Community is only as rich and deep as it is diverse. When we limit ourselves to a whole bunch of people who are exactly like us, we’re limiting the refining power of community not only to meet needs but also to sanctify. Find friends who look different from you, who work in different areas, who value different things, who are older than you. These voices can speak truth into your life, truth you may have missed.
Imagine a church where widows and adolescents discuss the struggle of chastity together, where single moms, divorcees, married couples, and the same-sex attracted gather to study the Bible and pray. A place where no prayer request, question, or struggle is taboo or off limits because we have set our makeshift halos aside and admitted our shared humanity. Imagine us holding one another up in our weakest moments instead of wrestling the darkness alone. Imagine a gathering of saints where God’s Word is held high, his holiness worshiped, and forgiveness in Christ plays like a record on repeat.
I want to rest my weary bones there. I want to be a part of that church.
Jay Newman grew up in a small town in the mid-nineties. He was an athlete, the son of a Southern Baptist pastor. He also caught the full wave of the True Love Waits movement. “I was the target demographic for Lifeway and Mardels,” he told me, chuckling. He would carry his Bible on top of his textbooks as he walked from class to class. To him, the message of True Love Waits made sense. Jay said: “From what I understood, it seemed like a consistent message throughout Scripture that our sexuality was a big deal to God and it was something holy.” So he got behind the movement full-heartedly, going so far as to write his own purity pledge and Xerox around five hundred copies, which he then posted on every locker at his school. “It created quite a buzz,” he said. “It started a conversation. A lot of people came up to me and said they wanted to sign it—to make a commitment to wait until marriage to have sex.”
He was discouraged when just weeks later he overheard the captain of the cheerleading team, who had signed one of the pledge cards, talking about her recent sexual experience. “I just kind of looked at her. I didn’t say anything, but in my heart I felt baffled. You signed the card! It was like the commitment didn’t mean anything.” I asked Jay what he thought about the idea of signing purity pledge cards now. He told me:
It just became something that you had to do so people would think you’re a respectable person. For me, I didn’t need to sign a card—it was something I was already about. I was already studying Scripture for myself and had gathered that from my own studies. I didn’t need the card. So I don’t know who the target was. The people who already felt like sex was a sacred thing and the people who viewed it flippantly continued to view it that way.
Jay and I talked about a lot of things. He pointed out that, because he was a critical thinker, he was able to “eat the fish and spit out the bones,” as the saying goes, in regard to purity teachings. He doesn’t feel that he was manipulated or lied to by the movement, and he is a proponent of individuals taking ownership over how they listen to and interpret messages. But we agreed that while purity culture has some biblical truth in its spine—mainly, that sex is sacred and meant for marriage—many of its methods and messages have had a harmful effect. Jay admits, “It became kind of like a moral police thing,” though he added, “I never felt that was the intent of anyone who ran the program, any of the literature that I read, or anybody who I heard motivating teenagers to participate.”
Jay reminds me that purity culture was “just a response to a cultural moment.” Our reevaluation of modern purity culture is also a response and as such is susceptible to the same pitfalls, such as overcorrecting and overgeneralizing. I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent asking God to give me wisdom as I write this book. Even so, I know that there are things I have said here that will require their own reevaluation, and as a fallible human being, I must welcome that. My greatest hope for this book is that it will spark needed conversations in your homes and local churches, and that those conversations will go beyond what is contained in these pages.
Something Joshua Harris said in his recent documentary has stayed with me and echoed over and over again in my head: “You can change your mind about things.”1 This might seem like an obvious statement, but when it comes to our theological beliefs, changing our mind can look like sinking sand. One question could be one step toward drowning. Harris agrees. We spoke on the phone a couple months before he announced his departure from the faith, and he admitted that “once you open the door to being wrong about something, you lose your mojo.” He laughed and continued: “Not necessarily, but it can feel like you could be wrong about other things. As a leader or organization in the church, you’re always trying to hunker down and protect your position.”
As someone who built the majority of his early platform and wealth around one of the most infamous books from modern purity culture, Harris had a lot to lose in questioning his beliefs. But he did it anyway. “I think the truth can handle our questions and God can handle our questions.” Harris believes that our hesitation in questioning things is less about our concern that the truth can’t withstand it and more about our fear of what people will think. “If you start to ask certain questions, even from the best of motives, you are going to be viewed with suspicion,” he said.
Harris noted how difficult this process is, and the raised eyebrows we’re likely to encounter along the way. But he received more than just raised eyebrows. Once he began questioning some of his positions in I Kissed Dating Goodbye and asking readers how the book had affected them, the floodgates of criticism swung wide open. Those who loved the book were upset that he would amend it in any way, while others aimed all their purity culture baggage directly at him, with full force. But, when I went back and read the most popular books from the modern purity culture era, Harris’s was not the greatest offender. I asked him why he had decided to take on blame for all the faults of purity culture, even messages he never promoted. He said,
I think I felt a sense of responsibility, that, even though my book didn’t say a lot of the things that people assume that it says, that it was symbolic of something. And I needed to play the part that I could play in trying to bring healing to people. There is that passage in Jeremiah where God speaks to the unfaithful shepherds and tells them, you didn’t bind up, you didn’t heal, you didn’t care for my people, so I’m going to go and do that. I’m going to gather them back and care for them. He’s speaking to the religious leaders. And it was a really powerful verse for me right around the time that I was making the decision to go back and do this reevaluation.
He went on to admit that there were moments where he felt defensive and wished he hadn’t begun the process. He was almost relieved when the I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye documentary nearly didn’t get fully funded on Kickstarter. Even though he realizes that some people erroneously attribute ideas and quotes to him, he says that it makes sense because his book was “a popularizer, like the gateway drug” to some of the more conservative ideas about dating, modesty, and sexual purity. He admits: “I didn’t agree with a lot of the really conservative stuff out there, but my book modernized and popularized it and had the effect of drawing people into ideas that were not helpful.” When I asked him if reevaluation is worth it, he said, “Not if you want to stay safe and comfortable.”
While writing this book, multiple friends and acquaintances have shared their concern over my questioning something the church has been teaching for so many years. With the recent news of Harris’s deconversion, I can see why. Questions have led some, like Harris, to a full-on rejection of the Christian faith. Consequently, questions can look like the beginning of the end. But the idea that asking questions is something only “liberal theologians” do is untrue. Asking questions can be a form of humility when what we are questioning is not God but our own fallible views about God. I have built my theological house on the foundation of God’s Word. That is not what I am questioning. Rather, I want to examine the influence of Christian subcultures, like purity culture, on our interpretation of God’s Word.
My initial response to those pointing out holes in the metaphorical boat of church life is defensiveness. I want to believe that we have grown beyond making mistakes, that I am part of a body that’s more fully sanctified. But, beloved, we are a body made up of sinners saved by grace. We mess up. We get things wrong. And we ought to view it as a privilege, not a burden, to do the work of learning how to more clearly and lovingly represent Christ and his Word. But it is hard, humbling work.
Some of you have worked with youth and handed out purity pledge cards. You have taken your teens to purity conferences and passed out copies of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Your desire was to help the young people in your church pursue a life of holiness and to treasure Christ. You understood that sexuality can quickly turn from a good gift into a source of temptation and moral failure. While it is unlikely that any of us, including the authors I mentioned, set out to hurt a generation or preach a false gospel, we must be humble enough to face the damage that has been done. We must be willing to reevaluate our methods and messages against the holy, precious Word of God. This is not the first time, nor should it be the last, that we ask ourselves if we as the church are talking about sexual purity in the right way.
Purity leader Dannah Gresh sat down with Joshua Harris in I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye and admitted: “I don’t think Jesus would do the gum trick,” referring to the purity demonstration some youth pastors and conference speakers used where they held up a piece of chewed gum to illustrate what happens to the worth of the sexually impure.2 We are all in a process of continually evaluating what we say and how it is interpreted. It is difficult work.
Dan Darling points out how it is “always easier to see the blind spots of another culture, and another political position, and another’s heart, than it is our own.”3 And so, humility is something we beg God for. Without it, we cannot grow.
Perhaps in a good-faith effort to combat secular culture’s portrayal of sex as dirty and rebellious, modern purity culture reminded the church that sex is a good thing in marriage. But in order to make married sex worth waiting for, purity rhetoric turned it into a golden calf. Waiting for this idol was only attractive if it was a promise, and “worth the wait.” We have a low view of teenagers, young adults, and ourselves if we think that the only way we could possibly motivate someone to follow Christ with their sexuality is by making and believing false promises.
Purity culture’s main problem is not that it is too conservative but that it is too worldly. Sex is not about self, and abstinence is anything but sexy. Dressing it up as such is not only confusing, it’s discouraging. When our children realize that pursuing sexual purity is incredibly difficult, they will wonder why we didn’t prepare them. Sometimes we think God needs us to dangle carrots in front of people in order to make his message palatable, when he has called us to preach a gospel of foolishness to those who are perishing, a message so offensive to our pride that we must either reject the Son or fall at his feet.
There is nothing glamorous or edgy about the pursuit of sexual purity. Have we forgotten that the gate is narrow that leads to life? That we must lay our lives down to pick up our cross and follow Christ? Sex is not a human right, and it is certainly not our Christian right. Some say “love is love,” but we know better: God is love. We are exiles here. Sojourners. It can be lonely. It will be lonely. And yet, Jesus knows all about it. He lived it. We are not alone. As my husband recently said in a sermon, “Jesus created the narrow path for us, with his nail-pierced feet.” Jesus himself is with us.
We stumble and fall and tell Jesus with our actions that we think we have found something more satisfying than him. You are not alone in your struggle against the flesh, but beloved, keep struggling against it. Make it a tug-of-war. Make it a fight. Do not buy into the theologies that are willing to cut out passages of God’s Word to justify their actions or get what they want. God is very clear about where sex belongs: in marriage, between one man and one woman. You will need a sharp pair of scissors to rid your Bible of this truth.
We have become too accustomed to seeking satisfaction for every fleeting desire and long-term want on our own terms. We have begun to believe, along with the world, that this is what freedom means. But true freedom is found in Christ, who forgives all our sins and calls us to walk the narrow road that leads to life, beside him. Jesus obeyed his Father, even to the point of death on a cross. In our struggle against sin we have not yet resisted to the point of shedding our blood (Hebrews 12:4).
Acknowledging that we will sin isn’t defeatist. It is an acknowledgment of our humanity. It is preparation to get back up after we fall and try again in his strength. Whatever wagon you are trying desperately not to fall off of, remember: when you fall, and you will, you can dust yourself off and get right back on. God is not counting the days. He is looking for a contrite heart and a humble spirit. Take a moment to repent, to grieve your sin, then open your arms as wide as you can to welcome God’s overwhelming grace. His mercies are new every morning.
Lauren Winner defines chastity as an “active undertaking that we do as part of the body . . . not the mere absence of sex but an active conforming of one’s body to the arc of the gospel.”4 She says that her pursuit of sexual purity has been aided by the regular means of grace: time in prayer, God’s Word, and his church. “It may sound hokey,” Winner says, “but I have prayed regularly that God would reshape my heart and my desires so that I would want the things he wants for me. And every day, I have prayed about sexuality when saying the line from the Lord’s Prayer, lead us not into temptation.”5 Not hokey at all. I think sometimes we want a magic formula, a diet plan. But I too have found that nothing has helped me more in my pursuit of sexual purity than talking to God, listening to him in his Word, and spending time with his people. It is not a magic fix but a daily discipline.
Truly, sexual sin is offensive to God. We commit it against him, our neighbor, and our own bodies. It is something to repent of and seek forgiveness for. But beloved, our sexual failings never negate the purity we have through Jesus Christ. He has washed us white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). You do not have to wait seven days before approaching God after sinning. You do not have to hide outside the camp because “Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood” (Hebrews 13:12). You have been purchased. You have been pardoned. You are forgiven, beloved, and pure.
We have to start there. If we talk about sexual purity apart from the gospel, we will create chaste Pharisees instead of imperfect disciples. Obedience is a response to grace, not a ladder to heaven. The source of our purity does not come from our own personal striving, goals, or merits. Our pursuit of sexual purity is, rather, a prayer that says: Thank you, gracious Father, for rescuing me. I will seek to follow you for the rest of my life, in every way, whatever the cost. I will fail. You will forgive. And Your mercies will be new every morning. You are worthy of all praise and glory, forever. Amen. Every believer is washed permanently and made permanently pure in Christ Jesus. Why wouldn’t we thank him for that with our whole lives—including our sexuality?
Winner says that grace was the tutor of chastity in her life, not her “intellectual apprehension of the whys and wherefores of Christian sexual ethics.”6 We can only accomplish so much with lectures and gimmicks. It is grace that speaks louder. We must talk more about the gospel than we do about lust because Christian obedience is about worship. How do we know who and why we worship if the majority of Christian books for adolescents are about dating and chastity rather than the character of God and the worth of Christ? We must get the first things first.
Before you call your teen to chastity, before you talk to the new convert at church, before you examine your own outfit to see if it meets the cultural standards of modesty, remember: the price has already been paid on the cross. Isn’t that cause enough to drop our fishing nets, abandon the boat, and follow Christ? He stands ready to save to the uttermost those who are perishing. We need only come to him. The Holy Spirit will comfort and convict, and our desire for obedience, albeit imperfectly lived out, will be our song of praise for the mercy and grace we have received. Our life with God began in grace and will continue in grace.
My friend left me a voicemail recently. “I just heard the youth pastor announce a ‘purity weekend’ event for the teens at our church,” she told me. She wanted to hear my thoughts, knowing I was writing this book.
So here they are. I think isolating the discussion of sexual purity from the rest of Scripture is dangerous. I think we have to ask ourselves: Would we prefer a crowd of teenagers who don’t quite understand the gospel but are willing to sign purity pledge cards, or a group of teens who have questions about the Bible and struggle with sexual sin but want to hear more about Jesus? Do we want them to grow into adults who successfully avoided teen pregnancy and STDs but know nothing of the love of Christ, or do we want them to be those who are imperfect, sexually and otherwise, but have a thirst for the things of God? Of course, it is not actually an either-or, but I think it’s worth asking the question.
Because if what motivates our purity talks is a desire to keep teenagers from premarital sex, regardless of their eternal state, then we don’t understand the nature of eternity. If our desire to get our daughter to the altar a virgin is greater than our desire to see her truly accept Jesus as her Savior, we don’t understand the glorious riches of Christ. Purity is important to God—so important that Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, had to die so that we could live. But, too often, purity rhetoric hyperfocuses on what we should and shouldn’t do instead of what Christ has already done. It neglects the gospel and places personal striving above the finished work of Christ.
We tell Christians that talking about sexuality deserves its own conference or sermon series, but then we don’t make space for our congregants to discuss it in their daily lives. Instead of relegating the topic to youth groups or the occasional “sexy” sermon series, sexuality should become an integrated part of our Christian conversation. Instead of sending adolescents to purity conferences or handing them a copy of Every Man’s Battle or And the Bride Wore White, Christians should bring these books, articles, and ideas into real-life conversations with their local church body, examining them together.
The solution is not necessarily to talk about sex more often but more honestly, and in community. As we move away from hushed tones, downcast eyes, and nervous laughter, we can view sexuality more biblically—as something God-given, common to humankind, and good. We can also be real with one another about the difficulties we face in honoring God with our sexuality. My friend Maralee said that it isn’t just about having “the talk” but about creating an open, ongoing conversation with her children. This is a wonderful model both for parenting and also for the church.
We are a body. We have bodies. It is high time we walk together as embodied, sexual beings into the light of God’s gospel, his truth, and his family.
Loneliness is real, but lust does not love you. Its only desire is to tear you apart, limb from limb. We know that when the moment of temptation passes like a ship in the night, the fog will clear and we will see Jesus again. We know that we need the church because apart from her we are just a wobbly leg or useless finger.
The pursuit of sexual purity is not about virginity or reward but about so tethering ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of God’s Word that when the sweet music of sin enters our ears, we are able to keep steering the ship toward God’s glory—because God has become a thousand times more captivating. It is about knowing that when we sin, we have an advocate; that there is forgiveness in Christ, no matter what we’ve done. It is about picking up the cross of Jesus each new day, and pressing into his body, the church. And it is about believing with all our hearts, that we are image bearers of a holy God, created for his glory.
1. Is an open conversation about sexuality in our churches really possible? Are there practical steps we could take in our local churches to move toward this?
2. Discuss Joshua Harris’s idea about being willing to reevaluate your beliefs. What are the benefits and possible dangers?
3. How can we emphasize grace in our call for Christian chastity?
4. Do you think there is a place for purity conferences in the future? Why or why not?
5. What is one thing you disagreed with in this book and why?
6. What is one thing you agree with and why?
7. What is one thing you plan to do in response to this book?
Pass index cards around the room. Have each person write down one thing they want prayer for in regard to any of the topics addressed in this book, whether it is relational loneliness, sexual sin, past abuse, or unmet longings. Have people get into pairs and share their request with their partner, taking turns praying for one another. Have everyone hang on to the card of the person they prayed for, so they can continue to pray for that person and maybe even check in on them later.