Majority of Young Christians Admit to Sex Before Marriage
A study recently concluded many young Christians are not waiting to have sex.
The findings that appeared in Relevant, an Evangelical magazine, claimed that young Christians have sex almost as regularly as their non-Christian counterparts do.
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy conducted one of the studies cited. In the report, which was not primarily focused on religion, said 80 percent of the identified Christians between the ages of 18 and 29 admitted having sex before marriage. This figure was compared to 88 percent of identified non-Christians.
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The Guttmacher institute said the primary reason a woman seeks an abortion is due to unintended pregnancies. At least half of all women before 45 will experience an unintended pregnancy, which leads to about 1.2 million abortions a year.
Scot McKnight, author of “The Jesus Creed,” and "One Faith: Jesus Calls, We Follow," acknowledged that young, single Christians face temptations those in the biblical age did not.
“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,” said McKnight.
One young woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told the study's researchers that she had sex before marriage, at 20-years-old, while in college with her boyfriend.
“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,” said the anonymous girl.
The age of people marrying has steadily increased over the last few decades. Currently, the average age of individuals who marry is 28-years-old.
