The Case for (early) Marriage

Al Mohler posted a thought provoking blog today, commenting on Christianity Today's recent cover story on the troubling lack of sexual abstinence among evangelical young people.
Mohler writes:

Regnerus's proposal is not to devalue sexual abstinence, but to address the fundamental issue of marriage. As he explains, "I've come to the conclusion that Christians have made much ado about sex but are becoming slow and lax about marriage -- that more significant, enduring witness to Christ's sacrificial love for his bride."

In reality, American evangelicals are not "becoming slow and lax about marriage." To the contrary, this is now a settled pattern across the evangelical landscape. Regnerus gets the facts straight, reporting that the median age at first marriage is now 26 for women and 28 for men -- an increase of five years since 1970. As he notes, "That's five additional, long years of peak sexual interest and fertility." Though evangelical Christians are marrying at slightly earlier ages than other Americans, Regnerus correctly observes that this is "not by much."

At this point, Regnerus delivers his bombshell:

Evangelicals tend to marry slightly earlier than other Americans, but not by much. Many of them plan to marry in their mid-20s.Yet waiting for sex until then feels far too long to most of them. And I am suggesting that when people wait until their mid-to-late 20s to marry, it is unreasonable to expect them to refrain from sex. It's battling our Creator's reproductive designs.

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(Here's Mohler's conclusion)

Mark Regnerus certainly drives the point home when he argues that "when people wait until their mid-to-late 20s to marry, it is unreasonable to expect them to refrain from sex." Nevertheless, Christians are called to a moral standard that, by any secular standard, it is profoundly unreasonable. I would prefer to argue that the delay of marriage is unwise, not only because of the demonstrated risk of sexual immorality, but because of the loss of so much God gives to us in marriage.

At the end of the day, the most important fact about this article is that it appears as a cover story for Christianity Today. In that sense, the cover has been blown when it comes to the crisis of evangelical young people and the delay of marriage. It's about time.