The Christian magazine Relevant takes a hard look at the reality of premarital sex. John Blake recaps:
80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) said that they have had sex – slightly less than 88 percent of unmarried adults…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?
Relevant interviewed Scot McKnight, a professor of religious studies:
Sociologically, 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.
Fred Clark offers an explanation for the high rate of premarital sex among evangelicals:
What Blake describes as a "challenge" for "abstinence movements" might rather be interpreted as a consequence of those abstinence movements. It may be that "Don’t — and that’s all you need to know" doesn’t work as a substitute for actual sexual ethics.
The Dish 