Statistics, unfortunately, show otherwise.
Bluntly, churches are not doing their jobs. Cheap grace is no grace at all.
Premarital sex is rampant in the Bible Belt and in supposedly evangelical churches — and I don't mean just the backsliders and the lukewarm semi-committed people in the pews, or on the other hand, the people who have been converted out of a life of wickedness and truly repented of their prior activities.
Much of that is happening because churches — even evangelical churches — are focused on fun and games in youth groups rather than focusing on hard and blunt teachings of how awful sin really is.
Our modern level of rampant sexual immorality inside the church isn't just the fault of godless culture, though it certainly doesn't help. It's primarily the fault of elders and of pastors, and also of fathers who should be the last line of defense even if churches are teaching cheap grace. Yes, it's the kids who are doing it, but they would be doing it less often if the church and the family were doing their jobs.
60 posted on Sat Sep 15 2012 18:44:51 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by workerbee: “Good for this couple that they held to their personal beliefs.... but does that give them license to consign every other married couple to perdition, because they didn't follow the same rule? Is Steven Crowder more moral because he boasts of his ‘self control’? Is all pre-marital sex ‘promiscuous’? Does a single instance consign a woman to ‘bimbo-hood’ or a man to ... whatever the equivalent of bimbo-hood is? ‘Pre-marital’ and ‘promiscuous’ are nowhere near the same thing.”
Of course we need to be patient and forgiving with children of believers who have sinned and truly repent. The problem is that too many churches are not emphasizing that sin really is sin, and carries horrible consequences.
Yes, Steven Crowder is “more moral,” as you put it, for waiting to keep his zipper closed until making a lifelong vow to his wife before God. That doesn't mean he's sinless — not by any stretch of the imagination — but rather that he hasn't committed that particular sin. I'm sure he has a long list of other sins he's committed, and if he is a Bible-believing Christian, he repents of them continually, and knows that at any time Satan could throw something brand new at him that would cause him to fall into horrible and public sin.
Let's be honest — for Crowder to make a public statement like this about his personal morality opens up the floodgates for everyone who knows any dirt about his background to chime in and throw mud. It also opens up an avenue for Satan to tempt him and “take down” a prominent advocate for personal morality.
There was a day that Crowder’s practices were normal, and while exceptions happened, they were the exception and not the norm. That is no longer the case; sexual experimentation has become the norm, and not just sexual relationships between committed monogamous couples or engaged couples (which is bad enough) but serial relationships which **ARE** promiscuous by definition.
Our society is falling apart as a direct consequence of the resulting collapse of the family. As conservatives we need to remember that, and act accordingly.
Thank you for your truthful and insightful comments. It is increasingly difficult for parents to raise children with standards of human decency and morality in a society which is nothing but a moral sewer. But that just means that people have to try harder. Public schools are pits.
Modern premarital sex rates have never really changed significantly since the 1940's...it is just more openly discussed today.
Before then premarital sex was not as common because people would get married very young or after just a few short months of dating. The long 1.5-2 years dating ritual we have today is a a modern trend.
BTW, a 1/3 of babies were born out of wedlock in early 1700's New England from records kept of the day (fact)