. Although few choose that “alternative lifestyle” of living by traditional moral virtues – it is our responsibility to embody, express, and encourage it for all our friends.”
Her cause, and that of her peers who try to live chaste lives, are not helped, she says, by “Sexual health” advisors at schools who do not supply values-based education because they see their roles, not as promoting self-discipline and high moral standards, but as providing “non-judgemental” advice about how to have sex while avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and infections. “This is simply not fair to young people like ourselves who see things differently,” she says.
“We who oppose the ‘hook-up culture’ want to support each other in resisting it – promote a more self-giving, dignified and fulfilling way of life.”
She says that young people want to be challenged, to be pushed to the edge, to experience the thrill – and her youth movement wants to challenge their peers also.
“We are challenging young people to be courageous and act with integrity, but also in truth, clarity and sharpness. That is the essence of living a life of integrity in and outside of a relationship, and it is the challenge which we are all called to fight,” she says.
“I stand on behalf of the entire RISE Team as the new generation who genuinely believe that romantic relationships are properly oriented toward marriage and that sex belongs in marriage, not outside it – and we want to show how this is the better way for all young people of Australia.
“We do not want hook-ups; instead, we aspire to a way of life that is pure, chaste and satisfying that results in strong marriages and healthy families and in the end, a culture that flourishes.”