Just over two years ago, a Time magazine cover story, “Children Having Children,” reported on the nation’s high teenage sexual activity and pregnancy rates, saying if current trends continue, 40 percent of today’s 14-year-old girls will have gotten pregnant at least once by the time they are 20. Now a new survey released in Washington, D.C., last month suggests that teenagers in conservative churches are following the national trends when it comes to sexual activity.
According to the study released by youth speaker and author Josh McDowell, 65 percent of churched youth (defined as youth who attend church regularly) have had some type of sexual contact by age 18, and 43 percent have experienced sexual intercourse by that age. By age 13, 20 percent of the churched youth had participated in some sexual experimentation. McDowell said those figures are about 10 to 15 percentage points behind the latest general youth population survey numbers.
The survey, commissioned by the Dallas-based Josh McDowell Ministry, was conducted by the Barna Research Group of California. Nearly 1,500 young people aged 12–18 from the youth groups of eight denominations were surveyed. Participating denominations were the Church of the Nazarene, Evangelical Covenant Church, Church of God—Cleveland, Tennessee, Free Methodist Church, Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Grace Brethren Church, the Wesleyan Church, and the Salvation Army. McDowell said the denominations were a “fair representation of the fundamental evangelical church.”
Family Influences
The study also found that the family has a strong influence on teenage sexuality. “Respondents who said home was a place where they felt loved and secure had tremendously less sexual activity,” McDowell said. Also, he said that when sexual information and education came from parents, the teens were less likely to have inappropriate sexual involvement.
Similarly, teens who are close to their fathers were found to have less sexual activity. However, McDowell said the survey found the average youth group teenager spends less than two minutes a day in meaningful conversation with his or her father, and one in four said they never have meaningful conversation with their fathers.
The media ranked high as a sexual influencer, with 57 percent of those surveyed saying they received at least “some” of their information about sex from movies. Seventy-three percent said they got “a little” or “none” of their sexual information from the church.
McDowell pointed out that the “number one” barrier to premature sexual activity was being “born again and committed to the Bible.” Teens who described themselves as born again were less than half as likely to be sexually active.
Putting Nature On Hold
Since 1985, McDowell has been conducting a series of “Why Wait?” campaigns to provide teens, parents, and pastors with resources promoting teenage abstinence. McDowell said his ministry is launching a national “Why Wait?” campaign directed at both Christian and non-Christian youth. The effort will involve books, films, curriculum products, and other materials.
“Our adolescent sexuality crisis is complex and will not be resolved easily or quickly,” McDowell said. “We are dealing with an erosion of basic moral convictions of our youth brought about, in part, by society’s false and distorted messages on love and sex.”
The survey is also providing church leaders with ammunition to promote teenage abstinence within their own communities and denominations. Jim Watkins, editorial director of teen ministries for the Wesleyan Church, said the results will help his denomination respond to some of the negative feedback they have received for dealing with explicit sexual issues in their youth curriculum and publications over the past few years. “It will help us convince people this is a problem within the holiness denominations as well as the high schools and junior highs,” he said.
David Marked, director of youth ministries for the Free Methodist Church, said he will be keying in on the “Why Wait?” campaign and urging denominational churches to obtain McDowell’s resource materials. Also, Markell said McDowell will be the speaker at the denomination’s annual international youth gathering this summer.
“We by and large followed the [national teenage sexual] trends, and the degree of sexual activity among our students is probably far greater than people have dared to realize,” Markell said. “One of the startling implications of the survey is how little information kids get on sex at church.… It’s an awesome problem, and the church can’t keep its head in the sand forever.”
