The Idol of Purity

February 26, 2019

By Jennifer Moodie

     I want to have a disclaimer before I even start. God is clear in His Word that sex is to be between a man and a woman in the context of marriage. It is right to teach abstinence before marriage. It is right to teach that adultery is abominable. I don’t want to diminish the heart behind what became known as The Purity Culture. 

     I was thinking to start out by talking about how the many of the teachings on sex, purity, gender roles, and modesty-Purity Culture- negatively affected my life and marriage. I may get there eventually, but decided that it would be advantageous to start with the root problem, and not the fruit. See, Purity Culture isn’t the problem. It is a result of the problem. The real problem is that too many churches have stopped preaching the true gospel, or haven’t ever taught it to begin with. The Purity Culture is an effect of a lack of true Gospel teaching. 

Bear with me as I try to explain what I mean about the problems in the Purity Culture as they relate to the Gospel. 

     First of all, I want to start with explaining "What Is The Gospel?" My friends over at The Bluestocking Baptists have a great podcast episode that explains it well. 

    This little video is one of the simplest and yet accurate descriptions of the Gospel I have seen. Also, the ministry, 9Marks, has a great summary: 

The gospel is the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to reconcile sinners to God. Here’s the whole story:

1. The one and only God, who is holy, made us in His image to know Him (Gen. 1:26-28). 

2. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from Him (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23)

3. In His great love, God sent his Son Jesus to come as king and rescue His people from their enemies-most significantly their own sins (Ps. 2; Luke 1:67-79) 

4. Jesus established His kingdom by acting as both a mediating priest and a priestly sacrifice--He lived a perfect life and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law Himself and taking on Himself the punishment for the sins of many (Mark 10:45; John 1:14; Heb. 7:26; Rom. 3:21-26, 5:12-21); then He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted His sacrifice and that God's wrath against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24, Rom. 4:25)

5. He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness (Acts 17:30, John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, and eternal life with God (John 3:16). 

The Gospel is the power to change us, to make us new, not just to save us. But glorification is not immediate, it is a process, and one that Christ does in us. Phil. 1:6 "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

The Purity Culture instills a fear of man, not God

     A big thing that was taught was that if we commit sexual sin, or even kiss or have inappropriate contact with a member of the opposite sex, we are sinning against our future spouse. We are sinning against that person’s future spouse. Sin is against God, and God alone. We should be more worried about sinning against a holy God than about 'sinning against' our future spouse, whom we may or may not ever have. After David committed adultery and murder, he cried out to God saying "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight..." (Ps. 51:4a) We sin every day in many ways, and all are against God. The root of all sin is a distaste for God; thinking anything else will give greater pleasure than God Himself. John Piper said it well in his message, The Ultimate Essence of Evil, "the essence of evil is to lose a taste for God and prefer anything more than God, especially when he offers to be for us the never-ending fountain of life and joy."  The purity Culture gives a 'prize' that is something other than Christ. James 2:10 says "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it". The purity culture spends so much time focusing on the sin of fornication that it forgets that we sin in other ways. Yet we have forgiveness in Christ for all of them. Psalm 103:11-14 says, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers the we are dust." The end of James 2:13 says "Mercy triumphs over judgement." 

   The purity culture teaches judgment and shame, not mercy. I was always more afraid of what men and women around me thought of me and then how they would treat me based on my outward appearance than what God thought of me based on my heart. There was such an emphasis on the idea that you dress according to your love for God, so if my dress didn't accurately reflect someone else's view of what that should look like, I was afraid my heart wasn't right. I didn't have a relationship with God, I had a relationship with other's view of God. 

Identity is placed apart from Christ and marriage is made our highest calling

    Where does our identity lie? It should lie in the finished work of Christ. Period. "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." (A Baptist Catechism) In the purity culture teaching, we keep our virginity for our spouse, assuming that marriage is in our future. The goal of the purity culture is the pleasure of man, not the glory of God. It puts our identity in our sexuality-virgin vs. non virgin-and not in saved vs. lost. Our identity should not be in what we have or have not done, but in what Christ has done for us. We aren't pure because we have not had sex, but because on the cross Jesus imputed His righteousness on us, making us pure in Him. Our identity is then in Christ. This episode of The Bluestocking Baptists again hits the nail on the head.

     Marriage is the ultimate goal in the purity culture. Women stay "untainted" for their future spouse. There are two things wrong with this. This assumes all women marry. Which they don't. This also is placing the reason to remain 'pure' in the wrong place, as it should be for God, not for anyone else. The man who has the privilege of marrying a virgin should see that not as a gift to him, but as a byproduct of her love for the Lord. It’s like they wring their hands and pray that they can get us all to the alter unblemished and then they wipe their brows, heave a heavy sigh of relief, and step back with their hands in the air and say “Whew! We did it! They made it! Our work here is done.” Yeah…Marriage doesn't miraculously dissipate the desires of the flesh. One must still have the willpower to resist temptation even after marriage. But this is also a problem for those who have had their innocence taken from them, or for those who lost it willingly before redemption. These women do not have the 'privilege' of having their identity in their virginity, in their innocence. So what do these women get? God's second best? Are they giving their spouses their second best? No, because in Christ they have been made new. Their purity is in Him, not in themselves. God's grace covers all and He is able to make all things new. 2 Cor. 5:17-19 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation"

   Our highest calling as Christians, is to know and glorify God; to be discipled and disciple others. That calling is apart from being married or being single. Marriage may or may not be something one experiences in life, but it isn't as if there is something wrong with a woman who remains single. Singleness can be a gift. Making marriage our highest calling is to make it an idol. The ultimate goal of the Christian life is to be conformed into the image of His son. 

The point of grace is missed

     Grace. What is grace? Jerry Bridges puts it this way: 

" [Grace is] God's favor through Christ to people who deserve His wrath. By His grace, we do not receive the wrath we deserve. Instead we receive the favor we don't deserve. Why is this true? The answer is found in the two words: through Christ. It is because of Christ's death in our place that we do not experience the wrath of God which we so richly deserve. Jesus satisfied God's justice and turned away God's wrath from us by bearing it Himself on our behalf. Now God can extend mercy to us without subverting His justice. Mercy and justice meet together at the cross.

Jesus did more, however, than satisfy God's justice and turn aside His wrath. By His perfect obedience, He earned for us all of God's favor, all of His blessings......Just as He died in our place, so He also obeyed in our place. That is why those two words "through Christ" are so critical to the definition of grace. Without Christ's work for us, there could be no grace."

     Too often, the point of grace is missed in the upholding of our 'purity'. Grace is not given when the rules have been broken. And that is unfortunate. That defies the message of the Gospel. It sets a wrong picture of grace. We need grace daily, not just at the moment of salvation. 2 Corinthians 12:9 "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 

     

Prosperity Gospel

     

     The prosperity gospel, which many who affirm Purity Culture would rightly say is false gospel, teaches God rewards good behavior, rewards those who conjure up enough faith to make God do what they ask, that if you simply do _____ God will reward you with healing, money, or other desires of your heart. God isn't at our beck and call. This is false as God does what He wills in His timing, not ours. 

     This teaching is a type of prosperity gospel. It says "If you keep your virginity, your marriage will be wonderful", or "If you wait for marriage to have sex, that ensures you will marry a great and godly man", or especially "Waiting to have sex until marriage guarantees a much better sex life." While those things can be true, they shouldn't be at the heart of what is being taught. Many who wait until marriage for sex have married men who they thought 'met the criteria' but have turned out to be anything but Godly. Simply waiting to lose your virginity until the wedding night does not ensure that your marital intimacy will be good or even great...or that it will happen at all. To teach that following a formula that is anything other than the gospel, is to ensure that many will be let down by their expectations after following said formula blows up in their face. 

     This goes to show that the purity culture is a type of works based 'religion'. The idea that if you "Do this (or don't do this) everything will be good and you'll earn God's favor and He will be obliged to reward you" is not Biblical. God can provide a good marriage for anyone as it aligns with His will. His 'favor' is not based on our works but on His works in us. The Christian life isn't about following a set of rules. We do not incur the wrath of God by what we do, that is reserved for those who are apart from Him, nor do we incite the favor of God by what we do. When Christ said on the cross "Tetelesti-It Is Finished, He meant it. His favor was imputed onto us the moment we were regenerated. The Christian life is about resting in what has already been done for us, and seeking to know God for Who He is. And that is where the Purity Culture misses the point. It focuses on what we need to do/not do and not about what has been done for us.

Idolatry 

   In conclusion, too often, purity, marriage, and virginity (amongst many other noble and worthy things) are made an idol. They are the focus apart from and sometimes higher than God Himself. Idolatry is dangerous. We were made to worship God and God alone. One definition of worship is: "to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion". I remember the pride and arrogance that accompanied the aforementioned teachings. I myself used to proudly declare to others my 'purity', especially to the boys, because I hoped it would somehow make me more desirable to them. My motives for not committing certain sins were selfish and with motives that were divorced from the desire to please God above all else. It had been made an idol. God quickly destroyed that idol that I had built up and made a shrine to. But that is a story for a different post. 

   

If you want a few good resources on the topic of sex, I highly recommend these books:

Sex in a Broken World: How Christ Redeems What Sin Distorts by Paul David Tripp

The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex by Sheila Wray Gregoire

Soli Deo Gloria