Relevant magazine takes a look at the sexual activity of single Christians. The results are as discouraging as you’d expect:
The article in Relevant magazine, entitled “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” cited several studies examining the sexual activity of single Christians. One of the biggest surprises was a December 2009 study, conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which included information on sexual activity.
While the study’s primary report did not explore religion, some additional analysis focusing on sexual activity and religious identification yielded this result: 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) said that they have had sex – slightly less than 88 percent of unmarried adults, according to the teen pregnancy prevention organization.
The article highlights what challenges abstinence movements face. Movements such as “True Love Waits,” encourage teens to wear purity rings, sign virginity pledges and pledge chastity during public ceremonies.
Yet many of these Christian youths eventually abandon their purity pledges, Relevant’s Tyler Charles concludes in the article. Tyler talked to people like “Maria,” an evangelical woman who said she wanted to wait until marriage to have sex.
But she said she started having sex with her college boyfriend when she turned 20 because nearly everyone, even most of her Christian friends, were having sex.
September 27th, 2011 | 12:43 pm
Although the magazine tends to skew a little toward the “hip” end of things, Relevant has been publishing some remarkably serious journalism lately. This gives me hope for my generation of young evangelicals.
September 27th, 2011 | 1:01 pm
The solution is to get married earlier, of course. Advice given to me and my boyfriend at 20 and 19 respectively in college by a wise priest, and the best advice ever. “What’s the worst that could happen? You might be poor.”
September 27th, 2011 | 1:27 pm
I completely agree.
As a person who married at the age of 22 when my husband and I were still in university, I could go on and on about the benefits of marrying young. Instead of Christian churches deciding to jump off the abstinence train, maybe they should start encouraging young couples to enter into marriage and explaining the many benefits of marrying young- and if we’re going to be honest, getting to have sex is definitely one of them. If young couples can see marriage as an actual reality for them, then maybe it wouldn’t seem so daunting to have to wait.
September 27th, 2011 | 1:56 pm
The problem with that is that we don’t want our kids marrying at 14, and that’s the age they start getting significant cultural pressure toward sex (in most situations, younger in some.)
So there has to be something in addition to “just get married younger.” Kids need to be brought up to resist sexual temptation and pressure in such a way that will endure until they marry. I agree that encouraging younger marriage is part of the solution, but that isn’t the whole answer. People were never really able to marry as soon as they began to be interested in sex, and so it stands to reason that it is morally possible to inculcate sexual self-discipline in young people. We’re just not going about it the right way these days, apparently.
September 27th, 2011 | 1:59 pm
But this is well said:
“If young couples can see marriage as an actual reality for them, then maybe it wouldn’t seem so daunting to have to wait.”
If marriage is normally understood as something you’re going to do sometime after you’re 30 when you’re done exploring all the possibilities, the idea of waiting for sexual involvement seems absolutely ridiculous when you’re 14. But if it’s something that will probably happen within the next decade or so of your life, during which decade you will also have many other things you’re occupied with, I would think a young teenager could far more readily accept the need to wait.
September 27th, 2011 | 3:28 pm
I’m 43, and my generation saw so many parents divorce because they married too young — that is, they picked a partner they may have loved at the time, but one who wasn’t very compatible to their lifestyle (different morals, values, long-term goals, approaches to money, kids, etc.)
And the increase in personal choice is with us to stay, so it is not realistic to expect that most people in their early 20s are mature enough to know who they are and what they want a decade or two hence.
I’m sure the current generation of kids will learn from us and come to their own conclusions. It will be interesting to see how their experience of growing up in un-married families will affect their choices. Will they hate it as much as my generation hated living with divorce?
September 27th, 2011 | 3:44 pm
But the reality is that they are going to wait until after they are 30 to get married so telling them to hold off on sex when they are 20 is a waste of breath.
September 27th, 2011 | 5:07 pm
Are they going to get married at 30 though? This blogger echoes many of my own worries at http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2008/10/yes-men-do-leave-market.html
The thing about the whole “joo must has premarital sexxors!” is that it’s jading people rather badly. Combine that with growing up with divorce, and for a lot of men, you really don’t have much incentive to marry late in life.
It’s odd times, indeed.
September 27th, 2011 | 5:24 pm
As an evangelical youth, my church and evangelical junior high and high school provided abstinence seminars lasting a few school days about annually. Once I graduated high school, however, all I heard against fornication was the most casual and rare comments from my parents, pastors, and doctors. Of course, I didn’t really need a reminder that fornication was wrong, but I sure got the impression my church had other priorities in the spiritual development of members. Moreover, as a young single, there was little geared towards the temptations that characterized my stage of life. [I did not attend churches with young adult groups.]
I do not think that today’s young adults should be encouraged to marry young, as they have not been raised to be mature enough for such a step in their late teens and early twenties. The divorce statistics for those who marry before age 23 support this. But I do think tomorrow’s young people should be raised to be sufficiently mature before the age of 26 or 28 (the average ages of first marriage for American women and men, respectively). In the mean time, I suggest more anti-fornication preaching and teaching directed at those between high school and marriage.
September 27th, 2011 | 7:24 pm
Gosh, waiting is hard, so… forget it?!
Really, people are either going to choose to live their faith or not. Losing one’s virginity does not translate into a life of active sexuality unless one so decides. How about clear teaching, and letting the chips fall where they may. God is worth some self-denial. People may learn that early or late, but it is the simple fact. If you chose sexual pleasure over God, it is your (poor) choice. No one said the narrow way was the pleasurable one, right? And the cultur elong ago jumped the shark. The entire orientation of “Gosh, how can we keep the kids out of the sack?” is a bit offputting.
September 27th, 2011 | 9:02 pm
If there’s no chastity in speech, dress, conduct, or choice of entertainments, there will be no chastity in body.
Christians can’t even get kids to avoid non-pornographic dirty movies, and most “Christian intellectuals” are too timid or compromised to care about those.
What chance do young people have at staying virgins?
September 27th, 2011 | 10:46 pm
You have culture conflicting with biology here. Females are most fertile from about ages 20 to 24, and beginning at age 25, their fertility begins to decline. Males have their highest sex drive at ages 15 to 20, and from then on there is a decline. So a woman who waits until age 26 to marry is already past her peak childbearing years, and a man who waits until age 28 to have sex has abstained during the years when it is most difficult to do so.
September 28th, 2011 | 2:03 am
In response to R Hampton’s comment. I mean this as kindly as possible when I say that my generation (late teens, early twenties) is, as far I can see, growing increasingly frustrated with your generations tendency to project your childhood problems on to our lives.
About a half dozen of my close friends who are in their early twenties, as well as myself, have gotten married in the past few years and we were all met with degrees of hostility from our parents as well as our extended older family, and our professors and teachers. The hostility was also almost always towards the young women in the relationship who were choosing to “only” be wives and mothers- as if that isn’t a noble pursuit. I gather that this is because your generation grew up listening to your mothers being unhappy with their lot in life, and therefore many women of your generation learned that being a wife and mother was a miserable existence. My generation, I believe, is trying to break free of that mentality.
Especially among young Christians, we have had the privilege to be raised in the churches that speak openly (mostly out of necessity to address an increasingly sexualized culture) about God’s plan for human sexuality. Therefore, contrary to what many might believe about the maturity level of my generation, we are entering into marriage with a deep understanding of what it truly means to be a husband and wife united in Christ.
Also there are many benefits to marrying young. As David said above, women are in their prime child bearing years, therefore they give birth to healthier babies. Also, because the parents of these babies are younger, they are more capable of handling the physically demanding task of raising children. Because the husband and wife are still young and have not completely set in their ways, they are able to grow together as individuals and as a couple, therefore causing less conflict down the road in regard to not having similar lifestyles or values.
Secular society has perpetuated so many lies about marriage, and unfortunately many Christians are buying into them. Maturity can often be seen as more or less subjective- I know many people in their 30′s and 40′s who still behave like teenagers, particularly when it comes to romantic relationships. Financial stability is something that nobody ever truly reaches, so what are you waiting for? Having children is not the life destroying fiasco that our selfish and anti-family culture has convinced us it is. And so what if divorce statistics are high? Let’s be the change we want to see in the world.
For people to say that my generation is too immature for marriage, or that we don’t understand what we’re getting into, is untrue, condescending, and just plain mean.
Alright…I’ll stop talking now…
September 28th, 2011 | 7:12 am
Well said, Sandra. I had a prof in college take me aside after seeing me throw up from morning sickness at 20 yrs old and tell me I had “ruined my life.” Apparently women are supposed to wait until all their chips are in line. You don’t have to though. Be a living witness!
September 28th, 2011 | 8:10 am
“Alright…I’ll stop talking now…”
No, Sandra, don’t stop talking. You have a lot to say, and I am glad to hear it.
September 28th, 2011 | 11:16 am
Sandra, that was beautiful.
September 28th, 2011 | 5:15 pm
I’m 43, and my generation saw so many parents divorce because they married too young
Divorce is not caused by marrying too young.
There are many people who remain married all their lives despite being married at very young ages.
Divorce occurs among all age groups.
Your parents divorced because the Sexual Revolution came along and convinced everyone that obligations are irrelevant, and only “personal happiness” matters. It was an alluring promise – but it was built out of lies: these adults were explicitly promised that the kids would be just fine, and it’s highly unlikely that most of these people would have been so comfortable abandoning their obligations and vows if they’d known the truth about the real consequences.
September 28th, 2011 | 5:20 pm
The hostility was also almost always towards the young women in the relationship who were choosing to “only” be wives and mothers- as if that isn’t a noble pursuit.
Sandra, you’ll notice that women who marry and have children young often do better than women who put their career first and then try to have children later.
Look at Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin and tell me again that having kids at a young age means you’ll never have a career?
The problem is, in order for it to work, you have to pick a good man – and it helps if your family and/or his family are supportive. That’s where the trouble starts – a lot of women genuinely think that whether the man they end up with is reliable, ethical, moral/good, or even kind, or not is somehow completely outside of their control – as if there’s no way to tell what sort of person someone is before committing your life to him.
Of course divorce sometimes happens anyway – but then there is nothing in this life that is without risks. Nothing. The idea that somehow it is – or ought to be – possible to separate risks from rewards is perhaps the most destructive idea of the 20th century.
September 28th, 2011 | 5:25 pm
But the reality is that they are going to wait until after they are 30 to get married so telling them to hold off on sex when they are 20 is a waste of breath.
No, it’s not.
These people having sex before they’re ready is inordinately expensive – both in dollars and in lives.
Abstinence-only education would have a lot more traction if we stopped glamorizing sex, acting ourselves as if a continual state of sexual satisfaction were a basic human right, that going without sex is somehow impossible – glamorizing promiscuity as sophistication, and stigmatizing abstinence as dorky.
Abstinence-only education would probably not be necessary at all if we stopped allowing people to escape the consequences of their promiscuity – by getting free handouts for life if they are generous enough to not inflict a gruesome death on their unintended offspring.
Promiscuity is embedded in our culture because we’re supporting it – literally: we are paying people to be promiscuous. We are giving them a choice between being working hard and being productive citizens vs. being irresponsible parents who rely on handouts and create bad home conditions for their children.
September 29th, 2011 | 4:27 am
A little history can be very instructive here.
In Britain from about 1850-1950, early marriages were the rule, because workers in industry had already reached their maximum earning potential in their late ‘teens or early 20s. They also tended to marry girls 3 or 4 years younger than themselves In France, during the same period, men postponed marriage until their 30s, when they inherited their share of the family farm and they often married wives in their mid- to late ‘teens.
September 29th, 2011 | 10:01 am
[...] upcoming article in Relevant magazine is making the blogosphere rounds already (e.g., CNN & First Thoughts). It would seem that multiple studies are indicating that despite all efforts by the Church, most [...]
October 1st, 2011 | 3:54 pm
I’m 43, and my generation saw so many parents divorce because they married too young
I am a contemporary of yours, and saw no such thing.
1. My parents contemporaries married (on average) three or four years earlier than did mine. They divorced less often and generally produced all of their children in the context of their first and only marriage.
2. I saw many divorces. ‘Marrying too young’ was not a discernable antecedent to any of them. Alcoholism, adultery, and abandonment were.
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