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.
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