Associated Press writer Eric Gorski:
When Margie and Stephen Zumbrun were battling the urge to have premarital sex, a pastor counseled them to control themselves. The couple signed a purity covenant.
Then, when the two got engaged and Margie went wedding dress shopping, a salesperson called her “the bride who looks like she’s 12.” Nonchurch friends said that, at 22, she was rushing things.
The agonizing message to a young Christian couple in love: Sex can wait, but so can marriage.
“It’s unreasonable to say, ‘Don’t do anything … and wait until you have degrees and you’re in your 30s to get married,'” said Margie Zumbrun, who did wait for sex, and married Stephen fresh out of Purdue University. “I think that’s just inviting people to have sex and feel like they’re bad people for doing it.”
Gorski goes on to talk about Regnerus’ Christianity Today article, The Case For Early Marriage (which we previously discussed). He also quotes Glenn Stanton (director of family formation studies for Focus on the Family), Michael Lawrence (associate pastor at Capital Hill Baptist Church), and Jimmy Hester (co-founder of True Love Waits). Read the whole thing.