The Tribune (our local paper) carried an article this morning entitled, “More than 9 of 10 Americans had premarital sex, study says” (Wed., December 20, 2006, p. A8). According to the study, based on interviews with over 38,000 people, age was not a major factor; those born in the 1940s had engaged in immorality as often as those born later. By age 44 over 95% of Americans have engaged in premarital intercourse.
This statistic becomes even more sobering when one dovetails it with the March, 2006 “The Barna Update”: 45% of American adults are “born again” (They have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and also indicate they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.).
Wow! Almost half our population professes faith in Christ, but 95% of them have committed major immorality. Furthermore, while 33% of born again individuals over 40 believe premarital cohabitation is morally acceptable (which is a horrible statistic), a whopping 59% of Busters believe the same (“The Barna Update”, Oct. 31, 2006).
There is obviously a huge disconnect between our profession and our practice. The only statistic that is somewhat comforting is the fact that only 9% of the population could be classified as Evangelical (one has to be born again and believe several other things: responsibility to witness, reality of Satan, salvation only through grace without works, sinless life of Christ, accuracy of the Bible, and sovereign Creator God.). There is still an overlap, however, which means that no matter how one looks at this, immorality is a significant problem in our churches.
What can we learn?
[1] We are doing a poor job of passing on biblical morals from one generation to the next. We must boldly preach the Word from the pulpit, teach it in our homes, and model it in our lives.
[2] We must rebuke immorality when it surfaces. Churches constantly gloss over divorce, remarriage, adultery, pornography, and fornication; we have a couple generations of Christians who have been allowed to be immoral and continue in church as if nothing ever happened. In fact, many times the church has been a party to covering the whole thing up. There has been little reproof, rebuke, demand for confession, and discipline from the church body.
[3] Immorality is a very present reality and problem facing all of us, but especially our young people. Fully 75% have had premarital sex before 20 years old. We must be serious about instilling biblical values in our children and then helping them to understand that a man devoid of understanding puts himself in the way of immorality (Proverbs 5-7). It is NOT unreasonable to have filters on our media, curfews for outings, and accountability for actions (this goes for the parents as well).
[4] Just because someone says he is a Christian and believes in Jesus does not make it true. Find out more about what he believes before accepting his claim at face value.
