I believe egalitarian Christians should take the lead in reforming the toxic theology that undergirds purity culture.
Many of us, especially women, who grew up under the teachings of purity culture carry significant emotional and spiritual trauma today. Proponents promise Christians that if we withhold just a little longer, our fairytales will come true-complete with amazing wedding night sex and lifelong sexual and marital bliss.Īs a psychologist, I’m trained to recognize the long-lasting effects of shame.
Purity culture pushes myths about premarital sex and the guaranteed benefits of abstinence until marriage. While the goal of a biblical sexual ethic for Christians is a noble and necessary one, the core message of the purity movement is steeped in fear: we are to remain pure or else. I was beginning to realize that purity culture encourages Christians to wait to have sex out of fear and in anticipation of perfect future relationships. Purity culture had failed me: God hadn’t brought me a prince at an early age as I had been promised. When I was nearing thirty and in a committed relationship (with my now-husband), I questioned why I should wait. The evangelical purity movement-born in the 1990s and still alive today-uses false promises, misinformation, and shame to persuade people to abstain from sex. And today, I’m a psychologist and a vocal critic of purity culture. I read Joshua Harris’s Christian cult classic, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I proudly wore my “True Love Waits” ring.
I was raised in Christian purity culture. Editor’s note: This is one of our Top 20 CBE Writing Contest winners.
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