Young Christian couples are rethinking contraceptive use and biblical teaching on human sexuality, in response to a growing awareness of the social damage caused by the sexual revolution, a foremost leader in the U.S evangelical community told Christianity Today magazine in October.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is a theologian and ordained minister, serving as president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the leading educational institution of the Southern Baptist Convention. He said Christian evangelicals are questioning the effects widespread reliance on birth control has had on society.

“In the first place, this generation has now come to adulthood at a time when we can take some stock of the impact represented by the sexual revolution and by the easy access to effective contraception and birth control,” Mohler said.

“And the burden now seems to be, ‘What did all of this mean? What was the effect of the birth control revolution? What kind of changes in human institutions and relationships came as a result of the Pill? What about the missing generation among us of children who would otherwise be present were it not for the easy availability of effective birth control?’”

The previous generation’s acceptance of a secular understanding of sexuality and marriage is no longer satisfactory to young people, who are challenging the separation between fertility and sexuality in the popular mindset, Mohler said.

“The second issue is, in this post-modern time, a recovery, among the young, of a biblical ideal of marriage. They are doing their very best to rethink the basic questions and, in doing so, they are embarrassed by the easy, rather unreflective embrace of the contraception culture that marked evangelicalism in the 1960s and 70s. So they want to rethink all this.

“The third thing is, I think, a deep embrace of a biblical notion of sexuality, post-the sexual revolution, has led many younger evangelicals to think seriously about this question and all this adds up to a giant question mark in the minds of many young Christians. Can we join the contraceptive revolution? And if not, how do we think about these things in a way that will strengthen our marriages and be most pleasing to God?”

Mohler said survey indications showing almost half of pro-life Americans support easy access to the abortifacient “morning-after” pill reveals the lack of consistent thinking among evangelicals on the issue.

“What we face are many evangelicals whose understanding of these things is rather superficial at best and largely influenced by the culture. And so they know how to answer the question about the sanctity of human life correctly, in the main, but they do not know how to apply that to the question of birth control.”

This article originally appeared Nov. 3 at LifeSiteNews.com and is reprinted with permission.