True Love isn't Waiting, Anymore
We caught this article on the CNN belief blog (which referenced an article in Relevant) and were intrigued by the conclusions.
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.---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?Read the rest
Here are two thoughts I had as I read this article and the dozens of others which sprang up from the discussion.
- Why are adults so fascinated with adolescent sexuality? What does it say about US to care so much about what they do or don't do sexually? After all, this generation didn't invent pre-marital sex any more than ours did?
- We simply cannot argue for both waiting for marriage to have sex and waiting until your 30 to get married. (Average age of a males first marriage is now 28.5!)
As you interact with these articles, what's on your mind? How do these findings and this discussion impact your day-to-day youth ministry?