Why young Christians aren't waiting anymore

By John Blake,  CNN

(CNN) –True love doesn’t wait after all.

That’s the implication in the upcoming October issue of an evangelical magazine that claims that young, unmarried Christians are having premarital sex almost as much as their non-Christian peers.

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.

Maria:

It seemed everyone in my life, older and younger, had “done it.” In fact, I waited longer than most people I knew and longer than both of my sisters, even though we were all Christians and came from a good home.

Relevant theorizes about why it’s so hard for so many young Christians to wait, including the saturation of sex in popular culture, the prevalence of pornography and a popular “do what feels good philosophy.”

Yet the article also asks a question that rarely comes up in discussions about abstinence movement. Relevant notes that in biblical times, people married earlier. The average age for marriage has been increasing in the U.S for the last 40 years.

Today, it’s not unusual to meet a Christian who is single at 30 - or 40 or 50, for that matter. So what do you tell them? Keep waiting?

Scot McKnight, author of “The Jesus Creed,” and "One.Faith: Jesus Calls, We Follow," acknowledges that young, single Christians face temptations that their counterparts in the biblical age didn’t face.

He  tells Relevant:

Sociologically speaking, the one big difference – and it’s monstrous – between the biblical teaching and our culture is the arranged marriages of very young people. If you get married when you’re 13, you don’t have 15 years of temptation.

So what should a Christian parent or youth pastor do? How do they convince more young Christians to wait until marriage, or should they stop even trying?

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No, Christian parents and ministers shouldn't stop trying to encourage sexual purity. What young people need are 1) to hear the TRUE gospel preached (salvation from SIN through Jesus Christ, repentance from sin, and conversion), NOT false gospels about money, "positive thinking," positive confession (name it and claim it), and "it's okay if you sin because God's grace covers that, no one's perfect, you're only human, and all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory." 2) Active, on-going DISCIPLESHIP. Not "church as usual" where they sit in a pew, listen to sermons, sing hymns, and put money in a collection plate, then go home without any sort of inward spiritual change or CLUE as to who Jesus is and what He teaches. Many young ppl today (if not most of them) are unconverted false Christians (in name-only) church folk, which is why they're fornicating at the speed of light and becoming New Agers, atheists, and agnostics when they leave home and go to college. They need to be born-again and discipled, but that can only happen IF they hear the true Gospel and trust in the REAL Jesus (not the flim flam fake cotton candy jesus, who doesn't care how you live and what type of mindset you have). 3) They need GODLY examples, so that they can SEE the Gospel, a living witness of Christ, and evidence of salvation. They need to see parents who practice sexual faithfulness (in marriage), chastity and abstinence (from single parents). They need to know and SEE that God has the power to keep them from stumbling, rather than just read about it in the Bible. They need to see LIVING epistles, not ppl who just TALK about God/Jesus and living holy, but WALK with God and demonstrate holiness. But instead, they see boatloads of false and lukewarm Christians around them fornicating and committing adultery. So they assume that since everyone is doing it, it's not a big deal if they do the same. They feel little to no sense of conviction for fornicating, because none of the "Christians" around them are living righteously. The sexual climate is lust and fornication all around them, so it saturates them and eventually desensitizes them and numbs their conscience. They often reject sound rebuke, and feel like no one has the right to warn them, and hold them accountable. In America, especially yhe Black community, many of these young ppl come from single mother homes, and their mothers are carnal immature silly women that Paul wrote about, loaded down with sins and lust. These single mothers "praise the Lord" on Sunday, and fornicate on the side. Their children see it, they aren't stupid, and it just adds to their temptation to fornicate, because if their mother is fornicating, why can't they? These single mothers also dress sensually and provocatively. Who are their children suppose to look up to for sexual purity and modesty? So they end up repeating the cycle of fornication, out of wedlock children, and sensual/provocative fashion.

Its not taught by the elders nor their parents that it is POSSIBLE to wait for marriage and neither is it being taught by their parents - who should be living a proper life in front of them.

So where can they learn that its do-able --> NO WHERE.

Not at home because of their parents living whorish lives (in the name of Jesus)

And

Not from the church elders because they are afraid to offend congregants that are living whorish lives (in the name of Jesus)

Right. A shame and a pity.

    What do you tell them?  Hebrews 13:14, "Marriage [is] honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge."  Premarital sex is nothing new as the article suggests.

              

1.  Everyone who claims to be a Christian is not a Christian.

2.  Premarital sex is nothing new in the church. 

3.  Many pastors don't practice what they preach.  Don't lead by example. 

4.  There are alot of Christians who are practicing abstinence and are not acknowledged.

5.  Woman Caught in Act of Adultery Syndrome - Cast the 1st Stone mentality.

6.  (Rulers) Government promotes safe sex, (Kings/Queens) Actors/Actresses & Music Artists promote premarital sex. 

7.  Christian parents did not practice what they are now preaching.  

8.  Child abuse, rape & molestation - victim of circumstance (sins of parents) Spirit of Lust.  

9.  Child sold into prostitution by crack head parent.  Backslide (relapse) into old habits.

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