Marriage and sexuality are huge issues today. There is a major issue that is often overlooked in our position on pre-marital sex. And sexual experiences in general. Even with Christians.
In 1965 the average age of a man being married was 22 and a woman 20 years of age. In 2010 the age for men is 28 and for women 26. That would be all well and good. But puberty in many cases has onset as many as five years earlier than the turn of the century. There is a great of speculation why but that is another submission.
I have never heard anyone discuss the significance of this reality. Basically we have added as many as 13 years wherein people are sexually at their peak and yet not marrying.
People don’t marry as early as they did in 1965 for many reasons. The cost of living is certainly a factor. The post-modern rejection of social mores of past generations. The loss of understanding the downside of sexual experimentation. And run away libidos in our culture. And the god pleasure has definite impact upon us.
So what does this mean? It means that in generation mashup we have to come up with answers to this dilemma. I have a feeling simply pushing celibacy isn’t going to do the job. I think we need to give understanding to folks as to what they are facing. What are the benefits of waiting until marriage? Should be a regular topic in our churches.
But one thing is certain, in my opinion, the majority of young adults in our church are either sexually active or have been. What’s the message to them? How do we interface with their world? These are big questions we have to answer.
All three power generations are in this mode. Boomers started the experimentation of the new world of sexuality. And subsequent generations have normalized it.
The failure to deal with this is leaving a big hole in our task as leaders.
