Purity Culture
A few weeks ago I was digging into what the Bible says about homosexuality, and the topic of sexual purity across all orientations started to show up repeatedly. I saw pastors and authors compare acting on “same-sex attraction” to all sexual activity outside of marriage, and the whole thing brought me back to the evangelical purity movement of the 90’s, the True Love Waits campaign, and the courtship manifesto that emerged from books like Joshua Harris’s “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” (1997). I was steeped in this purity culture in high school and college. When I reached out to other women, I soon discovered that many women - both religious and non-religious - were also impacted in some way by this extreme abstinence movement. For some, it felt beneficial. For others, the results were tragic.
What did the evangelical purity movement stand for?
Abstinence
A huge piece of the evangelical purity movement was a pledge to wait until marriage to have sex. Bible verses that teach about the dangers of adultery and sexual immorality were memorized, and teenagers approached altars in droves to sign their “True Love Waits” purity pledge after sermons or even concerts by popular Christian musicians like Rebecca St. James. The message was simple: Sex outside of marriage is sinful, repulsive to God, and immoral. Sex within the confines of marriage is beautiful, satisfying, and glorious. I was taught to imagine that Jesus was present in the room anytime I was alone with my boyfriend. Others were shown a piece of wadded up chewing gum as a symbol of what they would look like to potential suitors if they lost their virginity. In his bestselling Christian book, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” Joshua Harris took it a step further by suggesting that you should wait for ALL physical intimacy (including kissing) until your wedding day. He opens the book by describing a wedding in which the ghosts of all your past relationships are standing next to you, intruding on your glorious day. When I was in college, I attended an “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” conference with my college boyfriend, and I almost married him at 19.
Gender Roles
The evangelical purity movement also stood on the foundation of clearly defined gender roles. Women were encouraged to dress modestly so as not to encourage lustful sexual thoughts from men, who couldn’t help these thoughts because of their visual sexual nature. They were encouraged to work on building their character and focus on their relationship with God until a godly man, or spiritual leader, pursued a relationship with them. These concepts were driven home through books like “Passion and Purity,” by Elisabeth Elliot which chronicles Elisabeth’s love story with her missionary husband Jim Elliot, outlining how beautiful love can be when you remain pure and holy until marriage. “Lady in Waiting,” a book by Debby Jones and Jackie Kendall, devotes a chapter to each aspect of character that a woman should work on while she waits for her future husband - reckless abandonment, diligence, faith, virtue, devotion, purity, security, contentment, conviction, and patience. I know this because one of my college journals opens with these 10 character traits, and I spent months journaling and praying to become a more godly woman in each area.
All of these ideas swirled around throughout the 90’s in sermons, concerts, churches, households, college campuses, peer groups, youth groups, high schools, and more. Purity culture was born, and it would take years before folks would see the damage it was capable of.
How can purity culture be damaging?
A few years ago, Joshua Harris publicly denounced his 1997 bestseller, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” and acknowledged the damage that was done by his book. He created a documentary called, “I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” and eventually walked away from his church, his faith, and even his marriage. The stories I have heard from women I’m close to line up with the stories shared in this documentary. While the intention of the purity movement was good, and actually did work for some, in the end many were left with unresolved trauma. What went wrong?
Shame and Secrecy
All kinds of shame was associated with sexual activity for young Christians that got caught up in the evangelical purity movement. Women began to believe that loss of virginity made them “damaged goods.” Masturbation was too shameful to even mention publicly. Instead of finding forgiveness and love, men and women that were caught up in sexual sin were too broken to move on from their past. Christians that engaged in sexual activity felt that they had been compromised in every way, and some found themselves feeling too unlovable to show their faces in church. Once the door to sex was opened, young people also ended up engaging in even more/riskier sexual behavior than they would have if there had been a healthier perspective of sexual activity in the first place. They rationalized unhealthy sexual activity because they already felt they were "damaged.”
Not only was sex taboo and shameful, conversations about sex were also off limits. When it comes to the range of activity between holding hands and having sex, I learned from my peers at 15. No one talked to me about consent. The first time I considered going all the way as a young adult after college, I confided in a close friend that I was terrified that I would get pregnant and someone would find out. She told me that along with pregnancy, I should also think about herpes, and it was the first real conversation I had about sexual safety. I took myself to Planned Parenthood to find contraception, and told not a soul. In under a year, I had enough sexual partners to make up for the time I had missed through college and beyond. And I hated myself.
Victim Blaming
Along with the shame and secrecy, the focus on a woman’s role to protect men from sinning at times translated into sexual abuse within the church and among young Christian couples. A woman was made to feel that if her body had been violated or taken advantage of, she likely should not have worn that dress, acted in that way, or been in his dorm room in the first place. One mentor shared with me that she didn’t shave her legs for the duration of her engagement to avoid creating temptation for her future husband. Often, even a married woman was made to feel that sexual acts were her “duty” and that she did not have say over her own body. The rise of the #metoo movement led to a parallel rise of the #churchtoo movement, in which women have brought to the surface the sexual harm that has happened within religious communities, institutions, and even marriages.
On top of the victim blaming, Christians were rarely taught about what healthy sex should be like. A friend of mine explained it this way:
“Focusing so intently on the act of sex can miss the bigger picture. For example, sex outside of marriage is equally bad regardless of whether it’s a one night stand or part of a healthy and long term relationship. And sex within a marriage is equally ok regardless of whether it’s within the context of a mutually respectful marriage, or one where one partner feels coerced or uncomfortable.”
Once again, the very gray issue of healthy sexual behavior is forced into black and white categories.
False Narratives
There was also the damaging false narrative that women should not pursue a relationship, but they should instead be pursued. The whole concept seemed so far-fetched, but I had older women (and authors) in my life that promised it was possible. I had one mentor that was pursued by a godly spiritual leader and married her knight in shining armor. After they married, she told me that if anything ever happened to her husband, she would enroll in graduate school at Baylor University because she knew that’s where all the godly men were hiding out.
I cannot tell you how many women, including myself, were lost and heartbroken when they were not “pursued” by a spiritual leader. They were left feeling unpursuable. They were told that it was because they were thinking about men too much, and they needed to be more focused on God, not dating. I was taught to not even express my emotional feelings with men. This caused additional heartbreak for me when it took many months in college to discover that someone I had given my heart to did not have mutual feelings for me. Had I allowed myself to have a conversation about the potential for us to date, I would have been able to discover our different feelings from the start and move on.
Another piece of this false narrative, as I have mentioned before, is that it fails to acknowledge that women can be the spiritual leader in a relationship.
The new purity culture
Purity and the LGBTQ community
I watched a sermon series recently about the church and homosexuality and there was an eerie familiarity in the options that were being presented to LGBTQ+ Christians. Only worse. They could choose celibacy for life or enter into a heterosexual marriage. Acting on their “same-sex attraction” was not an option. (Actually, it was presented as an option, but as the option apart from God). “We’ll walk alongside you the whole way,” was preached with true sincerity. “We will do everything to support you through this journey.”
These options were backed up with testimonies of a few men within that particular church that felt quite fulfilled by taking the path of celibacy. One expressed how fortunate he was that heterosexual couples had adopted him as a good friend for game nights and movie nights on the weekends. Even though he wasn’t able to have a life partner, he explained, at least he had really great families to walk alongside him on his journey and he wasn’t lonely all the time. Another story was shared about a lesbian author and advocate for gay rights that met a pastor, converted to Christianity, and felt the conviction to walk away from her lesbian partner. These stories were embedded into language around support from the church community, suffering for Christ, and purity. I was alarmed by statements like, “No one said following Christ would be easy,” and “Sex should not be treated as a human right.” Everything in what was outlined left me feeling quite uncomfortable, but it wasn’t until I started digging into my own history with the evangelical purity culture of the 90’s that I realized what it was. This is just purity culture rebranded and directed specifically at our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. The church is celebrating the few “success stories” which only doubles down on the shame for the rest of the folks that just can’t do it. Is it possible? Sure. Is it feasible? Absolutely not. I can almost taste the impending trauma being unleashed on LGBTQ Christians.
Moving forward
As I reached out to friends to find out what they planned to teach their children about sex (which was often different than what they had been taught growing up), I found many common themes. Above all else, openness about sexuality was prominent. No questions should be off limits. Shame should not be associated with sex, and there should be education about consent, boundaries, healthy relationships, risks and so much more. In her podcast, Michelle Obama discusses the importance of having open conversation with her own daughters, knowing that if they didn’t feel comfortable coming to her about any topic at a young age, they would likely learn about it from other 12-year-old girls instead.
Within the church, a second look should be taken at what the Bible says about sexual immorality and what that means for heterosexual AND homosexual couples. We cannot stop at abstinence education. And this isn’t the first time that I have said we cannot ask LGBTQ Christians to denounce their identities in order to be welcome in the kingdom of God (or in the church).
I feel fortunate that my faith survived my years steeped in purity culture and the evangelical purity movement. Others were not as fortunate. The more I dove into this topic, the more I discovered that the hashtag #purityculture was often coupled with #exvangelical. Many walked away from their faith due to the shame, trauma, and brokenness that came from purity culture. Therapy and support groups have become the new community for these individuals. It wasn’t until I wrote through my own story last summer and faced my shame head on that I was able to heal and see myself through God’s eyes, not as broken or damaged, but as a person He designed to bear His image, and a person with a place in His kingdom. I pray that going forward, others are able to differentiate the legalism in the church and religious rhetoric from what God actually sees. And if you are someone on that path and want a spiritual community centered in love and grace, there’s a supportive Facebook community over at The Pursuing Life that loves all the questions and embraces all the diversity.
