I’m coming a bit late to this piece, but the October 2011 issue of Relevant magazine contains a must-read article for those who see the need for a rather profound cultural course correction. It turns out that 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals (18 to 29) are sexually active. Yes, 80 percent. For all unmarried young adults the total is 88 percent. Oh, and even as 80 percent of young unmarried evangelicals are sexually active, 76 percent of evangelicals still believe sex outside of marriage is wrong. Even worse, 65 percent of women who abort their children identify as Catholic or Protestant Christian — that’s 650,000 Christian abortions per year.
The article discusses the common causes. Of course our pop culture celebrates sex and porn is ubiquitous. Additionally, there’s the obligatory shot at the church being squeamish in talking about sex (literally every church I’ve ever attended talked frankly about sex while chiding Christians for being reluctant to talk about it). Most insightful, however, is the observation that even as the evangelical church has held theologically – though not morally — to biblical sexual standards, it has fallen in lockstep behind the larger cultural trend of delayed marriage. It’s one kind of challenge to wait until you’re 18. It’s another challenge entirely to wait until you’re 28.
This is of a piece with the larger American evangelical culture, which — despite the “Jesusland” stigma of the secular Left — is only slightly countercultural. Christians have long understood a basic truth that they are to be “in, but not of” the world, but what does it mean to remain “in” a world that lurches ever-further from core biblical standards? If the practical result is a church that forever remains only slightly countercultural, then the church’s standards will simply act as trailing-edge indicators of cultural change.
Once you travel outside the ranks of the hard-core activists (a tiny segment of the Christian public), you will find a community possessed with an overwhelming desire to be liked: people who are very, very tired of negative perceptions of Christians and eager to change minds. But there’s certainly ground between the grim defiance of the few and the puppy-dog eagerness of the many.
In a previous post I talked about reframing our marriage debate as a “marriage restoration” movement, but we can’t talk about marriage without linking it to the larger sexual/moral ethic of Christendom. Otherwise we will fast approach a point where the distinction between Christian and non-Christian conduct will be so vanishingly small that one could wonder if we maintained any distinct witness to our neighbors and our nation.
Funny, but sad.
In America, the Evangelicals are concerned with sexual mores.
In the middle east, Christians are concerned with staying alive.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewsflash: Christians in the Middle East are more concerned with sexual mores than Evangelicals in America.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually it seems more that evangelicals aren't concerned with sexual mores.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnyway, the Church is called to more than survival, While certainly the lives of our brothers in Islamic lands matter more than most issues we can face is the soft affluent west, if we aren't going to hold ourselves accountable to God's word we might as well go extinct.
Churches want to be hip and relevant to attract, rather than repel, new young members. Alas they forgot to remember that they were still supposed to be churches. Hard truths rub against the grain of self-esteem and entitlement.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree. The problem with this country is that not enough 18-year-olds are getting married.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy parents-in-law married when she was 14 and he was 18. They just celebrated their forty-eighth wedding anniversary. I wouldn't necessarily recommend marrying THAT young, but there's no reason that young people can't marry successfully at 18 or 20 or 22. The only reason I know of is that our society is obsessed with delaying adolescence well into a person's thirties. A mature twenty year old who's willing to work as a team, learn on the job, prioritize another person's needs and live soberly will make a fine spouse. However, the expectations on young people in our society have plummeted such that many of them think that only suckers don't take advantage of their twenties to drink, shop, play video games, fornicate, and amass gadgets. Quite sad, really.
I married at 21 and had my fourth child at 29, by the way.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"My parents-in-law married when she was 14 and he was 18. They just celebrated their forty-eighth wedding anniversary. I wouldn't necessarily recommend marrying THAT young, but there's no reason that young people can't marry successfully at 18 or 20 or 22. "
Sure there is, a very good reason.
22 year olds can't typically support themselves anymore.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAgree. Contemporary bias against early marriage is part of the problem.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMarried at 14? It sounds like your mother in law was a victim of child abuse.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou don't know much history, do you?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is hardly just one problem with our country, but delayed maturity contributes to many of them indeed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am 32 and have witnessed the complete decline in morality in my generation. Evangelicals who are outraged about gay marriage and school prayer don't seemed concerned about sex outside marriage.
Why is anyone surprised when something that used to be taboo and is a sin according to pretty much any Christian is no big deal?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf you are 32 - therefore born around 1979 (being a teenager from 1992-98 and an adult around 1997) - and genuinely believe that you've "witnessed the complete decline of morality in [your] generation", then you are almost scandalously ignorant and badly in need of even a halfway decent course on America history.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy personal observation is that while there seems to be a lot about evangelicals outraged about gay marriage, etc. on the interwebs and in the media, I don't see any of that in my church (Baptist, in Georgia), in my devotionals, in the glossies that we can get out of the library, and so on. The emphasis in each of those is on worship, giving, and our personal 'walk' as Christians. We recognize that we are sinners and that the Church is not a 'hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners.' There isn't a whole lot of 'holier than thou' stuff. But perhaps there needs to be. I mean, the Church still gets criticized for being too judgmental even now when there is so little of that being done.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGee, I'm shocked.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut hey, aren't those Mormons weird cultists? They are so uptight about sex.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSadly I'm not surprised either. After all, evangelicals seem willing to back Gingrich over Romney.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI thought one of the big points of Christianity is that everybody is a sinner. Also something about forgiveness.
Lot of Christians like you and Ann Coulter like to throw stones at Gingrich for his affairs over a decade ago.
Meanwhile, she's never been married but she dates men.
Gingrich's personal life and failings in his youth don't seem relevant to me. It's amazing how so called conservatives have their nose in the man's personal life and want to play God on him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBecause we all know that Mitt Romney is all about pre-marital sex.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney's religion has more gods than Newt's had weddings. And Newt's had only one valid marriage.
I hope this clears it up for you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse