And I love how that little detail occurs after the jump, near the end of the article!

Good call. Maybe the Slate article should have been titled "Even Evangelical Teens Do It, Except When They Don't."

No argument that that's an important little detail.

But still isn't there an interesting and disturbing observation to be made if nominal evangelical teens are more likely to be sexually active than nominal mainliners or nominal Catholics?

One wonders if this is another manifestation of peer pressure and modeling, not only among the teens' non-churched peers, but also those with whom they worship. Examples of loosening sexual morality are only too visible among the parents and pastors of these same teens, so we can't point the finger only at them, but also at ourselves as parents and pastors.

Just about to turn 24, I look back at many of my friends from my old youth group. My wife was was in one of the most "on fire" small groups groups, and half of them (so far) had sex before marriage. Working with college ministry in recent years, I know that they were below the curve, as the vast majority of the students in my group were sexually active (although none claimed to be active, they just stumbled from time to time) Yep, pretty sad for the conservative evangelical church.

Is this supposed to be surprising? The real (operational) values of most American Evangelical Christians are not much different from those of secular ones. Many youth understand this and they are hip to the "game" and they play the role accordingly. Just because you are an Evangelical Christian doesn't make you better than anyone else. Hopefully,it should make us like Jesus:to walk with struggling human beings with God's love to bring them to true discipleship.

Could this be that churches don't demand enough self-reflection from their teens? How many youth groups do you know that challenge teens to seriously question the materialism and conformity of our society? In my experience, I've seen too often that teens are encouraged to play the stupid game. Proms. Trendy clothes. A disproportionate amount of attention paid to spectator sports. Christian brainless pop music that apes secular brainless pop music. But why blame the youth group leaders when the teens' parents have five TV's in the house and three car garages, and their church is organizing golf outings and fashion shows while this country is at war on the other side of the world? If we want our teens to resist the instant gratification of sex with their peers, perhaps we ought to take the first step and challenge the consumeristic mindset that encourages instant gratification in the first place.

It's not just the teens, as has been pointed out above. When I was 32 my husband (music director at our church) left me for another woman. I eventually ended up in a 30-something singles group at another evangelical church. Some of the group had never married, some of them were in my situation. Eventually I left that singles group because I was the only one in the group not sleeping with someone. At any age, if you are in a situation where you must remain celebate, you will not find a lot of help in the church.

This book points out what other studies have--that people who practive the faith seriously live different. Brad Wright, a sociologist from UCONN found, in looking at data from General Social Survey, that evangelicals who say they go to church frequently (at least once a week) have a significantly lower divorce rate than those who go infrequently. The same holds true for Mainliners and Catholics--who both have lower divorce rates than evangelicals.

The line, "religion matters much less than religiosity" is worth noting. It's probably more accurate to say that how people practice their faith matters more than what they say about it.

Are we asking too much of teens? They mature earlier due to better nutrition, yet we tell them to wait longer for marriage. If it is truly better to marry than to burn then we are doing the opposite of what the Bible says. Why do we tell them to delay marriage? Much of it is for money - economic gain from education. Statistics tell us teen marriages have a high failure rate, but what about parent and church community supported teen marriages? In Biblical times (and other traditional societies today) girls married soon after they reached puberty. They were under their father's or husbands protection. Isn't it better to marry young than to be promiscuous?

PAul, NO it's not better to marry young than to be promiscuous...
This is what I did. And right now I'm suffering and about to split up for good.

I think the problem is that we push young people to marry soon, because, how scary, they might "do" it... and it ends up with couple that don't really love each other and failure...

As a recovered Evangelical Youth (I am more in the mainline prteststant arena these days) I can conform tehse statistics. many of my youth groups peers as a teenagaer were wrose about sex than most non-religious freinds. If I amy offer an observation, I blame this largly on the oversheltering of kids so common in Egangelical homes. Look ehre is the thing, My parants didn't tell me I couldn't date untill i was 18, and they themselves long before the school system did informed me of birth control (being a guy, Condems were the main focus of that conversation.) Me and the ptehr kids who were raised like that alongside abstinence idealism actually turned out OK, some had sex once or twice, some didn't, but over all we were the good ones. It was the homschooled copy sections of the bible for punishemnt can't even talk to boys untill your 18 girls who all ended up getting pregnant. Theyw ere so over sheltered they snapped, went out on sex binges at age 17, and cus there parants didn't allow them to here about that awful and evil birth control, they all had kids, or got syfilus. Just telling it like it is.

I am 27 yrs old and I am a Christian but not an evangelical. I am also a virgin. I have the normal amount of desire in a person. Most of my family are not Christians, and some are even atheists. I was not sheltered. I saw the results of premarital sex, children without a mother or a father. I think one solution would be is to take a child into a hospital and show them the results in all their ugly glory: venereal disease, teenage pregnancy, the broken hearts. I am not a prude. The sexual pressure today is so intense, that Christians are falling in to it. We stopped having shame a long time ago. I have had pressure to have sex, so I am no stranger. But I did not give in.

Rob,
I was going to note that the most important issue is how you define "evangelical" or "born again," as there is noise in that category ESPECIALLY if African-American born agains are classified as such.

But I read further in the Rosin review of Mark Regnerus' book and found probably the most important money quote in this regard...

"The demographic includes more teenagers of a lower socioeconomic class, who are more likely to have had sex at a younger age. It also includes African-American Protestant teenagers, who are vastly more likely to be sexually active."

Based on work I've done with these types of data sets investigating other social questions (and there are a plethora of recent studies in the political science field), there is little justification any more for combining African-American "born-again" with "evangelical." Frankly, I'm surprised Mark did it. There must have been some issue with the way the data were gathered...otherwise it's inexplicable.

Ephesians 5:31 (ASV)
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. What else can one flesh mean?
God puts such importance on the sexual act that the punishment for getting caught having pre-marital sex was marriage. Oh, and the man had to pay the father 50 shekels and was forbidden to ever divorce. See Deuteronomy 22:28,29
All teenagers have probably heard the ‘save it for marriage’ lecture at sometime. It might have a greater impact if we taught them that God considers marriage and sex to be on same level: the ceremony is the public statement whilst joining together is the final union before God. Joining together shouldn’t wait until marriage, it is marriage. It is not something to do because ‘everybody’s doing it’. And don't blame society, the responsibility rests with the individual. Blaming others is a cop out

Just for the record--straight from the author--I did not lump evangelicals in with African-American Christians. I know better than to do that! Hope you all take a look at the book, which is a lot more informative than one Slate review!

I'm the same Mike who posted before. I believe the problem is that Christians of any age are just not willing to give up what they want for the sake of Christ. My wife and I were together for 18 months before we were married. In that time we were together almost every night in her room or elsewhere. We even traveled across the country and slept in the same hotel room for a few nights! Did we want to have sex? Of course. Did we, even once? No! We both controlled ourselves because following Christ is the ONLY priority in our lives. It meant she gave up a great job so I could go to seminary, and that both of us gave up friends and money to serve God with our lives. Jesus talked sacrifice, and I don't think Christians by and large have accepted it.

Thanks for bringing this book to our attention. I wonder if our focus has not been church over Christ in many instances. Of course, the two go hand in hand but one certainly takes precedence over the other. On top of that, there are so many competing voices saying that premarital sex is okay and that is hard to over come.

Lydia,
I am in the same boat and am about 10 years older than you.

Stay strong! As yu get older alot of your friends christian and non-christians are already working on their second marraiges.

This life isn't our home. Were just passing through! Keep fighting the good fight. Keep your standards high and pray God send you someone who has done the same. Don't settle. You don't have to. Most do.

Lydia,
I am in the same boat and am about 10 years older than you.

Stay strong! As yu get older alot of your friends christian and non-christians are already working on their second marraiges.

This life isn't our home. Were just passing through! Keep fighting the good fight. Keep your standards high and pray God send you someone who has done the same. Don't settle. You don't have to. Most do.

It is clear that Evangelical Teens are very hypocritical when it comes to issues such as sexual morality. They preach ‘wait until marriage and I will not give my self to him until our wedding night’ and yet they are out screwing every guy/ girl that comes into there vision.

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Greetings from Venezuela:
Evangelicals in U.S.A. are mainly poors, uneducated and near illiterate , because it them had a lifestyle very typical from their social class.
More awareness from social class is needed for evangelicals there, in order to overcome your problems.
God bless you!.

It starts at home folks, You want your kids to have good morals and such? Teach them, be there and listen. Actually RAISE them, don't depend on your Pastor or the Church or the youth group minister. Do it like it's the most important thing in your life next to your own devotion and salvation, because it should be. But expect that as they become closer to adulthood that they are independent people and will ultimately make their own decisions. All you can do is give them the tools to make wiser decisions. Only you can do that for them. Be a good listener and a better teacher.