Last week’s blog post listed four of the 8 major flaws that the purity movement had. While these weren’t things the purity movement set out to do, they were unintended consequences of its main messages about purity, sexuality, etc. We left off with problem number four last week, so we’ll pick up with number five this week.
5. Unhealthy obsession with virginity
Because sex was seen as such a huge sin, the purity movement had a bit of an unhealthy relationship with the concept of virginity. The goal of the purity movement was for every Christian young person to enter into their marriage as a virgin. Anything less than that was less than God’s plan and less than perfect. Now, I think God wants that same goal. I think He would love all of us to enter into our marriages just as he intended, for us to only give ourselves to one other person in this world.
However, what do you do with the people who don’t make it to marriage still a virgin? Does that make their marriage any less sacred? Is God less present in their marriage because of past sin? No, that makes no sense. God cleanses us from all our past sin. To continue to define a person or a relationship because of past sin is the opposite of what God would have us to do.
Additionally, an unhealthy emphasis on virginity also puts those who have had their virginity taken by force in an awkward position. Elizabeth Smart was featured in an article a couple of years ago about this very topic. She talked about how the purity talk at her church made her feel dirty, something she already dealt with as a victim of rape and abuse. When teachers used examples like your body is like a glass of water and every time you have sex your water gets dirtier, it heaped more shame on people who had already gone through a traumatic experience, which again, I think is far from the heart of God.
6. An incorrect definition of purity
One of the issues with the purity movement is the way that it defined purity. If you were to read many of the books that were popular at that time, you would probably come to the conclusion that purity is a series of points that you can cross. For every point that you cross, you become less pure. All of these points are tied to sexuality. If you see porn, less pure. If you make out with some one, you’re less pure. As mentioned above, the point that there is no coming back from is sex. If you have sex, there’s little hope that you can be a pure person.
That definition is faulty for many, many reasons. First of all, it totally discounts the idea of grace (more on that below). More importantly, purity is not a point. We are not born pure and slowly become less and less pure as we age. That’s confusing innocence with purity. We are born innocent and ignorant. We can lose our innocence or it can be forcefully taken from us (as happens in situations of rape and abuse). Either way, innocence and purity are not the same thing.
Purity is a path that we walk with God’s guidance through the Holy Spirit. It’s not a point. It’s a process. We are all born sinful. We have to purposefully become more pure by God’s help. We do this by growing and learning and becoming more and more like Christ. It is God who purifies our heart. Only God can “create in me a pure heart”. You are not defaultly pure and become less pure based on your actions. You are have to go through a process of growth to become more pure.
7. Focus on behavior, not theology, not the why
One of the biggest problems with the purity movement is its obsession with behavior. The goal of the movement was to prevent certain behaviors, mainly pre-marital sex. The “whys” given for modifying behavior were based on fear and wanting to gain a certain end. This is problematic because it’s just not the way God works.
Yes, God gives us commandments and laws in the Bible. These laws have two main purposes: protection and holiness. Some laws protect us from something (in some cases ourselves). Laws against incest and sexual sin protect us. There are consequences to sexual sin and God wants us to protect us from those consequences. There are also some laws that are simply in place to keep us set apart for God, to make as holy. God wants his people to live differently as a demonstration of the fact that they were set apart for him.
Which category do the laws on sexual purity fall under? Both. It is for our protection to some extent, but it’s also because he wants what’s best for us. He designed marriage, sex, and our sexuality. If we really trust God and really believe that God is the good designer of all these things, shouldn’t we be willing to submit our own wants and desires to him? Shouldn’t we be willing to follow his plan instead of our own? This submission process demonstrates the fact that we don’t just see Jesus as our Savior, we also see him as the Lord of our life.
8. No space for grace
If someone asked me what the biggest problem with the purity movement was, I would say the de-emphasis on grace. Grace is getting good things you don’t deserve. Grace is an essential part of God’s character. Every good thing that we receive in our lives is a gift of God’s grace. We don’t earn it. We don’t deserve it.
The purity movement was so focused on behavior modification that it left little space for grace. Some of the scare tactics that were used (which were in fact based on some bit of truth) made it seem like you messed up in anyway in your dating or sex life, you would live with those consequences forever. There are some cases where that happens, but these ideas left no space for God to redeem our mistakes. That’s a big thing to leave out because this is something he does everyday throughout our lives and throughout the Bible.
When David sins with Bathsheba, it’s a bad thing. However, it is through that relationship that Solomon, the wisest person that ever lives, comes into existence. Then, hundreds of years later, Jesus comes on the scene through that family line that started in shame and sin. There were consequences for David’s sin, but God still used David and even used the consequences of that relationship in a powerful way. No mistake we make or sin we commit, no matter how serious or grievous can ever disqualify us from God’s good plan for our life.
Why does it matter?
As I’ve said time and time again in this series, it’s important to look at the things the purity movement got right and the things it got wrong. There were right things, which we examined two weeks ago. The purity movemnt had a good motive: helping young people to be sexually pure.
However, they got things wrong too. That doesn’t mean we can just write off the movement as a colossal failure and something we should never do again. We need to take the time to know what went wrong, why it was wrong, and how we can keep from making that same mistake again. Without knowing where things went wonky, we’re liable to make those same mistakes without even realizing what we’re doing.
Photo by Madison Bersuch on Unsplash
I personally am grateful for the purity movement. It is sin to have sex outside marriage, just as it is sin to steal or lie. In our culture today sex outside marriage is normal and there is no judgement. However we still judge those who steal! We still don’t respect people who lie. Why should sexual immorality be judgement free?