From Sampler to Sower

Purity Pledges and Waiting Until Marriage

The news has been making a lot about a recently released study by Janet E. Rosenbaum which studies the effectiveness of purity pledges in helping teens wait until marriage before having sex.  All the major outlets have run a story, from FoxNEWS to MSNBC, the Chicago Tribune to the Washington Post,  US News and World Report to Newsweek. (Oh, wait.  As far as I can tell, Newsweek is one of the few sources that hasn’t run a story on it yet.)

Stories have been leading with titles as titillating as ‘,Abstinence-only’ is a total crock, That virginity pledge I took didn’t work….and now I have four children, and the incredibly misleading Study: Teens Who Took Virginity Plan More Likely To Have Sex.

However, I have to wonder just how newsworthy this really is.

First, the report was released recently, but the data is old.  It’s based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (also known as the Add Health study), an impressive study which has followed a representative sample of American teenagers from the 1994-1995 school year when they were in grades 7-12 through the present, when during 2008 interviews study participants were between 24 and 32.  Unlike other studies which compare this years youth with previous years youth (comparing similar groups of different individuals) this study follows the same individuals through adolescence and into early adulthood.

Of course, that means the teens in question were teenagers in the late 90′s (average age of 17 in 1996) and the effects of purity pledges were based on answers to interviews in 2001 when participants were an average age of 25.  This study looks at the results of purity pledges as promoted in the 90′s, as opposed to what is happening in schools and youth ministries today.  That then begs the question whether or not we’ve learned anything or improved what we do in the last decade.

What is more, there have already been studies that look at the effectiveness of purity pledges. The consensus appears to be that purity pledges delay the onset of sexual activity, but do not necessarily cause teens to wait until they are married.  They wait until they are older, yes.  But not until marriage.  That “news” is nothing new.

What makes this study different is that it attempts to isolate the purity pledge from other factors that might contribute to a delay in onset of sexual activity.  Rosenbaum notes “One year before pledging, pledgers are more religious, less sexually experienced, and hold more negative attitudes about sex and birth control than adolescents who do not go on to take a virginity pledge.”  This study attempts to isolate the effects of the pledge itself by comparing students who make a purity pledge, not with all teens in the sample, but with teens of similar religious, famililal and behavorial backgrounds.

When such differences are taken into account and taken out of the equation, Rosenbaum’s research shows that “Adolescents who take virginity pledges are not less sexually active than closely matched adolescents who do not take pledges, but they are less likely to use birth control and condoms.”

What is news is that Rosenbaum’s study refutes an earliers study by the RAND corporation.  The RAND study also attempted to compare pledgers with non-pledgers of similar religious, familial and relational backgrounds.  The RAND study showed that over a three year period (as opposed to the five year period in Rosenbaum’s study) 42% of participants reported having sex as opposed to 34% of those who made a purity pledge.

Perhaps the most interesting findings, in my opinion, is the speed at which purity pledge participants forget their pledges.  Rosenbaum’s research found that five years after having made a purity pledge, 81.9% of pledgers denied ever having made a purity pledge.  This finding re-inforces Rosenbaums 2006 report that within one year of making a purity pledge 53% of pledgers recanted ever having made the pledge.

What Does This Mean For Youth Ministry?

It doesn’t matter to me whose numbers you believe.  I don’t find the RAND corporation’s 8% difference between pledgers and non-pledgers any more reassuring that Rosenbaum’s finding of no statistically significant difference.  The fact is purity pledges are not the solution to the problem of premarital sexual activity.  That doesn’t mean we should stop teaching the importance of abstinence as youth ministers, it simply means we might need to change the way we do so.

Today I want to look at what effect the finding that “adolescents who take virginity pledges are not less sexually active than closely matched adolescents who do not take pledges” should have on how we teach God’s design for sexuality.  Next week I’ll reflect on what, if any, changes the secondary finding – “they are less likely to use birth control and condoms” – should suggest.

The problem isn’t that teens are too young for sex.

Every two years our youth ministry features a ”True Love Waits” campaign.  That’s not to say that we only teach on the importance of purity every two years, but every two years we place a special emphasis on it and encourage teens to either make or reaffirm a purity pledge with the support of their parents.  We run it on a two year cycle to make sure that every student that grows up in our ministry has the opportunity to go through the core curriculum in their Junior High years and then goes through a reinforcement curriculum during Senior High.

One of the lessons in the series, “Truth and Consequences” features a true false quiz.  And one of the statements we ask them to evaluate is “Sex is for people in mature, loving relationships, not for casual encounters.”

When you stop to reflect it’s not surpring that every time we ask the question welll over 90% of participants assume that statement is true.

After all, that is the message that they hear from most voices in their lives.  The school tells them they are too young for sex.  Despite the media’s bad reputation, television does a pretty good job of making sure teens know sex isn’t for casual encounters and they need to be more mature before they’re ready to handle it.  Even parents tell their kids they are too young for sex.

The problem is that while sex was not created for casual encounters, the criteria by which God judges is not “are you mature enough for sex.”  The question is “Are you married enough for sex.”  Our teaching needs to stress this reality. We must re-evaluate our teaching to make sure that we aren’t implying a message of “wait until you are older” and are teaching the truth “wait until you are married.”

The message must be reinforced.

If teens make a purity pledge with such casual disregard that within a year more than half of them won’t even claim to have made such a pledge, we -parents and youth workers alike – cannot assume that if we get them to put on a purity ring we’ve won the battle.  We must be finding ways to constantly reinforce the message about purity and challenge teens to reaffirm their prior commitments.

We must provide the assets that really make the difference.

Perhaps in my opinion, the most helpful part of this study is not the statistical difference between pledgers and “closely matched” non-pledgers, but rather the good start at defining what counts as “closely matched.”  After all, the hypothesis of this study is that it is not the pledge but the familial, religious and relational characteristics of those likely to make a pledge.

If this study proves that it is these characteristics, not the pledge, that matters, our response should not be to abandon teaching the importance of purity, but rather to focus on how we can develop these characteristics in our students.  So, what makes the difference?

Among the factors Rosenbaum took into account were several relating to family sitution: parental education, one- or two-parent homes, close relationships with parents, warm/loving relationships with parents, strong communication with parents, and parental discipline that not only punishes wrong behavior but also explained why that behavior was wrong.  Several examined school conditions such as closeness to schoolmates, a sense of belonging to school community, good relationships with teachers and peers, and involvement in extracurricular activities. Others related to religious involvent, intelligence, pubertal development, and a prior practice of abstinence.

Among the factors most likely to contribute to making a purity pledge and thus which make a teen less likely to engage in sexual activity before marriage are:

• a good relationship to teachers and school peers
• the sense that they are already loved
• regular involvement in church
• regular involvement in youth ministry
• self identification as “Born Again”
• parental religious involvement
• an understanding that premarital sex is wrong

It would seem to me that the more we can do to help develop these assets in our youth, the better chances they have to make good choices regarding abstience.  These, not just the pledge, are the things we need to be focusing on.

A plea for more research

Now that the purity pledge in isolation has been ruled out as really making a difference, the next step would seem to be to do similar studies on these other characteristics.  Which of them really contribute to promoting abstinence, and which are simply stereotypical characteristics of those who abstain?

Take for example contraceptives.  According to Rosenbaum’s methodology, those who wait until marriage to have sex tend to have negative attitudes about birth control and contraception.  However, other research indicates that instruction about the effectiveness and proper use of contraceptives does not contribute to the onset of sexual activity in teens.

So which of the qualities Rosenbaum uses to match pledgers with similar non-pledgers contribute to abstinence and which are simply a reflection of what the researcher expects to find?

Click here to see the rest of our True Love Waits posts all in one place.