Were Some Elements of Purity Culture Good?
Were some elements of “Purity Culture” actually good? Or was it all bad?
A few weeks ago,on Facebook someone asked if I benefited from Purity Culture, after I wrote about how certain church teachings are harmful to women (and men!)
I never got to respond directly, so I decided to turn my response into a blog post.
I used to believe that abstaining from sex, boyfriends, parties, and dating and saving the first kiss for the wedding day was the best choice for any woman and her future husband.
While I still believe in healthy embodied values, I no longer see those former ideas as “benefits” because I’d rather have had healthy motivations, information, and knowledge guiding my choices than tyrannical fear, debilitating shame, and anxiety.
Being handed religious trauma and told it’s Christ is not a gift.
Being handed religious trauma and told it’s Christ is not a gift. Women do not need Purity Culture.
What I needed was a God who saw and had compassion for my broken internal maps, who gently held my woundedness and growth—a God who knelt low and washed dusty feet.
What I got handed was a harsh, rigid, retaliatory, two-faced, mean, killjoy of a god.
Nobody needs bondage to be a good Christian. What we need are conversations, room for questions, space for compassionate exploration, and embodied faith in our journey with God.
Research by Bare Marriage, shared in their new book, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic teachings on Sex, Self and Speaking Up, (affiliate link) found that while there is no one-size-fits-all approach for young people as they explore relationships, when they are allowed to date and choose not to date, it leads to better outcomes overall.
“where teens are allowed to date but choosing not to date, it results in highest self-esteem in both adolescence and *adulthood*, least likely to marry an abuser, most likely not to have multiple sexual partners….” (asterisks mine. See more context below*)
It’s the same conclusion I came to. Nobody needs rigid harmful rules, like”do not date” and other ideas from Purity Culture. What we need is good relationships where healthy conversations can be had that help us make healthy choices.
Were some Elements of Purity Culture Good? American Authors and Their Impact in Non-western Cultures
I was born and raised in Kenya, where purity culture looks different because it’s mixed up with our own local culture.
My cultural background is one of the reasons I talk about American authors and pastors getting it right: their teachings disperse around the world and often land in non-Western cultures grappling with their own deep issues.
In those cultures, instead of Christ being a Liberator, He’s installed as the leader of the male assembly: treacherous, mean, exploiting, duplicitous, and obsessed with power over women. Read More Dear Conservative Christians, Maybe The World Isn’t Trying to Emasculate Men
It becomes extremely challenging to address and eliminate toxic cultural ideas from our local churches because the theology pastors and congregants derive from Western Christianity aligns with their preexisting cultural beliefs.
And you have not encountered people more entrenched in their ways than when they believe God is on their side.
FOOTNOTES:
1. *For context: These are results from a survey of 7000 Christian women. Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, Joanna Sawatsky (Bare Marriage team) found out that for teens, those who were
“Not allowed to date: Most likely to save sex for marriage, but less likely to get married; more likely to have low self-esteem and still just as likely to marry an abuser. Plus, if she does remain single, the low self-esteem of adolescence is more likely to continue to adulthood
Allowed to date and choosing to date: More likely to marry, but also more likely to marry an abuser
Allowed to date but choosing not to date: Highest self-esteem in both adolescence and adulthood, least likely to marry an abuser, most likely not to have multiple sexual partners, but also less odds of getting married overall.”
Check out She Deserves Better for more.
2. When we talk about the negative impacts of Purity Culture or answer the question, “were some elements of purity culture good?” in a way that doesn’t indulge harmful Christian teachings, some people wonder if we’re saying premarital sex is okay.They see as blurring the lines, like we’re saying having sex whenever, however, with whoever is okay. My response to that: we need to ask ourselves why when we talk about the trauma caused by Christian teachings, we think about the extreme as the counterbalance. It feels like saying, “okay, you’ll get pregnant and have STDs,” when a woman says, “how you teach about sex is very shaming, fear-inducing and hurtful,” We can’t be catastrophizing and saying it’s what people who reject purity culture are recommending. If you have questions, please read She Deserves Better! It’s a great book and addresses many queries and questions Christians have.
Are the Christian teachings” you speak as harmful, in this article the interpretations of man interpreting scripture or actual scripture? I do believe scripture can be twisted and/or misinterpreted for sure.
Different theologies offered by certain denominations can often be misunderstood or questioned. However I think following the scriptural teaching of Christ is not focused on cultural morays that seem to be the cause here.
Much of scripture is of historic relevance and relays traditions and practices of cultures & Judaism before Christ came. But in my observations those facts are obviously portraying the traditions of past/historical culture; Mostly in the middle east.
How these aspects are understood & taught by certain religions in modern times, (much like today’s problems with indoctrination in our education system) is the likely cause of the “bad” or harmful “Christian” teachings.