Black Teens Need to See How Godly Marriages Look, Pastor Says
by Mary Rettig
September 5, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A black pastor and radio show host in Georgia says he has found that black teenagers tend to be very tentative about the idea of marriage, and he believes he has gained some insight into why this may be so.Dr. Crawford Loritts is senior pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia, and also the host of a radio program called "Living a Legacy." He says he has found that today's black teens are afraid of marriage because of the types of relationships they have observed in their families -- particularly their parents and grandparents' relationships.
At a time when almost 70 percent of black families are single-parent families, Loritts notes, it can be difficult to find good relationship role models or a working example of a godly marriage.
"When you see the legacy of the disintegration of the family," the Georgia minister observes, "or when you can go back and see that your mother and dad didn't make it, or you didn't know who your father was, you tend to become what you see and become fearful of anything beyond that."
Also, Loritts posits, hip-hop music and the culture that has grown up around it have influenced black teens and others to treat sex so casually that many see no excitement in being wholly committed physically to any one person. As a result, he says, many black teens today have a warped sense of what love and marriage actually mean.
"The problem has been the institutions that should be the positive models of what a balanced marriage relationship is all about and what marriage should look like have let these kids down," the pastor of Fellowship Bible Church asserts. For that reason, he feels the Church needs to be teaching young people more clearly what they need to know to build stable marriages and families.
The Church needs to be helping black teens learn the answers to such questions as, for example, "What is the biblical role and the biblical ideal of marriage?" and "What is it really all about?" Loritts says.
In order to change these young people's minds about marriage, Loritts contends, they need to see strong, godly, working marriages modeled for them by members of the Church. He believes if Christians in stable, spiritually healthy marriages will step in and model what scripture teaches, they can prove to skeptical black teens that God's plan for marriage actually works.
