Information Related to "Sex and the Young Christian"
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Sex sells in the popular culture, and many young Christians are buying. But outside the right context, sex brings consequences. What does the One who designed sex say on the matter?
Sex. The very word fires up strong emotions. The world constantly popularizes and perverts sex in books, magazines, movies and "entertainment" in general.
Our culture is prideful of its sexual openness. Premarital and extramarital affairs of every variety are no longer "shameful" but are now celebrated.
Religious or not, 86 percent of unmarried young adults (ages 18-29) in the United States have had sex, 78 percent have had sex in the last year, and 55 percent are in a current sexual relationship. Almost 7 percent of teen girls (ages 15-19) become pregnant each year, amounting to more than 400,000 live births annually just in America. The most recent study (2002) shows that three quarters of all unplanned pregnancies are to single women age 29 and younger (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, "The Fog Zone," 2009). And statistics are similar in other Western nations.
Of course, unplanned pregnancies are only one of the consequences of wrong sexual thinking by young men and women in society today. It should be obvious that the prevalent attitude about premarital and extramarital sex in the culture around us leads to many problems.
The sad news is that Christians may pretend to hold the moral high ground on sex, but even young Christians are buying into the message that sex outside of marriage is okay. Many still do see sex outside of marriage as wrong, but they are viewed by many others as archaic and out of touch.
Is the belief that sex should be reserved for marriage too rigid? The right question to ask is: What is God's view about sex, and what should our response be?
Related Information:
Table of Contents that includes "Sex and the Young Christian"
Other Articles by Dan Dowd
Re-published from an earlier version
Keywords: sex premarital sex abstinence sex and divorce sex and abortion
Sexual abstinence: