When I was 11 years old, I didn’t know it, but I became a part of something that would be come to be known as the purity movement. I entered the movement by reading the book I Kissed Dating Good-Bye by Joshua Harris. The focus of the purity movement was to help young people remain sexually pure. In our sexualized age, this was no small feat.
What Is/Was the Purity Movement?
If the purity movement could be summed up in one phrase, it would be “true love waits.” In the 90’s and early 2000’s, this movement encouraged Christian young people to save sex for marriage. In order to keep from having sex, you were encouraged to set very strict boundaries with members of the opposite sex. This was meant to be a strategy to fight against temptation. Youth groups everywhere had teens sign purity pledges. Some even gave out purity rings (supposed to be worn until replaced by a wedding ring).
Many in the purity movement went even farther than that. They suggested that one should reject “worldly” ways of dating. Harris’ book (mentioned above) even suggested that young Christians not date at all. Instead, he suggested that it was better to pursue a friendship first before jumping into a relationship. He also encouraged young people to incorporate their parents into their romantic life.
What Caused This Movement?
Why did this movement come about? In many ways, I think it was a reaction to the decline in morals in the American culture in the 80’s and 90’s. Advertisements, shows, and magazines were becoming more and more sexualized. Cohabitation was becoming common. Homosexuality was being normalized. Our own president, Bill Clinton, claimed that oral sex wasn’t really sex, engaged in an affair while in the White House, lied about it, and still kept his job and his reputation, for the most part. In more and more ways Christian values that had made their way into the culture at large were being rejected. Christian were afraid and just trying to keep up.
In the midst of all this change, the church sought a way to retain the moral values of the Bible and past, “simpler” times. In the midst of an increasingly non-Christian and even anti- Christian world, the goal of the purity movement was to provide young people a practical way to be “in the world, but not of it.”
Good Goal, Faulty Execution
The purpose was good. Teens and young adults do need guidance on how to maneuver our over-sexualized world and remain true to following God’s plan for sexuality. We’re not supposed to look like the world around us. The purity movement recognized that and many authors, speakers, and pastors tried to provide practical things that young people could do differently. D
Again, the authors, speakers, and leaders involved in the purity movement had a good goal. The problem was, the purity movement went a little wonky. If you want evidence of that, just do a Google search of “purity movement.” You’ll find countless articles detailing horror stories of how the purity movement ruined lives. Many of the writers of these articles are people who grew up in church, but walked away. In many cases, they now identify as part of the LGBTQ movement. Some of these writers se stayed faithful to the church, but have seen how the purity movement went awry and hurt people in the process. Even Joshua Harris released a public statement in 2018 about his book. He acknowledged the harm it caused some, apologized, and discontinued its publication.
Why Should I care?
We can actually learn a lot from the purity movement. For one thing, it wasn’t wrong about everything. There are some valuable lessons we can learn. They’re not all on the positive side either. We need to learn from the movements mistakes.
Most of all, it’s important to examine the purity movement because, like it or not, it was a part of Christian culture. Where we’ve come from influences where we’re going. If we’re not careful, we can overreact and end up too far on the other end of the pendulum. We need to look at where the purity movement was valuable and where it missed the mark. If we don’t examine those things, we’re liable to make the same mistakes or take things too far in the other direction (which I think is already happening).
We Don’t Have to Embrace, But We Should Give Grace.
I’m not here just to hate on the purity movement or say it was the biggest mistake since Judas betrayed Jesus. Almost all movements do some good and some harm. The purity movement is the same. Did it miss the mark in some ways? Yes, and we’ll talk about a few of the problems with the purity movement in a future post. However, I just want to take a moment and say, it wasn’t all wrong.
The leaders of this movement had a good goal in mind: they wanted to help young Christians honor God with their relationships and with their bodies. They didn’t set out to hurt people. Their goal wasn’t to establish unrealistic expectations or any of the other millions of things they are accused of. They just wanted to help. We should offer them a little grace.
For the month of April, we’ll be examining the purity movement in depth. Next week, we’ll look at the things the purity movement got right. Then, we’ll look a those things that went wonky. After looking at the good and the bad, we’ll tackle where we should go from here. What does a healthy dating relationship/courtship/whatever we want to call it look like? I find this topic fascinating. I hope you find it interesting/of value too. So, if you have any questions you’d like answered, comment below and I’ll try to either reply or work it into one of the upcoming blog posts.
Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash
[…] of the purity movement of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. You can go back to read the full post here, but here’s the Reader’s Digest version: It was a movement within the church to encourage […]
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