Purity's Promise of Prosperity
by Jennifer Moodie
6/5/2019
We all know about prosperity preachers; those who claim if you just love Jesus enough, give money to them, pray hard enough, have enough faith, and believe enough, God will give you whatever your heart desires. The names Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Steven Furtick, Bill Johnson and more are tied to that teaching. Most Evangelical Christians would reject that teaching by saying "God's not a vending machine or genie". And they are right. But I have found that Evangelicals have other forms of prosperity gospel that they blatantly teach, and I am hoping to address just one of them here: The prosperity of purity.
There is this idea in Fundamental circles that A+B=C. There is some sort of formula you can follow that will give you a happy and healthy marriage, and God isn't at the center of it...sexual purity is.
Now, don't get me wrong. Sexual purity IS important. 1 Thess. 4:3 says "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;". God is very clear in the Scriptures that sex is for marriage. I don't want to negate that. But where I take issue, and where problems arise is when you say that abstaining from premarital relations automatically means you'll have a happy marriage and great sex life, and premarital sex automatically ensures an unhappy marriage and bad sex life with lack of trust. These statements simply aren't true at their core.
The implication is that if you save sex for marriage, the 'prize' is great marital sex and a trusting and happy marriage. If you stop looking for a husband, God will drop one in your lap. If you don't have sex before marriage, you won't have sexual hurt in your marriage. Women, if you don't dress like a woman of the world and you court instead of date and you never touch a man until your wedding day, you will be guaranteed to marry a wonderful man who will treasure you because he got your everything. If you do this and don't do that, God will be pleased and reward you with _______ (you fill in the blank with whatever applies). In this teaching, purity=being loved and cherished. That is prosperity gospel. And it's false. That is putting a desire above what God has said. Let's look at the rest of the passage from before:
"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you."
The purpose of sexual purity is sanctification, and holiness. Learning to control our urges is a form of sanctification. This article is great for explaining this. We don't 'stay pure' to win some sort of prize, we abstain from sexual immorality because, as Romans 6:11-12 says, "For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions." We abstain because we are dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ.
Is our goal God's glory, or a desired outcome?
A big problem with this teaching is that it negates the work of Christ in our lives. It's a method Christ isn't at the center of, our will is.
The prosperity gospel is very man centered; very self motivating- God gave you all you need for success, you just need to tap into it and believe in yourself, get out of your own way.
The Purity Culture teaches the same- do this and don't do that and you'll have the tools for success in marriage.
But, the thing is, to quote my pastor, "The call of the Gospel is to behold, NOT to behave. Behaving only follows the gracious invitation to behold. Legalism allows you to be the hero of your own rescue". Having a formula to follow to achieve a desired result allows us to believe we can do things apart from Christ; it allows us to believe we are the hero of our own story. It allows us to take credit for what happens, good or bad.
The reason we should seek to abstain from sexual impurity is because we are no longer slaves to sin; because we have died to sin in Christ and are alive in Christ (Gal. 2:20).
Romans 6:16-19 "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification."
The purity culture is a form of prosperity gospel. And it is false.
Is our goal God's glory, or a desired outcome?
A big problem with this teaching is that it negates the work of Christ in our lives. It's a method Christ isn't at the center of, our will is.
The prosperity gospel is very man centered; very self motivating- God gave you all you need for success, you just need to tap into it and believe in yourself, get out of your own way.
The Purity Culture teaches the same- do this and don't do that and you'll have the tools for success in marriage.
But, the thing is, to quote my pastor, "The call of the Gospel is to behold, NOT to behave. Behaving only follows the gracious invitation to behold. Legalism allows you to be the hero of your own rescue". Having a formula to follow to achieve a desired result allows us to believe we can do things apart from Christ; it allows us to believe we are the hero of our own story. It allows us to take credit for what happens, good or bad.
The reason we should seek to abstain from sexual impurity is because we are no longer slaves to sin; because we have died to sin in Christ and are alive in Christ (Gal. 2:20).
Romans 6:16-19 "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification."
The purity culture is a form of prosperity gospel. And it is false.
Thank you for a tough conversation. It is not easy to say what is right or wrong without hearing the broomhead of sweeping generalizations... Rather, what makes us feel safe, what makes us feel free? The word dictates that we are only ever slaves, to god or our own desires, right?
ReplyDeleteOur limited scope has us believing that what we want will make us happy, that we can be credited with the outcome of our decisions.
But love and sex have so long been tied together inaccurately when so often the partner we think we love or choose to love changes into someone we dont recognize or worse was decieving us the whole relationship for personal gains... Ideally could be physically spiritually and emotionally available for breakfast lunch and dinner with the right partner, and yet variety has presented itself like a lust buffet, but in all honesty for safety reasons why eat something that already has a bite taken out of it, or disease ridden, etc... Unless either dirty as well and dont give a damn, or as someone hungry... maybe starving, who is truly forgiving, understanding and loving and craves what the imperfect portion has become- regardless of outcome...
Purity culture you spoke of sounds misleading, life itself seems sometimes terrible and most certainly to me the thought of being forgiven again and again is terrifying as though god is dumb and cant see through motive under the mask of christs blood. I feel like our choices here matter to the extent of how completely we will be re-emersed into him at the point of death, or in another sense becoming one with the conscious universe or because of our choices- what is success to most makes more sense in a human mindset but perhaps not to an eternal one- what we enjoy from accomplishment on this earth is nice and meaningful while it lasts but even that is due in large part to the manipulation and cohesion of other peoples desires. Perhaps there can be accomplishment as well in Actually being able to leave this earth and all its notions when we die.
Apologies for the tangent but you got me stirred into thinking... And I do actually agree with you purity is a nice goal but doesnt ensure jack.