What Purity Culture Gave Me, Ironically: Sexual Freedom

What emerged from the rubble of purity culture was a series of divergent trends.

My own path included discovering the gospel again, finding community that was built on the gospel, and falling in love with Jesus and the Bible in a new and fresh way.

Many others, quite understandably, became disillusioned with the church and simply walked away because it had no beauty or relevance in their lives. (Side note: if this is you, and where you're at isn't working for you, I would invite you to explore again what is on offer for you through the gospel. gospelinlife.com might be a place to start)

And then there was a third group. The third group is made up of myriad subgroups, but I'll lump them  together and describe them as those who still hold to the Christian faith but have determined that they no longer feel the need to hold to a traditional, biblical sexual ethic*. The subgroups include those who just don't think biblical teaching on sex is relevant, those who have re-interpreted the Bible as saying something different about sex, and those who do believe what the Bible says about sex but have decided it isn't a big deal and would rather just follow their own path in that regard.

This post is designed to address those who adhere to the third group: those who will get on national television, talk about how important their faith is, and then proudly proclaim "I've had sex but Jesus still loves me." Those like Nadia Bolz-Weber who writes "Whatever sexual flourishing looks like for you, that's what I would love to see happen in your life."

Before I dive in further, I recognize this is a difficult topic with a lot of nuances in terms of how it plays out, but I would suggest that what God invites us to with his teaching and instruction on sex is an invitation for all. It's an invitation to me in my singleness. It's an invitation to those who have a long and varied sexual past. It's an invitation to those whose gender identities don't match their anatomy. It's an invitation for those who experience patterns of attraction for the same sex. And it's an invitation for those who have a more traditional path in the context of a monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

It's obviously impossible to compare my own sexual journey with that of someone who's had a different experience, but there are other areas of my life where I've experienced a distinction between what I thought was freedom and what I later learned was actual freedom.

A year and a half ago, I weighed about 90 lbs more than I do now. I thought freedom meant being able to have bites and nibbles of whatever I wanted. I thought freedom meant sitting down on the couch eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's. I thought freedom meant ordering whatever takeout appealed to me on that particular day.

One of my coworkers was doing this nutrition program, and it sounded incredibly restrictive. There were spreadsheets involved, and planning, and a coach, and weighing of food.

However, I got back from a trip to Italy and just realized I didn't like being the size that I was. I signed up for the program. I learned how to plan and track my food. I learned how to balance my priorities between food and life.

And I found something I never thought I'd find: freedom.

Not freedom to eat whatever I wanted. Freedom to run and hike and jump. Freedom to shop in clothing stores that didn't carry specialty sizes. Freedom to have more energy to tackle the day. Freedom to have the occasional serving of ice cream (101g).

As I reflected on this transformation, I realized there were other areas of my life where I "restricted my freedom" through discipline and found true freedom: budgeting and financial management, studying in school, getting a full 8 hours of sleep every night.

It suddenly dawned on me that there are basically no important areas of life where we can just follow our natural desires and experience success. We actually need to shape our desires and our habits in order to truly experience freedom. I never, ever used to want to workout. It was never something I craved. But now that I have spent years building it into my routine, I do find myself with an actual desire for exercise.

So why have we let ourselves get talked into believing that sex is different?

A quick caveat: I'm about to make an argument based on my personal experiences about why I see God's commands for sex being good, but I also believe that the most important reason to walk in obedience is simply because we're called to walk in obedience. God's commands don't always make sense, but when we love him and desire to have a relationship with him and trust that he loves us, sometimes that needs to be reason enough when we don't understand it.

Anyway.

I was recently talking to a coworker about the fact that I actually enjoy being single. Inevitably, he asks "but what about ... ?" (because we are both well versed in our Safe and Respectful Workplace policy) I realized that, yes, I have sexual desires, but these desires don't control me. And I think there's a ton of freedom in that. I don't need to go scramble to find a man to satisfy that urge (or have it constantly at the top of my mind) if it's been too long. I don't need to settle for the wrong man to marry just because I absolutely have to have sex. I have the freedom to just walk down the path that God has called me, and experience peace and joy.

One of the things that has been important in my nutrition journey has been making sure that I have foods that I enjoy on a regular basis. On Thursdays, there is often dessert at our community group, and what I found is that if I didn't plan for it, my willpower was weak by the time Thursday night rolled around, and I would have cake anyway (and have too much of it!). During work on Thursdays, there are often a ton of temptations. My boss, for example, once brought in a bunch of delicious-looking bagels. Knowing that I was going to have cake that night allowed me to say no and stay on plan. It allowed me to enjoy what I wanted to enjoy while staying true to other goals.

What the purity culture got wrong was that it promised that the fulfillment of all our sexual desires would be realized on the wedding night.

Our sexual desires do point us to something that we will ALL realize through the gospel, whether we marry and have sex on earth or whether we remain celibate. Those desires are meant to point us to Christ, and when we at last experience true fellowship with him, those desires will be realized in an ultimately satisfying way.

And so, I invite you, walk in true freedom. This freedom is available to all of us, no matter where we've been.

*Traditional, biblical sexual ethic being defined as sex being created as a good gift to bind together a man and woman in the context of a covenantal marriage relationship

Let's Talk About Sex

Thoughts have been percolating in my mind for several months now, but two recent highly profiled events have finally prompted me to find a way to articulate those thoughts.

The first event is that on a popular reality television show, the phrase "I've had sex and Jesus still loves me" made its way into three episodes in a row.

The second event is that one of the archetypes of the purity movement, an author of a book with rigid guidelines for dating "purely" has recanted his book, left his marriage and walked away from his faith.

So.

I want to talk a little bit about how I viewed my faith as I was growing up, and I want to do it in a way that still honors the spiritual leaders in my life for that phase because I don't think it is emblematic of any particular leadership, but rather a collective subculture that I experienced not just in my own youth group, but across the church, across other churches in my city, across Canada, and, as I'm slowly learning, across the US as well. So when I see prominent leaders from that era "deconstructing" their faith, I have to acknowledge that I experienced a "reconstruction" of my own faith around nine years ago that has been absolutely pivotal to my life and how I view my faith.

As a child, I was taught the gospel. Not only did I understand that Jesus died for my sins and I had to confess them and ask him to "come into my heart" in order to go to heaven, I could also use ten different methods for describing the gospel. I could draw out the bridge, or walk you through the Romans Road, or use colored beads on a bracelet. I knew it.

The challenge was that we had a tendency to put the gospel on the shelf after we "prayed the prayer" and then shift the focus in our faith to all the rules of what it looked like to be a "good Christian." There was a definite hierarchy of rules: sex outside of marriage and drunkenness were entirely taboo. Swearing, too. But in this world of quasi-earned favor, several other sins were not only acceptable, but completely required for self-justification: gossip (everyone else has to know about someone else's sin!), self-righteousness, pride (because look at how well I can follow the rules!).

The purity culture played really well into this line of thinking. We had pledge cards to sign in order to show how committed we were in our faith. There were rings to wear (full disclosure: I have mine and I know where it is). The purity culture highlighted the teaching of: if I walk in obedience in this way, then God will reward me. The prizes were a perfect godly spouse and amazing, mind-blowing sex immediately after marriage.

Purity was binary. Either we were fully in-tact white flowers, or we were trampled and only had pieces of ourselves to give.

The author who recently announced that he no longer considered himself a Christian on Instagram is really just a 15-years-later version of what I've seen play out with so many people I knew growing up in the Christian subculture. It was easy enough to either follow the rules, or give appearance of following the rules, as long as your life fit in the box: surrounded by Christians at youth group and in your high school Christian club (we literally had a hallway that one of my classmates dubbed "the church hallway"), then off to Bible school, then off to university and the Christian club there while simultaneously attending college and career events at church. Those "actual" sins could be easily avoided and we could take pride in our excellent behavior as we gossiped about the people who messed up.

Then real life started. The much-promised spouse did not arrive. Or worse - they did arrive and none of the purity culture prepared anyone for actual marriage. The best marriages are really hard, and the bad ones are devastating. We left the Christian bubble and found out that not only do a lot of very reasonable people drink, but a little wine even "gladdens the heart"! Suddenly this framework in which we just followed the rules didn't hold up anymore because the rules promised us something they never delivered on. We were left without a framework to navigate the world and with a pile of shame as we realized the level of self-righteousness we had operated out of for so long.

The pendulum needed to swing. Purity culture may have had good intentions, but it fully missed the grace part of the gospel. It made us think that any of us are actually pure, when the reality is that we are all sinners in need of grace.

But the pendulum swung too far, to a world where a woman can talk about what a strong Christian she is and then proudly proclaim multiple times on national television about having sex four times in a windmill, and then talk about how "Jesus still loves" her. And again, I use this example because it's been prominent in popular culture, but it just typifies what I've seen play out many times.

(Quick note: Jesus does still love her. This is absolutely correct.)

I just might suggest that in his love for us, Jesus invites us to something else. If purity culture was all "truth" and no grace, then hookup culture is all "grace" and no truth. But the gospel is both. John 1:14 says "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Jesus loved the sinners. Radically. He engaged deeply with the woman in Samaria who was so ashamed about her life that she made the arduous trek to the well during the hottest part of the day so she could avoid the disapproving crowds (John 4). He scared off the condemners of a woman who was caught red-handed in adultery and made it clear he didn't condemn her (John 8). He counted prostitutes among his close friends.

The other thing that is clear in Scripture is that we can stop pretending in our pride that we've hit the mark. My level of sexual activity does not make me "pure" before God. I have sinned. You have sinned. The jig is up, we can stop stressing about our facade.

In the "reconstruction" of my own faith, I found the gospel again. I discovered that it wasn't a one-time ticket-punching prayer, but instead a way to completely reframe my life. I wasn't just a sinner once and in need of repentance back then. I am wholly covered in grace and there is joy and peace in walking in this ongoing dynamic of recognizing that I need Jesus on a constant, ongoing basis in my life.

And as we come before God with our prideful messed-up selves, he invites us to something more than just a ticket to heaven. He gives us more than just a clean slate from all our past, present and future sins. He gives us a relationship with him, and that relationship comes with a love letter. And in that love letter, he shows us a way to live that is richer, fuller, and leads to peace. It is admittedly counter-intuitive (Proverbs 14:12 "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death."). It tells us to do things like love our enemies, to forgive wrongs, to be patient.

It also talks about sex. And it makes no specific promises about sexual fulfillment or marital bliss, but it suggests that there is a better way that will lead to our thriving and flourishing.

Back to the Samaritan woman: Jesus tells her "whoever drinks of the water I give him will never be thirsty again" (John 4:14a)... he invites her to something deeper than the string of broken relationships she carried behind her.

The woman caught in adultery: Jesus tells her "go, and from now on sin no more." (John 8:11)

The biblical teachings on sex are not a condemnation, but an invitation. They don't distinguish between us as trampled flowers or in-tact flowers. They don't declare some of us "straight" and others of us "skewed." But they do invite us to trust God out of the loving relationship that we have and to see if there might be a way to walk that is better than what the world offers us.