Unmarried Christians Get Pregnant More!

It's no surprise that according to a new Gallup poll, 76% of evangelical Christians believe sex outside of marriage is immoral.

But what surprises Christian commentators is that over 80% of young (18-29) evangelical Christians have sex. That's just a bit below the national average (88%). So in spite of all the preaching and moralizing, Christians are demonstrating once again that they are just ordinary humans, subject to the same healthy desires as the rest of us ... and that their religion has very little real effect on their behavior.

But the big surprise is that more of them get pregnant than the general population!

There are two pretty obvious reasons why this might be: ignorance and guilt.

The ignorance part is because evangelical Christian parents teach abstinence rather than real sex education. These poor young adults just don't know how, when or why to use condoms, birth-control pills and other contraception. No surprises there.

But guilt? That's a bit more subtle. It's the difference between sinning through passion versus deliberate, planned sin! Everyone understands if you succumb to lust and then ask for forgiveness. But if you go out and buy a condom, then there's not much excuse for your sinful behavior. You didn't just succumb to passion ... you planned it!

The problem is that if you just pretend you're never going to succumb to the deep, powerful sexual urges that all healthy young adults have, then when love and passion finally overwhelm you, you're screwed, so to speak. And you have a baby.

Hey, maybe there's a third explanation ... could evangelical Christians just be more lusty than the rest of us? Does wailing in church, speaking in tongues and fervent praying indicate more passion between the sheets?