The New York Times has a story in its Friday, June 15 edition on the bi-partisan leaders of the U.S. Senate’s agreement to revive the amnesty bill for illegals.  When this bill was first introduced about two weeks ago citizens from across the country flooded Capitol Hill with emails and phone calls objecting to amnesty for illegals.  Now a bi-partisan group of Senate leaders has decided to ignore the expressed will of the people by re-introducing the legislation next week.

That’s bad enough.  But the story also quotes Sen. Trent Lott (R- MS) bashing talk radio for informing America about the Amnesty legislation.

Comments by Republican senators on Thursday suggested that they were feeling the heat from conservative critics of the bill, who object to provisions offering legal status. The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

Talk radio – for the most part – does a pretty good job of keeping America informed on the issues.  Trent Lott thinks that’s a “problem” that needs to be dealt with.  Is Lott suggesting it is a problem for you to be informed about critical issues that affect the welfare and safety of your family? Is Lott suggesting that it is a problem for the citizens of this country to express their will on the issues being considered by those we elected? Why, exactly, Mr. Lott is Talk Radio a problem?

Every listener to Talk Radio in this country ought to ask him: by phone – (202) 224-6253 / by email

Alfred Lord Tennyson in what is probably the most famous line from his poem Locksley Hall observed, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Any astute observer realizes there is no great revelation in that observation, albeit Tennyson without question stated the obvious as gracefully as a man ever has.

Secular liberals do, however, appear to be quite flummoxed by the notion that the fancy of an evangelical young man (or woman) would somehow lightly turn to love, as well. Not just in spring, but ever. One such case of bewilderment comes from the pen of Hannah Rosin, writing a piece for Slate titled, Even Evangelical Teens Do It:

Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17…

Ms. Rosin gets her facts from the new book by Dr. Mark Regnerus, Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers (2007, Oxford University Press). Dr. Regnerus is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin who produced his book after having conducted extensive analysis of three national surveys of teenagers along with face to face interviews with over 250 teens on issues related to their sexual mores. I recently asked Dr. Regnerus if Rosin may be overstating the facts of what his research suggests with the implication in her piece that evangelical teens – especially evangelical teenage girls – are more promiscuous than teenagers in the population at-large. He responded:

No, that’s not really accurate. When we look at evangelicals we can actually split them even further into two very different camps: the ones who are very plugged in to their churches, who are very active, they attend a lot, their parents go, they’re in youth group; and then we can separate a larger group out actually that is not very active. The difference in sexual behavior between those two groups is really quite phenomenal.

Evangelical kids, like many teenagers in America, tend to be more conservative in attitude than in action. I think it’s sometimes considered the height of irony that when we associate religion and sexuality, we tend to think of evangelicals as born-again kids. I think Rosin had a good time probing some of the most interesting findings of the book, although there is a lot more to the book than is treated in Slate.

Dr. Regnerus’ book is not an analysis of the sexual attitudes and behavior of evangelical teenagers exclusively. The focus of the book is how religious faith in general affects the attitudes and behavior of ALL teenagers across denominational and religious affiliation, even those with no religious affiliation at all.

Secular liberals like Ms. Rosin are shocked that teenagers who identify themselves as evangelical would behave in a way secular liberals would consider normal for non-evangelical teens, as if somehow Christian teenagers possess a supernatural DNA that has nullified their sex drive. Ms. Rosin gleefully points out that teens who made a commitment to sexual purity through campaigns like True Love Waits on average postponed having sex only 18 months. What she is failing to take into consideration is whether or not these self-identifying evangelical teens actually adhere to the faith historically espoused by evangelical Christians. That is – are these kids truly born-again and living lives in the power of the Holy Spirit having been regenerated by faith in Jesus Christ? Dr. Regnerus’ argues that they are not, and therefore they are not evangelical in any sense other than self-identifying as such. Calling yourself the King of England does not you the King of England make.

In plainer words, the teenagers who identify themselves as evangelical, who in turn are engaging in sex at an even greater rate than are non-evangelical teens, are not evangelical in the sense of being truly born-again. They might attend an evangelical church – and as Ms. Rosin points out many attend evangelical megachurches – but Dr. Regnerus points not to affiliation with an evangelical church, or self-identification as an evangelical, but to a genuine faith commitment as the deciding factor in whether or not a teenager is sexually active. Ms. Rosin’s conclusion that there is rampant sexual activity among evangelical teens at higher rates than the general population is simply not supported by what Dr. Regnerus’ is actually saying.

Contrary to Ms. Rosin’s implication, the Gospel works. What Dr. Regnerus’ analysis actually demonstrates is teenagers who have responded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ are far LESS likely to engage sexually than are their peers who are not so committed spiritually. This is not to say that committed Christian teens won’t have to battle sexual temptation; nor am I suggesting that many of them will not fall to sexual temptation. Many will. But many others will successfully fight with faith the temptation to sexual sin precisely because of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, not because of their church affiliation.

Follow the instructions after you hit “Play”…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv9nleiFogc]

 HT: Evangelical Outpost

Hey, remember me? Yes – I’ve been away for awhile – at least from my keyboard and the blog. Hopefully you’ve missed me. After owning the house I have lived in for the last five years I finally decided this would be the summer I’d actually maintain the thing!  The new roof went on two weeks ago; new exterior paint is in process; and today was the day for a full scale assault on the yard, something I have never taken much interest in.  And to think: this is actually the main reason God even created Adam in the first place! He needed a gardner and a landscaper (Genesis 2:5, 15)!  I hope all of these are reasons for you to excuse the lack of activity at the God and Culture Blog.  I think I’m back now, at least until the next cloudless 74 degree day!

After ten hours of manual labor on the yard I rewarded myself with a trip to Borders. Let me allow you in on a little secret.  Some of my best guests on my radio program were ‘discovered’ perusing my local Borders.  I think I just found three more for upcoming programs.

Phillip Gulley is a Quaker pastor in Indiana who also happens to believe in universalism (see his previous book If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person).  The fly leaf of his latest book, Porch Talk: Stories of Decency, Common Sense, and Other Endangered Species, was the hook for me. On it he is quoted as saying something about how since 1950 builders have left the front porch off the house in order to save money and this has been America’s problem ever since.  I’m looking forward to reading this one and possibly inviting Gulley to be a guest.

 Jim Henderson, a pastor, hires Matt Casper, an atheist, to visit with him 12 well-known and not-so-well-known churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback and Joel Osteen’s Lakewood and they write about what they liked and didn’t like in Jim & Casper Go to Church: Frank Conversation About Faith, Churches, and Well-meaning Christians. My initial impression of the book was that it was sort of like those guys who travel the country on a mission to visit every major league ball park, which seems fitting since most megachurches in the country now offer nothing but major league entertainment.

Andrew Keen thinks all of us amateur bloggers and the free content on the Internet are destroying the moral fiber of America.  Are there really people out there who are prepared to defend the main stream media against the new media of talk radio and blogging? Keen attempts it in The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture.

Look for these and other interesting topics/interviews on an upcoming issue of The Paul Edwards Program.