Contraceptives for Children

King Middle School in Portland, Maine is now offering a full range of contraceptives to their students, including birth control pills and patches. This move is in response to the fact that over the past four years, Portland's three Middle Schools have reported 17 pregnancies. King Middle has 134 students, five of whom admitted to having had sexual intercourse. Let me remind you that the average middle schooler is between 11-13 years old.

What we have in Portland, Maine is worldly wisdom desperately struggling to find a way to prevent children from having children. But notice a few flaws of the worldly wise:

1) Parents can't raise their children; the trained professionals must do it for them. Rather than contacting, educating, and working with the students' parents, the school system bypassed them in making this decision. Why would they do this? Because the educated elite know better than parents.

This worldly wisdom is prevalent in our modern society. Parents have bought into the lie that they aren't equipped to raise their kids. In fact, one school board member in Portland who has a daughter at King Middle said, "I know I've done my job as a parent, but there may be a day when she doesn't feel comfortable coming to me." Granted, teenagers are notoriously hard to communicate with, but there are things we can do as parents to keep our kids talking. Parents are the single greatest influence in their child's life.

2) Sex isn't the problem; pregnancy is. The school board (rightly) trembles at the thought that 12 year olds are pregnant, but they seem unconcerned with the equally chilling fact that 12 year olds are sexually active. Is the goal just to keep our kids from having babies or is the goal to keep our kids from destructive sexual behavior? The wisdom of this world doesn't view sex outside of marriage as a problem. It's natural. It's neutral. The only down side to sex is the side effects (pregnancy...STDs).

But the sexual union itself is destructive for these kids... in so many ways. Why doesn't the school board find ways to deter children from having sex instead of finding ways to protect the children while they have sex?

3) Contraceptives are the only hope. The wisdom of this world stands utterly incapable of changing the situation in Portland, Maine (and everywhere else in America). In fact, they are so blinded that they cannot see their worldly wisdom (i.e. the sexual revolution, etc.) is what lead to all of this in the first place. They turn to condoms and birth control because, sadly, it's all they have. What they desperately need and furiously fight against is wisdom from above (James 3:17).

The life-transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate answer for King Middle School. Only Christ's righteousness can overcome our unrighteousness. Only the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit can replace our indwelling perverse desires.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than men,

and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

1 Corinthians 1:25

The Prominence of Promiscuity

A new study released by the Guttmacher Institute, a liberal think tank dedicated to promoting promiscuity and abortions, says that 95% of Americans have engaged in premarital sex... that's more than nine out of ten! These numbers are strangely high in my opinion, and we certainly have reason to doubt the veracity of such a radical left-wing research group. However, I do believe that the number of men and women in America who are engaging in premarital sex is shockingly high...even in our churches.
There are many reasons: we live in a sex-saturated culture, poor parenting, many colleges have coed dorms (the dumbest thing I've ever heard), the silence of churches on the issue, etc.

But I would like to suggest a reason that perhaps might surprise you: Delayed Marriage.
The average age for a woman to marry now is anywhere between 26-30. In years past the average age was 18-20. That large jump is due, in part, to the American education fixation. One is pushed to finish his or her education (which could last until he or she is 30!) before entertaining the idea of marriage. The message? Family comes second to "bettering" oneself in America. And Christians just buy into this practice, never questioning its intentions or examining its effects. We have embraced the world's philosophy that it is best to wait to marry. But is that a biblical idea? Let's look.
Proverbs 5:18 - ...rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Malachi 2:15 - ...let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
1 Corinthians 7:2 - But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
Titus 2:4 - ...train the young women to love their husbands and children.
The first two passages, along with the last one, show that marriage is meant for young people. The passage from 1 Corinthians teaches us that the common result of a bunch of unwed people is sexual immorality. Thus, we read in the news today that 95% of Americans have had sex before marriage. The numbers are staggering. The solution is simple. Get married.

Prolonged singleness is the playground of promiscuity.

I'm curious to hear what you think.