Al Mohler writes about the Virgin Lips Movement, a growing trend among young people to save not just sex for marriage but to also save the first kiss. Mohler presents part of the rationale of this movement:

While sexual abstinence until monogamous marriage is the biblical standard, these young Christians see virginity as requiring more than reserving sexual intercourse for marriage.  They see kissing as an act of physical intimacy — a gateway drug to greater physical intimacy and involvement.

Sound crazy? When my wife and I first started dating we set the ground rules for our physical relationship. We could hug, we could hold hands, nothing more. Kissing was out. Our first kiss was on our wedding day. I had dated girls prior to Sandra and did not have virgin lips but I wanted to do better with Sandra.

When we dated we were attending a small Christian college in a very conservative part of Mississippi. There of all places, what we did should have found support. But it was quite surprising to see the level of incredulity we faced when people learned we would not kiss. Since then the response among Christians has been more or less the same. Christians agree not to have sex but seem to have difficulty seeing that when dating couples kiss that in itself is an act of sexual intimacy even though it is not intercourse itself. Just how far are you willing to go in sexual activity? Mohler says:

As any minister who works with youth and young adults knows, the “how far is too far question” is a constant.  The Virgin Lips Movement represents a determination to stop that train before it leaves the station, so to speak.

What makes kissing easier to justify is that it is not always an act of sexual intimacy. But in a dating relationship how can it be considered anything else? What feelings – physical and emotional – are stirred when a couple kisses? Why is it that a certain kind of kissing is considered first base on the road to having sex?

Too often Christians are willing to follow the letter but not the spirit of God’s commands. Thus you have questions like “how far is too far?” or “how much can I get away with?” For many Christians the answer is kissing is okay, anything more is too far. But a growing number of Christians are recognizing that even kissing is going too far, that the first kiss should be saved for the wedding day. Anything else is playing with fire in a world full of gasoline.