Purity Pledges

Purity pledges are surprisingly effective, according to a study by the RAND corporation. Students between the ages of 12 and 17 who made purity pledges were one-fifth less likely to have sex within three years of making a pledge than teens who say they wanted to avoid sex before marriage but did not make a pledge. Details of the study are in the Journal of Adolescent Health. True Love Waits, run by Southern Baptist publisher LifeWay, says more than one million teens have signed its purity commitment cards.