A question about evangelical Christians

[gattocattivo]

A family member joined an independent evangelical church last year. He speaks about it very positively, I have attended a couple of events too and found everyone very welcoming.
one thing I’ve noticed is that people there tend to couple up, get married and have babies very young, Eg it’s not unusual to be married at 21 or 22 (for young men as well as women) and there seem to be several families who have two or more children while still in mid to late 20s.

This got me wondering, is it a religious thing, or cultural, or social? Or a mix? No judgement here, I’m just interested because this is very different to most of that age group in 2025 where young people tend to stay single much longer and even if partnered up, probably wouldn’t start thinking about babies until age 30 or so.

I know quite a few teenage and young adult evangelicals, they are all keen to get married and have children young. They more often than not only socialise with other evangelicals and it’s encouraged to seek a partner within the faith. A few in particular had a very narrow minded view of the world, thinking all other religions are wrong, being gay or trans is terrible etc which isn’t the view of most people their age.

Get married early, so you can have sex and make more lovely baby Christians.

Therefore homosexuality is bad - no babies. Divorce is bad. Women having their own minds is bad as they may want a career and not more babies.

Leave the church and none of them will talk to you again.
Beware of senior leaders and their relations to teenagers and children.
Child protection will be patchy.

Two examples for you when I was involved.

1/ Divorced woman told she couldn't be in choir as she was divorced. Husband had been an alcoholic and had beaten her.

2/ Woman with cancer told to pray the cancer away and doctors not necessary - cancer was a test of faith. If her faith wasn't up to scratch cancer would spread.

Bible study is very light. They seem to think God wrote the bible with a gold pencil from the sky. Gloss over gospels left out of current bible, dodgy translations etc.

My advice is run and keep running and never look back.

@akkakk is spot on.

The tendency to marry young and have children earlier certainly seems true of the educated evangelical Christians I know in London and Cambridge. And definitely in the ‘posh’ evangelical churches that DH attended and DD now attends in London. Not all, but it’s definitely a pattern that’s not restricted to less educated or urban folk. It’s not a criticism though, as most seem to be pretty happy in their family life, professionally successful and with strong social and family support.

I am degree educated woman that works within a male dominated industry, have an IQ of 142, come from an evangelical background, married at 19, had my child at 20 and still married 27 years later.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, it was not unusual for people to be married in their late teens/early 20s regardless of denomination, religion or lack thereof.