Indeed, over 90 percent of American adults experience sexual intercourse before marrying. The percentage of evangelicals who do so is not much lower. In a nationally representative study of young adults, just under 80 percent of unmarried, church- going, conservative Protestants who are currently dating someone are having sex of some sort. I'm certainly not suggesting that they cannot abstain. I'm suggesting that in the domain of sex, most of them don't and won't.
What to do? Intensify the abstinence message even more? No. It won't work. The message must change, because our preoccupation with sex has unwittingly turned our attention away from the damage that Americans--including evangelicals--are doing to the institution of marriage by discouraging it and delaying it.
Late Have I Loved YouIf you think it's difficult to be pro-life in a pro-choice world, or to be a disciple of Jesus in a sea of skeptics, try advocating for young marriage. Almost no one empathizes, even among the faithful. The nearly universal hostile reaction to my April 23, 2009, op-ed on early marriage in The Washington Post suggests that to esteem marriage in the public sphere today is to speak a foreign language: you invoke annoyance, confusion, or both.
While our sexual ideals have remained biblical and thus rooted in marriage, our ideas about marriage have changed significantly. For all the heated talk and contested referendums about defending marriage against attempts to legally redefine it, the church has already ceded plenty of intellectual ground in its marriage-mindedness. Christian practical ethics about marriage--not the ones expounded on in books, but the ones we actually exhibit--have become a nebulous hodgepodge of pragmatic norms and romantic imperatives, few of which resemble anything biblical.
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Wonders for Oyarsa,
Yes I read the article and his earlier article in the Wall Street Journal. I think he is indeed onto something.
Pax.
I do not advocate marrying younger for any reason and particularly not for sex. Paul advocates it, but only for those that feel they cannot wait. I guess I'm disappointed if that many young people can't wait and opt for running to the altar. I'd like to think that we could learn to exercise restraint in our culture. (I like Paul, wish that all could be like me.) I think doing it sooner to avoid sexual impurity as the only reason is not good and may devalue marriage just as much as those that would poo-poo it for being antiquated. The Church should uphold both marriage and singleness and equip their congregants with support for either choice. Their is value in either choice.
This will just further marginalize unmarried people. The judgment will extend from older singles even to the younger singles. Churches have much deeper spiritual problems than the question of at what age they should encourage young people to marry. Why not preach to the many married Christians who are hypocrites; who decide to attend church only after having had children; who judge and exclude their brethren who are single; and who then go on to get divorced themselves? THEN you will be persecuted for righteousness' sake!
#11,
I read the full article since my first post. My initial reaction remains the same, although I'll grant now that the aspects quoted here didn't put that article in the best light. The article is DEFINITELY on to something insofar as he argues that we're not helping the extra-marital (to say nothing of pre-marital) sex situation in how our strategy has amounted to making promises to young people that we definitely haven't been (and never COULD have been) able to keep.
It's when he turns those comments into an argument for getting married younger that I think he goes awry.
I read the entire article. More than once. Encouraging young couples who are READY for marriage to go ahead and marry I can agree with. Why shouldn't they marry if they are ready? However, creating an idol out of marriage and telling young people that they should hurry up and get married so that they don't end up having premarital sex, that I disagree with.
All the anecdotes really fall short, in my opinion, of a convincing argument. Sure, many young marriages turn out wonderfully. Many don't. I suppose you have about a 50/50 chance. Rather than pushing a "young marriage" agenda, our efforts would be better spent making sure that people have a solid foundation for understanding what marriage is, what it requires, and how God intends it to be, no matter at what age God brings them into it.
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