Sex, Philosophy and Kids These Days

[o]ne of the biggest obstacles to repentance for revival in the Church is the basic fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other. In other words, good old-fashioned fornication.

Fornication—Good times. 

Some might initially balk at the suggestion: “Really? Almost everybody outside the Church? Most inside?” Yup.

Lest anyone think Keller is giving in to typical preacher’s tendency for over-exaggeration, his claim can be backed up by the latest in sociological research. Even if we don’t get suckered into falling for bad statistics, the picture isn’t pretty. For instance, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker tell a concerning tale in Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying, that something on the order of 90% of young Americans will experience intercourse before getting married, and certainly a majority of Evangelicals have, at some point, had sex outside of the bonds of marriage, even if they’re currently repentant.

Others might not be surprised at the sheer amount of fornication but might still be asking, “Sex? Really? That’s the big hang-up? What about intellectual objections from science, or post-modern philosophy, or the church’s history of violence, or our consumerism and greed?”

Those are all there, absolutely, but just ask any college pastor and they’ll tell you the same thing. Just as C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity all those years ago, there are few of Christianity’s teachings more offensive, unpalatable, and likely to drive people away from hearing the Gospel than its sex ethic. Many college students and young adults don’t want to turn to God, or at least not the kind of solid God you find in the Gospel, because He has opinions on sex we find restrictive.

Culturally that’s just where we’re at.