Please ... No Purity 2.0!

In the late 1970's and early 1980's Jesus Music and "the Jesus movement" morphed into "hip churches" like Willow Creek and Hillsong. It claimed to be a different type of Christianity - a more approachable, grace-filled, Christianity. But was it? Today, we know that the turn of 1980 brought the beginning of the Purity Movement and profound legalism in the Christian Church. Today, millions are attempting to heal from the trauma they suffered during their years in these communities. This was Purity Culture 1.0

Today there are people in the "progressive Christian space" who are attempting another "new version" of "Christianity", by promoting a dressed up Purity Culture 2.0, all the while saying they are not. Out of one side of their mouth, they condemn purity culture's shame of sexual feelings and thoughts, and women's responsibility to manage men's arousal and desire ... but out of the other side of their mouth they continue to punctuate viriginity and a heterosexual focus central to purity culture thinking.

People like Rachel Joy Welcher who in her book, "Talking Back to Purity Culture" says that (on one hand) she "does not propose a new sexual ethic" or "call into question the validity of scripture" and on the other hand acknowledges that there is validity in "regular reflection on our spiritual practices and biblical interpretation" (intro chapter). So which is it? Don't question or question?

The underlying assumption in her book is that her prevailing interpretation of scripture about sexuality (virginity and heterosexuality) is the lens by which other Christian's sexuality should be examined, and that, because this is justified (by her interpretations), she is not fundamentally changing the sexual ethic ... the same purity culture message that has proven itself to be a hurtful and damaging sexual ethic which continues to cause untold amounts of suffering. It is this odd blending of "God wants you to be a virgin before marriage" and God is more forgiving than the God of Purity Culture 1.0. Somehow she believes this is not Purity Culture 2.0 - that it is different. But it is not. As someone who is not trained in sexual and relational health, she uses only her interpretations of scripture to try and dismantle Purity Culture by using the same arguments that constructed it. If you can feel your head spinning in confusion, you are not alone.

While not a theologian, I would argue, from 30 years as a graduate professor on a Christian campus where collegial conversations with theology scholar’s on these topics were prevalent, to critique purity culture, by NOT changing the fulcrum of purity culture's sexual ethic on virginity and heterosexuality, and utilizing only your own scriptural interpretations, is weak theological ethics at best, and incredibly hurtful (Purity Culture 2.0) at worst.

Let me give an example of what I mean. As I understand it, Wesleyan ethics argues that there are 4 reciprocal sources of revelation and truth for the Christians: scripture, tradition, reason (or science), and experience. It seems to me that many "Christian's" who love to argue "theology", leave reason and experience out of their “declarations of truth”. In 2022, we have amassed research (qualitative and quantitative) on what creates sexual health, including family/child health. We know that age appropriate comprehensive sex and relationship education (toddler through high school) leads to teens getting involved in sex later, making safer choices, choosing more loving partners, it lowers teen pregnancy and STI rates, and when parents have been a safe and open sexual health educator over the years, teens describe themselves as closer to their parents overall. We also know from research about the health and wellness in queer households/partnerships. In this data we have found that even though queer folks face untold amounts of discrimination, these relationships, families and the children reared by these parents fare at least as well as those raised by straight parents – often better. Is this because, by and large, they have had to fight with more courage and vulnerability for these relationships, and thus enter and care for them with more intention and preparation? I would say, from my clinical experience, yes. What this research shows is the fulcrum for an abundant and happy relational and sexual life is not virginity, but how knowledge leads to confidence, autonomy, and smarter decision making in one's relational and sexual spheres. It is here that the abundant life spoken of in scripture is more likely attained.

Here are some points to consider:

1. Here are the average stats based on age of initial intercourse based on religious affiliation (National Center for Health Statistics – National Survey of Family Growth):

   1. No religion – 16.4 years

   2. Fundamentalist protestant – 16.9 years

   3. Other protestant – 16.9 years

   4. Catholic – 17.7 years

   5. Other religion – 18.8 years

2. Religious instruction shapes attitudes toward pre-marital sex more so than behavior (in other words we see more judgmental people, not people who have made different choices in their lives. They often are living a double life (publicly judgmental on the one hand; while being secretly sexual on the other.)

3. American teens get pregnant more often than teens in any other part of the developed world (50 countries), including England, France, Holland, and Sweden. Most of the northern European countries which have the lowest teen pregnancy and STI rates have age appropriate comprehensive sex education, beginning in kindergarten and continuing each year through age 18.

4. The U.S. has one of the highest incidences of teenage pregnancy, STI’s and early onset sexual activity of any industrialized country. In fact, there are studies to show that abstinence-only education has been known to increase the incidence of sexual intercourse in adolescents while decreasing the use of contraception and condoms. It is now known that 80% of abstinence curriculum was medically inaccurate.

5. 60% of college age students are sexually active.

If your own sexual story falls in the statistical norm and you were raised in sexual silence and/or sexual shame, ask yourself the following questions:

1. When did you first realize you could not talk about your sexual curiosities or thoughts about bodies to your parents or the adults in your life?

2. When did you first begin to feel silenced, ashamed, guilty, confused, and afraid of the reactions or rejections of those who you loved?

3. Was it at age five or six when “doctor play” is common? Eight or ten when same sex play is common? Eleven to thirteen when the desire to self-soothe in masturbation increases? Or when you realized you might be different from your peers or the media that was surrounding you?

4. What was the effect of this silencing on your life? How did you try to manage or cope with this?

What does forbidding sexual expression and abstinence-only education do?

Without an understanding of normative sexual development, open communication, calm knowledge filled answers, and direction from loving informed adults in our lives, children/adolescents/young adults will go underground, feeling shame and self-loathing each and every time they desire, think, feel, or act on a sexual longing. This shame and silence places adolescents and young adults at risk of exploitation as well as entering a shame cycle with their sexuality. For example, the child who masturbates when they have been told that it is wrong or worse are told that God does not approve, feels shame, vows to stop, obsesses on their thoughts and desires both to masturbate and to stop, acts again, feels even more self-loathing… and the cycle continues carving a deep groove into the psyche, sexuality, and faith of this person. God eventually becomes banned from their sexual life which becomes everything that is sinful about them.

For those that are straight and who marry, do years of this condemnation and disassociation lift after a 45-minute wedding service? What about those who do not partner, are ACE or ARO, queer, partner much later in life, are divorced, or widowed? What is the effect of their sexual life and story as it exists in the silenced, erased, isolated margin? How is this helpful to them? How is their silenced and shamed learning, wisdom, joys, blessings, sorrows denied to all of us, hurting our collective understanding of the complexity, breadth, and beauty of the gift of connection and pleasure?

Without informed knowledge, and loving understanding from somewhere, the damage this does to a person’s ability to understand their worth, to accept kindness, feel love, give love, and have a healthy sexual relationship, even inside the context of a committed partnership, is significant and far reaching. I have watched lives and legacies destroyed by this sexual shame and silence. I believe much of what we see in sexual perversion inside and outside the Christian church (an underground secret sexual life, multiple affairs, sexual abuse, sexual offending, open condemnation, lies, bullying of the sexually marginalized, using sex and people as objects for personal pleasure, etc.) can be linked to this silence, secrecy, and shame cycle integrated into a market driven economy that uses people and bodies to sell sex, products, and ideas.

My anecdotal experience clinically, coupled with over a decade of research, and thirty years as the sexuality professor for graduate family therapists aligns with these numbers. There is deep damage to a person’s self-worth when there is no safe place of grace and sexual knowledge, and when the ‘cis-gendered-abstinence-only heterosexual expression inside marriage only’ standard is forced upon a person from a young age. After being condemned or shunned “in the name of God”, many throw out their faith or distance themselves from the safe intimate relationship they had with their God prior to adolescence. And in many ways they describe a clear disassociation of their sexuality from their faith in ways that make the integration of these two vital gifts seem viscerally impossible.

Reason –

Does it make sense then, that behind the arrogance of being “theologically correct” and not wanting to step into the not knowing and discomfort which surrounds open conversations of the real lived experiences of God’s people, that we would collude with silence, fear, condemnation, shame, abuses in power, and thus hurt people who seek a new integration and understanding of the breadth of God's love as it relates to their desire for connection and pleasure? Apparently in our cancel culture, the answer is yes. RJW blocked me on twitter when I once dared to question her reasoning. Apparently her version of Purity Culture 2.0 is not open to inquiry. Are these not the same questions she says she supports? Apparently not.

For all who actively seek to understand the gift of sexuality inside a call to faith, I would love for us to create a myriad of creative ways of demonstrating profound grace. The kind of grace we see from Jesus toward the woman brought for stoning when after chasing her accusers away says to her, “Where are they? Did no one condemn you? Neither do I condemn you.” Go and live in abundance. (John 8).

What a difference it would make if we could, as a community, create a sanctioned refuge for any and all who want their sexual/spiritual pain, concerns, questions and stories heard. A place for people to know they are not alone in their struggle or their joy, and to know they are loved in the totality of their experience. A place where they can seek sound information and discuss all areas of human sexuality. A place where all could be engaged in conversations on the integration of sexuality, faith, and all the other intersections of life. I like to imagine a time when a person having a wonderful intimate life outside of marriage (at 18, 28, 38, 48, 68, 78, …) is able to boldly speak to a “Christian” about what is healing and nourishing about that relationship, without that “Christian” immediately thinking (and thus not listening with openness, respect, curiosity, and accountability to their power), that they couldn’t possibly be experiencing what they say they are, and simultaneously arrogantly believing they know what would be better for this person. This goes for the person explaining their thriving queer, polyamorous, or kinky relationship as well. What I know from listening deeply and closely for well over thirty years now, is the people having the worst sex are far too often straight, cis-gendered, married folks experiencing boring, transactional, obligatory, male centric sexual encounters.

The issue of sexuality – is ultimately an issue of eros – of our life force. When we shame and condemn ourselves and others, we dim this life force in all of us. Our erotic life force is part of our inspiration – our in-spirit – our in-breath – from our first breath when God breathes Their Spirit into our being. It courses through us, within us, around us, and is our inspiration. This issue is not an us/them issue, (I know better how you ought to live), it is us, at the core of being human. We are invited to live into abundance – and if we choose, this is also sexual and relational abundance.