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 sɛҳuąƖ 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 sɛҳuąƖ activity.

While the study’s primary report did not explore religion, some additional analysis focusing on sɛҳuąƖ 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?

et the article also asks a question that rarely comes up in discussions about abstinence movement

Because it's not a serious movement.  It's a sentimental movement.

People who really believe something is important act as though it is important.

If someone really believes motherhood is more important than career they would not act as though they implicitly assume women should have degrees before marrying.

They would only do that if they implicitly believe the opposite.

The same is true about many other "conservative issues."

Only someone who is deluding themselves about human nature would think that one can be seriously concerned with chastity while accepting high school coeducation and today's university life as though it is normal and not a grave threat to it.

There is probably the most hypocrisy about opposition to contraception and abortion.

When I say the "most" I mean the gravest.  You just can't know about people anymore.  In this abortion society single motherhood seems almost honorable sometimes.

And even the alleged Pope has practically acquiesced to the contention "if you're gonna do it anyway, why not use protection"

And then there's the case of that priest we heard about.  

The people who complain about "media bias" will get angry if you talk about who controls the media.

The people who complain about the vulgarity in the popular culture resist getting rid of the TV and those who condemn the schools.

The people who complain about the decadence of society are often supporters of the wars against those who are most seriously trying to resist modern decadence, the Muslims.

Tele, please don't lose sight of the fact that even if everyone become an exemplary traditional Catholic tomorrow, the Muslims would still be our mortal enemy, as they were in the Middle Ages. When the Turks tried to overrun Europe on countless occasions, did Hollywood exist yet? No.

I haven't lost site of it.  But the concern should be about their migration into formerly Christian lands.  I don't think it's too far from the mark to say the very reason we are at war with them is because people believe today's decadence is this "freedom" we're supposed to be fighting for.

The people who complain the most about the Muslims in Europe, who have the loudest voice, are those who harp on their views on ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity and on the role of women.

That's their motivation.  They hate the Muslims because they retain some belief in a God that judges and in the patriarchal family.  And foolish "Christians" (and even many Catholics) go along with it, a huge percentage even acting as Christian Zionists.

I am completely befuddled as to how any Catholic could down them most of Telesphus's posts above.

  Rather late for this post but:
I used to watch evangelical sattelite channel before knowing they were prots. and you know they always spoke as if God was particularly forgiving toward the sins of flesh. As if speaking against other sins is good and speaking against prostitutes is bad and Pharisical and judgmental.
  Once I heard a man saying that he didn't care if his wife has committed some premarital sin because God forgives the sinners. I told him:" yes. God forgives the thieves, yet it doesn't mean that a girl shouldn't care if her husband is a thief, or shouldn't prefer an honest man."
   Still heretical channels show us a God particularly in favor of the impure, protecting them and punishing all those who dare to annoy them.
   The story of St. Mary Magdalen doesn't mean that He loves sins. Don't forget that she was baptized when she believed meaning that she would be forgiven even if she were a murderer before baptism.
   I wonder how those people who use "God forgives the sinner" as an excuse for impurity don't want to use apply their own principal to other sins. "God forgives the child abuser, the lazy the infidel man, the dictator the backbiter etc!" So lets never object to these sins too!

There is also an element of simple gnosticism, to the extent the gnosticism is ever simply,  They feel like they have the saving knowledge that Jesus is Lord, so they can do what they want and sin doesn't matter.  Not most of them, but some.