Dr Paul Allen

Their theological line against premarital sex is falling on the deaf ears of young believers, some of whom get pregnant and have abortions, thanks to their ignorance about contraception. Now, evangelicals are debating whether churches can embrace contraception as a backup plan. It's no secret that evangelicals have a big problem on their hands when it comes to young people and sex. The facts are staggering: despite almost universal affirmation that premarital sex is a sin, 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals (PDF) are having it, and 30 percent of those who accidentally get pregnant get an abortion, according to one survey. U.S. states where abstinence is emphasized over contraception in school sex ed—almost all in the heavily evangelical South—have teen-pregnancy rates as high as double (PDF) those of states with a comprehensive curriculum. Though an overwhelming majority believe premarital sex is wrong, white evangelicals are sexually active at a younger age than any demographi...

Image via Wikipedia “On the surface,” Tim writes, “the Reformed and evangelical world seems divided between ‘Cultural Transformationists’ and the ‘ Two Kingdoms ’ views.” Although the Transformationists include disparate camps (“neo-Calvinists, the Christian Right , and the theonomists”), “they all believe Christians should be about redeeming and changing the culture along Christian lines.” “On the other hand, the Two Kingdoms view believes essentially the opposite—that neither the church nor individual Christians should be in the business of changing the world or society.” Here, too, there is a spectrum. Then you have the neo- Anabaptists who “much more pessimistic than Reformed 2Ks about the systems of the world, which they view as ‘Empire,’ based on violence and greed.” Yet 2ks and neo-Anabaptists both “reject completely the idea that ‘kingdom work’ means changing society along Christian lines. Both groups believe the main job of Christians is to build up the church, a counter-c...